Just wait and see, cause the rest is yet to reveal itself to me

This was the year of independence.
Depend only on love and the ones who love me
This was the year of confidence.
The self is strong, believe it and see it
This was the year of Allan.

My task: conquer 2011

Out of context, floating free in time and space

I have a feeling that F. Scott Fitzgerald had the opposite problem. He had too many people that believed in him. There's a quote on the back of my book that even says “You are a great writer. Believe it, not me.” I'm getting the feeling throughout this book that Scottie [that's what his intimates call him] was given to believe that he was a great writer a little too much [this is another problem, his abuse of italics in the text]. He has too much confidence in himself as a man of letters. He believes too much in his own powers of description. He is also clearly pretty snobby about being an American expatriate in Paris, and is eager to show how much he knows about this lifestyle, much the same as Hemingway.

'give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments'

You will come to know all this, that Martin Cronin was a good man, not entirely without fault, but meek and honorable. That he could be hard-hearted at times is true, but this is immaterial to the question at hand. That he could often be short-tempered and petulant, none of his intimates would deny, but whom among us is fit to cast these stones at a poor man, departed as he is, and unable to speak on his own behalf? You, who so well know the measure of this man, will not presume to judge him for his acts. As events unfold, all will come to see that the charity dispatched to Cronin was not freely given, and was not without peril, and that his willingness to trust to strangers was to be his undoing.

Sometimes I try to understand everything at once

Sometimes I try to understand everything at once:

Everyone else, to a man, was saying Good Luck, but I preferred to tell her Congratulations to be leaving that harried, always rushing place that took up so much of her life. Good Luck? An insult almost to her. I expect that she'll do good things; luck shouldn't have too much to do with her trajectory after she's gone from here.

* * * * *

My father became obsessed temporarily by the prospect of capturing the twin rocks as we saw them. It strikes me that they may have held a certain mystical taste of the past, to him.

* * * * *

Bad news for you: I got a twitter account. If I started saying the word 'tweet', though, it would feel like giving in. Twitter is entertaining. It gives me little doses of people whom I think are funny. Is this so frightening?

* * * * *

A full life, that's nice. If I come off disjointed, it might be on purpose, have you considered that? Do you answer these questions? I try not to bother, but I care just a little too much, you can tell.

* * * * *

Short on time, long on options. Shortfalls I fear are the ones that cut between you and I, but at least now it doesn't seem like there are many of those. Look at your picture and be happy, not regretting anything that has happened in the long stretch of time behind. Happiness doesn't come without peril, but I pray this is right, and I think it is.

/\<>/\

It feels good to be with your family. It's right.

It feels right to be good. It is good to be right. My friends across the aisle will agree it's good to be on the right when the shoe is on the other foot.

Doing the right thing isn't always easy, but it must be always right.

Do you see now how the squire tied himself in a knot?

The word love gets thrown around a lot at graduation.

Have high standards and they must be met, must.

Notes on Roth; meaningless to most anyone except for me

-Isn't so much associating with Nazis a little over the edge, even for Lindbergh?
-Indictment of Americans for how easily they are tricked by the false modesty of a Lindbergh. Some have claimed this is a roman a clef against the Bush Administration. Parallels my dears?
-225 - His portrayal of the honest, striving, protective parents working together to keep their families safe is moving
-227 - Sandy: "You Jews"
-228 - Homestead 42 sinister because it is so unnecessary. How in the world can Bengelsdorf and Evelyn et al. not see through this? It is transparent as a thinly sliced cucumber.
-230 - Sandy is in throes of rebellious young adult period but, this is to an extreme level. Again, how can he justify saying "you people"? Who does he think he is?
-Communal news-watching/listening. Is this completely gone? Exception of Super Bowl and election night. Any others?
-Does Winchell not fear for his own safety?
-What do we make of Herman's assertion that there are still good men in this country? Is he right? Are the good men (Roosevelt, Ickes, et al.) being swept away in the wave of Lindberghism?
-226 - "This is our country!" Realization that Bess is right, though, and it's always better safe than sorry in these matters, as European Jews learned in the worst possible way
-Symbolism in Alvin's absence?
-241 - "historical fears of a persecuted people" They are historical fears for a reason! Is Bengelsdorf naive or perverse? Both?

Scrabble words

REI -- an erroneous English form for a former Portuguese coin

CWM -- a cirque

SI -- ti

BO -- a pal

Drifting

Do you ever have that sensation of wishing that it was the beginning of the weekend again, when there was so much potential, such a chance of monumental things happening?

I believe in the sand beneath my toes

Do you ever worry that you're not getting anywhere, and then realize that maybe it doesn't matter anyway?

Sometimes you have to laugh, or you’ll cry. You might just have to resign yourself to the fact that fate has you in its grip, and you don’t have much of a choice. Might as well enjoy it, it might be lovely after all. Maybe this is all just a game. Don’t be sad.

Sometimes I email myself stuff from work. Ideas and all. I never do anything with them, and they're almost always bad in hindsight.

Hi Allan:
I have no idea when we will be back - he should be coming out of
customs and all by about 4:15 or 4:30 I imagine, that is if the plane
is on time. Then it's about a 5 hour drive home.

Rice of Viet Nam - www.khoinguyen.com - We are big supplier rice from Viet Our factory packing standard HACCP



these are just thoughts

Alex Trubitsyn to Allan, Alison, Maria

show details Jun 30 (2 days ago)

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Why do people like that one so much?? Is it cause it's thin an everyone had to read it in school????

She'll tell you how I suffer

Today:

-encountered ms. F. in the train station, plans to meet later, news of too many children being birthed by our high-school classmates. It would appear that at least 5 of my classmates of 2004, probably more, have already had children. What is the world coming to? To what is the world coming? snicker

-Henry Miller is an amazing writer. He says what he means, it would appear. I like that. What more can you ask? He's not afraid to be vulgar, and he has no qualms about venting his spleen about any acquaintance, friend, lover, etc. The truth is paramount, although that's only true if you believe that the narrator is perfectly honest. Obviously he's not, but it still makes for a fantastic read.

-In other news, I have a problem with believing almost everything I read. Not so much with Henry Miller, because you know from the outset that you can't trust him, but with other things, like political arguments, or most any New Yorker piece. What do we know apart from what we read? It seems like at least half the things I know I learned from reading them, therefore I believe most of what I read, because it's a way to learn things.

-Make no mistake about it, though, Miller's Tropic of Cancer is quite dirty, unapologetically so. It's about Paris, and it's full of whores, pricks, chancres, and piss. When you read it, you feel as though you have to hide what you're reading from your neighbors on the train or bus, for fear that they might catch a glimpse of a particularly filthy passage and report you to the politeness police, or the ministry of truth.

-From the Boss: Your eyes get itchy in the wee, wee hours

Sun's just a red ball risin' over them refinery towers
Radio's jammed up with gospel stations
Lost souls callin' long distance salvation
Hey, mister deejay, won'tcha hear my last prayer?
Hey, ho, rock'n'roll, deliver me from nowhere

Post-structuralism in roasted potatoes

Christopher Ricks told me:

The biggest difference between poetry

and prose is that the line endings

matter

in poetry.