The Rejection Letter

For the last week every morning I've sat on the porch.  Drinking my coffee. Waiting for the mail man to come. Waiting for the letter. Hoping to snatch it up. And hide it under the mattress. So that its contents may never harm anyone.

Today I didn't check. Someone else did. Now they hold it before me unaware that the only thing protecting me is the delicate envelope. They ask "Can we watch you, Open it?" Watch me? Does one watch as a H-bomb is dropped? The potential is massive. But is it not better to be handled with care?

I slowly remove it, being careful not to break the seal. It rest on my desk waiting for a few half-lives to pass. It's better to wait until the letter looses it's power. The sun fades away.

I open it. It has words. These words strung together determine my next year. I can't read it. "I'm sorry to inform you.." These words cut deep. The suspense has been terrible. It should never have been opened.  Left under the mattress it would have slowly turned to dust. Years later a breeze would blow it away, never to be seen by anyone. So yeah.. That's not what the letter said. That's what the letters in the small envelopes say. I knew right away. This letter came in the Big Envelope.

New York & New Perpective

Although my last few posts (the past 43) have been a little bleak. The truth is I'm too excited to contain my excitement any longer. I'm going to visit my amazing sister, Jaime, in New York.(Kim is amazing too, just not in NY.) Yeah. I know. Why would anyone want to expose themselves to such a place? Well. I see it like a bar fight. It'll be a struggle at first. But after that punch to the face, I'll find I have a new perspective. Even if it happens to be because I'm lying on the floor.

The Comfort In Not Knowing Who/When

A girl.  It always starts with a girl. A song. A book. A movie.  Always. Always about a girl.  There is a girl of mine.  Well she is not mine.  But she is the begining the, end, and the climax of what would be my song, my movie, my book.  She has ignored me.  I have a adored her.  Finally last night she looked twice when she saw me.  Why?  Why?  She was in no condition for love.  I have not truly loved for a while now.  But the night two days before tomorrow I took notice of the feeling I've been attempting to hide.  For after all if I love someone and they do not love back is it not better to ignore those feelings and keep my sanity?  She was in no condition for love.  But did it seep through her drunken stuper showing how she really felt?  She kissed me.  The kiss I've waited for all my life.  Since before she came into my life.  I truly do not know.  And in fact I'm not sure I should.  This is no the romantic tale of Romeo & his Juliet.  This is a tragic accident between to teenagers.  Where one feels that the other is "sort of, you know, maybe, totally, no kidding, for real, the greatest girl he has ever met"  and the other decided that the taste of alcohol is well complemented by the lips of a friend.  This is no love story.  There is no love, there is only an accident.

That being said it would totally kick some major ass if she did like me.

I must continue to write. Fuck that. I need to talk with someone. 

Licking The Sidewalk

Where am I going? I would like a sense of direction. Is it worth it? Really, is worth it bend down an get a taste of where I currently stand? A sweet taste might come of it. Or it could be the bitter one masochistic self so badly desires. Or will I end up just eating dirt. In reality there is little poetry to my dilemma. I have a week, 7 days, 168 hours, 10080 minutes, or 604800 seconds. To do what? To determine the outcome of the rest of my life. Well it isn't quite that serious. I mean to say that my transfer application is due to Bennington (If you actually read this collection of rants you'll notice they rejected me last year). So here I am trying again. This time I need to write two essays and navigate through the treacherous staffing which is MCTC. "Private College? Transfer out of state? Banana?" Well it's best I don't waste time complaining about not having time. Only 10065 minutes left. Wish me luck.

In Dedication to My Boyfriend

I start this post knowing that you, my audience, are not reading this. I know this because I haven't written in ages and what I have written hasn't been very exciting. If despite my boring topics and my lack of writing you are still reading this I feel a bit awkward. I assumed that this would be a private conversation between my nonexistent audience and myself. If you truly do exist then I'm afraid you're invading my privacy. But who am I kidding, your not reading this. No one is. And "No one" wants to know what I've been up to so I'll get to the point.

