The Madding Crowd

Getting desperate - looking for sources!

2009-11-02T22:42:32Z

I know no one reads my LJ anymore (a pretty direct consequence of not writing anymore), but if anyone does see this: does anyone out there know someone who met his/her S.O. through online gaming? Or anyone who has a strong opinion on the subject? I'm writing an article and need to interview as many people as I can find, so any suggestions will be met with thanks and adoration.

My eternal love for Sam Beam

2009-08-22T18:48:03Z

I don't care that he looks like an old man. I don't care that until I just Wikipedia'd him to check, I thought he was an old man (though I do feel better now.) There's something painfully sexy about the way Sam Beam sings "We were born to fuck each other one way or another" in the live version of "Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)". That is all.

Little summer thoughts

2009-06-23T05:00:25Z

I went on a bike ride today for half an hour and saw a firefly and it made me feel good. I ate a bunch of Chinese food for dinner and it made me feel less good.

I'm not really missing Steve. It's only been a few days, but that's usually all it takes. I'm kind of just doing okay. He called today and I was so surprised, having completely not realized that we hadn't spoken yet. That might be the first time that ever happened. But I don't feel sad about this or worry about this - it actually just feels great to love him and look forward to seeing him and to be totally okay.

My commute to my interview tomorrow will take about an hour and a half, most likely. Part of that makes me go "Ahh, so long!" because it's all the way on Wall Street (almost) and if I get this job, I'll be spending at least 9-10 hours a week just commuting, probably. But I'm also really excited because it's summer (!) and I should be reading and that would guarantee that I do. I picked out Rant by Chuck Palahniuk as my next book, randomly, but it's about time I read something by him so I don't mind.

I was freaking out about my outfit for tomorrow so tried everything on just to realize that my blouse is dirty and wrinkled. Glad I checked tonight.

I don't really want this internship, in the sense that I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy doing the actual work. And I don't much like jobs in the first place. But I so desperately want this internship because I really, really need something productive to do. Next summer, study abroad, damn it!

I'm determined to take so much advantage of the city this summer. I will go to Shakespeare in the Park (and it's Twelfth Night! I must!). I will see Waiting for Godot and whatever art exhibits are in town and whatever concerts are going on and museum hop with Sam and relive that wonderful summer after senior year when I just saw so many people and had so many adventures and everything was great.

Oh, haven't done this in a while

2009-05-06T05:26:16Z

Something feels off. Maybe it's just the mood I'm in, or maybe it's everything but I keep busy enough not to notice. All I know is that, right now, I am weighed down by the belief that there's something I'm supposed to be doing, or could be doing, and I'm not. I try to figure out whether or not I'm happy, but I'm also beginning to believe that happiness is the sort of thing you can't begin to judge until it's passed you by, one of those things you look back on and assume you had. Or maybe that's what you think when you're not happy.

Not that I'm unhappy. Not that happiness is all that matters. But I guess I just don't feel like I'm really being fulfilled anymore (when did I feel that way? Hmm...), and that worries me, as it's always worried me. It could be an end of the year thing, a "sophomore slump" thing, a "time is passing too quickly and I'm scared to death" thing. I've always been terrified of change, of what lies beyond, and the older I get the faster I move away from everything, the more I speed toward an uncertain future. I know enough now to know I'll be okay. There will be rough patches (this summer's potential isolation and fruitlessness, no longer living in a dorm come fall, JR in the winter) that stress me out, that leave me distressed and dismayed, and they too will crawl by. There will be pure, wonderful days that pass too quickly, as they always have.

I guess it boils down to dreams and expectations, loneliness and the fear of loss. What else is new?

But I should probably start writing again. At least trying to make some sense and order of my head. Let's start with a list:

1. I miss New York. Despite my incurable fear of loneliness, I can walk around it alone and feel like I'm in the right place at the right time in a way I can't explain. I still feel out of place, but in a belonging way. And I'm glad I'll be home for the summer, despite all my knowledge that I'll be miserable and I'll fight with mom and Jeff will disappoint and I'll have nothing to do all day and I'll go nuts and I'll miss Steve too much and I'll wonder what happened to all the friends I used to spend my summers with. In other words, I'm a fool.

2. As usual, I don't know what to do about NBN. I pride myself on not having burnt out yet, and I know I'll get a break during the summer and JR, and that I'll hate being uninvolved. But especially after Tom leaves, and with all the frustration I've had with the site, I'm just not sure how much longer I want to last, or what I want to do next.

