Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Henry's LiveJournal:

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Monday, July 19th, 2010
11:41 am	My theory on out of town guests I got a phone call from Hammy on Friday suggesting that he take a bus into DC and visit for a 29 hour trip. So with nary any planning I think that I was able to come up with a very entertaining evening for the young Hamilton. This leads us into my theory for how one should treat out of town guests: My basic assumption is that an individual who took the time to come and visit me should have his stay subsidized to whatever extent I can possibly afford. While this belief likely comes from watching how my father interacts with his guests and his hosts, I don't think that it was really cemented until after I visited friends in NYC and found that after having purchased a ticket to get there I was then expected to buy my own meals and entertainment. This compounded the cost of a trip which was already stretching my budget and put a bad taste in my mouth. Ideally I would also have had a list of entertainments for Hamilton rather than suggesting "Let's go to Arlington Cemetery" or "We're going to look at presidents at the National Portrait Gallery," but that is an issue for another day. Right before I put him on his bus back home, I was able to wing man for him with a cute girl in line. We ended chatting about art and the fall of epic poetry for 30 minutes (as well as our personal history and what not) and according to the text I got when he got home he was able to mack it on the ride home. So I feel pretty content with myself. After I lost Ham I went to a BBQ at B&G which went equally well. I've decided to make Ben's housemate my friend, I'm not entirely sure how this is going to happen, but Matt seems like a pretty chill individual and it might be nice to have a reason to go to V Sq for reasons other than pulling Ben out of his shell. I think I made pretty good headway on this when Ben and company left Matt and I to defend an unneeded grill for about a half hour. We'll see where this goes from here. I think I have figured out why I am not friends with people who I do not have anything really against. Due to my open nature and need for fraternal bonds, when confronted with a person whose station would not allow me to suggest that we go out and get drinks or make merry together, I am left with little else to talk about. Upon reflection, I can see how this could be mistaken for distance and disinterest. It might be wise to sit down and work out 200 or so off handed comments that I could keep at my disposal to keep these people engaged with whatever it is I am doing. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, July 16th, 2010
5:23 pm	Summer So this has been a pretty good month for me. Work is more or less going well and I've possibly been offered a new job which would start in August. Beyond that a lot of time to play board games and my room is bordering on clean. Ben and I are bordering on friends again; once we agknowledged the aspects of our relationship that were not going to be working it became a good deal easier for us to hang out. While I'm not sure if I was really wrong that his wedding would br a local maximum in our friendship, I now suspect that the derivative of our friendship graph might soon become 0. Sadly that still puts us below the "help me move a body" requirement but still within "help me move assuming you don't have anything else going on." Also, I got to see K&G at the beginning of june, which was awesome. It is weird, we're so comfortable with each other that it just doesn't seem special when I see them anymore. That could also have something to do with the frequency with which we talk. Either way was a nice trip and I didn't miss my flight this time so good show all around. On to the weirder side of things, I've been speaking with what best can be described as a wrong number. The odds of an interesting, tall, properly aged girl, who happens to live in Baltimore randomly iming me leads me to believe that this is an elaborate joke at my expense. On the otherside, if this is some how real then it is pretty cool. Plus regardless of whether or not she is actually a 40 year old dude I'm enjoying the conversations Will try and remember to keep writing in this (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
9:19 pm	Dreams My relationship with Emily was an interesting test case for Brent's interpersonal relationships. Beyond the obvious series of firsts that are embodied therein, I feel like it was the beginning of Brent coming out of his shell (and by Brent I mean the version of myself that I brought out of Blair and reconstituted into my being). Through that persona though I was able to deal with a lot of stuff from my past that I hadn't before. It was one of the first and only times that I ever really spoke about my father with another human being. So the series of conversations that were had naked in my bed in Gilbert were rather cathartic. Since I heard of his death I've been having an odd series of dreams where she has played a costarring role, which are a bit disorienting when it comes time for waking up. These aren't the usual ex-girlfriend dreams either, with recounting old times or some form of wish fulfillment. I'm pretty sure that last night we went hiking and discussed the