About me

[iammax]

"What is man? A collection of chemicals with illusions of grandeur?"

My father was a piece of shit. Or maybe he simply was. He wasn't there for us though, but then he wasn't there for anyone - so should we take that personal? My mom made the choice to have him be the father of her kids, so should we blame him for being a non-father?

I don't hate the guy, i just hate the way he chose to live. I just wonder what it'd be like if I grew up in a 'normal' household. But I do like myself and if I hadn't grown up in the environment in which i did, I wouldn't be the wonderful person I am today.

The only memories that i have of my father are of him beating me with a belt when i was a child. So maybe it was a good thing he didn't stick around. I also remember seeing him again when i was eleven - he gave me some money.

Today, my father is currently deported from this country. Stuff like that happens when you can't keep up with child support. "He would go and start a family, move to another state and do it over again." "Motherfucker should start a franchise." I have at least ten brothers and sisters I've never met.

I don't know my father, but I know that part of him is in me, if nothing else, purely because of genetics. I live in fear in that I'd hate to turn out the way he did. If his disease had been alcoholism, would I be prone to becoming one myself? Can I escape my nature? Is my nature his nature? Am I myself, or is myself a reflection of someone else?

 

[iammax]

My Friends

"Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what i most enjoy contented least."

I most enjoy having meaningful conversations. Not the usual talk about how unseasonably hot it's been lately. I care not for what celebrity is doing what drugs or screwing which other celebrity. Maybe i've read too much of Plato, but this is what I most enjoy.

And as such, it is what I get least of. I don't claim to be an intellectual, I'm just one that is inclined to be interested in philosophical conversations. But philosopy to me is everything. It isn't for me about a bunch of old men wearing funny clothes and pretending to know something - like in the renaissance.

It's not to say that my friends suck, it's just that somewhere down the line, I didn't make as many friends as a normal person does - so i think. But at the same time, i'm not one of these people that has an affliction with having to be surrounded with hordes of people. I know 'friends' of mine that would lead me to believe that they would self-destruct if they spent five minutes alone. I actually dislike those people.

I've moved a couple of times, so right now most of my friends are in different boroughs. They are of different backgrounds, so my friends aren't necessarily friends with each other. They all get along, though, but they don't hang out together.

But by far the hardest thing to do is making friends after you're a little older. Generally you make friends in school. Starting from elementary school, through high school and even college. After that you make friends at work. If you're married, your spouse's friends become your friends - but that's not your choice, so it doesn't count. In my job, there are mostly women and old people (late 30's, 40's and 50's). I'm 25, the youngest one here.

I think my concern for friends comes from watching movies. So when i think of friends i picture movies like Hanging with the Homeboys, Swingers or Goodwill Hunting. Either that or i'd really like to hang out with Matt Damon and Ben Affect.

My friends aren't bad people though. They're just into different things. The few times we all get together and hang out it's always lots of fun.

 

[iammax]

Something

"No es que yo sea madrugador, pero soy amigo de el amanecer."

Is there a more beautiful line than this one. Of course there are! But I like that one. "It isn't that I am one that likes to stay up all night, it's just that I'm a friend of the morning sunrise."

A rough translation, but it sends the message across - unlike the Bible. I have so many good thoughts, but most of them are lost in my brain.

There's something i've always wondered and still have not been able to answer. What makes a Doctor a Doctor? What makes an athelete an athelete? What makes a professional a professional? Is it merely to devote your time at your given art? Would Tiger Woods have been Tiger Woods if he went into medicine? Would he have come up with the cure for Cancer?

The kids that were forced into the medical field by their parents, are they Doctors because they're very smart or are they Doctors because they were put in that field? In other words, could a person simply become something if said person is giving an equal opportunity?

I'd like to be rich, but only so that I wouldn't have to worry about money. I'm not part of the Improv scene, but I can relate to the lifetstyle. That of having a passion for something and having, in the meantime, to be stuck at a shitty job until you can get a break.