3. I'm a little nervous about how little my career aspirations and the realities of the profession have in common. I have this sinking feeling that I won't really turn out to be a journalist after all, and I'm not sure I can contemplate the possibility of having no idea what to do with the rest of my life.

4. I'm running out of people I really value having in my life. And the ones that I have valued have left or are leaving.

5. Am I really supposed to be with Steve? And what am I actually asking myself when I repeat that question?

6. I hate time alone. It will probably do me some good.

7. I would really, really love to spend a good deal of time with old friends. Meeting up with high school friends is always this odd experience of recognizing how much time has passed, how many things have changed, and reconciling whatever new person I've become with the one they used to know. And there's always this little shuffling act, trying to remember how I acted with them and deciding which role to play now, and whether or not it's really a role. It's uncomfortable. But it brings me back to a sense of self that's been missing for years, reminds me of a me who embarasses me a little but who, in general, feels a lot more natural than I could ever have suspected.

8. I think one of the reasons I love Tom so much is that I feel timeless around him. As I just wrote to him in an e-mail: "The person I am around you is sort of the person I was in high school, sort of the person I am right now, sort of the person I'll be in ten years. You bring out the "me" in me, whatever it is, in a way that's purer and truer than when I am with almost anyone else. You make me feel like you've always known me, and not the uglier, real version I used to be, but the me that exists when I blur away the realities and focus on the version I always wished would be true. It's why, barring all sorts of psychotraumas, I can actually see us being friends for an uncomfortably long time. Because whoever I'm going to be, it's like she already exists around you."

9. It's sort of the way I used to feel around Lucy, which is a shame, because in retrospect my entire relationship with her feels extremely dated, the product of who we were in a specific time and place, not timeless at all. Which leaves me in the odd position of missing our friendship, resenting her, and recognizing that there's nothing to feel strongly about one way or another.

10. I'm probably going to end up a teacher, aren't I?

Thoughts of home(s)

2008-10-18T17:08:33Z

Andrea, I blame you.

I started writing a response to your post about not feeling attached to Lawrenceville anymore, but it set off my own run of thoughts, so here goes:

I got into a conversation with an old friend recently about Lawrenceville, and what it was like when we were there. And I couldn't help but be surprised by how fiercely attached she still felt to the memory of it. It's been a while since I've really sat down and thought about it. Oh, it comes into my thoughts fairly often, and I always love telling stories about my time there, but so often it's more analytical than guttural. I think, "Well, here's how my years there affected me," and less, "Hey, what were those years, anyway?"

In a way, though, we both agreed that we'd never been happier than we were when we were there. I feel foolish using the word "happy" at all, since I'm not sure what I mean by it. Because I can certainly be honest about my memories, to some extent, and remember how miserable I was so often at Lawrenceville. I always felt inadequate, unprepared, unintelligent, untalented. I looked around at almost every single one of my classmates and imagined for them brighter futures than I did for myself, greater successes and more meaningful experiences. I was rejected from the things I pursued more often than I was accepted, failed more than succeeded, went to bed at night frustrated more often than content.

And yet. Though there were the Saturday nights when nothing happened, that left me angry and frustrated and terribly lonely, there were far more days of hilarious escapades in large groups of friends, one-on-one conversations until 4 in the morning where I felt a mysterious, overwhelming connection to the people who are now mostly strangers. Some of my Lawrenceville friends will likely be friends for life, though the times apart will grow longer and longer, and the things we share will quickly diminish. Still, we'll always have the connection of our pasts, however much or little value we place on it in various parts of our lives. We will share not just the memories, but the lingering affects, the untraceable but poignant lasting effects of having known such people in such a place at such a time.

I entered Northwestern aware that it would never be my home. Everyone said, "give it time," but frankly, it had nothing to do with that. Home is the place you grow up, and I'd already done that some place else. Northwestern is too big, too ever-changing, too full of people and programs and places I'll never really know. I might not have been on the Science Olympiad at Lawrenceville, but I knew everyone on it, I'd studied in the classrooms where they met, and I was friendly with the man who ran it. The only time I've been in the engineering building, here, I was trying to find a friend who worked there.