effects of logging on land reclamation. In fact, these dreams all consist of conversations about absolutely nothing. I'm not sure what it is that has made my unconscious feel like these are necessary, especially considering that I don't think that I had thought of her in over a year previously. I spoke to Reed about this, and he of course was able to give me a rather pseudo-psychological theory that this is a defense mechanism and how I was generally too sensitive for my own good, which while probably an accurate account of events isn't necessarily useful for a better understanding and application of a solution. There were certainly good times, almost 9 months in fact, it seems odd that those would be categorized separate from all the wrenching times that would have gone along with them. The other problem with him being correct is that that would mean that my father was right when he said that college would be the happiest years of my life (something upon reflecting on them I refuse to believe to be true). A corollary to this question, is the fact that it is Emily, and not say Rob or Reed or Ben or if my dreams require a female lead any of the women I've dated who I could in theory have a conversation with. What is it about my resting mind that makes me want to shift my unresolved conversations with my father to one of the people who I'm equally unlikely to have a conversation with. Why must I force myself to be my own little version of Sisyphus? (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
11:24 pm	Apparently the best way to not think of an anniversary is a 10 mile run I'll keep this short, mainly because everyone tells me I have to be less nostalgic. Hell month is officially upon us, and besides an event which will have moved it ahead a few days seems to be much less painful than previous years. Classes are going well, haven't gotten a grade lower than a B, which I guess means that I'm doing pretty well. Am heading up to Rochester to ring in the middle event of the month (I've decided to label it adorable that I have a series of holidays specific to me), so am looking forward to that a lot. All things considered I would say that things are going pretty well. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
12:12 pm	Well shit Hell Month came a few days early this year Wake me in December (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
5:02 pm	This weeks Haiku There's an Indian She has forgot her panties Brent sits behind her (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
8:53 pm	The role of children in our society The impetus of this conversation came from a recent reaming by RHJ over my lack on civility, which I feel gives him free reign to criticize this work as he sees fit, in my defense I was a bit under the weather at the time. In his defense I have not been under the weather for the last 6 years, thus regardless of my ability to defend myself he was very much correct in his assertions of barbarism. I often question where I would have been if I had followed him to university and been mentally challenged for the last half decade. Which in part dovetails onto my next point. By what mechanism do we force our children into the workforce, what possible reason exists to place the greatest minds of our generation into positions which add no value to the community. I understand why we place mentats into professional careers as early as we can, their use is similar to that of a calculator, and upon 22 years of study will likely have gleaned enough knowledge to be an effective member of the profession. In addition, the information curve in this field requires them to be involved as soon as possible since the fields evolution will likely be outpaced that of academia. Conversely, there is certainly an interest in getting those whose trades are less in the mental and more in the physical into the workforce as early as possible. In truth, once we have removed those practicing a trade and those who roll in the work force is that of a living calculator we are left with a surprisingly small, but not negligible, subset of the population. At the risk of offending my sizable Hindu audience, the closest real life representation of this would be of the Indian Brahmin caste, i.e. scholars, teachers (we shall in this piece ignore the roll of priests), so I shall restrict my views to set people were America to such an overtly defined caste system. Amongst what passes for American intelligencia, there is a feeling of publish or die. While, and for the same reason as mentioned earlier, this is entirely acceptable (in fact to be applauded) in the truer sciences, the fact that it has bled over to the social sciences is something which should almost certainly be met with suspicion. I doubt that anyone with even the most basic understanding of how intellectual work takes place would challenge that the end result of this is simply a high quantity of inferior works. It has been argued that such a glut of subpar work is not something to be chided, that in an open marketplace of ideas the wheat will naturally be separated from the chaff. The problem with such an assumption is that it relies on the idea that that truth can easily and immediately be separated from falsehood, quite understandably the effects of adopting an incorrect theory of markets or an inefficient division of labour would be daunting