In most elevators, the Panic button actually routes your call to any other nearby elevator that happens to have pressed the button at the same time. In older elevators it just rings the Gift Registry at Pottery Barn.

Aperture, f-stop, ISO, focal point

So every day I walk through Union Station on the way home.  You know how it is after you move to a new place and your commute first begins to take hold in memory.  The point at which you begin to recognize all the little shortcuts, cutting through a back alley here, rounding the corner on a sidewalk there.  The point at which you realize you could do it blindfolded.  Maybe you realize that every moment of it is framed at a specific angle. You always see certain buildings from a specific vantage (or two, if you count the return).  And you forget that it wasn’t always like that.  You forget that you once got confused trying to find the right exit at your metro stop.  You forget that you once had to read the street signs to make sure you were walking in the right direction.  Stuff like that.

So this past evening, I was walking under the vaulted arches that run along the outside of Union Station.  When I reached the far edge, I felt a flash of memory that I couldn’t quite place, as though it were on the tip of my brain.  Supposedly this is presque vu, but I don’t know anyone who has ever called it that, and I am not here to make presumptions.  So I stood, for just a second, as if waiting for something to happen.

Then it came to me.  How on a late November evening 5 years ago, a scrawny, mismatched 20 year old kid had stood under that arch with a tripod and a used 35mm Nikon, taking pictures of the asphalt, trying his best to turn it into art.  He had been to Union Station only once or twice before, though never with a camera in his hand, nor with any intention of standing around in the dark.  He was on his way to or from school.

He had enrolled in Photo I with full intentions of learning everything he could about photography.  It didn’t matter that 35mm was on its way out, nor that many of the skills he learned in the class would soon become obsolete.  He wanted to make Art, and he felt that all he needed was an opportunity.  He didn’t have many friends, so most of his photos involved landscapes or “artfully” arranged photos of himself, double exposures attempting to obscure his face into landscapes.  Long exposure night shots of him waving his arms and spinning around, wearing the same baggy fleece and ratty sneakers he wore every day.  Photos of photos of himself, taken digitally and set as wallpaper on computer screens, then photos of that.  Photos of himself lying flat on the road just inside the reflection of a convex mirror at a construction site.  Photos of himself in mid-motion, covered in newspaper and only an inch or two from slamming his head into a desk.  He was his best, and for the most part only, subject.

It had recently stopped raining on that unseasonably warm November night.  Union Station was deserted.  The kid stood there in the mist, watching the light from street lamps and station windows reflect and refract on the slickened asphalt.  He had his tripod set up, and he was taking long exposures of the shadows and reflections.  Droplets of mist condensed on the lens, obscuring the final product in a way that didn’t bother him at all.  Perhaps he knew the photos themselves were not going to last; maybe he knew they would be lost under a pile of garbage when he moved out of his apartment, or worse, perhaps still existing in one of the random boxes of “college mementos” that later took up residence at his parents’ house.

And it struck me that that kid had seen Union Station much differently than I do.  He had wanted to make art out of it, like he had wanted to make art out of everything, though he most certainly lacked the skills and the patience.  And here I was, walking past this kid’s ghost without even acknowledging its presence, without even looking around to ask myself if what I saw could still be art.

Because I don’t really care about art.  Is it still possible to care about things like that?  I never really cared about it much in the first place.  It was just another hat to try on, another college kid’s attempt at fabricating and adhering to an identity.  Ultimately, the only thing I got out of it came from standing under that arch at that exact moment: a brief glimpse of how change is embedded into life at the deepest level.

I was hesitant to put in this last bit, because unfortunately it sounds like anyone writing about “mystical” experience, the description of which inevitably falls short and sounds banal.  Most of my life has been spent trying to avoid cliche, which makes it even worse when something that feels important comes out that way.  As a matter of fact, I’ve already forgotten exactly what it felt like, and all I can remember now is the fact that it was important.  I wish I could ask that kid what he thinks of it.

Hypochondriac's "Should I Be Freaking Out" Test, featuring Google

Everyone gets sick from time to time, and often times nothing can be done to prevent it.  Yet there are those us who know that the only way to avoid the Big One is to maintain hyper-vigilance against illness of any kind.  The world deems you a “hypochondriac”, but you know better.  You take pride knowing that you are on the vanguard in the war against mystery ailments, the kinds of illnesses that medical science is yet unable to pinpoint with its crude tools and close-minded practitioners.  So when, despite all your precautions, you start to feel sick, how do you know whether or not you should be freaking out?  For this purpose I have invented this handy test.

