I like the American southwest. It's so... red. You don't get much of that color in the Midwest.
Also, it's downright rapturous being outside of Michigan.
For now, I am sitting in the lobby waiting for my mother to feel better and my cousins to wake up and eat breakfast, at which point we will converge and surely good things will happen. Like seeing lizards.
The flights were pretty nice--I'm always terrified of flying, thinking morbid thoughts ("If the plane goes down, what will be my last words? This will be my date of death. Should I call all my friends?") until I'm actually in the air. The worst part (also the best) for me is the take-off, and the way that occasionally during the ascent, it feels like you're slowing down, like you're going to fall. After that I'm fine.
I didn't get a window seat on either flight (we switched planes in Minneapolis), but I did get to lean over and see the Grand Canyon from the air. Which I recommend doing, if you ever fly over Arizona.
The first thing I noticed when I got here is how cold it really is. It wasn't even 50 degrees! Next week it's supposed to be warmer, though.
ALSO: People of Arizona, you are single-handedly causing global warming! Please, stop buying SUV's. I know your terrain is a bit rocky, but honestly, how often are you really speeding through the desert soil, leaving clouds of red dust and rugged Bob Segar songs in your wake? Probably not as often as you think. For shame.
People here are friendly, though. Like Pete ("like 'pet' with an E! 'Peter' without the R!"), and the staff person outside, who was telling my mom all about his untimely divorce yesterday while we were waiting for my aunt to pick us up, and I was deep in a Chuck Klosterman book.
My like my aunt. She has an excellent accent (Australian), gave me chai tea to drink, and wants to take me to Trader Joe's. I met my younger three cousins yesterday (4, 7, 11). I like them, even though kids and I don't usually mix well--these ones are sweet. They say "mummy" and call my mother "Auntie Anne", pronouncing it "ahntie". The youngest, Sophia, kills me. While we were eating dinner, she left the table and came back with floss, whereupon she proceeded to floss her teeth.
My mom and her brother intermittently floated into conversation in German, for whatever reason, which was strange, but not as annoying as when I'm in Germany and no one speaks English at all.
I suppose I should study now, or do something similarly productive.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
tomorrow, there be sun.
Oh man.
If you're ever going through your dresser drawers in your parents' home, because you haven't looked in them in more than a year and hey, your style might've changed, and you come across a shoe box full of old notes, it might not be best to sit down and read them.
I had about 20574684367 "crushes" before 9th grade. Which meant, I think, that I desperately wanted to fall in love and since it hadn't happened yet, it was liable to happen with just about anyone.
Also, I was completely insipid until about 11th grade (maybe 10th grade, if I'm being really nice). That may seem like a harsh self-criticism, but my complacent ignorance of everything but my own life... it's really boring. But maybe that's just 8th grade for you. I guess I have a more romantic notion of what constitutes a 14-year-old--like changing beliefs & their associated crises. But I guess that isn't something you tell another 14-year-old girl, at least not in this time period. A note is generally more "OH MY GOD I saw Billy walking out the door after practice and he sort of half-waved IS HE IN LOVE WITH ME?"
OK. I guess that's still the case. Only now it's more "You know that guy with the eyes and the hair in my bio class I told you about? Well, we discussed global warming before class today and then he recycled his water bottle. It was amazing."
AND, you do discuss changing beliefs & their associated crises with your friends... the crises you thought you'd have at 14.
...apparently at some point Convictions became more romantic to me than Romance. Last night I had a bad love-related dream and woke up feeling crappy. Poor me, blah blah, loneliness, blah. Then I turned on the news and learned how a couple Pakistani terrorists had killed Benazir Bhutto, and along with her hope for actual women's rights and an actual election. I remembered our Hindi TA, an expert on Pakistani issues, spending a whole session just talking to us about the state of that country. And I watched the already unstable nation give way to absolute chaos. And saw footage of people crying in the streets. And it all seemed a lot more sad and real to me than my bad dream.
Anyway, tomorrow I leave for Fonix. I am a little nervy, as I always am about airplanes. :/ I repeat the favorable statistics like mantras.
I'm bringing my laptop, so I'll write from the land of the Saguaro Cactus.
If you're ever going through your dresser drawers in your parents' home, because you haven't looked in them in more than a year and hey, your style might've changed, and you come across a shoe box full of old notes, it might not be best to sit down and read them.
I had about 20574684367 "crushes" before 9th grade. Which meant, I think, that I desperately wanted to fall in love and since it hadn't happened yet, it was liable to happen with just about anyone.
Also, I was completely insipid until about 11th grade (maybe 10th grade, if I'm being really nice). That may seem like a harsh self-criticism, but my complacent ignorance of everything but my own life... it's really boring. But maybe that's just 8th grade for you. I guess I have a more romantic notion of what constitutes a 14-year-old--like changing beliefs & their associated crises. But I guess that isn't something you tell another 14-year-old girl, at least not in this time period. A note is generally more "OH MY GOD I saw Billy walking out the door after practice and he sort of half-waved IS HE IN LOVE WITH ME?"
OK. I guess that's still the case. Only now it's more "You know that guy with the eyes and the hair in my bio class I told you about? Well, we discussed global warming before class today and then he recycled his water bottle. It was amazing."
AND, you do discuss changing beliefs & their associated crises with your friends... the crises you thought you'd have at 14.
...apparently at some point Convictions became more romantic to me than Romance. Last night I had a bad love-related dream and woke up feeling crappy. Poor me, blah blah, loneliness, blah. Then I turned on the news and learned how a couple Pakistani terrorists had killed Benazir Bhutto, and along with her hope for actual women's rights and an actual election. I remembered our Hindi TA, an expert on Pakistani issues, spending a whole session just talking to us about the state of that country. And I watched the already unstable nation give way to absolute chaos. And saw footage of people crying in the streets. And it all seemed a lot more sad and real to me than my bad dream.
Anyway, tomorrow I leave for Fonix. I am a little nervy, as I always am about airplanes. :/ I repeat the favorable statistics like mantras.
I'm bringing my laptop, so I'll write from the land of the Saguaro Cactus.
Monday, December 24, 2007
debilitating december.
The past week has been a headache.
Literally. I have had a headache every day for almost a week now. I think it's more like one long headache that intermittently strengthens and weakens. And it's of the tension variety--I know this because it feels like a band around my head. Also because a couple years ago, after having frequent headaches, I had half-convinced myself I had a brain tumor, and went so far as to go to the hospital and get a CT Scan. Just tension, as it turns out.
Normally I don't get them more than once or twice a month and it's fine, but I'm really getting tired of it now.
Maybe it's the switching from book to screen to book to different screen to book again. Or the switching from contacts to glasses to contacts to glasses. Or my diet of half celery, half sugar. Or my new sleeping schedule. Or my longing for my friends. Or the constant gray of my surroundings.
But hey! Friday I'm going to a place where there's sun and modest, spring-like temperatures, and I will spend less time looking at screens and more time meeting my family. And just a week after that, back in my city with tall buildings and public transportation and a healthy acceptance of and respect for tofu--it always comes back to my need for the Chicago.
I feel like I should say something about Christmas, but I'm just really not that excited about it. We already opened our gifts, and I'm not much of a Christian. And even if I was, Jesus was born in April or something.
...you try being cheerful with a vise on your head.
Literally. I have had a headache every day for almost a week now. I think it's more like one long headache that intermittently strengthens and weakens. And it's of the tension variety--I know this because it feels like a band around my head. Also because a couple years ago, after having frequent headaches, I had half-convinced myself I had a brain tumor, and went so far as to go to the hospital and get a CT Scan. Just tension, as it turns out.
Normally I don't get them more than once or twice a month and it's fine, but I'm really getting tired of it now.
Maybe it's the switching from book to screen to book to different screen to book again. Or the switching from contacts to glasses to contacts to glasses. Or my diet of half celery, half sugar. Or my new sleeping schedule. Or my longing for my friends. Or the constant gray of my surroundings.
But hey! Friday I'm going to a place where there's sun and modest, spring-like temperatures, and I will spend less time looking at screens and more time meeting my family. And just a week after that, back in my city with tall buildings and public transportation and a healthy acceptance of and respect for tofu--it always comes back to my need for the Chicago.
I feel like I should say something about Christmas, but I'm just really not that excited about it. We already opened our gifts, and I'm not much of a Christian. And even if I was, Jesus was born in April or something.
...you try being cheerful with a vise on your head.
snow & specters
It's snowed so much that it's hard to distinguish the street outside.
Mmmmmnnn, a specter is haunting me tonight, one borne of fictional representations floating close to my nonfictional realities. I hate the television, and the feel-good movies from the late '90s that Christmastime spurs.
When when when will I be over the metaphorical hump? I feel like I sat down to rest near the top of a mountain, got frozen, and now I occasionally thaw long enough to trip on a branch and roll back down to the bottom. When I get near the top again, I sit on the same log and refreeze. And it's the bad side of the mountain. The one that gets all the rain; the windward side. That's another thing--all that wind.
That's officially the weirdest metaphor of the year, but it feels pretty accurate. It might make sense to the people that know me.
And now I have to know that I wrote about it. I blow too much thought on this crap.
I hope it snows so much the street IS indistinguishable. And people are stuck at home with their canned vegetables and each other. And the power goes out. And they light candles and talk.
Mmmmmnnn, a specter is haunting me tonight, one borne of fictional representations floating close to my nonfictional realities. I hate the television, and the feel-good movies from the late '90s that Christmastime spurs.
When when when will I be over the metaphorical hump? I feel like I sat down to rest near the top of a mountain, got frozen, and now I occasionally thaw long enough to trip on a branch and roll back down to the bottom. When I get near the top again, I sit on the same log and refreeze. And it's the bad side of the mountain. The one that gets all the rain; the windward side. That's another thing--all that wind.
That's officially the weirdest metaphor of the year, but it feels pretty accurate. It might make sense to the people that know me.
And now I have to know that I wrote about it. I blow too much thought on this crap.
I hope it snows so much the street IS indistinguishable. And people are stuck at home with their canned vegetables and each other. And the power goes out. And they light candles and talk.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Just a nice reason for a November swim!