at best. Perhaps most dangerous are the effects that this glut of information has on how we groom our teachers. I have personally seen individuals pursuing careers in education falter and fall short in the inception of their degrees as well as after they have achieved their certification. An improperly trained, as well as one who was successfully trained on incorrect methods, as the ability to ruin entire generations. So what does this have to do with the youth of our country? In the words of the Bard, "Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast." We are in effect seeing groups of 22 year olds who have just gone deeply into debt, scrambling for the job which will pay the money which will repay these debts. And thus they sacrifice the time required to digest these thoughts and interpret them. Instead they latch on to graduate teaching assistantships which in turn requires that they justify their existence through through journal articles (which given their lack of backing invariably concentrate on some aspect of the trivial, or instead only exist as a regurgitation of previous theories and works. At times this might move towards the clever, but never enters into the realm of being intelligent). This is of course not limited to those in academica, those who would identify themselves as authors, poets, philosopher, or even reconteurs (the highest level your humble writer can wish to achieve) are forced to prove their worth in the public square. It is at this point in the argument where the systemic issue must be breached, whether the drivel coming out of our youth is not in some part related to the drivel coming out of those we view to be established and the heads of their field. Whether historians are not perhaps writing works identifying every member of the Rump Parliament because that is what those in their field are wanting to read. To this challenge I must concede that mine is the more normative claim that I don't care if their is a market for such things, that my demands that their work be useful comes from a higher realm than mere market forces. (this shall be finished in the morning) (Comment on this)
4:08 pm	An open letter to everyone who was weirded out by my last few posts Sorry for scaring you. I am in fact doing fine and will return to my normal stoic self shortly (Comment on this)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
7:11 pm	Answers very rarely give answers Reggie's mom called me today. I can really only imagine what it is she's going through; but that being said, she really knows enough to not expect comfort from me. There was a period of time where I would say that Gloria was like a mother to me, closer than my mother actually, but now in the absence of Reg she's just this woman I used to know. I hate being heartless, I hate closing her off, but I really couldn't mentally engage her. I couldn't tell the old stories, I couldn't tell her about grade school about sleep overs of drinking songs and blacked out nights we don't remember. But I couldn't...or wouldn't. I tried to draw on that portion of my person, to bring out the emotions but I just came up empty. I didn't have the words that would bring back her son, instead all I had was the ability to show her that I was still living. That I didn't die with him. She had been reading his note wanted to hear me compliment his poetic roots, as if suicide becomes excusable if you are artistic. And I just couldn't humour her. I'd already read the note, fuck I was in that note, and it was trite then. I had drank my rum, I had cried into Diane's chest, all my feelings on the matter have ended. They're gone I know what she's going through, when you were around Reg it was like the sun shines on you, and it's glorious. And then he leaves you and it's very, very cold. I can only imagine what that was like seeing from an adult's point of view. Having an entire lifetime be a subset of your life. To see your bloodline cut short like that for such a stupid reason. I think that that is why I couldn't comfort her, because I've been able to not think about it. Reg can be out of my mind because I have barely anything to remind me of him. His photo isn't sitting on my desk so to speak (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
12:47 pm	Kicking ass and taking names Doing well in Micro...really excited about that. On the other hand that is really the only class out of 4 that I'm excited to go to. Now if only I had time to go to office hours and build rapport with the teacher Either way, let's hope that this keeps going (Comment on this)
Monday, September 28th, 2009
5:53 pm	WOW Had a rather surreal conversation today. Drop a line if you care and help me analyze it. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 25th, 2009
