The passivity myth?

From Adrienne's:

"The Ann Arbor Police Department has issued warrants for two University students for allegedly yelling obscenities and urinating on two students in a racially motivated act. The incident began when one of the suspects, a 21-year-old, allegedly urinated from a second-floor balcony on two Asian students walking down the 600 block of South Forest Avenue Thursday night. After the couple asked why they were being urinated on, the suspect and another student reportedly began to use racial slurs disparaging the couple’s Asian heritage."

Jesus H Christ. "Why are you urinating on me?" What the fuck. How about, "I'm going to FUCKING KILL YOU."

I said it the last time, but this is the last time.

I've represented to my mom that I'll quit drinking upon turning thirty. She apparently took me seriously, as she brings it up everytime we speak on the phone. I meant it, in my own way.

I like drinking. It turns me into a loud, obnoxious asshole, which for a shy asian kid like me, is a surprisingly satisfying mode of expression. Drinking is FUN.

But on the other hand, I'm feeling very much over it. There are a lot of things that I just don't like about the process any more. Initially, during the eight or so years that I've been off the wagon, drunk me has slowly evolved into a raving lunatic. 95% of the times in my life that I've said, "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CRYING?!," I was inebriated. I have absolutely no patience while I'm drunk, I'm quick to anger, and all the dickhead things that I do are fueled by an unchecked sense of entitlement. Given my character, I'm rolling the dice that one of these days: (1) my girlfriend will break up with me; (2) I'll wreck my car; or (3) a lot of huge guys will kick my ass after I've inexplicably picked a fight with them.

Second, it's becoming a fucking crutch. I need to drink when I'm having a decent meal, I need to drink when I'm shooting the shit with partners, and I need to drink on a weekday night if I'm bored and there's nothing remotely entertaining on tv. I don't appreciate the mild, but not insignificant, physical addiction that's attendant in the process.

Third, I no longer get good results. I get hung-over. I get bored and sleepy. I can't talk so good anymore. That's lame. If all I want is to relax and be a functional retard, I'd rather smoke. And I hate to belabor the point, but as far as altering your consciousness goes, drinking sucks shit compared to all the other drugs that you could do.

Fourth, I get the asian flush now. I never did before, but now I do. I'm not a doctor, but I think it's reasonable to infer that something about my liver is different now. Realizing that one of your organs no longer functions as well because of something as trivial as what you like to do on the weekends was pretty jarring, at least for me.

So fuck drinking. I have about ten months left in me. I know none of you believe me, but do me a favor and call me on it.

Be sober, be vigilant.

I've been making a half-hearted attempt to decide on a religious sect recently. It has to be some vein of Christianity; otherwise, my Mom won't be placated and I'll stand no chance of spending time with her in the afterlife. I say half-hearted because I haven't really thought of any options aside from evangelical protestantism and catholicism. I don't fancy chinese church; been there, done that. Claire is irreparably catholic and it may be advantageous to follow suit so as to present our children with a unified front. Catholicism, in many respects, does have a personal appeal--catholics are very reticent about public displays of their faith, they have less of a tendency to ground their beliefs in emotion, and I like the structure of ritual. From what I've heard, mass does not often exceed an hour, which is important to me because my time is valuable. On the other hand, many of the Catholics I've met view Christianity as more of a sense of decorum and tradition rather than the centerpiece of a well-lived life. In that case, what's really the point?

It's always bothered me that girls that I've fucked in the past have professed to be serious Christians. They failed to apprehend the internal inconsistency, at least not in any way that was demonstrable to me. I generally don't have chaste, lights-off sex. I perpetrate my filth on others, and having done so, I never understood how they could get up, wipe themselves off, and go to church the next morning. I spent eight years of my life in a futile effort to keep myself from spanking off four times a day--it reduces your life expectancy by a day at a time, as the old adage goes--and it peeved me that my significant others didn't feel constrained by the same sense of guilt. In hindsight, my approach was reductio ad absurdum--I didn't want to be a hypocrite so I decided to be an unrepentant asshole. Stupid.

