Because of the increase in texting-related accidents around the country, especially with teen drivers behind the wheel, some state legislatures are considering banning texting being permitted while driving.  But I think this is entirely too extreme.  All they need to do is add a texting segment to driver's examination, and if the student passes by demonstrating enough texting dexterity it will reflect it on a new category on their license.  Then if they ever are pulled over the police officer will see, "Oh, okay, you're a registered texter.  Have a nice day."  I say this not because I text, because I don't, but rather because I have been walking down hallways while having a conversation with a person, and minutes later have discovered that they have subtly been rapidly texting their friends the entire time.  The hiddenness of their texting is achieved by using only one hand, which sometimes gives me the mystical impression that their texting hand has a brain of its own.

Today I was driving in a car that had no CD player, so I was grudgingly forced to capitulate into listening to the radio.  Fortunately I found a non-stop classical music station, and the experience that resulted was extraordinary.  Over time, certain driving situations would form perfect synchronicity with the music, climaxing and decscending at precisely the right times.  In one instance the music built up until climaxing simultaneously with the arrival of a green light.  All in all, driving with classical music can be a very emotional experience. I'm sure if I had driven for much longer I might have helplessly gotten road rage had the music been at the right intensity when a driver cut me off.        

Today Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president of Iran, will take the platform at Columbia University to answer questions posed to him by students and faculty members.  And apparently a bunch of people are upset about it.  But I don't see why they should be.  If you think the leader of a foreign nation is truly a whacko, then what better way to parade it for the world to see then by letting those without political lives at stake, such as college students, take him to town with a few nuanced and preruminated questions?  The facade of timidity or political naivete would work as a great premise for asking questions.  Who wouldn't want Ahmadinejad at their college so that some naive frosh can galumph to the microphone and gauchely ask, "So, um, you say you're not a terrorist? But, it like, you know, really seems like you are. What gives?"  Or in light of Ahmadinejad's denial of the holocaust one could ask, "So you deny the historicity of the holocaust, right? Well, by my last count there have been six million Jews playing hide 'n seek since 1945. Have you, like, found them or something?" 

I took a road trip once where I noticed that they post the height of overpass bridges on the highway.  The height of the bridges varied from one to the next, and were usually anywhere from fourteen to eighteen feet high.  Presumably, I thought, the purpose of the signs would be to warn a vehicle uncapable of passing below the stated height.  But then, isn't it a bit late by the time they're heading 70 MPH towards the overpass to realize they aren't going to make it?  Or if it isn't for that purpose, what would it be for?  Perhaps it would be for bored drivers to calculate the average height of overpasses on long car trips? 

I am thinking of customizing one of those stickers to put on the back of my car that asks, "How am I driving?" and then includes a telephone number.  It will be nice to hear from fans and critics alike.

By the time he was in college, my dad was capable of growing a monstrous beard.  He kept it for more than a decade.  But I find myself unable to repeat the same feat, so I have thought up a solution: turn my face inside out.  Since there are tons of little roots of hair that go beneath the surface of my skin, logically, if I turn my face inside out I will have a full-scale beard! And my face will be inside out!  Double score!

My city's school board really doesn't understand the concept of problem solving.  The problem that needs solving is overcrowded high schools: there are two high schools in the district, each with populations quickly surging into the two thousands.  So what is the school board's solution?  To build a third high school.  Avoiding the obvious time and cost dilemma is my solution: after the tardy bell rings each period, release a bear into the hallways on each floor.  Tardy students will then occupy a "metaphorical" third high school.  Plus, this will free up finances so that the schools can provide every student with a locker monkey.  Locker monkeys will organize lockers, hand students books in-between classes, and boost morale.  Now, that's the way to solve a problem.

Well wishes to all of you!

I think there is a brand of drivers who can only see ten meters in front of them.  It is the only thing that explains this regularly occurring phenomenon: a car will be behind me and will suddenly merge to get around me, and will accelerate quickly past me, all while heading towards a red light.  This driving tendency puzzles me so much.  Why it is so much better to cover the distance between you and the car stopped several hundred meters in front of you as fast as possible than to just simply glide to the stop is completely outside my scope of knowledge.

My mom has the problem of falling asleep while driving, especially while driving on the highway.  But it's not surprising; particularly at night, highway driving is tedious and very lulling.  As a solution, I think the state government should install huge psychadelic clown faces in the grassy field that lies between the highway's different directions.  Every so often during the night, the face will light up and start spinning around yelling, "Bwu-huh-hah-hah-hah! Time to drive, not to sleep! Time to drive, not to sleep!" 