11:05 pm	The ties that bind What is it that causes us to check up on someone from our past? I was talking to Eric recently, yes I am still in contact with him...while Joy refused to let me go to the wedding she still tolerates him calling to me, and he took great delight in telling me of where all of our mutual friends are at in their lives. While that is understandable on his end, he likely receives some joy being able to dispense knowledge that I lack, what I confuses me is whyＩcare about these people. I don't even remember a good deal of them, and of those who I do instantly remember I haven't thought about them since the last time that I spoke to Eric. What is it that makes me want to fill the holes in the story since I left them. Why do I think that if I know what they are doing now that will somehow recreate me as the personＩwas whenＩknew them? Livejournal likely plays a role in this, a good portion of my friends list is made up of people I knew back at Blair, and I would be lying if I said I didn't read a percentage of the entries on that page. That though seems like a passive involvement, all I need to do is hit the button and everything is done for me. Thoughts? Opinions? Stories? While on the topic of Eric, I'm finding that I have either forgotten how to properly tell my stories, I am telling them to a different crowd, or the enjoyment of these stories requires a good knowledge of who　I am as a person. Either way, my attempts at entertaining people with the New Orleans story, or the Eric Story, or the Tilt story have not worked out as well as　Ｉ　would hope. I guess I'll just need new stories, or more time with old friends. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
9:51 pm	Analogy Talking about cheating with Marie is like talking about drinking with Gordo; they'll both listen and engage in intellectual debate, but regardless of what I throw down I'll never win them over to my point of view (2 Comments |Comment on this)
3:56 pm	Lines from this weekend I heard the following lines in the order that they were read spaced out about 30 minutes from each other: "Hey Brent, any idea how to mix a drink?" "Are you sure that there is alcohol in this?" "Tell me a story" If the cops didn't bust up the party I think I could have gotten people to the point where they're running around naked. Grad school might work for me. There are few parties that could handle rounds of my "Leap Into an Open Grave" (a drink I actually got off of an episode of Cheers). (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
1:25 am	Things people don't like Over the last few days I've had about 4 conversations that center around why people are my friend. Ｉ don't have an excellent explanatory variable but a lot of my conversation groupings tend to be nicely clustered, perhaps it is just my willing them into existence (or more likely, that I subtly push the conversation onto that topic.) And I've realized that people are more or less willing to accept any reason for why they are my friend as long as that reason does not also come with a statement regarding some internal weakness to fulfill their wishes. While I've never been a fan of pop psychology (which is the only type of psychology I can ever hope to aspire to), I have none the less always found it a helpful consideration. Often it is too hard or nary impossible to understand how your mental structure is built and the need arises to have someone explain to you what you are thinking than having to discover it on your own. Reed was always very apt at knowing what was going on in my mind and putting it in small enough words that I was going to be able to understand. Even now he was able to identify my need for a foil while I my work of what was missing was limited to the most ethereal plain of thought. -to be continued (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 14th, 2009
10:16 am	Stuff happens I think that this might qualify as a bad weekend. I'm sure that just about all the Thelions are in varying states of anger/aghast over the Annie Le situation. I just found out that they found the body yesterday. I think mentally I am still preferring to believe that what we're seeing is some giant conspiracy and that she is currently on some island with a latin lover, but I know that that is not true. I think that I follow a rather linear relationship between stimuli and response. Death of a friend makes me withdrawn, death of strangers makes me horny. VT was obviously a rather mixed bag. This probably isn't the healthiest of situations, but it is nice when looking back and figuring out what happens. Know thyself and what not. If anyone wants to talk about what is happening and how they're feeling drop a line. My phone is currently broken, so AIM or email might be the best shot. Also, if you have Jon's contact info I'd love to send a card. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
6:07 pm	The plusses and minuses of the day Positive: all my courses seem like they will be entertaining to say the least Negative: Today I woke up at 7 and wasn't able to motivate myself out of bed until like 8 and then didn't leave the shower until quarter of nine Plus: I think I'm going to stop drinking Negative: I think I'm going to have to stop drinking Plus: I am talking to a good deal of people who have similar interests than myself Negative: Remember how I used to say that I wasn't sure that I could be friends with a clone of myself? Plus: I've been cooking a lot more Negative: Turns out that I'm a pretty bad chef, and now that my crockpot lid is broken probably won't be happening too much anymore. I'm also not entirely sure how I'm going to go about being social as well as getting all my work done...that is something that is going to have to be mulled over in great detail (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 4th, 2009
