Home on the Range Judging from how New Year's Eve just was, I am having good vibrations for what 2012 holds. It was just the right stew of new (friendly) people, old bash brother (Coleski Wolski aka Night Hawk), the novel surroundings of a boat cruising through the dark water of Lake Union, and a wonderful yet utterly eclectic group of general populationers. Of course, I can't forget to mention the involvement of party juice which happened to be some white label Jim Beam, housed in a stainless steel flask.  More about the ridiculous crowd: all walks of life were represented. From your gentleman rocking a three piece, pattern heavy, vibrantly colored suit with white crocodile skin shoes (complete with blue tooth device in his ear) to a pasty skinned, shaggy yet balding individual wearing glasses and a Mariners sweatshirt who looked like he called a wood shack in the woods home. The women were not dressed as extravagantly as these two, but they managed to look ravishing none the less.  More interestingly about the female component of the crowd was the style of dance which seemed to spread like wild fire.  It was just plain appalling.  Had my grandma seen what played out on that boat, I think she would have projected the contents of her stomach overboard (and hopefully not on the boat captain) or used a fire extinguisher on the dancers who to her, seemed to have come down with a nasty case of demonic possession.  I will let the picture at right do the talking here.

As the midnight hour approached, we gathered on the bow of the ship to admire the handsome Seattle city line lit up in the dark.  My eyes were fixed on the iconic Space Needle which when the midnight stroke came, issued forth a decent fire work show, looking like a massive yet lone sparkler spiked in the ground. It was all beautiful and drunk, and it felt overwhelmingly good to be back in Seattle and in the company of people who I have known longer than three years.

My vacation from work and school was lengthy, being almost three weeks long.  It included a quick visit to NYC to see another fellow bash brother E.Sonk. I heart NYC and all of its culture, fashion trend setters and delectable cuisine.  The city just drips with coolness.  Everything people do in NYC has an edge to it, and I can't help be touched by the city each time I visit.  For example, one of the vixens in E.Sonk's veritable harem took it upon herself to start talking to girls at bars on my behalf.  As my game needs all the help it can get, I welcomed her assistance with open arms and impish grins.  The rest of the trip was equal parts indulging in delicious eats and recovering from late night benders. All in all, it was a successful and expensive tour.  I am also creating a habit of boarding my plane from NYC to the next destination with about five minutes until take off.  Not a good habit, but it is one that makes you feel alive what with all of the liquid stress coursing through the veins.  I would land safely in the Pacific Northwest about six hours later.

Enter the Seattle tour. Truth be told, right after I booked the tickets, I was worried that two weeks at home might be too long for the sanity of Greenberg brothers, parents and pets combined. I thought for longer than just a moment that I might annoy my parents with my incessant bicep flexing or they might annoy me with their own creature habits of not throwing away banana peels and hoarding chachkis. This foreseen annoyance however did not happen, as both my parents are more than saintly. I did get into a few tiffs with the two younger Greenberg brothers though which I did not expect. Yet quite predictably, these tiffs would be over completely asinine issues. The main event involved myself, my youngest brother and the front passenger side seat of his car.  Neither of us were driving at the time and as we approached his car, I realized that I really wanted to sit in that front seat. I informed him of this, to which he replied that he does not sit in the back seat of his car.  I respectfully and kindly told him to "get in the f__cking back seat," to which he just sat and stared at me as if I was a giant scarf wearing twinkee.  As he is bigger than me, I did not get my way.  I think we resolved the issue by getting into a yelling match at 2:30am in the kitchen of our parent's house and then each storming off while brooding heavily and individually assessing how bad our manliness was hurt. Thankfully, we got over it quickly.

The trip home was too long in one sense: I quickly got used to how nice it was to be back with family.  The kind of nice which seeps into your bones and makes you happy with complete and utter relaxation.  There was no task more complicated than changing a light bulb or cleaning a dish that needed to be done. How amazing it was to completely unplug and bask in the company of my family. I was so spoiled over those two weeks it actually made coming back to Los Angeles a challenge, even when stepping out of LAX and into the 75 degree sunshine at 11am. My second semester at USC starts in a few days and I will be starting reinvigorated from a long and restful break.  All I need to do now is convince the rest of my clan to move down where it is perpetually warm with palm tree lined streets.  ¶ 10:46 PM 49 comments

