moocow in the city

one cow. many pastures.

2006

open pasture

Desert Sands

moocowinthecity No Comments

Subject: Desert Sands

Date: Wednesday 2/1/06 4:48:00 AM

Tags: travels: israel,travels: middle east,true life: general,writings: poetry

Desert Sands

Buffalo, New York

And as the darkness envelopes this industrial city and my clock reads 4:15 in the morning and the moon is in the sky and I sit above my school books hoping that these symbols and sounds from days of old/languages of two warring cultures who refuse to see how they’re so similar will one day fully make sense to me/open for me a new gateway of the mind:the soul/an understanding of humanity that surpasses all that I already know.

I hear another voice calling for me from the Valley of the Kings and echoing through the hills of Syria and brushing over the Sea of Salt saying “come to me…come to me…” and as I hear the voices of thousands of years of history I feel a pull to the East and I wonder how long it will take me to be able to finally grow wings of steel and to fly to a world that I’ve only been able to see in my dreams and in meditation…and I wonder if I’ll be ready to see all that I know I’m supposed to see when the time is ready because even if I don’t know if I’m quite there yet…I can tell by this feeling in my heart that it’s almost time…time to answer the call that I’ve been hearing all these years.

To hear the cry of the Imam from high towers and to stand on the desert sands where my people built the pyramids and to finally leave these borders of what I’m told is the greatest country in the world in the ancient search to find self/where I leave the communities that each reject me because of the other and finally see for myself the people of the world/to finally hear others speak in foreign tongues that will no longer be foreign to me.

And I remind myself as I stand frustrated here with two communities…one which I was born in and one which through the hand of God I was placed in/in this incredible dichotomy for in one community I find I shout as I beat my chest with a fist and I scream “ANI YOHODI!, ANI YOHODI!” and the other in which I have found the beauty of men who will have nothing to do with me because I don’t fit into the communities mental mode/the requirements that I’m told I have to have – forever a rolling stone looking for more than just the next fuck and refusing to lower my standards because I have seen what’s out there and I know the difference between lust and love.

This sound of silence so deafening and I remind myself that everything takes time and “life is what happens when you’re making other plans…” and my heart aches to finally talk to someone who might get it/me…because after twenty-one years I’m so sure of who I am and as I know myself more and more everyday I become aware of the boy I was and the man I’ve become/I’ve become more afraid of what this unknown future will bring because I live each day like it’s my last and I kiss as each time is my first and I begin to wonder if that’s why I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight…because maybe I won’t wake up and I’ll miss the glorious sunrise and the magic sunset that makes life worth living as dawn with her rose red finger tips paints another glorious sunrise…just for me…what a travesty if I weren’t able to complete my studies so I can tuck that key away in my back pocket so I can use it to unlock the doors that await for me when I complete this phase of my life/this section of the puzzle.

And I know I’ll find my place among the stars/can you number them? I’ve had six million souls shining down on me making sure that my feet don’t stray from this path, lit by heavens flame since the day I entered this stage of my life and I hear the voice saying once again “come East young man and let the adventure begin…come East and meet new peoples who live like you wish to live, who think like you think” and I respond “soon…but not yet…I’ll be there soon…please wait for me…please…wait for me…”

To touch the sand with my feet and to taste the olives picked by my own hands and to be able to respond when I hear Salam Aliekum or Shalom Aleichem or if I know no words to respond with then I will respond with the universal feeling of love…as snow continues to fall outside of my window and I keep reading…and working myself to the bone so I can grow wings of steel…wait for me…please wait.

open pasture

Desert Sands

moocowinthecity No Comments

Subject: Desert Sands

Date: Wednesday 2/1/06 4:48:00 AM

Tags: travels: israel,travels: middle east,true life: general,writings: poetry

Desert Sands

Buffalo, New York

And as the darkness envelopes this industrial city and my clock reads 4:15 in the morning and the moon is in the sky and I sit above my school books hoping that these symbols and sounds from days of old/languages of two warring cultures who refuse to see how they’re so similar will one day fully make sense to me/open for me a new gateway of the mind:the soul/an understanding of humanity that surpasses all that I already know.

I hear another voice calling for me from the Valley of the Kings and echoing through the hills of Syria and brushing over the Sea of Salt saying “come to me…come to me…” and as I hear the voices of thousands of years of history I feel a pull to the East and I wonder how long it will take me to be able to finally grow wings of steel and to fly to a world that I’ve only been able to see in my dreams and in meditation…and I wonder if I’ll be ready to see all that I know I’m supposed to see when the time is ready because even if I don’t know if I’m quite there yet…I can tell by this feeling in my heart that it’s almost time…time to answer the call that I’ve been hearing all these years.