Like any punk-kid attending college I've had the past few weeks of school off. During most of this time I have accomplished nothing. But in my spare time I had a minor social-life, a ridiculously part-time job, and I spent time with family. My social life is on the ground bleeding from a hit-and-run that took place months ago. I'm afraid it might be terminal. It doesn't have long. But I cherish every moment we spend together. Right now we are hanging out with my friend Roy, and his girlfriend Stacy. (Yes, I know Roy and girl.) He's a great kid, but I'm afraid my social life might only have a few days left and I don't know if it wants to spend his last moments playing video games. It's been fun, but if my social life is going down I want it to go happily. It needs to spend time with those it loves.

Bus-boy! It sounds a bit like a super heroes side-kick. Half bus, half boy, all crime fighting machine. But atlas it is not so glorious. I clean up peoples tables after they finish eating diner food at The Bad Waitress in some-what uptown Minneapolis. The place is nice, the food is good, and the staff is great. The problem is I don't work much. 17 hours a week. Which means I'm not making near enough money to move out of my prison with no-rent and into an wallet-raping one bedroom apartment with rights. No freedom for me. Yet.. Enough about work.

My family. I have one too. I'm not just some crazy Satan spawn. Although that's not what my sisters would say. It is part of this family that I spent Christmas this year. In fact a vary small part. My sister Jaime and Kim were both in New York over the holidays. My Mom decided to take a shift at work for some guy so that he could see his kids. (Isn't she nice?) So it was just my Dad his brother, sister, mom and me. It was calm and sweet. Eggnog and green-chili. A holiday couldn't be more perfect.

My social life is calling for me and a feel I must leave... Bye.

I Am A Cold and Bitter Cup Of Coffee

I sit in my cramped 3/4 bedroom on my cozy 3/4 bed. The perched roof and my pile of unfinished homework are beginning to cave in on me. No worries though, my room is my sanctuary. From what, I don't know. There is nothing for me to fear outside my bedroom door. I live in a beautiful stucco house in south Minneapolis with The Werners, one of the nicest families I've ever met. They are in fact so nice that they offer to let me live here, eat all of their food, and ask for nothing in return. Yet I hide from them? No. I am not afraid of them. I only fear that I am not becoming myself. I do not live as an individual. I live as part of a family. A family that I do not belong to. This is what terrifies me.

I'm living here so that I can attend college. It is nearly the end of my first semester at MCTC. I am doing fine in all my classes. As far as I'm aware I have only A's in all my classes. I'm not sure how it happened. But it may have something with my complete and utter lack of anything to do. Homework ends up being the few pleasures of my monotonous days. Yet I am sitting here assignment in hand, avoiding completing it, like a diver conserving his last breathes of air. If I finish this assignment I might not have anything to due. And that would be far worse than not having it done. So I sit and think of all the things I could do with all the extra time I have. Then time runs out, and the only thing I have finished is a list of things I should have done before I had no time.

Although I have little to do, I have a schedule. I have school.. Work.. And Bodily functions.

School is a community college.. A good one, but a community college none the less. I like all my teachers, my classes are fun, and it doesn't cost me much. Everything runs so smoothing I often forget I attend school. I thought it'd become my main focus but I'm afraid it has just become a place I go to four out of seven days.

Work is even more of a joke. It's a nice place (The Bad Waitress) and a decent job (Buss Boy). But few hours (10 per week).

Bodily Functions have become a main time passer for me. The decision of what to eat, whether to shower, and the depletion of coffee are serious issues for me on a daily basis.

I have become so bored that my character has began to dissolve as if an ice cube in hot coffee. It will stay afloat for now, but it will not last for ever. If I am not faced with problems how am I to triumph over them. If only I were less fortunate. Poor, scraping by for rent, nearly begging for food. Maybe I would build a sense of who I am (or I might just starve to death). In the future I can only hope I will become the Cold and Bitter Cup of Coffee that I have always inspired to be.

