A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

God Bless America

I just got my grades back for this term and was VERY pleasantly surprised.

Pun Intended?

וירוס איידס מהווה את אחד האיומים הרציניים על המין האנושי

What Happened Over the CHAMSHUSH

Going to the sauna with Adonis himself. Salsa dancing. Eilat. Beaches and shops and coral reefs. Seret: Hasodot. Working. Tired. Seinfeld. Smile. Mood swings. Satisfied. Sleeping on the bus.

If my honesty don't kill me, it sure as hell gon' kill everyone around me.

"So, what did you think of Eilat?"
:shrug: :shrug: "Well, it has you."

"So you might get bored of me in a week?"
"Possibly."
"Then put your pants back on."
"Okay." :slip my underwear on: "Now what are you doing? Oh. Ooh. Mmm. You just told me to get dressed. Ahh. I think I'll take it back off then."

"Come on, do something for me. You think sex works one way?"
"Basically, yah. What I'm in the mood for."

Israel Now: Deja Vu?

Katyushas are falling again in the North. There haven't been any casualties yet, but they did cause some property damage in and around Kiryat Shmona. The IDF is preparing to respond.

Jerusalem smells like burning garbage now.

The Du"ch from Yerusalem: Milchama Ba'ir!

So Shabbat was a party, great people, great food, no pressure. Met an IDF officer who said we are likely in for another war very soon; maybe we'll do Syria this time. Met a family of recent olim and hung out with a bunch of college kids. Joined the war. They are playing haredim versus homo'im. I am on both sides and neither, so it's double the danger, double the fun. The yassams are beating people with sticks and the water cannons are back in action: parade season is here. Wow, there wasn't this much commotion in Tel Aviv and their parade was much more ritzini.

I got to climb to the top of an unfinished apartment building, run around the city like a parkour course, and watch the water cannons blast through fourth story windows and dump broken glass on sleeping babies. Doodle, I finally saw your tapuach signs. This country is awesome.

I got to be mekayem the pasuk of "ki mitziyon tetzei torah" for real when I was asked a halakhic question at work and asked a rabbi in yerusalem on shabbat and returned to home with the answer.

Learned to play poker.

The news spent most of its time on Retzuat Aza, every so often they'd say "Surya", and twice an hour they'd cut to Jerusalem and the haredi riots. Just the riots, mind you, never the violent police response. Israeli news is so simple. The female news anchor is gorgeous, but a poor reporter. Then again, I guess that's all you need. Out.

Happy Hour With a Purpose

What a brilliant concept: Thursday after work is happy hour. In the lobby. Free beer and refreshments celebrate a week well done. Scientists from the various labs in the building gather and discuss their work, fostering a spirit of friendship, happiness, familiarity, and loyalty, and providing a framework for interdisciplinary collaboration in a casual setting.

Gmail Address Book

This is me being angry at Gmail for its poor handling of contacts. Normally, you write a message, click contacts, and your adress book pops up so you can click on whoever you want to send your email to. But not in gmail. In order to use your adress book to address a mesage, you must first go to the address book and then type your message. Has anyone else noticed this oversight or am I the only fool who hasn't figured out how to do it yet?

Remember to import your gmail contacts to facebook.

Oops, I Did It Again

stop codons on 288c ethidium bromide gel pcr reactions nil1p beach soccer does this sound like one of those random strings of words you get in your spam mail do you ever wonder why they do that beautiful weather incredible trees and grass and sun air conditioning cafeteria food that tastes good sabbath plans party bye

Tel Aviv Billabong

Tel Aviv Pride: So I get to Tel Aviv, and hail a sherut to kikar Rabin. The drivers are scared to go anywhere in the city center because the parade street closings have created crazy traffic. The parade had moved on by the time I arrived, so I hailed a taxi and asked him to drive to the mitz'ad. He pretended not to have heard of it! This is a taxi driver who suffered traffic all day. You couldn't be in Tel Aviv and not hear of it - 1/5 of the whole city was there. So I guess he was anti-gay and just refused to drive me there.

Finally caught up with them at choff gordon (Gordon Beach). Partied on the beach, then had fun watching people's reactions as we walked around the streets kissing. Friends, don't try this in Jerusalem.

Whatcha Mean'm We, Kemo Sabe

Gene splicing and regulatory pathways anyone? What fun! Putting things in test tubes and taking them out again. Measuring them, mixing them, reading about them...

Beautiful campus, great people, learning a lot, shocking everyone with my unorthodox background - I am a lone psych major in a hard science universe - affirmation of life.

Last Month GQ Said Gays Make Great Bosses

My award-winning fashion sense received an honorable mention in Shopstyle.com's Set The Trend 2007 virtual fashion contest. Take that, Details! (Details magazine just ran an article questioning the notion that has taken hold of gay men as style-savvy. Of course not all gay men are but it's still more common than by the common folks.)

Crossing the Atlantic

Mon: finish school
Tues: planned to pack, never got around to it, got a haircut at Cutler from James - real cutie
Wed: rushing to pack everything before i miss my flight while my mother is completely nervous and trying to help by not getting in the way but she really would like to be actively helping, flight
Thurs: arrive, meet the group, soccer, Ocean's 13 (before it even came out in US!)
Fri: meet the prof, tour the lab, tel aviv pride parade after-party at gordon beach, sabbath meal at prof's house.
Sat: synagogue, kidush, shiur for teens and young adults about premarital sex, lunch at a really nice guy who randomly invited me out of the goodness of his heart, frisbee on the lawn, nap, read up on molecular biology, met my roommate's really cute brother who stopped by our dorm, updated my blog

Wow, stuff actually happened this week.