Northwestern is wonderful, and I like it very much, but it'll never be mine the way Lawrenceville was. And when I visit now I feel too old and out of place, but in the same way I do when I go back to my actual "home" - it's my home, but the people have changed and the old storefronts are gone and it's not quite the place it was when I was there. But I can walk down the old paths and streets, enter the stores where I've bought things for years, and feel like I belong. Maybe not within the present of the place - I am neither New Milford resident nor Lawrenceville student - but as a part of its history, as someone who knew the place once upon a time, when it was something so different and yet so very much the same at its core.

Some new reflections

2008-07-31T06:26:21Z

Do you ever feel like the life you're living isn't your own?

Sometimes I feel like life is just a series of moments in which you step back and go, "Huh... so this is where all that time went." I felt that way a lot last year - suddenly in England, suddenly not. Putting cans on a shelf and ringing up customers, spending weekdays in the middle of April not in school. But that whole time, there was this constant haze of cognitive dissonance, like I could only live my life if I didn't give it too much thought, because dissecting it would make the whole illusion crumble.

I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel that violent kind of detachment from my life, an all-encompassing sense of wonder over what the heck I'm doing in such an unfamiliar position. Instead, I have a subtle, funny little feeling of disbelief, akin to a tingling sensation in the back of my mind that I just can't shake. I'm 20 years old, a college student, and I'm currently living in neither dorm nor home, a summer vacation and I chose not to be in NJ. I have a summer job - though admittedly it's very, very part time. But part of why it's easy to accept is that hey, I'm technically living in a house, if not my house, and I'm doing the same sorts of things I'd be doing at home - watching too much TV and playing video games and reading and spending too much time alone. Instead of NYC, I occasionally hop into Chicago - but less often, to be sure. And I miss my dog an awful lot - but even that's a feeling I've gotten used to.

And I'm actually dating someone, which is strange, too, so I try not to give myself too much time to think about it because when I do, I feel like I'm rehearsing as an understudy for a show that'll never go up.

I guess I've been giving a lot of thought, lately, to the fact that I'm not really that connected to myself anymore. I feel just a little bit... empty. But not in a bad way, at least, not in a way that I feel I can actively rebel against. I think I just got a little sick of being self-reflective, but in that gradual disenchantment, I've lost some of that sense of self that I spent so many years building up. But maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Still - I kind of miss being who I was. For better or worse, she was a girl I spent a lot of time getting to know.

Alive, indeed

2008-05-10T20:26:35Z

I don't write anymore because I'm happy. Just thought I should say that.

And all in the name of journalism!

2008-01-15T04:14:40Z

By the end of this week, I will (probably) have met with a (soon to be former) writer at the Chicago Sun-Times and perhaps his Chicago Onion editor son. And I might spend tomorrow hanging out with a homeless person, or at least shadowing a barista. And I'm definitely spending part of tomorrow visiting a ton of bathrooms on south campus.

I don't know about you, but I think my life is pretty cool.

On a potentially-related note, I don't sleep anymore. But I'm not getting that tired, either. What's up with that?

Good riddance 2007, welcome 2008!

2008-01-01T18:48:57Z

So, just like everyone else, I can't hit the end of a year without feeling an overwhelming need to sum up what I've gone through and speculate on what's to come. Here we go, then.

2007:

Fuck you, 2007. Last night at dinner, my mother began the night by asking what we all thought was the best thing about 2007. Before I could stop myself, I replied, "It's over." The rest of the table agreed a little too enthusiastically. I'm not sure what it was about this year that makes me hate it so, because when I think of exactly what I did, only a few things were really all that bad. But overall, it was a year of incredible dissatisfaction. What did I do with it?

You know, I actually just spent about 15 minutes going through my LJ and my written journal and my calendar, trying to sum up what happened, but by the time I got to March I was so bored with myself that I've deleted it all. Suffice it to say, when I go back and read about my life, I'm shocked by how little has changed. I hopped around from country to country in a desperate flee from stability, spent months working at a job I pretty much hated, came to a school where I spent the first month in personal crisis-mode, and basically spent the entire year hating myself, my life, and many of the people around me. But even now, I'm tempted to look back on it and feel like it wasn't all that bad. I don't mean to forget, but remembering is painful and much too aggravating. There's nothing quite like looking back on 12 months of your life and feeling like you got nothing out of them.

Which isn't true in my case, not at all. I think it's safe to say that I learned a lot about myself this year, and was admittedly disappointed by much of it. But that's the thing that's really eating at me, I think. I can't really think of many positive things from this year. Oh, I certainly met some interesting people and made new friends, but frankly, that happens every year. 2007 was a year completely out of the ordinary for me, and I hated nearly every minute of it.