Laying The Foundation the Tower Of Eden (AKA: The Paper)

It's a warm summer day. I'm standing next to Jaime, my eldest sister, atop the seven-story parking complex that provides short-term residence for cars visiting The Mall of America. She stands, smoking a Camel Red, asking me how life is going. I pause for a moment to think. Not much exciting has happened to me this summer. When things become dull and mundane, I spend my time hidden away beneath my skull, mulling over ways to change the the world without. This empty time has been made more plentiful by my decision to spend less time with my friends; it has been weeks since I crossed paths with any of them. But I am not entirely isolated.

Although the world around me slowly ticks away, carrying on with its same routine, inside my head synapses fire to form a thunderstorm of ideas that plead to be united with each-other and molded into something truly amazing. I'm sure as this is taking place internally (between my sister's question and my answer) Jaime is growing impatient. I am undoubtedly staring blankly at an endless void obstructed only by the second largest mall in existence .

The asphalt painted space around me sets loose a train of thought that heads towards all the great things that come to a city. In a city, there is efficient apartment housing, grocery stores, restaurants, and businesses all packed neatly into highrise-skyscrapers. So what is there that a small town has that a city doesn't? A long drive through rural South Dakota gives one the answer. Traveling west on I-90, you will undoubtedly tire from the scenery: when you look out the driver's side window you'll see fields of corn reaching to the southern horizon, when you look out the passenger side window you'll see fields of soybeans reaching to the northern horizon. Farms are everywhere, except in dense metropolitan areas. Food must be shipped cross-country to feed all the hungry little urbanites. It isn't feasible to build farms in the heart of a city. Is it? This question is on my mind as my sister ashes her cigarette and then returns it to her lips. Instead of answering her question, I pose one of my own. "If all other basic necessities have been brought to the Metropolis, why not the most basic: food?" She brings up the same pre-industrial age problem. "There isn't enough space." Using the traditional methods one would not be able to run a farm on a city lot between the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. To make this crazy idea work, farming methods would have to be rethought.

I challenge my imagination to find a solution to this difficult task. To my knowledge, nobody has attempted to do this on a grand scale. People have built community gardens on vacant lots and small greenhouses on rooftops. These are projects that are built as hobbies or in a community building effort. In order to provide a substantial food source a much larger and more efficient project would need to be built. Current food operations don't provide enough space. Thinking two dimensionally, we can only grow plants in the area provided by a plot's width and length. There must be a way to attain more space.

And then I realize the solution is staring me right in the face . Why would one construct a garden between skyscrapers, when they could build it inside one? After all, high-rise buildings were created to provide more space while maintaining a small footprint. I see one critical problem. Skyscrapers are designed for people. Regardless of what the building's purpose is, it is designed to bring people up to a certain floor and then return them to the ground. If a pre-existing building were used, equipment, produce, and workers would need to be transported using elevators. This model would require larger freight elevators that would take up much of the space required for growing. Also if one of these elevators broke down the whole operation would be put on hold.

I tell all this to my sister. She agrees with my argument and is as lost for a solution as I. The floor design of current skyscrapers is not adequate for mass production. We attempt to find the missing puzzle piece to this game of thought, as we both lean against the concrete guard railing, that keeps us from falling to our certain end. I realize how far up I've gotten myself. And then how I got here.

Jaime had no luck finding parking on the floor dubbed New York. So she had continued up the spiraling ramp towards Florida. Still no luck. Then we had past through Tennessee which was also full. Finally continuing up the circling path, we made it to the roof, Hawaii. I find my answer. Parking ramps wouldn't work if their layout was similar to that of a regular building. I can't imagine how cramped it would get if they depended on lifts. But someone had already found a way to make them work. By connecting the levels with coiling ramps it was made possible for one to freely drive to the top and then exit by continuing on their path.

If a skyscraper were to use a similar model, moving equipment and produce would be much easier. The trouble is in connecting the floors. A colossal parking ramp style skyscraper might work. But it's rather chaotic, I am seeking something more elegant. The idea comes to me rather simply. Instead of connecting with ramps, make the whole building one continuous sloping floor. As long as the slope is steep enough there could be head room for the story bellow. There would be no stories just complete rotations. After circling around 360 degrees one would have risen an amount equal to one story. All of this seems to be falling into place. It may be possible to create more usable space for agriculture within a city.