This morning, I found a handy link on the NYTimes website, providing each candidate's opinion on global warming and what should be done about it. I will be voting for a Democrat, so here's (briefly) what I think of their stances--
Unimpressive: Joe Biden, Mike Gravel
Decent: Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Barack Obama
Impressive: Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson
But that's just my opinion. I put a lot of weight on their actions in Congress, and, specifically, whether or not they voted for increased standards for gas emissions, since that's where they tended to diverge. Also, Kucinich & Richardson actually provided somewhat specific plans for improving the environmental situation--much more compelling.
The site is worth checking out.
I also came across an article about a tropical disease outbreak in Italy--a result of warming temperatures bringing disease-bearing mosquitoes north.
Just so you know, here are the Republican candidates still shooting the shit about there being no "scientific consensus" on global warming (i.e., global what?):
Really, people, it's time to face the facts: global warming can be largely blamed on the immigrants running across the border and immediately falling into extravagant, ridiculously unsustainable lifestyles. Because that makes sense.
Also, it's OK if Americans live like that to begin with. Because we're American...
I'm thisclose to becoming Swedish.
Unimpressive: Joe Biden, Mike Gravel
Decent: Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Barack Obama
Impressive: Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson
But that's just my opinion. I put a lot of weight on their actions in Congress, and, specifically, whether or not they voted for increased standards for gas emissions, since that's where they tended to diverge. Also, Kucinich & Richardson actually provided somewhat specific plans for improving the environmental situation--much more compelling.
The site is worth checking out.
I also came across an article about a tropical disease outbreak in Italy--a result of warming temperatures bringing disease-bearing mosquitoes north.
Just so you know, here are the Republican candidates still shooting the shit about there being no "scientific consensus" on global warming (i.e., global what?):
- Duncan Hunter
- His Highness Ron Paul
- Fred Thompson
Really, people, it's time to face the facts: global warming can be largely blamed on the immigrants running across the border and immediately falling into extravagant, ridiculously unsustainable lifestyles. Because that makes sense.
Also, it's OK if Americans live like that to begin with. Because we're American...
I'm thisclose to becoming Swedish.
claire's so-called life.
I gave my mom her Christmas present today--Season One of Arrested Development. She wants to laugh, she always talks about needing to laugh, so I figured that would work. Fortunately, it did. We watched something like 8 episodes of the show, and it got me thinking about how well-produced it is, how likable it is, how great the characterization is.
I spend a fair amount of time imagining a television show, roughly based on my life & circumstances. I feel like this is something everyone does, but I think I have that out-of-body perspective almost constantly.
Maybe it's because I write things on here, and while it isn't as though I get a million hits a day, I'm still fashioning my experiences and thoughts to be read by other people. Think of yourself as a writer, or a potential writer, with even an ounce of seriousness, and you've got a state of mind that's incredibly hard to shake. It's more of a pain than a benefit, I think. I frequently get lost in a conversation because I float away and watch the conversation. I sometimes have a terrible time speaking fluently because I stop thinking of my topic and start thinking of myself speaking. The self-consciousness is overwhelming sometimes.
That said, the hyper-observance has me forming my life into stories, my friends into characters (even my friends' lives into stories), everything manipulated to fit into a box, to place into a text. Conversations float immediately into words on a page, or re-spoken in a re-enactment.
It used to drive me crazy that no character you read resonates true like a real person, because in order to "characterize" someone, you package the person to be predictable. I don't think many real people are as predictable as characters necessarily are.
In creating a story, I think my ultimate goal would be to make it feel as close to reality as I can.
...I'm sort of digressing.
The point is, I've given a lot of thought to this show. The story of three college students at an intense university in the city, with a cheap apartment and widely varying backgrounds and families. I would manipulate us and sharpen us a lot, of course, for characters. T's character would be transfixed with language-learning (and maybe linguistics) and sort of all over the place with integrating different cultures into his life. He would be worldly. And also one of the few characters on TV who would be gay without it being the main purpose for his role (refreshing!) U. would be the econ major with a heart, confusingly enmeshed in a world of soulless I-bankers. (You would definitely be Sri Lankan, U., because I feel like there could be a running joke of people not knowing where that is.) My character would be a disheartened environmentalist with a lot of opposition and strange ideas. (Don't think I see myself as nearly as cool [or proactive] as the character would be.) I can see a lot of the supporting roles, too.
I think it would be cool to have environmentalism be the main attribute for the character I'd create because it'd put that focus right out in front of people. There've been enough doctors. I want to see a show with social justice as a main character's focus. I think that'd be seriously awesome. And I don't like using that term, so I don't use it lightly.
Also, I don't think there are a lot of shows with college settings. I saw one episode of Gilmore Girls last year, but I don't think that counts, really. And I also don't mean stupid, California college like the O.C. (if that ever got that far.) I mean nerdy, serious college. With ironic and funny jokes. Have there been any of these?
I've also decided that the opening credits to the show would go along with one of two songs:
1) Strange Apparition, by Beck, or
2) On the Table, by A.C. Newman
Maybe slightly edited to fit correctly. In my head I can picture it.
It'd be fun to try writing for my nonexistent series.
...in other news, I seem to have reverted to nocturnal functioning here in Michigan. And my brother is talking in his sleep.
I spend a fair amount of time imagining a television show, roughly based on my life & circumstances. I feel like this is something everyone does, but I think I have that out-of-body perspective almost constantly.
Maybe it's because I write things on here, and while it isn't as though I get a million hits a day, I'm still fashioning my experiences and thoughts to be read by other people. Think of yourself as a writer, or a potential writer, with even an ounce of seriousness, and you've got a state of mind that's incredibly hard to shake. It's more of a pain than a benefit, I think. I frequently get lost in a conversation because I float away and watch the conversation. I sometimes have a terrible time speaking fluently because I stop thinking of my topic and start thinking of myself speaking. The self-consciousness is overwhelming sometimes.
That said, the hyper-observance has me forming my life into stories, my friends into characters (even my friends' lives into stories), everything manipulated to fit into a box, to place into a text. Conversations float immediately into words on a page, or re-spoken in a re-enactment.
It used to drive me crazy that no character you read resonates true like a real person, because in order to "characterize" someone, you package the person to be predictable. I don't think many real people are as predictable as characters necessarily are.
In creating a story, I think my ultimate goal would be to make it feel as close to reality as I can.
...I'm sort of digressing.
The point is, I've given a lot of thought to this show. The story of three college students at an intense university in the city, with a cheap apartment and widely varying backgrounds and families. I would manipulate us and sharpen us a lot, of course, for characters. T's character would be transfixed with language-learning (and maybe linguistics) and sort of all over the place with integrating different cultures into his life. He would be worldly. And also one of the few characters on TV who would be gay without it being the main purpose for his role (refreshing!) U. would be the econ major with a heart, confusingly enmeshed in a world of soulless I-bankers. (You would definitely be Sri Lankan, U., because I feel like there could be a running joke of people not knowing where that is.) My character would be a disheartened environmentalist with a lot of opposition and strange ideas. (Don't think I see myself as nearly as cool [or proactive] as the character would be.) I can see a lot of the supporting roles, too.
I think it would be cool to have environmentalism be the main attribute for the character I'd create because it'd put that focus right out in front of people. There've been enough doctors. I want to see a show with social justice as a main character's focus. I think that'd be seriously awesome. And I don't like using that term, so I don't use it lightly.
Also, I don't think there are a lot of shows with college settings. I saw one episode of Gilmore Girls last year, but I don't think that counts, really. And I also don't mean stupid, California college like the O.C. (if that ever got that far.) I mean nerdy, serious college. With ironic and funny jokes. Have there been any of these?
I've also decided that the opening credits to the show would go along with one of two songs:
1) Strange Apparition, by Beck, or
2) On the Table, by A.C. Newman
Maybe slightly edited to fit correctly. In my head I can picture it.
It'd be fun to try writing for my nonexistent series.
...in other news, I seem to have reverted to nocturnal functioning here in Michigan. And my brother is talking in his sleep.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
EPA suckage, Woody Allen ownage
One of the wisest things my roomies and I decided to do when we moved into an apartment was to declare it a television-free space. We have lots of nice things in our living room--a bookshelf, painted walls, a hookah--but one thing we do not have is a TV. The practical aspect of this is that it would be one more temptation in our already distracted lives, but the more important aspect is that the gray box is a drain on intellectual and visual aesthetics.
Being home, however, has accustomed me to the ugly gray box once again. The first day I could only watch about half an hour, and I think it was the news. Gradually I drifted to the National Geographic Channel and HBO, but now that my mind has been officially recolonized by the maggots that produce the crap that gets shown, I'm ashamed to say that it no longer turns my stomach to flip through channels.
If I sound so pretentious it's turning your stomach, just ask yourself: with your mental capabilities and potential, with all you don't know about, say, the nation of Uzbekistan (and I, for one, know nothing about it), with all there is to learn about exotic Indonesian fish, or the benefits of Vitamin B-12, or the guy you never talk to in physics..
...do you really want to spend your time watching 4 brainless plasticky pretty people fight over some other brainless plasticky pretty person? With 10 minutes of advertisements in between?
This is what I've learned from my past few days of painful, rapt television-watching:
1) Almost every show now is a competition to become a model;
2) FOX News has become somehow even more conspicuously reactionary, and yet they're still promoting that "fair and balanced" bull;
3) About half the commercials on TV operate on a self-ironic basis--make your audience laugh at you, and they'll think you're cute and buy the product;
4) HBO has the same movie playing on at least three channels at one time;
5) Politics is about 95% entertainment to the American public;
6) I prefer slow and painful torture to the sound of a laugh track.
You know, what really creeps me out is that people just sort of... go along with how stupid it all is. If they fed us a show of a group of people competing to date a wall, we'd watch it. If they fed us a show of a guy bashing his head against a wall for half an hour, we'd watch it. If they fed us a show of the daily trials and tribulations even faced by a wall, we'd watch it.
WHY?
In happier news, I got Annie Hall from Netflix today, making just slightly more of a dent in my Woody Allen filmography self-education. I loved it. I watched it twice; first by myself, then with Kristin at my mother's apartment (after an attempt at tofu soup that called for about 5 times too many split peas, such that it became split pea stew with other vegetables and tofu in it).
I think Woody Allen might be my favorite director. Everyone, I feel, should have a favorite director--and I've adored all of his movies so far.