So I guess that's why I'm really, genuinely excited for 2008. I turn 20 this year. I get to vote for the first time this year! Who knows what other "firsts" and "news" I'll encounter? I'm fully ready to be an optimist this once. I think it'll be a good year. And, at the very least, I'll do whatever I can to make it so.

Speaking of which - New Year's resolutions. I have them, but for once I'm keeping them to myself. I'm going to change how I act about certain things, and in theory at least, it'll be for the better.

2008 - bring it on, baby.

The last of these "Who am I?" posts for a while, I think

2007-12-26T01:03:07Z

I'm finally starting to realize that the reason I don't write as much anymore isn't because I have less to say, but that I can't say it anymore. Which, I suppose, amounts to more or less the same thing in the long run.

The big difference between "then" and "now" is that I'm a bit more grown up now. I don't really get angry anymore in the way I used to - or at least, despite getting angry, I no longer feel the need to bitch about it in a public forum. I'm more aware now than before that whatever strong emotion I'm feeling will pass. Instead, duller feelings last for longer periods of time, until they're such a deep-set part of my daily life that I don't pay them any more mind than I do the color of my eyes or the birthmarks on my earlobes. They're just there, and I'm always vaguely aware of them, but I don't usually point them out unless, for just a moment here or there, something small manages to overwhelm me and I finally take notice of what's been brewing beneath.

And I have secrets now, unlike ever before. Despite being a private person, I've always been willing to bare my soul to whomever will listen. It's not quite like that anymore. There are things I won't talk about, emotions I won't acknowledge aloud and dreams I won't describe. A year ago, maybe just a few months ago, someone could read through this and know most of the major things there were to know about me. I don't think that's so true anymore.

I guess I'm becoming someone new, and I'm noticing it more than ever before. All I hope is that the "updated" me is an improvement.

A little more self-reflection

2007-12-17T04:53:35Z

My sadness is not a sadness of fact, but a sadness of possibility. It is not really circumstance that weighs on my soul, but instead the heavy burden of limited possibility. I am plagued, constantly, by this overwhelming sense that the world is my oyster, and a strangling fear that I am throwing it all, all away.

But I'm tired of building my own borders, forcing myself into a self-made prison of previous expectations. I'm tired of defining myself. I'm trapped by my own sense of upright morality and a need for consistency and control, but when has any of that really been what I want? I'm not saying that what I want is to sink into a meaningless cycle of empty rebellion, but... well, I'm not sure what I want. I just know I'm tired of what I have, what I do to myself.

Can that be my New Year's resolution? To take things as they come, go with the flow, and all those other clichés? Or do I really want to doom myself to another resolution that I can't ever keep?

Making up for all that silence

2007-12-15T02:42:49Z

I fear I am a victim of human nature's saddest follies. Everything that I don't have is always better than that which I do; the past was always a little bit sweeter than the present; nothing ever really hurt as much as it hurts now; those things I know are doomed to fail could work out, maybe, right? I always, always imagine that in a different place, at a slightly later time, I could really be happy. And I always reach that time and place and find myself feeling identically crestfallen - more so, maybe, because I had actually almost fooled myself into believing things would be better.

Right now, I really miss Northwestern. And I'll get back there the night of January 6th and feel so miserable, so lonely, because instead of feeling alone in my room in an empty house, I'll feel alone amidst a sea of people and that will sting all the more. I'll wonder why, why, I have selfish wishes that would harm the people I love but make me feel better for just a moment, and I'll wonder why it doesn't bother me more that I have them. I'll imagine that the future could be better, but know that it won't because the winter will be upon me and I'm always more depressed in the winter, and everything will feel cold and barren and it'll reinforce in me all the petty, hateful feelings I've been trying to escape from as long as I can remember.

So right now, I resent where I am and dread where I'm going. And the future seems exceptionally bleak because even the things I look forward to are fleeting and unsatisfactory. I look forward to a beautiful spring where I can meander outdoors and enjoy the fine weather, but always, always in the back of the mind I'm thinking: with whom? With whom will I have all these typically pleasant moments?

And the spring will end and the summer will come - at last! Freedom from responsibility and stress and worries! But already I'm freaking out about it because I have no plans for the upcoming summer, and the idea of ending up at home, again, working at Trader Joe's or something like that fills me with such suffocating fear that I don't know what to do with myself. But what do I do with myself? I'm not really qualified for any internships, but I don't particularly want to spend my summer taking occasional week-long trips here and there almost entirely alone. I don't want to feel totally unproductive, but nor do I want the stress and responsibility of a job. In short, I have absolutely no idea what I want, and there isn't a single thing I can really think of that would make me say, "Ah ha, there, now I'm happy." None of it seems like enough. None of it ever will.