To hear the cry of the Imam from high towers and to stand on the desert sands where my people built the pyramids and to finally leave these borders of what I’m told is the greatest country in the world in the ancient search to find self/where I leave the communities that each reject me because of the other and finally see for myself the people of the world/to finally hear others speak in foreign tongues that will no longer be foreign to me.

And I remind myself as I stand frustrated here with two communities…one which I was born in and one which through the hand of God I was placed in/in this incredible dichotomy for in one community I find I shout as I beat my chest with a fist and I scream “ANI YOHODI!, ANI YOHODI!” and the other in which I have found the beauty of men who will have nothing to do with me because I don’t fit into the communities mental mode/the requirements that I’m told I have to have – forever a rolling stone looking for more than just the next fuck and refusing to lower my standards because I have seen what’s out there and I know the difference between lust and love.

This sound of silence so deafening and I remind myself that everything takes time and “life is what happens when you’re making other plans…” and my heart aches to finally talk to someone who might get it/me…because after twenty-one years I’m so sure of who I am and as I know myself more and more everyday I become aware of the boy I was and the man I’ve become/I’ve become more afraid of what this unknown future will bring because I live each day like it’s my last and I kiss as each time is my first and I begin to wonder if that’s why I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight…because maybe I won’t wake up and I’ll miss the glorious sunrise and the magic sunset that makes life worth living as dawn with her rose red finger tips paints another glorious sunrise…just for me…what a travesty if I weren’t able to complete my studies so I can tuck that key away in my back pocket so I can use it to unlock the doors that await for me when I complete this phase of my life/this section of the puzzle.

And I know I’ll find my place among the stars/can you number them? I’ve had six million souls shining down on me making sure that my feet don’t stray from this path, lit by heavens flame since the day I entered this stage of my life and I hear the voice saying once again “come East young man and let the adventure begin…come East and meet new peoples who live like you wish to live, who think like you think” and I respond “soon…but not yet…I’ll be there soon…please wait for me…please…wait for me…”

To touch the sand with my feet and to taste the olives picked by my own hands and to be able to respond when I hear Salam Aliekum or Shalom Aleichem or if I know no words to respond with then I will respond with the universal feeling of love…as snow continues to fall outside of my window and I keep reading…and working myself to the bone so I can grow wings of steel…wait for me…please wait.

open pasture

haha my Mom rules

moocowinthecity No Comments

Subject: haha my Mom rules

Date: Monday 1/9/06 10:28:00 PM

Tags: blog: tag me, blog: edit me

I have a rubber ducky theme in my bathroom in my apartment back in Buffalo…so my Mom bought me this:

And I she picked up some other rubber duckys from Bed Bath & Beyond including one REALLY big rubber ducky…expect photos when I get back to Buffalo =D

~ me

Oh…do I have a post to make later on tonight/tomorrow about what’s going on in the city…

open pasture

haha my Mom rules

moocowinthecity No Comments

Subject: haha my Mom rules

Date: Monday 1/9/06 10:28:00 PM

Tags: blog: tag me, blog: edit me

I have a rubber ducky theme in my bathroom in my apartment back in Buffalo…so my Mom bought me this:

And I she picked up some other rubber duckys from Bed Bath & Beyond including one REALLY big rubber ducky…expect photos when I get back to Buffalo =D

~ me

Oh…do I have a post to make later on tonight/tomorrow about what’s going on in the city…

open pasture

January 4, 2005…a day that will live in…well, something or other

moocowinthecity No Comments

Subject: January 4, 2005…a day that will live in…well, something or other

Date: Thursday 1/5/06 11:49:00 PM

Mood: sleepy

Tags: blog: tag me, blog: edit me

“Matt, the apartments burned out, Uncle Al is in the E.R. and Howard’s missing…”

And I’ll admit this…I laughed, and I laughed hard.

I knew it was inappropriate for the situation…that is, if you didn’t know the characters.

Uncle Al is interesting, Howard is more interesting. Howard is a Slightly Mentally Retarded, Paranoid Schizophrenic cousin who (a long, long time ago) killed his Mother and served time in Sing Sing (a Maximum Security Prison); Uncle Al is my great uncle, Howard is his son which makes him My Cousin of some separation.

Now, unleashing a Mentally Retarded Paranoid Schizophrenic on New York is not a good thing on any given day, not because people will be in any more danger than they usually are, just that they tend to blend in so well with everyone else that it’s hard to find them. That said, as my Father and I drove to Brooklyn we had three missions:

1: Find Uncle Al and

2: Locate Howard

3: Damage Control if Needed

This is probably where I should explain why I’m being brought along. Though my father will never admit that he needs my assistance, I’ve worked in medical settings almost exclusively since I was 13 (when I volunteered at a Nursing Home); all of my Jobs (that were real jobs) were high stress one’s in Medical Centers whether as support staff (Secretary, Clerk, Network Technician) or as employee (Pharmacy Technician) or as a researcher (Queens College Psychological Research Group) so “I speak medical words good” and I can usually find my way around Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists, EMTs, etc and talk to them in a way that’s efficacious and informative – I know the questions to ask and I know the lingo and really, when you can see a guy get shot and killed in front of your car and not hesitate or freak out, well…you’re good in a situation like this.