Here's what I've seen:
--Annie Hall
--Manhattan Murder Mystery
--Match Point
--Small Time Crooks
--Take the Money and Run
..OK, so it's a small fraction of what he's put out. But I'm getting there. Next in my queue is Scoop, and though it hasn't gotten the best reviews, I love Scarlett Johansson.
Also, Woody Allen's birthday is December 1, which means he joins Noam Chomsky on my list of very cool people that redeem December birthdays.
(In other news, the EPA sucks and is full of crooks, cronies, and just general shitheads. Or maybe just a few people that encompass all three important political qualities.)
Being home, however, has accustomed me to the ugly gray box once again. The first day I could only watch about half an hour, and I think it was the news. Gradually I drifted to the National Geographic Channel and HBO, but now that my mind has been officially recolonized by the maggots that produce the crap that gets shown, I'm ashamed to say that it no longer turns my stomach to flip through channels.
If I sound so pretentious it's turning your stomach, just ask yourself: with your mental capabilities and potential, with all you don't know about, say, the nation of Uzbekistan (and I, for one, know nothing about it), with all there is to learn about exotic Indonesian fish, or the benefits of Vitamin B-12, or the guy you never talk to in physics..
...do you really want to spend your time watching 4 brainless plasticky pretty people fight over some other brainless plasticky pretty person? With 10 minutes of advertisements in between?
This is what I've learned from my past few days of painful, rapt television-watching:
1) Almost every show now is a competition to become a model;
2) FOX News has become somehow even more conspicuously reactionary, and yet they're still promoting that "fair and balanced" bull;
3) About half the commercials on TV operate on a self-ironic basis--make your audience laugh at you, and they'll think you're cute and buy the product;
4) HBO has the same movie playing on at least three channels at one time;
5) Politics is about 95% entertainment to the American public;
6) I prefer slow and painful torture to the sound of a laugh track.
You know, what really creeps me out is that people just sort of... go along with how stupid it all is. If they fed us a show of a group of people competing to date a wall, we'd watch it. If they fed us a show of a guy bashing his head against a wall for half an hour, we'd watch it. If they fed us a show of the daily trials and tribulations even faced by a wall, we'd watch it.
WHY?
In happier news, I got Annie Hall from Netflix today, making just slightly more of a dent in my Woody Allen filmography self-education. I loved it. I watched it twice; first by myself, then with Kristin at my mother's apartment (after an attempt at tofu soup that called for about 5 times too many split peas, such that it became split pea stew with other vegetables and tofu in it).
I think Woody Allen might be my favorite director. Everyone, I feel, should have a favorite director--and I've adored all of his movies so far.
Here's what I've seen:
--Annie Hall
--Manhattan Murder Mystery
--Match Point
--Small Time Crooks
--Take the Money and Run
..OK, so it's a small fraction of what he's put out. But I'm getting there. Next in my queue is Scoop, and though it hasn't gotten the best reviews, I love Scarlett Johansson.
Also, Woody Allen's birthday is December 1, which means he joins Noam Chomsky on my list of very cool people that redeem December birthdays.
(In other news, the EPA sucks and is full of crooks, cronies, and just general shitheads. Or maybe just a few people that encompass all three important political qualities.)
-------
Last note: Today is December 19, which means I've fulfilled my goal of writing every day for a month. I think I might keep trying to write daily, though, because a) It gives me a tangible goal, b) I like it, and c) I don't have any other sort of journal to record my thoughts/misexperiences.
What existence do I have if I'm not documenting? At least for the indefinite-feeling time that I'm here, in the cold rurals of many-churched, mini-vanned boringland--near non-existence.
What existence do I have if I'm not documenting? At least for the indefinite-feeling time that I'm here, in the cold rurals of many-churched, mini-vanned boringland--near non-existence.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
woo.
I'm in one of those moods, the sort of mood where you feel like you'd say exactly what you wish you could say if you were in the kind of situation involuntarily controlled by the emotions. I hope that made sense--it was poorly written.
Unfortunately I'm:
a) here
b) now
So maybe I'll just go to bed.
Unfortunately I'm:
a) here
b) now
So maybe I'll just go to bed.
Monday, December 17, 2007
carpets.
Here's something to think about: the smell and look of a carpet store.
It makes me feel bad. Poignantly bad, in a way I wish I knew exactly how to explain.
Does that make sense to anyone?
It makes me feel bad. Poignantly bad, in a way I wish I knew exactly how to explain.
Does that make sense to anyone?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Turn and face the strange.
I think one of the strangest things for me to face as I've gotten older... is how severe change can be.
When I was younger, and I used to envision myself a little bit older, I would always imagine the changes that would take place. At 10, imagining 16--at 16, imagining 20. And I've always been not just wrong on the surface, but deeply wrong on a fundamental level. For example, I might have seen the 16-year-old me dating somebody, experiencing romance for the first time, and starting to figure out what I want to do. Really, the 16-year-old me had experienced romance but not quite in the Suzie High School way I had expected, and the fallout from it had left me beginning to question my values, my beliefs, myself.
At 16 imagining 20, I saw myself filling with knowledge, coming home more complete, content to see myself here on the breaks because I had something to show for myself. Now, I can see that gaining more knowledge has had the impact of not just fulfilling me, but altering how I see the world, especially my old world, in an extraordinary way. I have a very difficult time relating to my parents. They scoff at my entertaining radical ideas about the environment and politics the same way I'm further and further distanced by their consumption and stagnancy. I end up feeling depressed and tongue-tied, and they feel lectured-at.
And yet I'm at conflict with myself, because they're the ones paying for this education that so baffles them. I would hate to leave my school, to settle for something less challenging. But what about my perspective? Is it right to use their money, when I don't know what I'm going to do with myself, when I want to be able to proudly and respectably defend my ideals? I know the debts will all be landing in my lap in a couple of years, but my consumption of their money, and then inwardly and sometimes outwardly critiquing their spending habits and lifestyles--it's not really fair, is it?
And here I thought I'd be worrying about literary analysis and finishing a paper at this age. I've changed monumentally.
I have more to say, but I'll save it for later.
When I was younger, and I used to envision myself a little bit older, I would always imagine the changes that would take place. At 10, imagining 16--at 16, imagining 20. And I've always been not just wrong on the surface, but deeply wrong on a fundamental level. For example, I might have seen the 16-year-old me dating somebody, experiencing romance for the first time, and starting to figure out what I want to do. Really, the 16-year-old me had experienced romance but not quite in the Suzie High School way I had expected, and the fallout from it had left me beginning to question my values, my beliefs, myself.
At 16 imagining 20, I saw myself filling with knowledge, coming home more complete, content to see myself here on the breaks because I had something to show for myself. Now, I can see that gaining more knowledge has had the impact of not just fulfilling me, but altering how I see the world, especially my old world, in an extraordinary way. I have a very difficult time relating to my parents. They scoff at my entertaining radical ideas about the environment and politics the same way I'm further and further distanced by their consumption and stagnancy. I end up feeling depressed and tongue-tied, and they feel lectured-at.
And yet I'm at conflict with myself, because they're the ones paying for this education that so baffles them. I would hate to leave my school, to settle for something less challenging. But what about my perspective? Is it right to use their money, when I don't know what I'm going to do with myself, when I want to be able to proudly and respectably defend my ideals? I know the debts will all be landing in my lap in a couple of years, but my consumption of their money, and then inwardly and sometimes outwardly critiquing their spending habits and lifestyles--it's not really fair, is it?
And here I thought I'd be worrying about literary analysis and finishing a paper at this age. I've changed monumentally.
I have more to say, but I'll save it for later.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
brain transplant
My room is bedless, and my floor is littered with boxes filled with my mom's things. I've been sleeping on an air mattress (the same one I slept on for about two months last summer), next to a pile of too much bedding.
I feel very transplanted on this trip home.
My mom is in an apartment not far from here (even more in the middle of nowhere, somehow), and this house feels huge with just my Dad and me. With my stuff all gone or moved or overtaken by my parents, I can see how my parents are living without me. And with me, it's not much different.
I think I upset my mom. I've been very irritable lately, and she's been sensitive to it. "I just wish you were happier to be home," she said. But, though I love my parents (however little I understand them), it doesn't feel like home.
I've written about it but haven't really been able to convey how being home in Hastings makes me feel versus being home in Chicago. There is something so... so insidiously small about this small town.
I tend to be very sensitive to my environment. When I was in Germany, the language barrier left me feeling terribly lonely. When I was in Boulder, with the flatirons and cyclists all around, I felt reinvigorated. Even when I went to the Schaumburg IKEA, outside of Chicago, all the sprawling, flat chain stores on the way left me feeling slightly dead inside.
The feeling this place gives me, however, is unique; I lived here for 18 years, after all. What I notice, what makes me feel a deep kind of despair, is just how static this town is. The same people will be eating at the same restaurant; the same man will be walking the same dog around the same block; the same cashier checks me out at the same store. Maybe it all sounds comforting--the constance, the reliability--and I guess it all was up until the age of 12. But in truth, once I began to stretch beyond just wanting annual rituals, it started to starkly show how stifled and meaningless things are here. I'm so powerfully influenced by it that I start going into old habits; watching TV, getting too lazy to clean anything up.
I've grown accustomed to my life in Chicago. The people I hear walking and laughing below my apartment window at 1AM. Our neighbors' parties, which, due to our face-to-face living room windows, we can not only hear but watch, if we want. Foreign food (not to mention vegetarian food), foreign people, foreign language--all not far from our front door. Environmental awareness. Public transportation. Sirens. Bookstores everywhere; students reading Marx and Durkheim in coffee shops. That's comfort. I love the dynamics and busy feel of the city; I was meant to live there.
In Chicago, I feel like I can write substantial things, like I can make my way to other countries somehow, like life-changing things and people are within my reach. Here, I feel cut off from everything and even start wanting to question my capabilities. Here, I wonder how a person who leaves this town can decide to come back to it. I feel like I would do anything, anything, not to live here again.
I have a terrible headache and long for tea, but at this point it's too far away...
I feel very transplanted on this trip home.
My mom is in an apartment not far from here (even more in the middle of nowhere, somehow), and this house feels huge with just my Dad and me. With my stuff all gone or moved or overtaken by my parents, I can see how my parents are living without me. And with me, it's not much different.