And I'm so tired of feeling this way, feeling like I'm on a path God-knows-where, doing who-knows-what, but just waiting for the day when things are a little bit better. And I'm tired of knowing, always knowing, that they won't be, because there's nothing wrong with what I have now. The problem, as always, is just me. And what do I do about that?

I'm here, somewhere

2007-12-07T02:42:45Z

Once again, I have nothing to really say. But I'm still alive and kicking, still trying, and that's enough for now.

Break down the walls, raise the flags, a revolution is taking place!

2007-10-17T02:35:26Z

You know what's pretty cool? When you're all stressed out and upset about something and being totally irrational, and then life throws you the kind of curveball that takes care of the issue for you, giving you something more legitimate to worry about, or something more tangible to feel, and then you can look back on your former self and go, "Wait... what?"

It happens in an instant, usually, although it may take days to feel the full effects. But suddenly the world actually looks different, suddenly you find yourself full of a resolve and a power you were unaware you were capable of, a level of self-awareness that you had previously thought impossible. For the past few weeks I've felt like my mind has been literally cracking - I've found myself in moments where words could not come to me, where all I could do was stare blankly while my mind quietly hummed to itself, unable to function on anything like a normal level. And what caused all this? Sheer insanity, lunacy, something so dumb and meaningless that all I can do is kind of laugh. And now, finally, I feel like the cracks are starting to heal, that those places where endless mud was soaking through are beginning to clean themselves, throw out the dirt, reaffirm themselves in light of recent onslaught.

It's still not perfect. The cracks are healing, not healed. But my entire perception has shifted so radically in so short a period of time that it will take a little while for all the parts of me to catch up. But as I walked through campus in a daze last night, drenched from head to toe in rain, quietly passing through pitch-black, abandoned little enclaves, I had what could only be described as a series of epiphanies. Some hit me with so much force that I actually stopped in my tracks, overpowered by the realization that I had been so blind, so simply stupid! And other moments left me with only an ever-increasing number of questions, a sort of never-ending stream of, "Okay, but now what?"

I'm not saying that I got any of the answers. But I realized that I'd been letting myself wander down a path of mental self-destruction, and I don't deserve that. I'd been letting life control me instead of controlling my life. And if you can't practice self-control and self-discipline, then life becomes a pathetic, perverted version of childhood, a series of events that you let guide you, instead of guiding them, and that is nothing but cowardice and weakness, the smallest of small. I know, I know, it's easier said than done. But fuck - if you don't have that, you don't have anything at all.

"The need to destroy things/ Creeps up on me every time"

2007-10-08T03:24:05Z

I get the feeling that, if I don't watch myself, I may be on the verge of doing something stupid.

I'm excited!

Getting what you want, and still wanting it

2007-10-01T15:17:22Z

I'm feeling pretty good about not feeling good about myself right now. Which is not to say that I feel badly about myself (though I'm a little ill, so I do feel bad), but I just don't feel great. I feel like I don't really know what's swimming up in my own head, or where it's going to lead me, or where I want it to lead me. I find myself saying things that just blatantly aren't true, or aren't the whole truth, or might be true but I'm just not sure yet. And I'm starting to like that feeling.

I'm tired. I'm stressed, and sick, and there's a lot I'm supposed to be doing right now, and LJing isn't really one of those things. But at least I'm starting to feel like there's some purpose again. Of course I don't enjoy required reading, or interviewing people, or finding contacts, or gathering information, or basically doing anything that requires the least bit of effort. But I love, and frankly I need, that feeling of accomplishment you get at the end. Not even the, "Ah, look at me, I did something great!" so much as the "Ah, thank goodness that's over." I could think about how depressing that is, that I get my greatest pleasure from the end of unpleasant things, but I get the feeling that's true for a lot more people than are willing to admit it.

So right now, I'm probably as confused as I've ever been. But if I convince myself adamantly enough that this is what I want, that I'm okay with it - that taking a deep breath and accepting that confusion, not fighting it anymore, will bring me some sort of peace - then maybe it will. Maybe I can fool myself. So far, it seems to be working, and I like it.

