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

When it comes to love, wonderment and awe, I have a profound capacity for feeling. Which can be both good and bad in itself. But I realize that this is part of the reason a lot of little things don’t faze me---school, tests, allergic reactions, having nowhere to live, unemployment, etc---because all of that is nothing compared to the shit my heart serves me on a daily basis.

(REWRITE)

Caravans of clouds moved up the inland valley and bands of shadow streaked across the mountainsides. Big gaping holes in the reality of the mountains. The earth rises from the valley floor, up to the foothills, to the flanks--black nothinging--to the shoulders, to the snowy heads of the mountaintops.

Me: “Mom says that the best thing is to marry your best friend. I don’t know, though. I want to be in love. I need there to be a spark.”

Pau pau: (sighs. looks at Gung gung across the table where he is handling a foil wrap of tortillas with palsied hands) “I don’t know if there ever was a spark. I mean, it was so long ago. I really don’t remember at all. But we’ve grown closer as the years have gone on. We hold hands a lot more. I mean. I hold his hand. (laughs) Mostly to keep him from falling. But no. He likes to hold hands. We’ve gotten a lot goofier as the years have gone on. He’s much more huggy. So we hug a lot more. It makes him happy, I think.”

"The Planet's dying, slowly but surely. Someone's got to do something about it." --Tifa

"It's got nothin' to do with me." --Cloud

Dialogue from Final Fantasy VII

Yes.  Lessons in environmentalist ethics and collective action problems from a video game released in 1997.

there is too much that our eyes cannot see for us to allow our hearts to be blind as well.

there is too much that our eyes cannot see for our hearts to be blind as well.

there is too much that our eyes cannot see for our hearts and minds to be blind as well.

Sometimes I hate how malleable the heart and mind are. I hate how easily they adapt in order to survive, even to thrive in whatever their immediate surroundings are. I spent half a year volunteering in Palestine. And I swore I would never allow myself to forget that just because I cannot see

Just because you cannot see something with your eyes, does not mean your heart has to be blind to it.

"... may lead to coma, or death."
--voice-over of an anti-depressant commercial set in a peaceful, cartoonishly drawn landscape.

"... may lead to coma, or death."
--excerpt from the voice-over of possible side effects from an anti-depressant commercial set in a peaceful, hand-drawn animated landscape

Salma and Kenny give custom-made fortune cookies and watch everyone open them.

Pau pau opens hers, her fortune reads: “You will soon welcome a new member to the Loo Family --Kenny and Salma”

Pau pau: Ohhh! How long have you been pregnant? When are you expecting? Do you know if it’s a boy or girl yet?

Gung gung is still opening his. He cracks the cookie. He fishes out the slip of paper. He holds it up and reads it painstakingly.

Gung gung, leaning over and looking at Pau pau’s fortune: “Hey. How come mine’s the same as yours?”

In the Hallmark

Mom: (looking at a cute Valentines Day card) “Hey, Dad.”
Gung gung: (puts a hand to his ear) “eh?”
Mom: (beckoning him closer) “Hey, Dad. Wouldn’t it be nice to get Mom a Valentine’s Day card?”
Gung gung: (takes card in hand, appears initially to find it cute and/or amusing, but then hands it back and shakes his head) “No... that would break our Valentines day tradition of not getting each other anything.” (wanders away through the aisles, his interest now captured by something else)
Mom: “Well... I guess it’s important to keep traditions...”

unforeseen consequence of converting to Islam: instinctuallychecking out anything with headgear on, hoping mistakenly that it's a cute hijabi.
Examples: dudes with hoodies, old ladies with scarves, hippies with assorted weirdness on their heads.

2+ billion years ago when anaerobic blue-green algae in our planet’s warm hospital oceans were munching away on H2O and CO2 and emitting oxgen as a waste product to make complex organic compounds, I wonder if some heretical fringe element of algae were like “Oh my God. We’re all emitting oxygen. And there are so many of us. We’re ANAEROBIC, guys. Don’t you see? Our livelihoods in excess will be the very cause of our demise.”

Probably not.

Neways. Thanks for the ozone layer, guys.