I think I upset my mom. I've been very irritable lately, and she's been sensitive to it. "I just wish you were happier to be home," she said. But, though I love my parents (however little I understand them), it doesn't feel like home.
I've written about it but haven't really been able to convey how being home in Hastings makes me feel versus being home in Chicago. There is something so... so insidiously small about this small town.
I tend to be very sensitive to my environment. When I was in Germany, the language barrier left me feeling terribly lonely. When I was in Boulder, with the flatirons and cyclists all around, I felt reinvigorated. Even when I went to the Schaumburg IKEA, outside of Chicago, all the sprawling, flat chain stores on the way left me feeling slightly dead inside.
The feeling this place gives me, however, is unique; I lived here for 18 years, after all. What I notice, what makes me feel a deep kind of despair, is just how static this town is. The same people will be eating at the same restaurant; the same man will be walking the same dog around the same block; the same cashier checks me out at the same store. Maybe it all sounds comforting--the constance, the reliability--and I guess it all was up until the age of 12. But in truth, once I began to stretch beyond just wanting annual rituals, it started to starkly show how stifled and meaningless things are here. I'm so powerfully influenced by it that I start going into old habits; watching TV, getting too lazy to clean anything up.
I've grown accustomed to my life in Chicago. The people I hear walking and laughing below my apartment window at 1AM. Our neighbors' parties, which, due to our face-to-face living room windows, we can not only hear but watch, if we want. Foreign food (not to mention vegetarian food), foreign people, foreign language--all not far from our front door. Environmental awareness. Public transportation. Sirens. Bookstores everywhere; students reading Marx and Durkheim in coffee shops. That's comfort. I love the dynamics and busy feel of the city; I was meant to live there.
In Chicago, I feel like I can write substantial things, like I can make my way to other countries somehow, like life-changing things and people are within my reach. Here, I feel cut off from everything and even start wanting to question my capabilities. Here, I wonder how a person who leaves this town can decide to come back to it. I feel like I would do anything, anything, not to live here again.
I have a terrible headache and long for tea, but at this point it's too far away...
Friday, December 14, 2007
the big 2-0.
Yes. I am 20. Twenty. Twentytwentytwenty.
I am eating Teddy Grahams and pondering how such a seemingly innocuous age can feel like the existential equivalent of 50.
Oh man. I think it's my mindset as of late. Before, when I used to be depressed, it was because the world was stupid or I felt momentarily empty. Now, it's because I'm strapped under the massive burden of my future, and I'm all too likely to be a colossal failure. At least that's how I perceive it; and that's not really a terribly outlandish fear, as I dream big dreams.
The thing is, though, I'm a commitment-phobe. If I feel the least bit tied down to something, I struggle until I'm free and then run and attach myself to something new and exotic. It's a bad habit. I'm addicted to the novelty--the opportunity to keep the door open.
I've only encountered a few things in my life that I haven't grown fatigued with, or dropped for fear of them cutting off other options, and those have understandably had a considerable impact on me as a person (writing is one of them).
Throughout my life so far, this has been okay, because everyone has always said, "You have time!" And then I relax. And read a book. Or study. Or fall securely into something else for a while.
But now, now is the time when I'm actually supposed to be going, "Oh, yes, that. That's what I'd like to devote myself to fully." I have serious trouble doing that. I feel trapped far too easily. I look around and see the everything I can't simply devote myself to, and I panic. I study Hindi and I panic for not studying Russian, or something. I get embroiled in environmental problems, and I start worrying that maybe I abandoned literature too rapidly.
What happens to people like me? Those who really just can't get no satisfaction? If others exist, they certainly don't get their problems put into sitcoms or easily solved in movies. Until they have problems getting married.
Maybe the problem is just that I'm not a specializing kind of girl. I fear the work week.
I don't know. I just know that 20 throws these issues into sharp relief the way 19 never did. Teenagers are allowed to be confused. Once you hit the twenties, I think you're supposed to figure it out. Oops.
ANYWAY.
Happy birthday, me. I got to talk to some friends, which only makes me think more than I already do about how much I miss them. I LOVE you guys. More than cheesecake.
In more exciting news, I'm going to Phoenix in a couple weeks! Turns out my mother's promise to get us out of here was sincere. Her brother, his wife, and their six kids (count 'em--girl, girl, boy, boy, girl, girl) live out there. I WILL SEE A CACTUS. And, more importantly, the sun.
CHECK IT:
I am eating Teddy Grahams and pondering how such a seemingly innocuous age can feel like the existential equivalent of 50.
Oh man. I think it's my mindset as of late. Before, when I used to be depressed, it was because the world was stupid or I felt momentarily empty. Now, it's because I'm strapped under the massive burden of my future, and I'm all too likely to be a colossal failure. At least that's how I perceive it; and that's not really a terribly outlandish fear, as I dream big dreams.
The thing is, though, I'm a commitment-phobe. If I feel the least bit tied down to something, I struggle until I'm free and then run and attach myself to something new and exotic. It's a bad habit. I'm addicted to the novelty--the opportunity to keep the door open.
I've only encountered a few things in my life that I haven't grown fatigued with, or dropped for fear of them cutting off other options, and those have understandably had a considerable impact on me as a person (writing is one of them).
Throughout my life so far, this has been okay, because everyone has always said, "You have time!" And then I relax. And read a book. Or study. Or fall securely into something else for a while.
But now, now is the time when I'm actually supposed to be going, "Oh, yes, that. That's what I'd like to devote myself to fully." I have serious trouble doing that. I feel trapped far too easily. I look around and see the everything I can't simply devote myself to, and I panic. I study Hindi and I panic for not studying Russian, or something. I get embroiled in environmental problems, and I start worrying that maybe I abandoned literature too rapidly.
What happens to people like me? Those who really just can't get no satisfaction? If others exist, they certainly don't get their problems put into sitcoms or easily solved in movies. Until they have problems getting married.
Maybe the problem is just that I'm not a specializing kind of girl. I fear the work week.
I don't know. I just know that 20 throws these issues into sharp relief the way 19 never did. Teenagers are allowed to be confused. Once you hit the twenties, I think you're supposed to figure it out. Oops.
ANYWAY.
Happy birthday, me. I got to talk to some friends, which only makes me think more than I already do about how much I miss them. I LOVE you guys. More than cheesecake.
In more exciting news, I'm going to Phoenix in a couple weeks! Turns out my mother's promise to get us out of here was sincere. Her brother, his wife, and their six kids (count 'em--girl, girl, boy, boy, girl, girl) live out there. I WILL SEE A CACTUS. And, more importantly, the sun.
CHECK IT:
Thursday, December 13, 2007
I Have an Announcement
I think I want a new birthday.
I'm sorry, December 14, but I think we're done. You've been a very bad birthday.
Let me count thy ways:
1. Lots of people get into snow/ice-related car accidents or die in other tragic ways in December. As a result, everybody feels emotionally heavy and no one wants to celebrate.
2. It is almost Christmas, so everyone's stressed and depressed. You might get all blahblahblah Christmas-Spirit on me, but just take a look around. Do you see a lot of jolly ho-ho-ho crap going on? NO.
3. It's "break", so I'm separated from my friends and back in my stifling small hometown. BUT, none of my friends that live here are back yet.
4. You're not even fluffy and snowy, most of the time.
5. People don't like that it's my birthday because they think I want stuff, and they're sick of buying stuff for Christmas. (I don't want stuff, incidentally.)
On top of this, I wasn't even supposed to be born on you. My mom was never very good about timely deliveries--my brother and sister were each two weeks late, while they insisted on pulling me out two to three weeks early. My REAL due date was December 29/30, which means I was waiting for the new year, when everyone's actually happy, so I could have an excuse to eventually have kickass New Years Eve/Celebrate My Birth parties. But no.
Next year, instead, how about June 1st? That's a great birthday! I would also accept anytime in March, July, August or October. Or even December 29 or 30, like we'd planned.
Think about it.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's this show at 10 on the National Geographic channel I want to see. About people crossing to the Americas in boats, instead of crossing the Bering Strait on foot.
...what about the boat times?
I'm sorry, December 14, but I think we're done. You've been a very bad birthday.
Let me count thy ways:
1. Lots of people get into snow/ice-related car accidents or die in other tragic ways in December. As a result, everybody feels emotionally heavy and no one wants to celebrate.
2. It is almost Christmas, so everyone's stressed and depressed. You might get all blahblahblah Christmas-Spirit on me, but just take a look around. Do you see a lot of jolly ho-ho-ho crap going on? NO.
3. It's "break", so I'm separated from my friends and back in my stifling small hometown. BUT, none of my friends that live here are back yet.
4. You're not even fluffy and snowy, most of the time.
5. People don't like that it's my birthday because they think I want stuff, and they're sick of buying stuff for Christmas. (I don't want stuff, incidentally.)
On top of this, I wasn't even supposed to be born on you. My mom was never very good about timely deliveries--my brother and sister were each two weeks late, while they insisted on pulling me out two to three weeks early. My REAL due date was December 29/30, which means I was waiting for the new year, when everyone's actually happy, so I could have an excuse to eventually have kickass New Years Eve/Celebrate My Birth parties. But no.
Next year, instead, how about June 1st? That's a great birthday! I would also accept anytime in March, July, August or October. Or even December 29 or 30, like we'd planned.
Think about it.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's this show at 10 on the National Geographic channel I want to see. About people crossing to the Americas in boats, instead of crossing the Bering Strait on foot.
...what about the boat times?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
my country 'tis of crap
Some things that bothered me about today:
1) This morning, at the train station, a woman came around bedecked in purple, ringing a little bell and collecting money for Alzheimer's. She was friendly and a little persistent, as anyone fulfilling that role is expected to be. She walked around the line of people waiting to get their tickets checked and shook her bell. "I can wait here all day," she joked and smiled at the group of women ignoring her. "No--I'm just kidding," she said. "Have a nice holiday!" And she walked off. One of the women, seeing the Alzheimer's lady leave, leaned toward someone and said conspiratorially, "And I can ignore you all day." Then she laughed. She was wearing silver earrings and stupid eyeshadow, and she was carrying a shopping bag from Neiman Marcus (or some other high-end fashion store) with little Christmas decorations on it.
Did she honestly think she could spend her money in a better way? I loathed this woman. I hope her stupid Neiman Marcus bag and the stupid pink cashmere sweater I'm sure is inside burst into flames.