12:45 pm	First week of Grad School I think the most striking thing that I am coming away from after my first week at Gtown is that I need to move. Barring jumping the turnstyles, this 6 dollars a day stuf is going to get very annoying over time, however, that is going to mean that I have to quit APHL, which I am also not willing to do (what with that providing me the major cash source which I use to live). Other than that it is more or less typical, the people seem acceptable. A couple outliers of people who are completely socially inept, or much better than I am. I think that I am going to return to my high school method of networking rather than continuing my college one (the reason for that being that I still consider myself much closer to the Mountain than anyone who I met at college with a few exception). Thus I'm concentrating on the internationals, they seem to be a population under appreciated and thus likely to provide a high ration of payout to effort. Shifting gears, I had dinner this week with Shnutler and Berdine and Mrs. Berdine and it was an fine enough dinner, but think this was the nail in the coffin for counting that group as "friends." Beyond just the obvious nature of us having very little in common and their refusing to be dynamic individuals, I feel a particular element of the problem is that I just don't understand our relationship any more. Are these people who I can call if I need a ride at midnight out of the city (which incidentally happened last night and I ended up calling someone I had only met twice), are these people who I can confide in, are these people who I will invite me over to their house for a party and not get angry if I shag a guest in their bathroom? There also seems to be a weird issue of any time I mention that I might be interesed in someone romatically it is perceived as a person afront to on of them. I think I'm just going to pull back and allow them to decide their group for themselves. Classwise I have no idea what is going on. They all seem reasonable enough, but having only gone to them once it is hard to establish an actual opinion on the matter. More on that matter later (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
11:27 pm	Grad School: Day 0 So tomorrow I have to wake up at 6 so I can get to the office by 7. At 12 I plan to head to the Metro and so I can get to my first graduate class, PPOL 508 (Quant 1) at 1 15 in the afternoon. I have to say that I am rather excited; despite the fact that graduate school has been a bit watered down, I feel like this chapter of my life will mean something. Truly as an aside, I think that I am the only one of my friends (with the exception of Hamilton) who has actually achieved something by attending an institution of higher learning. I'm excited to be back in academia. Excited to have classes and examinations and be able to assert my intelligence. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 21st, 2009
5:24 pm	ECT/electric chair, we shock who we can't save Lately I’ve taken to visiting a local homeless shelter in DC. Since leaving St. Joe’s I’ve really missed hanging out with the homeless. I miss hearing about their lives, talking to them about their problems, breaking bread with them. What separates my current experience from the one I had back in Rochester is that I’ve been much more candid these days with discussing addiction with them. What makes them drink, what keeps them drinking, so on so forth. For anyone who has ever read the Little Prince, the answer given there is actually pretty close to the general consensus. A lot of people drink to forget, and one of the main things they’re trying to forget is all the shit that happens when they drink. Maybe it is just me, but I can never look at the face of a person struggling with addiction and not see myself. The only thing that really separates me (and I would think all of us) from those showing up at the shelters is a difference of experiences. One of the guys I was talking to this week was named Spider, a kid a little younger than me who had moved from recreational pot and alcohol to painkillers after his marriage fell apart. And when I was looking at a picture of his kid, I was just thinking there buy by the grace of G*d go I. How easily could it have been for me to be in his place if I had gotten my girlfriend pregnant at 19 (conceivable, I was a dumb sexually active kid at that age that refused to wear condoms). So in light of that how can I have contempt for their condition? Sometimes after the doors close I talk to the volunteers, and while we chat about what is to be done someone invariably starts talking about enabling: wondering how they can save these people. I’ve heard a lot of bullshit spewed, claiming that places like this might be doing more harm than good, that we’re making it too easy for them. What I heard most recently was that aggressive psychological treatments were required. That through shock therapy we could cure people of their addictions, and that the other option would be just incarcerating them until they got clean. Looking back maybe I should have set them straight, shown them how their views were untenable, but I didn’t. And the reason is that you can’t cure everyone of stupid beliefs, the same way you can’t cure everyone who looks for happiness at the bottom of a bottle. If people don’t want to change they won’t. And all you can do is be there during the middle periods and listen to their stories and be their friend. (Comment on this)