So yes, I'm still confused, but I'm not so unhappy about that anymore. I still feel out of place, but not painfully so. I feel comfortable, and relaxed, and it's drizzling outside and The Weepies are playing and I could be anywhere in the world right now, feeling exactly like I do at the end of every September. It's nice.

Somewhere in everyone's head something points toward home

2007-09-27T05:48:19Z

"It may be true that if you move fast
everything fades away, that given time
and noise enough, every memory goes
into the blackness, and if new ones come-

small, mole-like memories that come
to live in the furry dark-they, too,
curl up and die."

- "The Shrinking, Lonesome Sestina" by Miller Williams

Sometimes, usually, sadly enough... other people's words just work so much better than your own. It's a tough thing for me to admit, to understand, because I'm in college right now to be that other person, the one who phrases things for you, the one you quote, the one you trust to tell you about that big, bad world out there. But even if I ever become that person... I will never speak for myself, not the way I wish to. And that will always be the most disappointing feeling of all.

Amy and I are sitting here now and we're listening to The Smiths and I feel myself reveling in this overarching, cloud-like melancholy, and I know that I can't escape it. I can't remember the last time I felt perfectly safe and taken care of, loved and able to love, content and unassuming. Did I ever feel that way? I can fake so much. I can walk through campus with a look of comfortable determination, not letting others see my confusion, my obvious freshman status. And I can wear a big smile and laugh loudly at jokes, not because I'm hiding behind a terrible facade, but because I can still genuinely enjoy the moment. But... it's so momentary, so public, and then I come back and lie down and stare at the ceiling and I feel every bit as desperate and lonely and utterly incapable as I did when I was thirteen, or when I was in England, or those times in Lawrenceville that I no longer think about because it's so much more comforting to imagine that then, then, something was different.

And I'm consumed by loneliness, and worse yet, confusion. I'm utterly unaware of who I am, who I'm becoming, who I actually want to be. Am I as open-minded as I think I am? How do you know what your thoughts and feelings mean? That's what I hate the most - not knowing why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, what it all means in the big picture. And so much of it... so much of it is cruel and petty and unkind, driven by jealousy and unnatural desire, that I'm ashamed to let myself sink into those thoughts. But there's the rub - am I really feeling one way and trying to repress it, or am I feeling another way and trying to expose it? And what the hell is even the difference?

Argh! I want to scream, to yell, to jump, to let out a burst of emotion that speaks without words, that needs no interpretation or discussion afterwards. I want to feel less alone, and I want to feel less guilty about that because I know that I am and have been surrounded by people who probably wish good things for me, and would perhaps even do something to help aid that. And I'm scared that I'm pouring too much in, that I'll be disappointed by the lack of reciprocity, the way that I always end up feeling screwed over no matter what the circumstance. And I'm annoyed that so much in my life is my own fault, no matter how inconsequentially it began, because how can you ever know how your smallest of actions will play out in the long run? How do you know when, through a turn of phrase or the most insignificant action, you're about to change a life?

I feel powerless. I've never had so much independence and so little feeling of control over where my life is about to lead me. I have these overwhelming desires that I just don't know what to do with, how to let them flow through me without consuming me. Does this kind of despair even make sense? Most of the time, I just feel like I'm rambling.

One day, I'll have a place to call home. One day, I may even have someone to share that home with.

And it still won't be enough.

Oh me, oh my

2007-09-25T15:51:04Z

Ever notice how the world seems to crash down around everyone at once? Yeah... what's up with that?

Once again I learn, be careful what you wish for

2007-09-22T04:11:38Z

Well, I'm definitely questioning myself now.

Maybe it's just an age thing

2007-09-08T15:10:47Z

I've been giving a lot of thought to why I no longer feel inspired to write about anything, and I realize that it's not just the writing that's gone away. I used to have these really long, introspective conversations with people about the world and our thoughts and everything else, and I realize that I rarely have them anymore. Part of that has to do with the fact that the kinds of people I tend to have those with no longer surround me, and when I do catch glimpses of them, the situation is never right and the reason isn't there and we don't talk about anything abstract, not at all. We just talk about life.

But then I realized that... well, maybe that's just an age thing. Maybe I'm past the stage where I need to dissect the world around me to try and understand it. Maybe I've lost a bit of that natural curiosity I so treasured in myself that used to let me see a spoon and imagine that it was a spaceship. I've never seen Mom talk to a friend about "the greater meaning of it all" - even if they have intellectual conversations, they're not the kind I have with my friends. And normally they talk about their kids and their jobs and their health and all these day-to-day things, and I used to be disgusted by it, but then I catch myself doing it and sometimes I'm horrified.