Watching the MTV VMA's last night, I wondered what's happened to my friend from HS. He was in a band, and still is, and has been, for at least ten years. Last time I saw him, he was doing very well. Doing gigs and about to sign a contract. But the guy still isn't famous. He's being a it for ages but still no MTV.

So I wonder about talent and what it is that it takes to 'make it.' Is it really a gift? Is it luck? Is it chance? I think it's got to be an in-born trait. A person has to have something about them that separates them from the pack. I know I didn't make it in baseball because I was always afraid to perform. That fear caused me to get nervous. That fear stemmed from how I was raised. My mom used to threatned me to eat my food.

If i didn't eat the vegetables, the boogie man would come and get me. I was so terrified as a child that I was afraid to go to the bathroom with the door closed. I was afraid to close my eyes when I washed my face with soap. I had re-occuring nightmares that I can remember to this day. That fear carried over to other areas and it is still something that I struggle with to this day - some 18 years later.

I'm highly impressionable. But like a slice of whole wheat bread, it's a two sided thing. Impressions can be good and bad.

My chosen field now is the Health and Fitness field. I didn't go to the best schools and colleges, so my education isn't the greatest. However, I've made up for everything in terms of hands-on practice. I have devoted most of my time to my craft, but right now i'm sitting in front of a computer - working in a Finance Department. :worm:

I can't tell you how much I hate those stupid infomercials on TV. It seems that the only way to make it big is abandon your Ethics - I wonder if that's true of everything else?

 

[iammax]

Old People and Sex

From what i've seen around this place, my workplace, old people, but specifically, old men, are very horny.

They say that a man will reach his sexual peak at 18. I say that's bullshit. I say that a man will reach his peak everytime he sees a woman that he's attracted to. Proof of this is old these old geezers I see around here.

They're really pathetic. So pathetic that i'm afraid to get old because then I risk being like one of them. I really hope that won't be the case. These seniors just throw themselves at any young see that they see. Married or not, it doesn't make a difference. What boffles me is that you'd think that they'd got laid plenty in their youth and now that sexual drive must be waning, but such isn't the case.

I feel bad for their wives. These guys are so horny looking. They surround young women like Hawks do a decaying corpse. They try their darnest to make them laugh. They look for any excuse to touch them in any way possible. Whether is to hug them, shake their hands, tap them on the shoulders, whatever it takes.

It seems that testosterone levels don't decrease quite so much at old age. These guys are their 50's though, so probably at 60 or 70, that sex drive starts to decline. I think part of the problem is that men just wasn't meant for one woman, but that's another story.

 

[iammax]

Everything is something

"A is A"

When i was a young boy growing up in my country, I used to watch cartoons all the time. Back then, cartoons were different from the stuff we have nowadays. Cartoons were different in that they targeted kids, not adults. There were no South Park, Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead (i'm capitalizing butthead as if it were a name, lol) or any of these sort of cartoons.

Instead we had He Man (can't recall the proper spelling), Superman, The Fantastic Four, etc. In Dominican Republic, we used to get these import cartoons from China and Japan. One of them was about this little Bee that went around in different adventures, much like Caine in Kung Fu.

He didn't use Kung Fu to solve problems though. He was just a traveling Bee. I remember one episode where he was fighting this Spider. The Spider got frozen and couldn't move anymore. The little Bee still tried to help her by taking warm water and spitting it to her. But alas, the Spider would go on to die.

From watching cartoons such as this one, Superman and Batman, where the theme is of the good guy helping out others, I think I developed what i call a Superheroe Syndrome.

I always feel the need, or duty, to help anyone that I can. If there's something I can do, I want to do it. But of course, eventually you see, mostly through others, that this kind of openness attracts people that will inevitably take advantage of you. So I help as much as possible, but as long as I don't feel someone is taking advantage of me.

But after years and years of helping people, listening to people and such, I have grown to not care too much about most of the trivial problems that people have. Specifically, when it comes to relationships.

I don't think i'm the kind of guy people like to tell all their problems to, but when someone does, or did, I'd do my best to help. Lately though, I really could care less. I listen, vividly at that, to their problems but I offer no solutions.