So we get to the hospital and the first thing I do is take us over to the E.R. and in to the nurses station and I find the nurse and by stroke of luck find the attending doctor (Dr. David Ng, M.D.) where I whip out my folder with Medical Proxy and get a run down on his stats and ask the doctor what happened (my Dad at this point was mostly quiet and just let me do the talking).

The Doctor explained to me that He and Howard were in an apartment fire (they live in Co-Op City) and that he not only suffered smoke inhalation, but the he also had a heart attack – which Uncle Al didn’t feel – during the event so he was going to need to be brought to CCU (Cardiac Care Unit) for observation and assistance.

I asked why he was restrained and he said Uncle Al “was slightly belligerent and using colorful words” and my response was “that’s a nice way to put it…sedate him.”

Uncle Al at this point is now as high as a kite.

So once we knew where Uncle Al was new that there was no way in hell he was feeling anything other than happy it was now time to find Howard which turned out to be much easier than either Dad or I thought it would be.

When we were first thinking of how we could find Howard we tossed a few options back and forth “Marines?…no that’s if you need it destroyed in 24 hours or less, etc…” but as it turned out a Nurse came up to me and said “Are you looking for Howard” and I said “Yes” so she directed me to his social worker (it turns out he was going for Treatment at Jacobi since 1997) so I found his social worker with my Dad and we got her into a conference room and she met with us for about an hour so we could fill in some information and I was taking notes rapidly (she at one point stopped what she was saying and went “you write fast” which I thought was interesting because it’s my general impression that I as most other New Yorkers do, do everything fast…well, all but one thing but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss golf). So Dad and I found out how Howard was (mentally) and then the Social Worker and I talked about some other related things (“what tests did you run,” “what was his intonation,” etc.). So after an hour I was finally like “Okay, that’s all good and well…but where IS he!?”

Turns out he’s now in a Psychiatric Hospital in Manhattan (they opted against sending him to the Red Cross…good call, if I do say so myself considering they had to take him to the Psychiatric Hospital in Handcuffs).

Okay…so Uncle Al was in the E.R. harassing The Doctors, Howard was in Manhattan harassing The Doctors…really, things seemed to be quite normal at this point; so Dad and I head back to the first E.R. (there are Multiple E.R.’s at Jacobi) and they’re in the process of bringing Uncle Al to CCU so we go up with him and start giving medical history and outlining the story for his new medical team.

It was at this point that the two doctors leave, a Nurse and a CNA enter, my Father leaves and it’s just Me, Uncle Al, The Nurse & the CNA and I’m talking on the phone to my Mom and I hang up; take another call from a friend and then when I’m done with that the Nurse goes to me “Doctor…” and I was like “excuse me” and she’s like “you are the doctor, right?” and I’m like “Excuse me” – I mean, I get that the Doctor on Call can come in wearing Pajamas if he wants, but really. She then goes “Oh…you sounded like a doctor” and the CNA goes “…if you’re not a doctor what do you do!?” (clearly I was lying about not being a doctor…um, yeah…that makes sense) so I was like “I’m a Communication Scientist at UB” because I was NOT listing everything I do/have done and/or study so I briefly explained to them what people who study communication theory and informatics do at which point Uncle Al decided to take a break from cloud nine and go “What a family I have” which was nice to hear…because after hearing word from my Grandmother today he has no idea that we were there with him, which is fine I’d rather he be happy, high and not belligerent to the medical staff who are supposed to help him.

So about five hours later we leave Uncle Al and head home. We’ll find out more about the situation as it develops, including the cause of the fire which is currently under investigation by the Arson Investigation Team.

Family’s are Fun!

=D

open pasture

January 4, 2005…a day that will live in…well, something or other

moocowinthecity No Comments

Subject: January 4, 2005…a day that will live in…well, something or other

Date: Thursday 1/5/06 11:49:00 PM

Mood: sleepy

Tags: blog: tag me, blog: edit me

“Matt, the apartments burned out, Uncle Al is in the E.R. and Howard’s missing…”

And I’ll admit this…I laughed, and I laughed hard.

I knew it was inappropriate for the situation…that is, if you didn’t know the characters.

Uncle Al is interesting, Howard is more interesting. Howard is a Slightly Mentally Retarded, Paranoid Schizophrenic cousin who (a long, long time ago) killed his Mother and served time in Sing Sing (a Maximum Security Prison); Uncle Al is my great uncle, Howard is his son which makes him My Cousin of some separation.