I really miss being vague and abstract, though. I'm tired of pretending to myself that I understand anything at all, but I'm just as tired of circling around the same points over and over again. I want to hear someone say something profound which leads me to exclaim, "Wow, I've never thought about it that way before!" I want to think again. I want to feel like a part of something bigger and greater and I want to question myself and where I stand in the big picture. And it's just been a very, very long time since I've felt that way.

When, and if, I ever do again - then maybe I'll write again.

Fuck me.

2007-09-06T15:14:06Z

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/04/dating.mating.ap/index.html

Although I wonder - who was rating the attractiveness of the participants?

Now that's strange...

2007-09-06T14:33:58Z

I dreamt last night that I got pregnant (twice) and wrecked the car, which they fixed by taking off the roof, painting it bright red, and making it into a hot convertible. Those two (or three) incidents were unrelated, though. Oh, and I had a very, very bad fight with my mother (still in dreamland) which was resolved when we both were distracted by a car laden with diamond jewelry that drove past us, and had "Audrey" something written along the side.

Can I just say... what the fuck?

Thoughts composed on an overcast day like today

2007-08-19T21:45:42Z

I got a message on my phone telling me there wasn't any room left for new messages. I don't text often, so that's never happened before, and whereas a normal person might have just deleted everything in one go, I'm not that normal. I enjoy wallowing in nostalgia a bit, reliving memories, and so I've been going through them, reading each. They're all boring - "When are we meeting?" "I'm here, where are you?" "Want to do anything tomorrow?" - none are worth keeping or trying to relive. But they date back to early March, and some of them surprise me, written by people I didn't realize I was talking to back in March, that I don't remember meeting up with, not entirely sure where "here" is and why I wasn't there. March was a good five months ago, and it still surprises me to know that five months ago, I was here. There's a text from Jeff telling me he's waiting outside the door, and I realize that for five months someone had to pick me up from work nearly every day, at least when I finished doing the early shifts. Countless times, mom or Jeff would drive up and wait for me while I ran out of that store like it was going to suck me back in. And now Jeff is gone and I don't work there anymore and all that is but a memory, a memory of five whole months that I can't begin to count.

With school, at least, every year is different. September to May is its own time period, and the summer months are something that just happen in between. If you remember who your classmates were or where you lived when such and such event happened, you can pinpoint exactly what year it was, roughly the person you used to be. And when you leave that world, time stops counting. Goals might disappear, and life takes on this monotonous tone, defined more or less by the people you meet or maybe the vacations you take. The holidays become little gaps missing from the rest of life, brief escapades that only highlight the normality of the rest. And every day, essentially, becomes just like the last.

Maybe it's not a question of school vs. work that has made me feel this way. Maybe it's because I've barely written anything since coming home from England. But which one caused the other? Writing these entries, whether on paper or here, has served as a way to mark time for me for years now. This journal is actually three years old as of 11 days ago, and there were journals before it, and there will be journals after. Journals, letters, e-mails - they may be full of only the most trivial information, but they are a way of recording life. I've hardly written any in months - I've completely dropped contact with people I wrote to weekly in England, completely ignored my grandfather and aunt who live mere blocks away in favor of being a hermit. And it's not that there's too much going on, that I'm too busy to keep in touch. It's that I feel such an overwhelming sense of boredom that I have nothing at all to say. I had an exciting week, I was busy every day, and still I sit down and at the end of it feel meaningless, as if I have accomplished nothing.

Maybe there's something better waiting for me ahead. Even if I hate Northwestern, it will at least regulate my time in such a way that I'll finally escape this constant mood of feeling totally out of time and place. But after that, when the real world begins, birthdays and New Year's Eve will be my only reminders of what is passing me by, how much I am letting slip past me. Every six months I'll have a little reminder, but six months becomes a shorter and shorter time with each passing year. One day, I might not even notice them at all.

Ooh, a life, I almost have one!

2007-08-16T03:06:47Z

You know, I've had a really great week. I used to think that if I were thinner and prettier, I wouldn't have my self-esteem issues, or if people liked me just a little more, or whatever else. But that's not true. I'm just always going to second-guess myself, and that's that.