Most people, i find, just want to be heard. I say this because after they say, "Yeah, I think my b/f, g/f is cheating on me." They don't follow it up with, "What should I do?" So i offer no advice and don't care to.

Recently, we hang out after work to celebrate a co-workers b-day. Afterward, me and this girl were walking through the streets of downtown. We got to the subject of relationships. She says that her problem is that when in a relationship, she can only tell that it wouldn't work in retrospect. It seemed like a ligitimate problem. If i didn't know her so well, i'd give it some thought.

But the girl has some extreme personality problems. Her moods swing like a pendulum. She is also extremely hard to please. Like when we were at the restaurant I picked. I say, 'Hey, what'd you think of this place?' She gives me half a smirk and is like, "Is alright." I felt like punching her in the face. Not literally mind you, but at least banging her head against the table. Bitch.

Anyway, if i cared, my reply to her would have been as follows: I think that nowadays, people no longer take the time to get to know each other before they decide to, not just go out, but have sex, move in, start a family, etc. As a result of that, she rans into the problem of, "Things were going well and one day he just disappeared on me."

[Wo] Man's fate is to learn things after they are no longer useful to it.

 

[iammax]

The Truth

What is True? That was the topic of discussion in Forbes a few years back. I read through the issue, and looking back, I don't think I learned anything from it. I certainly didn't gain much of a new insight as to what is true. Now is that different from what is THE truth?

Can the truth be shown by a metaphor? I'll be damn if i know, but i'll give it a shot.

Sit-ups, Crunches, leg raises, etc, will not give you a six pack. That is true. It is true because I have learned this from personal experience and observation. But that is only half the truth.

These kinds of exercises will not result in you having a six pack if you don't adhere to certain conditions. First, it is impossible to have a visible six pack (abdominal muscles) unless you have a low bodyfat level to begin with. So if you're overweight, your concern should be not to perform countless crunches, but to lower your bodyfat levels.

How does one go about lowering their bodyfat levels? Well, it'll take probably twice as long as it took you to put on the weight in the first place. All those months and years of lethargic behavior and lack of physical activity (redundancy?) took a toll on your metabolism. To make it normal again, it will take many years, and no one has shown that it's actually possible to permanently correct it. But of course, i'm speaking as though the subject is very obese.

So those exercises, by themselves, will do very little to bring about a six pack to the average individual. So the truth is that to develop a six pack, one would have to have a low bodyfat %, which is achieved by a very strict diet that would yield, if the person is overweight, a significant weight loss.

But that in itself is also a half truth. If the person is overweight, it is true that they have to speed up their metabolism, however, how do they go about doing this? Most folk try diets, which is by far their biggest mistake. No one follows diets. The whole concept of a diet, in itself, is contradictory.

Most diets are to be followed by a certain time. Atkins diet isn't something you do forever. If said diet requires you to evetually come off of it, then it cannot be a good diet. A good diet is one that you can follow forever.

Eating less, which is what people do when they diet, is also mistake. Nutrition majors will tell you that when you decrease your caloric intake, your metabolism follows suit. From my observations, it doesn't take that many calories to make a person fat.

Women turn to exercise when they want to lose weight. The problem is that their perception of exercise is that exercise is aerobics training. Big mistake.

edit: (wasn't done yesterday)

What aerobics training will do is make you lose some water and burn some calories. Problem is that women want to look 'fit.' Aerobics will not shape you. They will not sculpt your body in any way at all. For that you have to do weights.

"But you see Max, I don't want to get bigger. I'm trying to lose weight." That's what this lady told me. Looking at me dead in my eyes. I smiled and didn't say anything. While i'm not all-knowing in my subject, i have spent quite some time pondering it and looking for concrete answers. Therefore, when someone that has spent no time in verifying the validity of their questions, I get very frustrated when they don't believe me.

When my PC here at work breaks down, I go to the IS department and they come in and fix it. I don't question their methods, because they are effective. If they instruct me to do something, like not open a certain e-mail because it might have a virus, I listen. I listen because they know what they're talking about since that is their job. It's what they know and what they do.