Katrina and New Orleans have not resonated with me emotionally, at least not to the extent that they should. I spent nearly all of my childhood and adolescence in the area, and it's indisputably a tragedy of the first magnitude. Claire said that it reminded her of Saramago's book, Blindness. I think that's apt. But even so, I don't feel the things that you would hope a reasonably empathetic person to emote in response to these events. It may have to do with some unacknowledged, but substantial racial animus. Or as Wayne alluded to, the solipsism with which the privileged lead their day to day lives. But I think it's more laziness--I didn't want to see film coverage, even though Claire explained that it would bring things home; I didn't want to read print coverage beyond the daily headlines; and lastly, I didn't want to even think about the misery, in any concrete sense, that people were going through while I sat on my couch watching the real world. I understood what was going on, but did not want to confront it in any meaningful way. Which leads me to believe that immorality isn't the product of our inherent propensity for sin; rather, it's the end result of our moral lethargy. I think each and every one of us possesses a reasonably well-tuned moral compass--right and wrong are not the most difficult values to divine. The problem with humanity is its failure to execute.

Leviticus 18:22.

One of the partners that I work extensively for has often called in from outside of the office, explaining that he was in "Dore County," and that X had to be done by Y because of his travel schedule. For the first three months that I worked for Dore County Partner, I was under the misapprehension that "Dore County" was a judicial county somewhere in southern Illinois. I had never heard of it before, but there are many back water judicial courthouses in the non-Chicago parts of this state, too many for me to keep track of. I learned a couple of weeks ago that "Dore County" is actually where the partner's vacation home is located. That revelation really chapped my ass, because I distinctly recall having frequently said, "good luck" to him in the past on the presumption that he was on his way to litigate something--thus accepting his tightened deadlines because hey, he's busy too. But he wasn't. He was vacationing. Grrrr.

I left work early today because the staff had left at 3, and because I am lazy. Dore County Partner calls me at home, and we have a two hour conference on a motion to dismiss that I've written. When I write things, I tend to believe they are perfect as written--it takes me a long time to write, because I take great care with my first draft. I don't believe in seconds. But Dore County Partner is notorious for multiple re-writes, and this case was no different. So instead of chilling out, surfing the internet for porno, and listening to my Kanye West cd, I spent the remainder of my afternoon and early evening going back and forth with him on why my first draft is perfectly acceptable. I now have until noon tomorrow to produce a draft which incorporates his input.

Sometimes I wonder what Pat Robertson's internal monologue is like. Do you think he really buys into all of the crazy shit he says? Are there moments of solitary contemplation where he thinks, "Hey, I can spew the most putrid, hateful, invective I can think of in the name of God and millions of evangelical Christians will reflexively yelp an 'Amen!' in return. Neat."

My parents are moving back to Singapore, where my Dad has accepted a position as director of fundraising for an international missionary organization. In many ways, this is heartening news to me because my Dad is too young to be retired, and in any case, he lacks the mental constitution for repose. He gets bored easily and is a very goal-oriented person. Goals are hard to come by if you're involuntarily retired. So this is good. He gets to schmooze with the uber-rich, in the hope that they will hedge their bets for the afterlife by turning over a small portion of their wordly wealth for the Lord's work. On the other hand, it feels strange to be--in a loose sense of the term--a missionary's son. After college, I discarded most of my faith. It was very psychologically liberating. I had a problem with guilt as an adolescent. Embracing, among other things, my sexual perversion, lack of empathy for others, and substance abuse was a relief. I no longer cared if I fell short of conventional standards of morality. This made me a saner human being. It also had the unfortunate side-effect of turning me into 47% asshole. At the time, I rationalized that there would be a point in my life where I turned things around. That point would ideally coincide with my final transition into adulthood because I did not want my children to be raised by a 47% asshole. I take my dad's new calling in life as a signal that now's the time to begin a gradual reduction of my asshole quotient, while concurrently increasing my man of God factor. If I hate gays a year from now, we'll all know I've made substantial progress.