The Washington Metro System has stations at a total of 7 university campuses---and none of them are Georgetown.

I refuse to be one of those people who need coffee to start their day.  I disapprove of coffee.  I secretly think everyone who has a cup of coffee every morning is addicted and doesn't know it.

But when I get into the office with less than 6 hours of sleep, I will suck the caffeine out of my tea bag like it's....

Good Muslim Brian: Praise God. I have done nothing to deserve this. Truly.

Prideful Brian: #$%^ yea! How many engineering grad students can do THAT? Huh? ... I will now introduce myself to everyone as an "award-winning author".

Writer Brian: But the judge's citation said nothing about my collection's themes. ... I wonder if he or she really "got" it. (It's about the environment, stupid).

Realistic Writer Brian: This is a small victory. You still need to rewrite the last two stories so they don't suck. And then you need to find a literary agent to represent your work and, God Willing, get it published with some humble independent press.

... adelante.

For better or for worse, everyone stands before love as a child.

For better or for worse, everyone stands before love as a child. We become fragile vessels with profound capacities for possessiveness, anger, envy, woundedness, and simultaneously adoration, selflessness and sacrifice, surrender, reverence.

true joy is born from knowledge of suffering

My first 3-4 days in the DC area have led me to believe, based purely on personal, anecdotal experience, that everyone in the DC area is Muslim.

Somehow I feel this is inaccurate.

Still. I have to resist the urge to say as-salaamu 'alaikum to everyone I speak to.

"Just because you're a gay guy doesn't mean you have to have, I don't know, like glitter, constantly, everywhere, coming out of your penis. I mean, why can't we just be guys? Why's it have to be tight pants and shirts and---I don't know. It just annoys me." --eavesdropping in cafes