I mention that, because, today was my last day at work, and it suddenly struck me that some people, for whatever reason, really liked me there! I got to have a going-away tasting, and Sara (bless her, no one ever does stuff that sweet for me) spent part of her day off drunkenly baking me 25 cupcakes, then drove out and brought them in on her other day off. To understand the amazingness of these cupcakes, she iced them and arranged them so they would say, "I'll miss you, L A N A B A N A N A." That was sweet enough in itself. But the real kicker was that she bought a giant bag of assorted candies that had bags of runts in them, then picked through all of them so that each and every cupcake would have a little banana on it. No one else seemed to appreciate the absolute hilarity of the action, but clearly we understand each other on a superhuman level. Or we just have the same sense of humor. But either way, it was that kind of unexpected, wholly unnecessary, absolutely kind action that made me wonder how I had found myself in such a world, and how I had managed not to stick out too badly.

I still feel like I'm supposed to go to work tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. Normally, I take a last look at everything before I leave it for good, or I spend a lot of time thinking, "This is my last time doing ___," but things got so busy at the end, that I didn't. I don't remember who my last customer was, or what the freezer looked like, or just how badly the grocery u-boats were overflowing. And this might sound insane, that I would even care about something like that, but I do. By not taking that last look around, it didn't feel like a last anything at all. And I don't know why I'm talking about this like I'm incredibly attached to the place, since I'm not, and I hated going to work most days, and it's not like I have any desire to restock the eggs this Sunday. But it was an important phase, and the people were (are, will be) great, and it's just very strange to spend so much time in one small space and then know that, suddenly, you won't spend any time there at all.

Anyway, last night I went to a concert at the Fillmore, and it was marvelous. I saw the amazing-beyond-belief Hush Sound, and they were every bit as amazing in concert as I could ever have hoped. I even learned, afterwards, that the lead girl singer is six months older than me, which basically freaked me out. But the show was stupendous, even though it seemed most people were really there to see Rooney - god knows why. I stayed through two and a half songs before scedaddling, because really, they had nothing on the opening act. If you want statistical proof of The Hush Sound's superiority, take a look at these last.fm statistics: The Hush Sound has 50,872 total listeners, but 2,524,389 scrobbled plays, with two released albums. Rooney, on the other hand, has over 30,000 more listeners with 82,059, but less than half the plays, at 1,204,000, and that's with three released albums. Need I say more? The Hush Sound may be lesser-known, but anyone with the luck of having discovered them realizes that they are awesome-tastic.

Anywho, other events have certainly passed me by recently, but I'm now officially too exhausted to recount them. I haven't written at all this summer, really, and I do feel pretty guilty about it. But so be it, that is life, and ta ta.

P.S. This song makes me feel like I have a future, at least with British rock stars.

My little attempt at improving the internet

2007-08-06T03:20:19Z

So after quite a bit of searching, I was completely unable to find the lyrics to Psapp's "Dad's Breakdown". It's a bit silly to call it lyrics, in a sense, because it's more like a monologue with tinkling sounds in the back. Anyway, this is my attempt at transcribing it, so that if anyone who reads this was for whatever reason wondering about the words, they'll now have access. What strange things I do, I know.

Dad's Breakdown:

I once wrote the reasons for having the nervous breakdown I was proposing to indulge in in one column. The reasons for not having one were to go in the opposite column. The reasons for having the breakdown were difficult to establish. One of them was: the woman I think I'm in love with (though I wasn't entirely sure that I was) had just told me she is a lesbian and she has fallen in love with her woman psychiatrist. You may well laugh. I certainly did when I wrote it down in my portentous breakdown column. I felt better. The young woman in question then went on to have affairs with gay men. I put it all down to her father who is a retired naval commander who invested his money in footling projects like selling clip-on car boots which only fitted one large Rover, which was then withdrawn. Then there was her brother, who had acquired so few life skills that he could only sell the Encyclopædia Britannica to the intellectually challenged. The right column set reasons for falling about laughing as one way of seeing the world, at least in one-point perspective. As for shades of gray, well I like gray - it's a friendly, comforting colour. It was good enough for Giacometti. I went into Richmond today, and everything looked delightfully grey and muted. Grey faces smiled at me through the traffic fumes. "I wouldn't swap this paradise for the Bahamas on a balmy day," I said to Ted Evans, our security officer, former police officer, and ex-police marksman, who had taken me to Habitat to collect the few, neutral, good-taste light fittings I had chosen for the hallways in King George Square. What do you think?