I recently visited the fine city of Iowa City, Iowa for my sister’s graduation from the University of Iowa. I’ve been away from Iowa for about 5 years and away from the Midwest for a little more than a year. When I go back to the Midwest I enjoy the laid backness and its obvious contrast to the workin-it scene of New York. I’ve been in New York for a little more than a year, and the more I get used to it, the more I think about going elsewhere to be lazy. Nevertheless, I expect to stay another 4 years or so.

For I desire the MONEY.

Lately I have been reading the english translation of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. He won the 1964 Noble Prize in Literature. He is red-haired as I am. He is of the existentialist nature.

One memorable quote from it thus far is:

Undoubtedly, on his death bed…he told his wife…who had watched beside him for twelve nights,
“I do not thank you, Therese; you have only done your duty.”
When a man gets that far, you have to take your hat off to him.

Some rough stuff. Also in this book, he tries to stab his hand to change the nature of its existence. It only kinda works.

My mom always tells me about how women are underrepresented and underpaid in the workforce of today’s America. She’s quite angry about it.

But since I’ve been in New York, it seems the only people I have ever interviewed with or worked with have been women. I’ve only worked with one man since I’ve been here, and I’ve worked with one million women.

Maybe it’s the profession, maybe it’s the city. But either way, sometimes I remember with strange fondness the old days of working with old cranky racist homophobic sexist Wastewater Treatment Men.

It seems my whole life I’ve been hanging out with thrice as many women as men. Perhaps that’s why I am such a woman.

Reminiscing about the music I used to listen to in college, I remember and severely recommend the LAWNMOWER DETH, the Atom and His Package, the Kraftwerk, the Pixies, the David Bowie, the Suffocation, and the GangStarr.

But lately as I have been out of college for one year, I recommend the same bands as above, as well as the Mobb Deep and the D12. My musical taste is not yet very sophisticated as a white man in Brooklyn, but it does me fine so far.

In other words: My musical tastes may suck, but at least I’m not all that ugly.