i was sitting at a coffee shop,

having resumed reading the fall of hyperion, when i suddenly distracted myself with introspection and self-absorbed self-inflicted agitation.

a few days ago i began thinking about new beginnings, about throwing out the old and picking and choosing only for the now. letting go of old strings and loose threads, trashing the papers that haven't realized whatever potential i thought i saw in them and donating the irrelevant to whichever outfit will have it.

as a beginning, this led me to clear out numbers from my cellphone, that i suppose i'd been storing to keep a hold of the past. even the number of the gorgeous girl i met in canada, and my first girlfriend lake [mentioned a number of times, one day i'll tell the tale].

this fresh start aside, i began pondering the how and who of "me".

once upon a time i was an innocent and not particularly cynical child. my mum, concerned about my future, grades, and other stuff, took me to see some form of psychologist pathfinder-windreader witchdoctor who examined the results of my iq test in addition to some other parameters and said, "quite frankly, he can do pretty much whatever he wants".

i took that seriously, and i believe that i am capable of anything. "everything is possible" is one of my favourite expressions. the thing is, i have at my disposal infinite resources and interests:
it's having access to everything
wanting to experience everything
my desire to do it all the hard way
to write it all down
to sing it all
but there's only enough time for a tiny, tantalizing taste of the perfect pudding

this is life's mean trick as far as i'm concerned, and the source of all my pseudo-angst.

on an unrelated note, i forgot to mention: a couple of days ago i had a run-in with an ethiopian guy in our platoon.

for two months i've suffered his repeated attempts to impress me with his grasp of american culture, hip hop terminology and ebonics, and the ability to repeat the same two cuss-words for minutes on end without coming up with anything original.

he's a great guy, but he's israeli, not an african-american. so i told him that he's a white man pretending to be a black man inside a black man's body.