Now, unleashing a Mentally Retarded Paranoid Schizophrenic on New York is not a good thing on any given day, not because people will be in any more danger than they usually are, just that they tend to blend in so well with everyone else that it’s hard to find them. That said, as my Father and I drove to Brooklyn we had three missions:

1: Find Uncle Al and

2: Locate Howard

3: Damage Control if Needed

This is probably where I should explain why I’m being brought along. Though my father will never admit that he needs my assistance, I’ve worked in medical settings almost exclusively since I was 13 (when I volunteered at a Nursing Home); all of my Jobs (that were real jobs) were high stress one’s in Medical Centers whether as support staff (Secretary, Clerk, Network Technician) or as employee (Pharmacy Technician) or as a researcher (Queens College Psychological Research Group) so “I speak medical words good” and I can usually find my way around Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists, EMTs, etc and talk to them in a way that’s efficacious and informative – I know the questions to ask and I know the lingo and really, when you can see a guy get shot and killed in front of your car and not hesitate or freak out, well…you’re good in a situation like this.

So we get to the hospital and the first thing I do is take us over to the E.R. and in to the nurses station and I find the nurse and by stroke of luck find the attending doctor (Dr. David Ng, M.D.) where I whip out my folder with Medical Proxy and get a run down on his stats and ask the doctor what happened (my Dad at this point was mostly quiet and just let me do the talking).

The Doctor explained to me that He and Howard were in an apartment fire (they live in Co-Op City) and that he not only suffered smoke inhalation, but the he also had a heart attack – which Uncle Al didn’t feel – during the event so he was going to need to be brought to CCU (Cardiac Care Unit) for observation and assistance.

I asked why he was restrained and he said Uncle Al “was slightly belligerent and using colorful words” and my response was “that’s a nice way to put it…sedate him.”

Uncle Al at this point is now as high as a kite.

So once we knew where Uncle Al was new that there was no way in hell he was feeling anything other than happy it was now time to find Howard which turned out to be much easier than either Dad or I thought it would be.

When we were first thinking of how we could find Howard we tossed a few options back and forth “Marines?…no that’s if you need it destroyed in 24 hours or less, etc…” but as it turned out a Nurse came up to me and said “Are you looking for Howard” and I said “Yes” so she directed me to his social worker (it turns out he was going for Treatment at Jacobi since 1997) so I found his social worker with my Dad and we got her into a conference room and she met with us for about an hour so we could fill in some information and I was taking notes rapidly (she at one point stopped what she was saying and went “you write fast” which I thought was interesting because it’s my general impression that I as most other New Yorkers do, do everything fast…well, all but one thing but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss golf). So Dad and I found out how Howard was (mentally) and then the Social Worker and I talked about some other related things (“what tests did you run,” “what was his intonation,” etc.). So after an hour I was finally like “Okay, that’s all good and well…but where IS he!?”

Turns out he’s now in a Psychiatric Hospital in Manhattan (they opted against sending him to the Red Cross…good call, if I do say so myself considering they had to take him to the Psychiatric Hospital in Handcuffs).

Okay…so Uncle Al was in the E.R. harassing The Doctors, Howard was in Manhattan harassing The Doctors…really, things seemed to be quite normal at this point; so Dad and I head back to the first E.R. (there are Multiple E.R.’s at Jacobi) and they’re in the process of bringing Uncle Al to CCU so we go up with him and start giving medical history and outlining the story for his new medical team.

It was at this point that the two doctors leave, a Nurse and a CNA enter, my Father leaves and it’s just Me, Uncle Al, The Nurse & the CNA and I’m talking on the phone to my Mom and I hang up; take another call from a friend and then when I’m done with that the Nurse goes to me “Doctor…” and I was like “excuse me” and she’s like “you are the doctor, right?” and I’m like “Excuse me” – I mean, I get that the Doctor on Call can come in wearing Pajamas if he wants, but really. She then goes “Oh…you sounded like a doctor” and the CNA goes “…if you’re not a doctor what do you do!?” (clearly I was lying about not being a doctor…um, yeah…that makes sense) so I was like “I’m a Communication Scientist at UB” because I was NOT listing everything I do/have done and/or study so I briefly explained to them what people who study communication theory and informatics do at which point Uncle Al decided to take a break from cloud nine and go “What a family I have” which was nice to hear…because after hearing word from my Grandmother today he has no idea that we were there with him, which is fine I’d rather he be happy, high and not belligerent to the medical staff who are supposed to help him.

So about five hours later we leave Uncle Al and head home. We’ll find out more about the situation as it develops, including the cause of the fire which is currently under investigation by the Arson Investigation Team.

Family’s are Fun!

=D

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