Just Ask Yourself: What Would Ashton Kutcher Do?

It's official. Last final is in the past and my flight is days away. Now I just need some serious sleep. And I really must pack. And clean my room. Check out one of my all-time favorite poems, by William Cartwright on platonic love. I can't believe I took my finals going on about 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. I hope my essays didn't come out sounding as hopeless as my last blog post. Oh, don't be silly Ted: you aced 'em! Fasshiz

I Don't Need to be Doing This Now

Sorry I haven't been updating much lately; I'm behind filter software at home and school. Finishing up the last of my finals and set to begin a summer job next week. It's raining. Pretty rain. Quiet as only a rainy morning can be. I read Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country. A long rant about everything on his mind. Today's politics, the past, the future. My mother just woke up and was shocked to see me up this early. Not in a good way. She's worried as usual. She said she feels like I am ripping out her heart. I feel bad, but helpless. It was just a bout of insomnia. Likely brought on by staying up all night last night. And sleeping a good part of the day. My life is so sorry. So I go clubbing at night till late and wake up late. It's so nice to be on vacation (or is the word 'unemployed'?) and yet so lonely. And it isn't even really vacation yet. Classes are over but we still have finals coming up. My summer job starts next week. My mother is so worried how I'll be able to get up in time for work considering I've been waking up after 10:00am pretty consistently and I'll have to improve on that by several hours. She offered to call the shrink and see if more meds might help. Who knows. If I seem discombobulated and out of character in this post, it's because I am. The Aussie's friends are in DC for the day and he asked me to drop by. And Long Branch and Manhattan and the Bronx. George on Seinfeld - his parents lived in Queens. And I'm flying. You don't believe me. In an airplane, I meant. Very soon. To another country. I've been up all night. Am I not making sense? Ever heard of Jonah? Someone just told me they don't believe the Jonah story because whales have filters in their throats that would not admit a human being. I figure there could be a whale with a holy filter. Anyway there is also a cult for Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality. Some people might take offense at the cult labeling and perhaps rightfully so. These people sound sincere and there is truth and encouragement in a lot of what they have to say. But there is that feeling, you know?

Public Bathrooms

So I'm in this restroom at this store with mirrored floors, and I notice that you can look at the guy in the stall next door in the mirrored floor. Weird.

Everybody Likes a Festschrift

Writing from the Apple store in Manhattan 5th Ave and 59th St. Great place. Free inernet. Exciting atmosphere.

Feel free to check out the looks I put together at Shopstyle.com (http://www.shopstyle.com/page/BrowseStylebooks?searchString=teddydouglas). Cool site.

Congratulations to all the recent and upcoming graduates!

NY Driving Tips

Most of us are familiar with the traffic light. The color of the light signals when we may drive (green light, go) and when we must stop (red light, stop). But what many tourists quickly learn is that in New York, the traffic light is an audio-visual experience. Relative quiet together with a red light means stop, and noisy honking signals an upcoming green and warns you to prepare to hit the gas.

Where Are All the People?

We did another experiment in lab. It was awful. You stare at the screen and watch little dots appear and disappear. And the monitors have low refresh rates. Not everyone is affected by this, but anything under 75 hz or so bothers me; it looks like the whole screen is flickering.

It's finals season. Classes are winding down it is time to severely hit the books. Incidentally, the weather has been gorgeous and I'd rather be outdoors. I bought a necklace at Guess in the mall, then looked up the piece online when I got home and found it was missing one of the charms. I ordered a new one from Amazon and plan to go back and return the broken one. When I paid in the store, they were training a new rep so it took her forever to ring up the sale. Then she tried to wrap it up and just ended up with a ball of wrapping paper. The saleswoman asked if it was a gift and I almost felt guilty saying no.

Spoke to my mother about my plans for next year. I still don't have any. Work or learn or both, I don't know and it scares me to think about it. One thing I probably will be doing is applying to schools. Actually, just applying. In general. If anyone asks what I am doing next year, I'm applying.

"Applying to what?"

"Doesn't matter; I'm applying."

Either for jobs or for schools or simply applying myself to whatever I'm doing. Like now, I'm applying myself to blabbering.

I finally finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha. Good book; made me think a little. I love Amazon.com. I preordered Harry Potter 7. Don't know if I plan to read it, but I'm sure someone in my family will want to. The book is already a bestseller and it won't be out for over 2 months.

I read a curious little article in the New York Times recently from a book reviewer about the pleasures of reading bad books, so I thought I'd give it a try reading books even if they haven't withstood the test of time and emerged as classics. Makes sense: how will you learn to evaluate books if you only read a certain kind? You won't be able to make the necessary contrasts if you don't have what to contrast with. I haven't yet chosen my first bad book to read. Suggestions welcome. Bad books that are worth it, anyone?

Uncomfortable to Talk About It

I had a lot of fun with the go-go boys at a club in the city the other night. I was so shy, it's funny. Some guy who was talking to me handed me a dollar bill and said to go stick it in the boy's underwear. It was so awkward at first, but fun. You get to feel up the boys and watch them dance on the bar in front of your face. Several people offered to take me home but I declined. I didn't kiss anyone or have sex or anything. Just dancing and touching, so I think that's safe. I don't feel good about it, but then, I don't feel good about much in general so I don't know.

I was very shy, just like standing around, walking around, and people came over to me and said I looked cute and stuff, but I wasn't really interested in most of them. And when I saw someone who was hot, my heart stopped and all I could do was stare and I didn't have the courage to go flirt with him. So I was left in a pretty messed up situation.