2) Whenever I hear news coverage of the writers' strike in Hollywood, it's always told from a perspective sympathetic to the corporations.
Example:
Cindy: "Jim, what will be the effects of the ongoing nature of this strike?"
Jim: "Well, Cindy, if the writers continue to strike, many of the shows you know and love will probably not be airing for a while."
Cindy: "What should viewers be preparing for?"
Jim: "Reruns, Cindy. Prepare for reruns."
Cindy: "And how will the corporations be affected?"
Jim: "Well, ___ should be OK because it has 'American Idol'. But ___ and ___... well, we just don't know."
Cindy: "Tragic, Jim."
Since when is mindless entertainment more important paying people? And since when do massive, controlling, multi-billion dollar corporations--corporations that basically have all-out monopolies on communication--garner the public sympathy? You don't really hear an opinion like, "Gee, maybe they should pay writers, who are basically the brains behind each show, enough money to get out of the apartment with the 3-foot-wide hole in the ceiling, even if we have to remove one olive from the salad of each CEO during the meetings, and downgrade from Evian to tap."
Maybe we should turn to Rupert Murd--I mean, FOX News--for the latest in manipula--I mean facts. Obviously, writers' creativity is just there for our consumption. IT IS A PUBLIC GOOD. Besides, I'm sure Bill O'Reilly says it's immoral to separate families from their televisions. I mean, can we really endure--gasp--reruns?!
The real crisis we should be considering is: If we stop watching television, who will pay for his crappy patriotic ties?
(Oh, and there's that global warming problem going on too, but who cares? Carbon emissions aren't entertaining!)
America. Ew.
(If you haven't seen this: Daily Show writers on strike.)
1) This morning, at the train station, a woman came around bedecked in purple, ringing a little bell and collecting money for Alzheimer's. She was friendly and a little persistent, as anyone fulfilling that role is expected to be. She walked around the line of people waiting to get their tickets checked and shook her bell. "I can wait here all day," she joked and smiled at the group of women ignoring her. "No--I'm just kidding," she said. "Have a nice holiday!" And she walked off. One of the women, seeing the Alzheimer's lady leave, leaned toward someone and said conspiratorially, "And I can ignore you all day." Then she laughed. She was wearing silver earrings and stupid eyeshadow, and she was carrying a shopping bag from Neiman Marcus (or some other high-end fashion store) with little Christmas decorations on it.
Did she honestly think she could spend her money in a better way? I loathed this woman. I hope her stupid Neiman Marcus bag and the stupid pink cashmere sweater I'm sure is inside burst into flames.
2) Whenever I hear news coverage of the writers' strike in Hollywood, it's always told from a perspective sympathetic to the corporations.
Example:
Cindy: "Jim, what will be the effects of the ongoing nature of this strike?"
Jim: "Well, Cindy, if the writers continue to strike, many of the shows you know and love will probably not be airing for a while."
Cindy: "What should viewers be preparing for?"
Jim: "Reruns, Cindy. Prepare for reruns."
Cindy: "And how will the corporations be affected?"
Jim: "Well, ___ should be OK because it has 'American Idol'. But ___ and ___... well, we just don't know."
Cindy: "Tragic, Jim."
Since when is mindless entertainment more important paying people? And since when do massive, controlling, multi-billion dollar corporations--corporations that basically have all-out monopolies on communication--garner the public sympathy? You don't really hear an opinion like, "Gee, maybe they should pay writers, who are basically the brains behind each show, enough money to get out of the apartment with the 3-foot-wide hole in the ceiling, even if we have to remove one olive from the salad of each CEO during the meetings, and downgrade from Evian to tap."
Maybe we should turn to Rupert Murd--I mean, FOX News--for the latest in manipula--I mean facts. Obviously, writers' creativity is just there for our consumption. IT IS A PUBLIC GOOD. Besides, I'm sure Bill O'Reilly says it's immoral to separate families from their televisions. I mean, can we really endure--gasp--reruns?!
The real crisis we should be considering is: If we stop watching television, who will pay for his crappy patriotic ties?
(Oh, and there's that global warming problem going on too, but who cares? Carbon emissions aren't entertaining!)
---
America. Ew.
(If you haven't seen this: Daily Show writers on strike.)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
poking poultry and time travel
I've been feeling particularly happy the last couple days. Whether it's due to the sudden command over all my time, the lovely communal dinners I've helped prepare and eat, or simply my own determination to be lighthearted, I'm not sure.
It might have also been my admittance to both my parents and myself that I want to write, and whatever else I have to do will always feel secondary to that drive. I know that I need to make it a central part of life, and I've spent more time recently deciding how to make it a commitment on top of all my schoolwork. (Here my train of thought begins to veer off into The-Education-System-Is-A-Mess territory, which is another story altogether. Watch this anyway.)
I spent last night drinking various white drinks (wine, Russians) and preparing chicken for the host of the dinner party I was attending. My job involved using an incredibly sharp and expensive knife to cut the meat from the bone (carefully, to keep it in one piece). After this, I rolled the meat around some sort of stuffing made principally of mushrooms, stuck through pins to keep the whole affair together, and then tied it up with string. I couldn't eat the end result, but creating it was an interesting experience nevertheless.
This morning I had yet another eye appointment, and I finally got my new contacts and a new solution to go with it (mystery, by the way, partly solved: my old solution got RECALLED in May, and here I'd been using it for months.) I only get to wear them four days a week, but it's still much better than wearing glasses all the time.
After my appointment, on a spontaneous whim, I decided to get my hair cut. It's a short layered deal, with legitimate bangs, and it intermittently makes me feel like a 5-year-old tomboy, or like a 1920's flapper girl in need of a long, stylish cigarette--both of which are more fun than my dull, longish hair with halfhearted waves.
What really comes back in full force when I look in the mirror is a picture taken of me when I must have been either four or five. In it, I am wearing a dress with apples on it and a pilgrim-style collar, and a ridiculously serious expression. I have roughly the same hairstyle.
I feel funky and weird. Which is mostly how I felt as a little kid, too.
I ran quickly on the way down to the basement laundry room tonight, in an effort to keep from getting really wet on the soggy wooden stairs. The result of this was a fall that would have been more the mildly entertaining to've seen, in which I actually did the splits on one of the platforms (a flexibility feat I've never been able to pull off.) These were my feelings, in succession:
1. Embarrassed, because I'd fallen.
2. Pained, due to the fall.
3. Impressed, that I'd done the splits for the first time.
You know what I thought?
That's like a metaphor for life, man.
It might have also been my admittance to both my parents and myself that I want to write, and whatever else I have to do will always feel secondary to that drive. I know that I need to make it a central part of life, and I've spent more time recently deciding how to make it a commitment on top of all my schoolwork. (Here my train of thought begins to veer off into The-Education-System-Is-A-Mess territory, which is another story altogether. Watch this anyway.)
I spent last night drinking various white drinks (wine, Russians) and preparing chicken for the host of the dinner party I was attending. My job involved using an incredibly sharp and expensive knife to cut the meat from the bone (carefully, to keep it in one piece). After this, I rolled the meat around some sort of stuffing made principally of mushrooms, stuck through pins to keep the whole affair together, and then tied it up with string. I couldn't eat the end result, but creating it was an interesting experience nevertheless.
This morning I had yet another eye appointment, and I finally got my new contacts and a new solution to go with it (mystery, by the way, partly solved: my old solution got RECALLED in May, and here I'd been using it for months.) I only get to wear them four days a week, but it's still much better than wearing glasses all the time.
After my appointment, on a spontaneous whim, I decided to get my hair cut. It's a short layered deal, with legitimate bangs, and it intermittently makes me feel like a 5-year-old tomboy, or like a 1920's flapper girl in need of a long, stylish cigarette--both of which are more fun than my dull, longish hair with halfhearted waves.
What really comes back in full force when I look in the mirror is a picture taken of me when I must have been either four or five. In it, I am wearing a dress with apples on it and a pilgrim-style collar, and a ridiculously serious expression. I have roughly the same hairstyle.
I feel funky and weird. Which is mostly how I felt as a little kid, too.
I ran quickly on the way down to the basement laundry room tonight, in an effort to keep from getting really wet on the soggy wooden stairs. The result of this was a fall that would have been more the mildly entertaining to've seen, in which I actually did the splits on one of the platforms (a flexibility feat I've never been able to pull off.) These were my feelings, in succession:
1. Embarrassed, because I'd fallen.
2. Pained, due to the fall.
3. Impressed, that I'd done the splits for the first time.
You know what I thought?
That's like a metaphor for life, man.
Monday, December 10, 2007
and the yogic energy permeates...
Yesterday my dad took a nap in my room, and mentioned liking the book beside my bed.
This morning he went back into my room to get a few things, and as I passed him on the way out, he stopped me, and, looking terribly earnest, implored: "Do you think... over break... you could bring home the little book on your bedside table? I'd really like to look at it more."
The book in question?
"Self-meditation: 3,299 mantras, tips, quotes, and koans for peace and serenity"
Some of the wisdom imparted from this book:
--"If it is false, harmful, or cruel, do not say it."
--"Bow humbly to the earth, bending over to touch your toes."
--"Bring your full self to everything to observe and feel."
I have tried to give my room a zen feeling--painting it green, accentuating with earthy colors and candles--and this book, given to me by a friend, tops it off. The sheer volume of wisdom is overwhelming, so I tend to just read one or two "tips" before I go to sleep.
That my dad wants the book is touching in a way I'm not sure I can explain. Maybe it's that I can see him trying to stretch himself beyond himself. Seeing him less vigorously defend his beliefs, seeing them begin to change. Thinking back to even five years ago, it's hard to imagine him do anything but roll his eyes at the idea of meditation and spirituality. But maybe it's me; maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.
People are sometimes so consistent that you forget they aren't automatic.
That's a bad thing to forget.
This morning he went back into my room to get a few things, and as I passed him on the way out, he stopped me, and, looking terribly earnest, implored: "Do you think... over break... you could bring home the little book on your bedside table? I'd really like to look at it more."
The book in question?
"Self-meditation: 3,299 mantras, tips, quotes, and koans for peace and serenity"
Some of the wisdom imparted from this book:
--"If it is false, harmful, or cruel, do not say it."