Sometimes when people seek the truth, they have very unrealistic expectations of what the truth is. When you give it to them, they simply fail to accept it and believe it. I don't understand why. Maybe it is because the truth is what they didn't want to hear. If so, that confirms my belief that the truth is that which is real. Reality often sucks.

Aerobics aren't a permanent way to improve your metabolism. They are merely a quick fix. They are a quick fix in that they will raise your metabolic rate for only a couple of hours after it's over. Resistance training, on the other hand, will raise your metabolic rate for hours. And that means that you will continue to burn calories for far longer after doing weights, then you would from doing aerobics. And that's the truth.

 

[iammax]

Social Roles

The more movies i see, the more i wonder which is the case: is the art [movies] imitating life or is life imitating the art?

From my ongoing observations of people, it seems that our social roles are not just predictable, but inescapable.
When i came to this country, before i saw any movies or knew anything about this culture, I went to a Catholic school in Long Island. I was the only non-white kid in there. It was a middle school - grades from 6-8 or something. I was in 7th grade though.

Looking back, everyone fell under the social roles that we have today and we see in movies. There was the senior kid that was taller than everyone else. He had the hair combed to one side, the jacket that made him look like he belonged to some club, and a little crowd following him.

In my class there was a kid named Joe who was the geek. Everyone picked on him. I was even peer pressured into picking on him a few times.

There was also a bully in my class. He was a little chubby, with a little mullet, always smiling and always up to no good.

There was a cool kid that was a crossover between a jock/bully. He had spike hair and wored his tie in a loose manner.

There was the guy that wasn't a bully, but because he was good in sports, the bullies and atheletes were friends with him. And there were also guys that were just geniunely nice.

(aside) I think that a bully and a geek are one and the same. There are both extremes of the same spectrum. Whereas the bully uses his muscles to impose his will, the nerd/geek will eventually use his nerdiness/geekiness to do the same on anyone he can.

In girls the social roles apply as well. There were the cute girls that everyone wanted to go out with. There were the two sisters that were seemingly inseperable. The one girl who is too chubby to be popular and the girl with very thick glasses that sits by herself in the cafeteria.

I was a foreigner, so people were kind to me. The bully wanted to know what i was about. He tested me and afterwards, we became friends. I even went to his house once. I think i was in between everything. Not smart enough to be a geek, not strong enough to be a bully and not pretty enough to be the most popular kid.

But that was in Long Island, in a school with American people. In the Bronx, the social order was the same, but much like driving a Ferrari is the same as driving a Civic: both are cars but that's about it.

In the White school, and we're talking 13yrs ago in seventh grade, even the bully did his homework. Even the bully was aware that one day he had to get a job.

In the Bronx, though there were nerds and such, everything was about being accepted in a group. Though most people in the Bronx looked like me, I was still a foreigner and because of that, still an outsider.

But it was easier to break in to the crowd since we spoke the same language. Even then, that crowd was just a crowd because there were many of us in the same situation. Even as a crowd we were still outsiders. We had our own community within the school community.

Our nerds, bullies, etc were only such in our little crowd. Our cool guys wouldn't be cool in the entire school.

In eigth grade in the Bronx, there was a bully of the whole school. He was a guy that was taller than everyone and had a mustache - in eigth freakin' grade.

The guy was already a drug dealer and even the teachers were afraid of him. I remember once when he told a phys ed teacher to shut up. The teacher obliged.

So i still don't know where it is that our idea of what our social roles are come from. Oh well, i never claimed to be a sociologist.


A woman at my job (Japanese, 34/5 years old) was having a conversation with me. She tells me that Boston is a boring place. I say that i've been there and it's a nice city. Small but nice. Her reason for thinking that, i discover, is that she's seeing the show Boston Public. I mention that the show, and most shows, are filmed in Holywood, and much of what she sees isn't what is real.

Now I wonder what are her impressions of black people, Hispanics, white people, teenagers, etc.