People need to start thinking through their conclusions more.  It seems like everyone likes superheroes and would like to be a superhero.  What superheroes do is save the world from being destroyed.  But recycling saves the world from being destroyed; two in every ten people recycle.  Thus, people obviously just want super powers, not to save the world. 

I am wondering: if you have a dream about a person, do you tell them?  I suppose it depends, but with me I normally will just tell the person because it seems like something to be happy about, almost as if being in another person's dream is like them giving you a high five.

Life always seems a certain way.  In spans of days or weeks at a time we will see the world in a way specific to the current mood of life.  It reflects the way our life is going, or what we think of life.  In a way, the way our perception permeates our daily view of things somewhat makes life to seem to have a "smell" to it.

This phenomenon of life's appearance changing over time leads me to think about other people's minds.  What way does life seem to them?  What gauze stretches out over everything to them?  What genre is life to them these days? 

Curiosity has led me to devise a method by which I can partially comprehend the reality of the disparity among minds and their contrasting daily views of life.  Because life has changed while growing up, with life seeming one way while I was in different grades, jumping into my past experiences leads me closer to the way that other people can be seeing things in a completely different light from day to day.  Stimulating my memory can reintroduce me to past views of life; what I thought about as I walked down the school hallways years ago, what the overarching pattern I saw in the nature of life, and what mood pervaded my morning routine.

In fact, one day my senior year I was walking to a class and in one moment the smell of life changed, and I knew it.  It was like the channel had changed.  Upon arriving to my next class I informed everyone that I had entered a new way of viewing things.  I'm not sure they knew what I was talking about. 

I do try, but I find it very hard to understand other people.  But at least I can understand how I don't understand them.  Our daily assumptions, and the transcendent mood of life, a mood that can be of any nature and last from simply days to a good many years, removes us inevitably from other people. 

Everyone have a wonderful night!

EDIT:  I am surprised no one noticed/mentioned how remarkable my dad's resemblance to Mario is in the first picture of the last post.  He is fully Italian, his parents having immigrated at a young age from Sicily.  Just look at him in the picture and imagine the high-toned voice saying, "It's-a Mario!"

That picture's just to set the mood.  I found it on google.

Here is my wonderful family.

And here is just the six kids.  Grace, 25, Melody, 15, Hope, 21, Paul, 10, Philip, 18, Danielle, 24. 

And after 821 days, as my xanga tells me in its desperate attempts to get me to buy premium, is a picture of me.

And of course, the people who made it all possible.

High school sweetharts can happen.

When will the ultimate reality of things break into our hearts?  When will we realize what song will be playing as the world ends? 

For how long will I tell people just what they expect to hear?  When will I act in accordance with the fact that I know I don't belong here?  How many times will I submerse my head into this misty pool of myths?  Will I stay underwater one of these times? 

One thing I know: we are all naked before the way things are.  What defense have we against the greatness of everything surrounding us? 

When will our hearts wake up from the drowsiness of living slowly and vaguely?  Do we not know that even the old ask what the good life is?  Time does not reveal the answer. 

Is life mad with no answer?  Do human lives just give out, like bubbles rising to the surface of boiling water?

When will I walk away from my thoughts to live?  When will I stop digging into the mountain of the mental realm?  Is there a bottom?  A place where things stop?  Will I know unless I keep digging?  Can I convince myself to stop wondering about it if I leave? 

Are we real?  Can we be real?  Thoughts pass by in my head, unrecorded.  Do they fall into nothing, or a place that means something? 

Is all I am an interesting detail in the universe?  Because when parts and parcels of the universe come together, it forms things that not only move around, but know they move around. 

How can I be an interesting detail?  Interesting to whom? 

Is the universe only here to we conscious few?  When all the conscious things die, does the universe continue on?  For even if it continues, no one knows it continues.  It just will.  How can that be?  Musn't someone know about it? 

There will be no one seeing it, no one hearing it.  Yet it will be a sight, and it will have sounds. 

I climb into my mind.  Where will you take me?

Do we live in a universe where matter sporadically turns off and on?

We see words other people have written down.  We see their moods gleam from their smiles.  They go here and there.  They are a swirl of existence.  Their minds flash, and they feel sometimes light, sometimes heavy; they are always someplace new.  Their presence is curious and amazing.

The world may seem light or it may seem dark. 

When will I finish a day and know I have lived?  When will I start a day and know I am about to live? 

At night the stars and the truth come out, but people go to sleep.  When they wake up, both are gone, and they live happily on with their lives, thinking that the world is what is real, because it is what is here every day, and it is very close.  One must stay up to see outside the world, and thus their minds, to see there is much more than just their small daily thoughts. 

A man may carry a heart of sorrow, and no one will know.

Words mean nothing; they are just shapes, or sounds.

We read and hear things we think are profound; and then we forget them.