--"Bow humbly to the earth, bending over to touch your toes."
--"Bring your full self to everything to observe and feel."
I have tried to give my room a zen feeling--painting it green, accentuating with earthy colors and candles--and this book, given to me by a friend, tops it off. The sheer volume of wisdom is overwhelming, so I tend to just read one or two "tips" before I go to sleep.
That my dad wants the book is touching in a way I'm not sure I can explain. Maybe it's that I can see him trying to stretch himself beyond himself. Seeing him less vigorously defend his beliefs, seeing them begin to change. Thinking back to even five years ago, it's hard to imagine him do anything but roll his eyes at the idea of meditation and spirituality. But maybe it's me; maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.
People are sometimes so consistent that you forget they aren't automatic.
That's a bad thing to forget.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
a tasteless pizza, a tasteful soup
My parents are down here today; my mom has an appointment tomorrow.
They took me out for lunch at the Med, which is where we always eat. As we were waiting for our food, the conversation turned to My Life, which frequently turns into me semi-patiently attempting to explain my mind, and the world as they don't see it. It feels like the mental equivalent of swimming upstream.
Dad: "So, what classes are you taking next quarter?"
Me: "Second quarter of IS, second quarter of Hindi, Human Heredity, and.. um.. well.. an anthropology course. About............ the Incas."
Mom: "JUST DON'T major in Anthropology" (in long, nasally-whine)
She sounds so horrified here. Like I've just announced I plan to major in Common Carpet Patterns, or Really Tasty Cake.
Me: "I don't understand. When you knew I was majoring in just International Studies, it was OK. Now I would be majoring in both International Studies and Anthropology, and that's not OK?"
Mom: "My cubicle-mate Cindy's daughter--" (tearful story about how Anthropology BA led to life in box)
My dad is fairly inoffensive, until my mom sniffs out his moderate disapproval and urges him to share his thoughts. Which are, of course, inevitably: "I just don't understand what you plan to do with those degrees. Maybe it's old-fashioned. It used to be that people chose what they wanted to do, and got a degree in that field."
Me: "I want to write." Irritably. Then, actually sounding poignant: "That's all I want to do."
I said I was confused. I tried to explain, probably in vain, that I can't see myself doing one thing and being happy. I said I needed time to figure it out for myself. I think I ended up sounding all existential, but inarticulately existential. Which is a pretty neutered state to be in, when you're trying to bare your soul to your parents. I've never been able to do that properly.
I understand their worries. A lot of people here don't have a situation in which their education is their parents' biggest and riskiest investment. A lot of people here have wealthy parents who can afford to let their kids make their own mistakes and forge their own paths.
That said, probably many more people deal with parents outright refusing them certain decisions, and most, I think, would not send their kids to this school by sacrificing many of their own luxuries. My parents are paying for my education now, and I'm choosing my major. This is scary for everyone.
And so I ate my now-partially-tasteless four-cheese pizza, and wished for half an hour earlier when my biggest concern was finishing "The Golden Compass" on time to see the movie. I would say something about how this is adulthood, but I'm not certain it is. I'm pretty certain it's more of a half-assed welcome party to your twenties.
To completely losing interest in what you thought interested you!
To lying despairingly in your bed while listening to the jubilant drunks next door!
To the bloated, uncontrollable silence in between you and what you want!
I raise a toast. It certainly ain't a movie.
I may have been buried under the weight of my generous patrons' anxiety all afternoon, but a couple of things brought me back down to equilibrium.
Firstly, I made a hearty tomato soup which was enjoyed by my parents and roommate. I did something practical--to feed--and I did something creative--to cook. A beautiful practice. A lovely marriage of two qualities that deserve to go together.
Secondly, but not last of which, I signed up for a yoga class for next quarter. At least three mornings a week will find me focusing on breathing. Three blessed hours in which my single duty is to stretch and breathe. My late-adolescenthood could definitely benefit from this procedure.
They took me out for lunch at the Med, which is where we always eat. As we were waiting for our food, the conversation turned to My Life, which frequently turns into me semi-patiently attempting to explain my mind, and the world as they don't see it. It feels like the mental equivalent of swimming upstream.
Dad: "So, what classes are you taking next quarter?"
Me: "Second quarter of IS, second quarter of Hindi, Human Heredity, and.. um.. well.. an anthropology course. About............ the Incas."
Mom: "JUST DON'T major in Anthropology" (in long, nasally-whine)
She sounds so horrified here. Like I've just announced I plan to major in Common Carpet Patterns, or Really Tasty Cake.
Me: "I don't understand. When you knew I was majoring in just International Studies, it was OK. Now I would be majoring in both International Studies and Anthropology, and that's not OK?"
Mom: "My cubicle-mate Cindy's daughter--" (tearful story about how Anthropology BA led to life in box)
My dad is fairly inoffensive, until my mom sniffs out his moderate disapproval and urges him to share his thoughts. Which are, of course, inevitably: "I just don't understand what you plan to do with those degrees. Maybe it's old-fashioned. It used to be that people chose what they wanted to do, and got a degree in that field."
Me: "I want to write." Irritably. Then, actually sounding poignant: "That's all I want to do."
I said I was confused. I tried to explain, probably in vain, that I can't see myself doing one thing and being happy. I said I needed time to figure it out for myself. I think I ended up sounding all existential, but inarticulately existential. Which is a pretty neutered state to be in, when you're trying to bare your soul to your parents. I've never been able to do that properly.
I understand their worries. A lot of people here don't have a situation in which their education is their parents' biggest and riskiest investment. A lot of people here have wealthy parents who can afford to let their kids make their own mistakes and forge their own paths.
That said, probably many more people deal with parents outright refusing them certain decisions, and most, I think, would not send their kids to this school by sacrificing many of their own luxuries. My parents are paying for my education now, and I'm choosing my major. This is scary for everyone.
And so I ate my now-partially-tasteless four-cheese pizza, and wished for half an hour earlier when my biggest concern was finishing "The Golden Compass" on time to see the movie. I would say something about how this is adulthood, but I'm not certain it is. I'm pretty certain it's more of a half-assed welcome party to your twenties.
To completely losing interest in what you thought interested you!
To lying despairingly in your bed while listening to the jubilant drunks next door!
To the bloated, uncontrollable silence in between you and what you want!
I raise a toast. It certainly ain't a movie.
I may have been buried under the weight of my generous patrons' anxiety all afternoon, but a couple of things brought me back down to equilibrium.
Firstly, I made a hearty tomato soup which was enjoyed by my parents and roommate. I did something practical--to feed--and I did something creative--to cook. A beautiful practice. A lovely marriage of two qualities that deserve to go together.
Secondly, but not last of which, I signed up for a yoga class for next quarter. At least three mornings a week will find me focusing on breathing. Three blessed hours in which my single duty is to stretch and breathe. My late-adolescenthood could definitely benefit from this procedure.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
"Where's my shoe...?"
We went to the party last night. It was impressively stocked with people, for an apartment party, and with a school this size, it's very easy to see people who are familiar but in a I-see-you-in-Cobb-around-1:30-every-day kind of way. There were also the kind of the people that you met once, but don't know if you're both going to pretend you didn't. Honestly, parties can be very socially complicated.
My problem is this: I frequently meet people, but don't really get into in-depth conversations with them. There are lots of ways this could happen-- usually I'm with a friend, and briefly introduced on the side. This is a decent way to meet people in quantity, but it also means most of them almost immediately forget you. Which inhibits me (although it probably shouldn't) from approaching one of these people and starting a, "Hi, how are you, how's your life..?" Especially when these people appear deeply engrossed in conversation, which, despite movie depictions, is how most people at parties are. It's difficult to approach someone. It's nearly impossible to approach a group of people.
That said, last night was not as awkward as it could have been. People were very drunk, and I saw enough people I know/met on my own; approaching in this context is easy. I also was approached by two guys with a third in tow: an Italian guy whom it was apparently important that I meet. Except that Guy #1 spilled wine all over the floor, and seemed highly perturbed ("What should I do?"), Guy #2 left, and as I was explaining to Guy #1 how to Clean Up A Spill, Italian Guy took the opportunity to flee. I then had a very slow conversation with a very drunk Guy #1.
I talked to a few other people, and then decided to leave.
Except that I could only find one of my shoes in the shoe pile. I spent about 15 minutes looking through an array of soggy boots and tennis shoes, looking in closets and under the couches. Still, one shoe.
Luckily I knew one of the hosts, who traded me my one shoe for a pair of decidedly rather sexy boots. If there's one thing I don't have, it's a pair of sexy shoes. Cute, yes. Sexy, no. So it was a nice walk home, and I don't think I could have helped strutting a bit to the tap-tapping on the concrete. If I don't own a pair, I might as well enjoy my borrowed ones.
I was reading in bed a while later when I saw my door slowly open and U. stick her face in. "I found your shoe! But I forgot them..."
Apparently, Random Party Person had "borrowed" my shoe--one shoe--to go outside and smoke. After coming back in, she'd forgotten to take it off. U. noticed this as she was knelt
down, putting on her own shoes, and she saw one of mine walk by. There was a lot of shoe-borrowing going on last night.
Yeah, that was the most exciting thing that happened.
My problem is this: I frequently meet people, but don't really get into in-depth conversations with them. There are lots of ways this could happen-- usually I'm with a friend, and briefly introduced on the side. This is a decent way to meet people in quantity, but it also means most of them almost immediately forget you. Which inhibits me (although it probably shouldn't) from approaching one of these people and starting a, "Hi, how are you, how's your life..?" Especially when these people appear deeply engrossed in conversation, which, despite movie depictions, is how most people at parties are. It's difficult to approach someone. It's nearly impossible to approach a group of people.
That said, last night was not as awkward as it could have been. People were very drunk, and I saw enough people I know/met on my own; approaching in this context is easy. I also was approached by two guys with a third in tow: an Italian guy whom it was apparently important that I meet. Except that Guy #1 spilled wine all over the floor, and seemed highly perturbed ("What should I do?"), Guy #2 left, and as I was explaining to Guy #1 how to Clean Up A Spill, Italian Guy took the opportunity to flee. I then had a very slow conversation with a very drunk Guy #1.
I talked to a few other people, and then decided to leave.