Start by figuring out your symptoms.  Try to determine the most extreme wording for these symptoms, because otherwise you’ll find a fair amount of results telling you not to worry.  If you have a slight headache, search for “migraine”.  If you’ve been sitting at a computer all day, and at the end of the day you stood up quickly and all the blood rushed to places at once and you felt a bit dizzy, that’s “vertigo”. 

Now do a google search that includes all of these symptoms.  Don’t worry if your symptoms occurred at different times, or even on different days.  Rest assured that they all have a single mysterious, deadly, underlying cause. 

Now, examine the results of your google search.  Look primarily for results from major free-medical-reference sites like WrongDiagnosis and MedHelp, or from message boards specializing in mystery ailments and/or autoimmune disorders, like diabetes or MS.  Read all of the message board posts in full, making sure to ignore the parts detailing symptoms that you don’t have. 

Should you be freaking out yet?  The answer is Yes, of course you should be.  But the real question is, *how much* should you be freaking out?  The one thing that all of these sites have in common is that every symptom is related in some way to cancer.  Cancer of all types, shapes, sizes and mortality rates.  Got a cold?  That’s not a cold, that’s swollen lymph nodes, and you know what that means! 

So what you need to determine is the actual probability of you having cancer as opposed to some other, potentially non-terminal illness.  Just to make sure that your bases are covered, assume that you have both.  But for a deeper, more factually correct analysis, look at the results listings for possible illnesses that match your symptoms.  How far down the list is Cancer?  If it’s at the bottom of the list, that means the likelihood of you having it is relatively low.  You should probably focus on finding results that match a different terminal illness.

But what if it is higher on the list?  Uh oh.  How can you determine what level of worry you should be experiencing?  We can measure that using a technique that I have patented called the HAPE Scale.  The HAPE Scale involves answering one simple question: is the Cancer listing ranked above or below the listing for High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema? 

High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema is a life-threatening condition where capillaries burst due to lack of oxygen. It can occur at altitudes above 13,000 feet, though it primarily occurs at much higher altitudes, such as that of Mount Everest.  Look around you.  If you can verify that you are not currently on Mount Everest, then your risk of contracting HAPE is relatively low.  If the listing for “Cancer” is ranked less likely than HAPE, you may in fact be in the clear.  Let out a sigh of relief.  But don’t sigh too loudly, because that sounds an awful lot like wheezing, which is a symptom of pneumonia.

But what if the unthinkable happens, and Cancer is at the top of the list?  Go to a doctor immediately.  Actually, don’t go to a doctor, go to the emergency room, because This Is An Emergency.  If you are a true “hypochondriac”, you have been to the ER before, and they will probably recognize you.  Unfortunately, with the medical system being what it is, you are likely to have to wait for quite a while before being seen by a doctor.  You can shorten this by screaming “I HAVE CANCER!” at the top of your lungs every couple of minutes as you sit in the waiting room. 

By the time you are seen by the doctor, they will probably have heard you from the hallway, so they will be psychologically primed in such a way that they are less likely to dismiss you off the bat.  When you do manage to be seen by a doctor, make sure you yell once more “I HAVE CANCER!” directly into his or her face, just so they can know that you are serious about your well-being.  This is the best way to achieve results.

If the doctor tells you that don’t have cancer after all, take it as a good sign.  After all, no one said that doctors were wrong all the time…just most of the time.  And if they tell you not to spend all your time reading about diseases on the Internet, just tell them that this test was not meant to determine whether you were sick, but merely to determine how worried you should be about getting sick.  Now that you’ve been to the doctor, you can stop worrying for a few days.  So relax, take a deep breath, and hold it while you sprint to your car.  These hospitals are absolutely filled with germs.

My roommate was playing some hip hop yesterday, and I couldn’t help but ask who was responsible for those excellent sounds. I’d never heard of the guy, though apparently “he’s been around for like, 20 years”. Yet the name stuck with me in a way that I couldn’t quite articulate, like something very important just on the edge of understanding, an incantation on shamans’ breath… then, Wikipedia:

“In August, Tech N9ne performed at the tenth annual Gathering of the Juggalos after appearing at two prior Gatherings.”

Checkmate.

I used to think that the loss of childhood occurred the first time that someone read one of those Getting Things Done books.  But now I realize that in fact, mine occurred the day that I first thought to myself, “Man, shoehorns are awesome.”

For some reason my coworkers wouldn't leave me alone until I answered this question

How living Chinese people can you name, just off the top of your head?

Lessons learned from tonight's dinner

• Parsnips are not tasty.
• Everything is tasty when deep fried.
• Do not use the food processor when it is missing that part of the lid that pushes food down into the blades; that causes problems.