What i've noticed recently, particularly with older people, is that they have a need to feel important. They want their presence to have an impact on other people. They want to be noticed. Their words to be taken as law and their existence validated.

Take this old man that walks around here. He's in his 60's. He's been pretty much the office clown. Everybody jokes with him and he's the laugh of the company. I've heard some people say, 'We need a guy like him around.' 'Without him this place would be boring.'

But I always questioned the motive to his behavior. I questioned it and I knew the reason behind it. He wanted to establish his social role. He wanted to be indispensible. Missed when he wasn't around. He wanted to leave a lasting impression of himself.

But now there are problems. This guy is constantly, and jokingly, flirting with young chicks. He jokes about being very handsome, about young women being attracted to him. But I knew it was more than a joke. He believed it.

Now his world is crushing before him. There were some problems between him and one of the girls he bothers all the time. Now the jokster isn't smiling anymore. He's now going out of his way to get this girl in trouble. That's the irony of people that are always joking. When they stop everyone notices.

 

[iammax]

Anonymous girl

It's refreshing to see a girl come clean with her thoughts for once. Nice journals you got going here. I only wonder how many guys have propositioned you already, and how many have pm'ed you asking how many have pm'ed you in the hopes that they'll stand out from the rest.

This PM is in regard to the last comment on your last paragraph. When i was 18 i was with an older woman. A bit older than me, not just a couple of years. After we started having sex, I found myself emotionally attached to her. After getting over it and such, and after having sex with other girls, i think we (men) avoid developing those feelings again so as not to be heart-broken.

Most assholes of the world weren't always assholes. Much like the old Kung Fu master, they only became so after years of experience (i.e, having their heart broken and their feelings hurt).

I'm recently leading to conclude that cheating (to a man) has nothing to do with love. It's not even nothing against you. You can be the best looking and greatest woman on earth, but that won't stop us from wanting to screw the next woman.

I thin it's something very hard to explain. I think as men, we deviate from equating sex with love. I think if every men doesn't cheat, every one wants to. If the difference between a man that doesn't and one that does is that one decides to, whereas the other decides not to, that isn't saying much about men.

What i mean to say is, if you're not gonna cheat because you're afraid of getting caught or of hurting your significant other's feelings, you might as well do it because that's a pathetic excuse. The only valid excuse of not cheating is that one wouldn't want to do it for the sake of itself, not for the sake of something or someone else.

 

[iammax]

It's like in the movies

I was getting ready to go and see Jackass Friday after leaving work. As i'm heading to the station, past Duane Read and about to walk down the stairs, my phone goes off. It's my Mom. She's crying histerically. My godmother, she says, is dying.

So now the plans have changed. I made it over to the Bronx as soon as i could and we made our way over to the hospital in Rockville Centre. My mom has a bad habit of exagerating things, but this time it wasn't the case.

Most of my family was already there. My godmother has 3 sons. The youngest one, a girl, is about 21 or so. She's the one that's taking thsi situation the worse.

My Godmother has been in and out of hospitals for years. She's a chronic smoker and she's had lung problems since i can remember. Recently she had been hospitalized with pneumonia. My cousin said that she checked herself out of the hospital a few weeks ago.

My girl cousin and her cousin were home. They got a call from my Godmother saying that she wasn't feeling well. By the time they got to the apartment, she was on the floor coughing blood and saying that she was dying. While waiting for the ambulance, they asked the 911 operator how to give CPR since my Godmother wasn't breathing and had turned blue.

The diagnosis was that she had suffered a massive stroke. The occipodal lobe is inflamed. She has internal bleeding and her lungs are full of fluid. She's too sensitive for them to perform any tests on. The only thing that keeps her going is her heart. She was admitted to the hospital late tuesday night.

Different people deal with grief in different ways. After the hospital this past Saturday, we went back to my cousin's (Godmother's daughter) house. We were hanging around shooting the breeze, trying to not occupy ourselves with the situtation at hand. Somehow that translated to us going on the 'net and looking at pics on rotten.com. I got sick of looking at that stuff after a while.