Except that I could only find one of my shoes in the shoe pile. I spent about 15 minutes looking through an array of soggy boots and tennis shoes, looking in closets and under the couches. Still, one shoe.
Luckily I knew one of the hosts, who traded me my one shoe for a pair of decidedly rather sexy boots. If there's one thing I don't have, it's a pair of sexy shoes. Cute, yes. Sexy, no. So it was a nice walk home, and I don't think I could have helped strutting a bit to the tap-tapping on the concrete. If I don't own a pair, I might as well enjoy my borrowed ones.
I was reading in bed a while later when I saw my door slowly open and U. stick her face in. "I found your shoe! But I forgot them..."
Apparently, Random Party Person had "borrowed" my shoe--one shoe--to go outside and smoke. After coming back in, she'd forgotten to take it off. U. noticed this as she was knelt
down, putting on her own shoes, and she saw one of mine walk by. There was a lot of shoe-borrowing going on last night.
Yeah, that was the most exciting thing that happened.
"Words can't bring me down."
--Christina Aguilera.
Errm. Do you remember that persistent, intense sleepover debate that posed the timeless question: "Which is better: Britney Spears, or Christina Aguilera?" (Prerequisite: you're a girl between the ages of 18-22, and your preteen life was public-schoolishly insipid.)
I always said Christina Aguilera, and throughout the years have stuck to my decision. She can sing. Britney can't. But I swear, everyone around me still said Britney.
Did you not think I was this superficial? There was supposed to be going-out tonight, but U. is apparently engaged in a very intense phone conversation and I'm one vodka-tonic under and rediscovering "Xtina" on youtube. I can't even pretend to be tipsy, so I'll just come out and admit it: Some of her songs please my pop sensibility.
I said some. Others, admittedly, fall flat.
I do like the "Ain't No Other Man" video. It's stylin'.
I could make a disclaimer about the quality of lyrics in comparison to, say, Fiona Apple's, but I won't. Because obviously. Except I sort of just did.
Anyway. Just gotta throw in my pop culture opinion, to keep all those E! readers coming back.
In other news, A. created a blog and gave me permission to link her. Read it.
Errm. Do you remember that persistent, intense sleepover debate that posed the timeless question: "Which is better: Britney Spears, or Christina Aguilera?" (Prerequisite: you're a girl between the ages of 18-22, and your preteen life was public-schoolishly insipid.)
I always said Christina Aguilera, and throughout the years have stuck to my decision. She can sing. Britney can't. But I swear, everyone around me still said Britney.
Did you not think I was this superficial? There was supposed to be going-out tonight, but U. is apparently engaged in a very intense phone conversation and I'm one vodka-tonic under and rediscovering "Xtina" on youtube. I can't even pretend to be tipsy, so I'll just come out and admit it: Some of her songs please my pop sensibility.
I said some. Others, admittedly, fall flat.
I do like the "Ain't No Other Man" video. It's stylin'.
I could make a disclaimer about the quality of lyrics in comparison to, say, Fiona Apple's, but I won't. Because obviously. Except I sort of just did.
Anyway. Just gotta throw in my pop culture opinion, to keep all those E! readers coming back.
In other news, A. created a blog and gave me permission to link her. Read it.
Friday, December 07, 2007
The Unanswerable Phone
I don't much like this Henry Crown.
Normally I work at the Ratner gym, which is all new-fangled and makes me feel disproportionately rich when I work out there, because every treadmill has a nice flat-screen TV, and the whole facility is just new and shiny.
But today I was recruited to work at ye olde Henry Crown, the U of C's first gym, which was built.. well, I don't know when it was built. But I just researched it on the athletic facilities page and got this--"Henry Crown looks like most of campus -- a castle. However, it also smells like a castle and is about as old as a castle." So there you go. (Also, the caption for the picture is "Ye Olde Field House", which just shows how apt my powers as a descriptive journalist are.)
Now then. HC does not exude an aura of fun and excitement. It has concrete floors and white-painted brick walls and exposed piping and red iron fence-like barriors everywhere. A white-painted metal staircase leads around one side of the building, with an iron yellow-painted railing. A built-in iron ladder crawls up one wall, starting spontaneously in the middle of it, apparently leading up to the ceiling.
Everything is painted white, red, or yellow (or is naturally gray); everything is made out of iron or something harder. Loud, indistinct buzzing, like two air conditioners and three fans at once, is surrounding me on all sides. Things are dusty; there is a rip in my chair.
Henry Crown may sound like a castle, Mysterious Euphemism Writer, but on the inside it looks and sounds like a sewage treatment facility. Which can be creepy, when you walk in and the women in charge says "That's there," and promptly leaves me all alone.
Many women want to be celebrities. Or millionaire socialites, or--if you're respectable--Mother Theresa or Jane Addams. I am the gatekeeper of the sewage facility.
Finally, there is a phone that keeps going off. I feel obligated to answer it, but it's located inside an utterly caged-off room that is locked from every side (and I'm in the closed-off area, myself.) I can see the phone ring behind its red iron jail cell--for what feels like forever. Long, guilt-inspiring minutes, and the phone just three feet away is silent. What is it? Fire? Murder..? (That wouldn't be surprising, around here.) Cat in a tree? Did someone drown in the Ratner pool? What sort of emergency warrants 7AM incessant calls to an unavailable, or invisible, or nonexistent person caged up in a gym?
This place is weird.
Normally I work at the Ratner gym, which is all new-fangled and makes me feel disproportionately rich when I work out there, because every treadmill has a nice flat-screen TV, and the whole facility is just new and shiny.
But today I was recruited to work at ye olde Henry Crown, the U of C's first gym, which was built.. well, I don't know when it was built. But I just researched it on the athletic facilities page and got this--"Henry Crown looks like most of campus -- a castle. However, it also smells like a castle and is about as old as a castle." So there you go. (Also, the caption for the picture is "Ye Olde Field House", which just shows how apt my powers as a descriptive journalist are.)
Now then. HC does not exude an aura of fun and excitement. It has concrete floors and white-painted brick walls and exposed piping and red iron fence-like barriors everywhere. A white-painted metal staircase leads around one side of the building, with an iron yellow-painted railing. A built-in iron ladder crawls up one wall, starting spontaneously in the middle of it, apparently leading up to the ceiling.
Everything is painted white, red, or yellow (or is naturally gray); everything is made out of iron or something harder. Loud, indistinct buzzing, like two air conditioners and three fans at once, is surrounding me on all sides. Things are dusty; there is a rip in my chair.
Henry Crown may sound like a castle, Mysterious Euphemism Writer, but on the inside it looks and sounds like a sewage treatment facility. Which can be creepy, when you walk in and the women in charge says "That's there," and promptly leaves me all alone.
Many women want to be celebrities. Or millionaire socialites, or--if you're respectable--Mother Theresa or Jane Addams. I am the gatekeeper of the sewage facility.
Finally, there is a phone that keeps going off. I feel obligated to answer it, but it's located inside an utterly caged-off room that is locked from every side (and I'm in the closed-off area, myself.) I can see the phone ring behind its red iron jail cell--for what feels like forever. Long, guilt-inspiring minutes, and the phone just three feet away is silent. What is it? Fire? Murder..? (That wouldn't be surprising, around here.) Cat in a tree? Did someone drown in the Ratner pool? What sort of emergency warrants 7AM incessant calls to an unavailable, or invisible, or nonexistent person caged up in a gym?
This place is weird.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
books and Buddha
100 Best Novels Ever Written, according to a big-shot publishing company, and submissions by readers.
I have read 12 of the board's choices, and 14 of the reader's choices. I can't believe they chose "We the Living" as #8--I thought only I have ever read that book. It has to be one of Rand's least read. The Objectivist/Scientology theme of the reader's top ten makes me a little shaky on their value as critics.
It surprises me that almost all of my favorite books are in the list. It also surprises me that "Atonement" is not on the list.
Some books on the list I want to read:
We might go ice skating later. Ah, winter.
I have read 12 of the board's choices, and 14 of the reader's choices. I can't believe they chose "We the Living" as #8--I thought only I have ever read that book. It has to be one of Rand's least read. The Objectivist/Scientology theme of the reader's top ten makes me a little shaky on their value as critics.
It surprises me that almost all of my favorite books are in the list. It also surprises me that "Atonement" is not on the list.
Some books on the list I want to read:
- Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
- The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
- To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
- Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
- The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
We might go ice skating later. Ah, winter.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
paleowhatever
I don't like nights like this.
I have the kind of Lonely that's much worse than being literally alone. I wish I could do the whole "No one knows what I feel!" thing, but I'm sure plenty of people know how I feel. I could blame it on my distant or recent past, but that wouldn't be very nice as my collective Pasts weren't supposed to work out.
I've been reading a lot of paleoanthropology/evolutionary stuff as of late, and when you do that, you start to think of everything as pretty deromanticized and scientific. Like sex, which is just the propagation of the species (even the fun in sex has its evolutionary reasons). Kissing is just our courtship behavioral ritual. Jealousy is perceiving and reacting toward a threat of your mate being taken away (whom you need to propagate your species, obviously).
Still doesn't stop the Lonely. I blame that on culture.
I have the kind of Lonely that's much worse than being literally alone. I wish I could do the whole "No one knows what I feel!" thing, but I'm sure plenty of people know how I feel. I could blame it on my distant or recent past, but that wouldn't be very nice as my collective Pasts weren't supposed to work out.
I've been reading a lot of paleoanthropology/evolutionary stuff as of late, and when you do that, you start to think of everything as pretty deromanticized and scientific. Like sex, which is just the propagation of the species (even the fun in sex has its evolutionary reasons). Kissing is just our courtship behavioral ritual. Jealousy is perceiving and reacting toward a threat of your mate being taken away (whom you need to propagate your species, obviously).
Still doesn't stop the Lonely. I blame that on culture.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Left of somewhere
I love Noam Chomsky.
Because I was done with exams, and because Netflix offers a certain amount of free movie viewing online, and because no other movie looked particularly engaging, I found myself eating spinach tortellini and watching a documentary about Mr. Chomsky--someone I knew nothing about except a) linguistics, linguistics, linguistics! and b) an affiliation with the University of Chicago. The second appears illusory, as I've found almost no Google evidence supporting this idea, and Wikipedia makes no mention of a connection (except we've given him an honorary degree, along with every other academic institution ever).
