{"id":5333,"date":"2016-02-28T11:09:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T16:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=5333"},"modified":"2016-02-28T11:09:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T16:09:47","slug":"from-my-outbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2016\/02\/28\/from-my-outbox.html","title":{"rendered":"From My Outbox."},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tOctober 11, 1998<\/strong><\/p>\n

hey – thanks for writing. i was away this week, and just got back last night.<\/p>\n

i used to worry about putting certain things up for all the world to see, but the reality is that for every little thing i do say there is a ton of other stuff i do not say. it is that way for reasons i’ve not quite decided or focused on. when i first started doing this i was almost the only person i knew who had internet access. now, my mother and bosses and people i work with all read this stuff, so it might seem like i have to be a little more careful. for a while i was more careful, but now i’m not so much so, because what difference does it make anyway.<\/p>\n

it is nice to hear from someone who understands that feeling alone in this life is not anything to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. i was afraid at first that you were going to offer advice (which i get often enough. the advice is usually stupid.)<\/p>\n

have you thought of making a website of your own? i sometimes feel weird about having a website, but it is a nice friend to have.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

September 29, 1998<\/strong><\/p>\n

i have no memory of sending you that vagina thing, but i guess i
\nthought it was funny while in a drunken stupor last night.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

September 30, 1998<\/strong><\/p>\n

that reminds me of a time i was working at Tower Records in Lincoln
\nCenter, and i put on Glass’ “Hymn to the Sun God.” a group of older
\nwomen (60s or 70s, by my rough estimate) approached the counter
\nwith tears in their eyes and asked me “who is the composer of this
\nbeautiful music?” i told them “philip glass”.\u00a0their expression
\ninstantly changed. they were reviled.\u00a0they looked\u00a0disgusted.
\nthey left the store immediately. it felt like racism.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

December 7, 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wasn’t able to get online this weekend. I slept
\nuntil 2:30 today, after being up way too late after a
\nChristmas concert in Woodside. It was a low-key
\nconcert, but a good crowd considering the weather.
\nI’ll spare you the details, but I got kind of sick at
\nand after this event. Yum.<\/p>\n

Is it strange to say that I wasn’t online this
\nweekend? I say that sometimes to people who take the
\nInternet for granted, and to them saying you can’t get
\nonline is like saying you have no running water. I
\nhave to unplug from the Internet sometimes or I lose
\nmy mind. It’s an addictive trait.<\/p>\n

I have Oreos. Can I pass you an Oreo?<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

October 23, 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey – I’m sorry to know about all the crap you and
\nyour mother are going through. It sounds hellish, but
\nmaybe there is an upside to it all? I don’t know what
\nthat would be, but when my mother is sick I look
\nforward to when it’s over and she’s back at home
\nplaying Scrabble with me online. My mother gets
\ndepressed and world-weary at almost any prompting.
\nBut she was finally diagnosed with depression —
\nmeaning it’s the first time in her life she
\ntalked to a doctor about it. Otherwise she’d have been
\ndiagnosed decades ago. So now that she’s got it in the
\nopen it’s OK for her and I to talk about it and to
\ntalk about how it’s been a problem with me since grade
\nschool. We’re just getting started with that.<\/p>\n

I was in Sunswick tonight, around 7pm. I don’t usually
\ngo there on weekends, but try to make it in during the
\nweek. I am not\u00a0inclined to seek out company or live
\npeople, so making\u00a0it into places like Sunswick or
\nMcLoughlin’s on a\u00a0regular basis is an accomplishment
\nfor me.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

June 21, 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n

After I got burned so bad last year the first thing I
\ngot rid of was my IM and buddy list. I had every
\nmessenger ever made sitting on my desktop. So she
\nwould always know when I was online. I got to a point
\nwhere I wouldn’t use them for anything. I think it
\ncleared my head a little bit, and let me avoid going
\nto that extreme of just pitching this whole thing out
\nonto the sidewalk. See I’m not a fan of extremes. They
\ndon’t make sense to me. But the IM and
\ngaping-into-the-Internet addiction relates to
\nsomething I heard a long time ago. Someone said that
\nif you’re an alcoholic (or fill in any other vice)
\nthen it doesn’t matter if you’re on a desert island
\nfor 20 years without a drink. You are still an
\nalcoholic. It seemed mean-spirited to me at the time
\nbut I think there is truth in that sentiment.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

May 17, 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"May

May 17, 2007<\/p><\/div>\n

…<\/p>\n

March 5, 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n

I often go out toward Woodside, where I’ve spent many long days roaming the giant Calvary Cemetery off of Greenpoint Avenue. Have you ever been out to any of these Queens mega-graveyards? It’s a toss-up between Calvary and the Unisphere (in Flushing) as my favorite spots in NYC. I am not a particularly morose sort, either, but somehow I got familiar enough with Calvary that I only wanted to go back and find more. Familiarity is weird that way. I find Calvary to be an endlessly beautiful and fascinating place, and I love standing under the Unisphere too.<\/p>\n

My name’s Mark. Next time I’m up on the T’boro maybe I’ll e-mail you a cameraphone picture from up there. I might even go today but more likely tomorrow.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

April 7, 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

after a weekend of continuous vomiting, or so it seemed after 6 solid hours of overnight volcanic barfosity, i am still sore this thursday afternoon, all my innards wrenched asunder, but it’s slowing down, easing up, my poor innards were so abused these past few months. first there was the food-induced dry-heaves of about 6 months ago, which caused my innards remarkable soreness for as little effort as i seemed to have exerted. but the innards had not been turned asunder for years, many years, maybe even a decade, and those innards need a workout if they are to be nimble and vigorous. after that i was sore for maybe a day and a half, but when 3am struck monday and i was still vomiting i just started to laugh a little, accepting the prolonged moment of oral evacuation as the easy part before the week or more of innardal misery.<\/p>\n

after the dry heaves and the relatively mild period of soreness that followed i next slipped on the ice and cracked my back, slamming into the road with a dumb thud, which didn’t hurt much at first, it didn’t feel like anything, really. but after a day or two the soreness set in, in my back and throughout my innards, and it was brutal for weeks. it let up but then i strained it again by stupidly hoisting a heavy bag of laundry over my head, probably the heaviest bag of laundry i could reasonably squeeze into the same yellow bag i have used for years, meaning it is probably the heaviest bag of laundry EVER. AND i dumbassedly felt confident about my improved back and showed off to myself (there was no one else around), as usual).<\/p>\n

…\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tAfter I got burned so bad last year the first thing I got rid of was my IM and buddy list. I had every messenger ever made sitting on my desktop. So she would always know when I was online.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[197,218,401],"class_list":["post-5333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashback","tag-email","tag-flashback","tag-outbox","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Photo_051607_003-1024x819-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C819&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-1o1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}