As the gears and cogs, set delicately in my cranium, spin wildly they began to slip (there's a missing part). How will these plants be grown? It's not common for anything more than a potted plant atop the desk of an office worker, to grow closed off from the outside world on the forty-second floor of a high-rise. This model would be taking a similar space and using it for a much greater growth. Traditional farms till, plant, and harvest on soil laden fields using diesel equipment. This method is unfit for a building. A building would collapse under such weight. Not to mention that a soil based operation would not produce enough food within the limitations of space inside a building. It's fortunate that I'm somewhat of a nerd, because I already know of an alternate method of growing produce. The answer here is hydroponics.

Now, what exactly is hydroponics? Well the word itself is Greek. "Hydro" of course means water and the "ponics" part is derived from the word "ponos" which means labor. This would have been an intelligent thing to say to my sister, but instead I find myself muttering something like, "What about growing plants with that hydro-thingy? You know where you can grow anything you want in water without soil or anything. And you can use lamps so they don't even need to be outside." Luckily she doesn't know much about hydroponics either, so she thinks it is a brilliant idea.

We had left some things out. In hydroponics you do grow plants in water, but not just water. First off, plants need support for their roots, some sort of medium (such as rocks, Leca, or perlite) to anchor to. Secondly the "water" they are grown in is full of l chemical nutrients that must be added to actually feed the plants. All of this so far doesn't interfere with my master plan. But there is one critical bit of information that could cripple my whole scheme. You can't grow anything you want using hydroponics. In fact the selection is rather limited. It wouldn't be possible to grow all the food for a city within such a structure. Thankfully I don't know this tid-bit of knowledge yet.

Jaime and I continue with our game of thought. And ignorantly being under the assumption that we had found the last piece to the puzzle we stepped back to see the whole picture. I gaze off into the distance again--but this time with intent. I imagine this theoretical structure is built there. As I point, tracing the outline, it begins to take form for my sister too. We are startled by the height of this figment towering over us. In Illinois the Chicago Spire under construction is going to rise two-thousand feet. My tower could potentially be that tall. That could mean two-hundred floors corkscrewing up. One-hundred acres of plants could easily be coiled inside such a structure. All of the space would be taken up by plants--which I come to later learn would mostly likely be tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, melons, or strawberries. These plant would be grown year round, with numerous harvests . And most likely with a higher yield and density. They could be harvested using machines that run on ceiling mounted rails. After being brought below street level they could be transported around the city using subway trains. All of this would run like clockwork.

The image of the building slowly fades as I ramble on about the benefits this type of infrastructure may give. It will bring food directly to the city guaranteeing freshness. This also cuts back on fossil fuel consumption. I once heard that 19% percent of the United States fossil fuel is used for the food system. The building itself could be constructed for efficiency. Solar panels could be mounted on the outside. A water tower could be place on the top to act as a reservoir for for the plants. Weather such as droughts or floods would not effect growth. There would be few insects or weeds, so pesticides and herbicides wouldn't need to be used. It would provide jobs. Such a model could be used in areas with a low amount of food, such as Dubai. It could be built in an aesthetically pleasing way that would improve the skyline. Such an idea could revolutionize the way we think of food.

My tangent, although valid, has gone on too long. My sister's cigarette had gone out long ago. And as she continues to agree with and rebuke my ideas I detect impatience. The sun has calmly sneaked below the horizon. I was so lost in conversation that I had forgotten why we came here. The third X-Men movie has just come out and we planned to see it at the movie theater packed in between the stores, the restaurants, and the indoor theme park. For some unknown reason she and I always go to see super hero movies together. It has gotten late and the movie is about to start. We walk down the stairs, go across the skyway, pass Hooters, and stop in front of the ticket booth. I pay for my ticket and skip the popcorn. The line for concessions is too long and I don't want to miss the credits. I plop down in front of the silver screen, lean back, and rest my feet atop the vacant chair ahead of me. It is time to put away my cape and thinking cap and let the X-Team have a go at saving the world. After all, redesigning the metropolitan food system can wait another day.