"You guys have to make a decision or I'll make it for you. If I have to take you to court I will." That's what my aunt told my cousins as she left the waiting room in the hospital. The decision in question is to pull the plug on my Godmother. My aunt is hellbent on doing this as soon as possible.

Problem is that the doctor said that it was too early to arrive at such conclusions. They would have to perform tests on her. If her heart stops, though, there will be no point in keeping her 'alive.' But my aunt wants the plugs to be pulled right now, it seems.

My cousins are handling the situation very well. If it were my mother sitting on that bed, and my aunt took me to court, i would kill her, right then and there. The choice is ultimately up to her kids, my cousins. No one wants to hear this kind of talk at this time.

The Intensive Care Unit is a horrid place. It's one thing when a person just dies, of whatever cause. It's another, however, when they are just lying there, between being alive and being dead. How the hell do you make the decision of letting your loved one pass?

My sister hasn't been to the hospital yet. Yesterday, when i went to pick up my little brother and sister from her apartment, i was going to tell her that she should go to the hospital because our Godmother is dying. When i got there though, i told myself that such a thing shouldn't be need to be said. It's one thing to be grief stricken but another to be a coward about it and decide to stay home talking to your b/f on the 'net then to go to a hospital and see your dying Godmother.

I haven't cried yet. I wanted to when i went to the hospital and saw her. I feel like it when i see my cousin (female) just going crazy with her grief. But I can't force myself to do that. I'm sure i might appear cold-hearted to the rest of the family, but I'd rather show nothing then fake something.

Ultimately, some of us will stay hopeful, but it doesn't seem like she's going to pull out of it. I dread receiving that phone call. I dread seeing my (girl) cousin when the day comes. I dread having to prepare for another funeral. And i will always dread to see my aunt after all of this is over.

 

[iammax]

(my) Family

One thing i've learned is that we are not unique. Even when we think that a given situation that we find ourselves in is unique, and no matter how strongly we feel about it, odds are that many people have been in the same situation. I guess we feel this way because we want as much sympathy as can be got from another person. If everyone were in the same situation, than we'd ceased to be 'special.'

I gotta look into getting the book for the movie, "Finding Forrester." When he starts the speech about family, it sounds really fascinating. I'd like to see if that was a real speech that they had to cut out due to time and such.

I probably mentioned already that my Mom was adopted. My Godmother died a few days ago, yersterday was the burial. So this side of my family is my mother's side, which is to say, it isn't my biological side. That speaks volume not just in terms of physical difference, but just a huge difference altogether.

I'd like to think that i view my family, my Mother's side, as different in the sense that they are different people, no different than friends. But it's much more than that. I truly think that the fact that we're not blood related is why they are so different from us.

I think that nothing is to be taken more seriously than life, therefore, death is and should be, the most serious time in one's life when one has to take pause. Particularly when someone close to you dies. I thought that what separated us from the animals was the fact that man is rational, but that seems to be a trait that isn't universal.

While i don't doubt that my Godmother's sons loved her, that love wasn't abundant during her life. Their relationship was rough to the point of being violent. Most of the memories i have from them is when they were arguing or fighting. No matter how bad things got though, they always managed to pull it together arounds Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I think my Godmother was cursed. She used to work as a psychic. Hundreds of people used to go to her for advice on all sorts of topics. The ironic part was that it would seem that she could was never able to help herself. If Justice is a Lady, Irony must be a Bitch.

The things i've seen in the past three weeks have made me take a huge step back. I can't see my family in the same way after yersterday. It's scary to me that some people can be the way that they are, but it's true. I mean, i was there. I was there at the Hospital. I was there at the wake and at the cemetery.

They will wonder why they don't see me around more often. Why they'll not get to see my kids. Why I dont' call during the holydays. They'll form their opinions about me. They'll say that I tihnk i'm too good for them. They'll sit around and pick me apart and say bad things about me. But it's alright, I was there when my Godmother fell ill, and i was to see all that they had to show. I was there.