  Not Getting it Done on Halloween I actually have time to write some words that are not devoted to academia/grad school and it is kind of great.  I write on the eve of one my favorite holidays, Halloween, as the date of this post does corroborate.  That same date also verifies my neglect of this online writing piece, as if this was blog was a child, it would have ended up in Mexico or a salt mine a long time ago.  I left my policy class at 9pm tonight glad to be done with a long day but a little downtrodden at not being able to celebrate the Pagan holiday in any kind of acceptable fashion. I barely saw any skulls, did not see really any scantily clad co-eds, and did not get to dressed up as Chuck Norris which I had planned to. I have even grown my beard out for going on four weeks now to make look more Chuck Norrisish.  Walking to my car in the parking structure, something caught my eye that for some reason, really made my day. It was an orange paper sack with a jack o' lantern face on the front, traveling along the cement, blowing in the breeze in an empty garage.

Something about this image brought back memories of why I love this holiday so much.  It's the delightful and mostly innocent mischievousness that the holiday inspires.  I am talking more along the lines of hurling rolls of toilet paper and scaring little kids as you hide in bushes in a full gorilla suit kind of mischief as opposed to egg launching, property damaging and stealing bags of candy type as I can remember some hell bound hoods doing back in the day.  The fact that the day of ghouls and goblins gives children and adults alike the excuse to delve into creative imagination to channel the energy and physical appearance of some character, usually dead, is kind of incredible.

Seeing the tiny orange bag with the pumpkin face left on the ground reminded me that I did see my 80+ year old policy professor in a decomposing vampire mask before class, my LCSW therapist co-worker engaging in therapy sessions wearing a ridiculous hot pink wig, and also eating enough processed sugar in the past 48 hours to warrant fasting for a month.  I seriously feel like how Burt Reynold's face looks.  No offense Burt. Realizing these things made me feel much less guilty for the lack of my Halloween experience in 2011. Anyhow, I hope everyone else saw some black cats, heard a lingering spirit rattle a chain, heard an owl hoot and otherwise had a fine and creepily mysterious time.  There is always half way to Halloween parties, which I will be looking forward to. Until then, be good and get to the chopper.  ¶ 10:50 PM 0 comments

  Refresh There are on the number of millions of discussable and up-datable things that have gone on over the past four months and as always, the innocuous question of 'where to begin?' is bouncing around the inside of my brain like a shiny rubber ball.  Actually, there are maybe 12 things worth talking about. In the interest of time, I will resort to a list, not organized in any order:

1. I got accepted into USC in June and I am in the middle of graduate school orientation for a Master's in Social Work program. There are 522 incoming students in this program, of which 84%, or 438.5 are female.

2. Also in June, I accepted a part-time position at the much maligned (at least by my Seattle friends), yet sometimes praised organization called Teach For America. Although this position has not afforded me a G6, it has provided some great experience and I have built some strong connections with an excellent staff. 

It is worthwhile to make note of the fact that the staff makes regular use of phrases like "lets deep dive into this," and "I want to put this on your radar," and "thanks for flagging that for me." I am a huge fan of this lingo.

3. I am now in a new living arrangement with a new roommate named Noa. Noa has been great so far and our personalities are very similar, as in we both have an appreciation for magnets and deals. As you can read between the lines, I will keep this update to what it is as it is all still very fresh. This transition took place in the beginning of August.

4.  I tackled my apartment's balcony today and I have a sunburned neck because of it. I feel like it was worth it though because the balcony got a face-lift which included Christmas lights, a personally potted garden of five small succulents or cacti, a flower producing vine called Mandavilla, a whole lot of sweeping and some organizational feng shui. All in all I consider it a success, even though it ended up eating my whole day.

5. Tomorrow, 8/18/2011, I will be exploring the neighborhood of Venice with the rest of my small cohort of USC students to understand some of the issues that are going on there.  This is apart of my orientation at USC. It is being lead by a professor and licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) named Randall who is a gay man originally from NYC and now living in LA. I could tell within minutes that he is a passionate and captivating teacher.

Well that about brings things up to present, and I feel like I am writing an email to an old friend.  Is that what is happening here in some indirect form? At any rate, these are some major changes that have taken place.  Some exciting, some difficult and some challenging.  I welcome them all as it has certainly been interesting and I am excited for what is to come.  I stand before a tornado of education, experience and loans that I know will impart great things.




  ¶ 11:18 PM 1 comments