The man is brilliant. You can tell he's brilliant, because when he talks, it all comes out naturally, apparently unrehearsed, and without the force of someone fearful of challenge. At the same time, Noam is wonderfully accessible. He refuses to fill his speech with large, obscure words simply because he knows them. He speaks intelligently but normally, to an intellectual audience with an interest in useful, clear information.
Other things charmed me as well. For example, in his pullover grey sweater, clunky outdated glasses, soft voice and sunspots, he looks like he might be your grandfather. Yet, along with this, he delivers scathing (softly scathing) criticism of American foreign policy--not the kind with simplistic platitudes and unnecessary attacks that make you cringe, but rather the sort meticulously researched, well-analyzed and fair-minded. And he isn't just a figurehead of the left--his anarchist ideals alienate him from many who simply wave the party flag, and he's just as willing to honestly analyze leftist problems and faults (NPR, for example, a network he doesn't appear to disrespect but says has even more strict leftist adherence than the ideological strictness of some of its conservative counterparts).
What I especially liked, though, was his willingness to deconstruct the philosophies of right and left a little bit, rather than just blast one side from behind the barricade of the other.
For a while--mainly since my Soc class last year, which inundated me with texts about Society and Culture--I've been trying to look at politics in more of an enduring social light. It's strange, because both the "right" and the "left" seem to have emerged recently, whereas in the past there was usually a blend of the two leading social thought. Early societies, for example, definitely appear to have been more about the care of the social than the freedom of the individual (I'm talking very early, by the way). But few people really think of liberalism as anything traditional.
Noam pointed out that the push in society for privatizing things like social security and education is essentially saying that you're not supposed to care about other individuals and their welfare--only about how many pairs of shoes you have, whether you're comfortable and happy. Social security might be a strain on the government, but it reinforces the idea within our society that it matters whether or not the old lady down the street is fed.
Without the government--essentially the alter which society prays at, with religion playing so marginal a role--establishing the morality and sacredness of social care, we're looking toward a very empty, frightening, apathetic and individualistic society. Personal responsibility, yes. Of that I am a big advocate. But social responsibility, too.
According to Wikipedia, Chomsky's birthday is December 7. I feel so happy to find a fellow December baby--left alone all this time with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Aaron Carter, I thought I might have been doomed to the least intellectual birth month ever.
Happy Birthday, Noam.
Because I was done with exams, and because Netflix offers a certain amount of free movie viewing online, and because no other movie looked particularly engaging, I found myself eating spinach tortellini and watching a documentary about Mr. Chomsky--someone I knew nothing about except a) linguistics, linguistics, linguistics! and b) an affiliation with the University of Chicago. The second appears illusory, as I've found almost no Google evidence supporting this idea, and Wikipedia makes no mention of a connection (except we've given him an honorary degree, along with every other academic institution ever).
The man is brilliant. You can tell he's brilliant, because when he talks, it all comes out naturally, apparently unrehearsed, and without the force of someone fearful of challenge. At the same time, Noam is wonderfully accessible. He refuses to fill his speech with large, obscure words simply because he knows them. He speaks intelligently but normally, to an intellectual audience with an interest in useful, clear information.
Other things charmed me as well. For example, in his pullover grey sweater, clunky outdated glasses, soft voice and sunspots, he looks like he might be your grandfather. Yet, along with this, he delivers scathing (softly scathing) criticism of American foreign policy--not the kind with simplistic platitudes and unnecessary attacks that make you cringe, but rather the sort meticulously researched, well-analyzed and fair-minded. And he isn't just a figurehead of the left--his anarchist ideals alienate him from many who simply wave the party flag, and he's just as willing to honestly analyze leftist problems and faults (NPR, for example, a network he doesn't appear to disrespect but says has even more strict leftist adherence than the ideological strictness of some of its conservative counterparts).
What I especially liked, though, was his willingness to deconstruct the philosophies of right and left a little bit, rather than just blast one side from behind the barricade of the other.
For a while--mainly since my Soc class last year, which inundated me with texts about Society and Culture--I've been trying to look at politics in more of an enduring social light. It's strange, because both the "right" and the "left" seem to have emerged recently, whereas in the past there was usually a blend of the two leading social thought. Early societies, for example, definitely appear to have been more about the care of the social than the freedom of the individual (I'm talking very early, by the way). But few people really think of liberalism as anything traditional.
Noam pointed out that the push in society for privatizing things like social security and education is essentially saying that you're not supposed to care about other individuals and their welfare--only about how many pairs of shoes you have, whether you're comfortable and happy. Social security might be a strain on the government, but it reinforces the idea within our society that it matters whether or not the old lady down the street is fed.
Without the government--essentially the alter which society prays at, with religion playing so marginal a role--establishing the morality and sacredness of social care, we're looking toward a very empty, frightening, apathetic and individualistic society. Personal responsibility, yes. Of that I am a big advocate. But social responsibility, too.
According to Wikipedia, Chomsky's birthday is December 7. I feel so happy to find a fellow December baby--left alone all this time with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Aaron Carter, I thought I might have been doomed to the least intellectual birth month ever.
Happy Birthday, Noam.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Oh bio, oh my-o
For whatever reason, I'm just ridiculously tired. Tomorrow night I'll be done with exams--I have Bio in the morning, and then I have to finish my last Environmental Studies assignment. Hindi and International Studies are now neatly packed away for the next month.
Here are some things I learned in Biological Issues and Paradigms this quarter:
Here are some things I learned in Biological Issues and Paradigms this quarter:
- I like biology
- We eat the whole cake because we're evolutionarily programmed to eat the whole cake. If Homo erectus successfully tracked down a cake, you'd better believe he'd eat the whole effing thing. Who knows when you'll get your next cake?
- Boat-tailed grackles are becoming less and less efficient fliers because the ladies think the less efficient tails are hot
- Now = fingernail. Then = claw
- Ruminants have a farm of protozoans and bacteria to digest their food for them--talk about badass
- The original food pyramid was manufactured by a bunch of ignorant bureaucrats for a bunch of ignorant U.S. citizens
- Ancient whales were really seriously hardcore
- Charles Darwin was a college dropout who was put aboard the U.S.S. Beagle to hang out and drink with the captain
Sunday, December 02, 2007
freezing bedroom, warmer heart, old words
My apartment has a heat problem. Which is to say, we do not control the heat, and it's a problem. When you're walking around in a bra and boxers and fanning yourself with your homework in mid-November, something is wrong with your heat. My room is the hottest. To deal with it, I have taken to opening the window and putting the fan in front of it, directing the freezing night air straight onto my bed and legitimizing my comforter.
Except apparently they've recently realized that 90 degrees might be overdoing it and scaled it back to what feels like a comfortably goosebumpy 52. I took a nap earlier and left the window open and fan on--now my bedroom is an icebox. I write from inside my hoodie, from inside my nest of blankets.
I don't want to write much tonight because a) I have my IS final tomorrow morning, b) I'm on the last chapter of The Origin of Humankind and let me tell you, things are really getting intense, and c) I want to participate in that archaic custom of Sleep.
I little while ago, for the first time, I went back and looked at all the "drafts" in my blog--the stuff I wrote and didn't "publish" for whatever reason (discomfort, unfinished). It's always strange and comforting to read something I don't remember writing, because I tend to react in a "I so know what you mean" sort of way, like I just met someone who really gets me. Which is really what a person should be to herself, I think.
Here's one.
December 6, 2006--
I, like a fool, like a child, never give up hope.
3AM and what helps when I feel like I will certainly throw up is a cold cloth over my heart, to slow it down. Really, that should be indication enough. Is it the sickness that comes first, or the tailspin of thoughts down into some truly ridiculous psychological territory? Each encourages the other, and I get into this unhealthy mindstate, sort of everything pent-up being allowed to play and multiply, until I'd do almost anything to get myself to relax. I understand the mind-body connection, Love in the Time of Cholera, those desperate early morning actions that completely betray every rational thought a person has. Phone calls, plane tickets, a climactic obliteration of pride and self-respect, a surge of primal need.
It isn't sane... everything you can say adds up to nothing. What if it happened, if you got the person's attention? Then what? Words can't possibly explain it. It's all you, a feeling dancing in your mind, a fantastic vent of frustration and anger and longing all sort of culminating in something incommunicable. Because it is fundamentally not grounded in reality. It's psychological, subconscious vomit rising to the surface. It's essential humanness. Centered, admittedly, around someone important--but no one worthy of such intense emotion should have allowed you to get so far gone.
I'd like to believe I'm not alone in this, that everyone descends into a melodramatic puddle once in a while, reaches into their past and grasps for what has most strongly represented life. I guess it's a nervous breakdown. Except I'm publishing it rather obscenely, maybe for the sake of catharsis.
Almost December 6, 2007--
To me, one year ago:
It's okay. You're here, you're sane, you're faulted, you're loved.
Before the year is out, you'll better understand a few things about love:
1) You know better than anyone what you feel. Period.
2) A truly complicated relationship is no less complicated when the apparent tumor is removed. That only means you have to look dysfunction in the face.
3) In a relationship, more important than how deeply you care for someone is whether you're cared deeply for.
And, on the other side:
4) It is terrifying to be held responsible for someone else's emotions. Especially when you care for that person.
I would tell you to proceed with caution, but you will do no such thing. I would tell you to wear sunscreen, but you didn't do that either.
When you get to this date, you won't be resolved. You won't be satisfied.
You will be embraced. You will be progressive.
You will be okay. You have your friends.
You have me.
Except apparently they've recently realized that 90 degrees might be overdoing it and scaled it back to what feels like a comfortably goosebumpy 52. I took a nap earlier and left the window open and fan on--now my bedroom is an icebox. I write from inside my hoodie, from inside my nest of blankets.
I don't want to write much tonight because a) I have my IS final tomorrow morning, b) I'm on the last chapter of The Origin of Humankind and let me tell you, things are really getting intense, and c) I want to participate in that archaic custom of Sleep.
I little while ago, for the first time, I went back and looked at all the "drafts" in my blog--the stuff I wrote and didn't "publish" for whatever reason (discomfort, unfinished). It's always strange and comforting to read something I don't remember writing, because I tend to react in a "I so know what you mean" sort of way, like I just met someone who really gets me. Which is really what a person should be to herself, I think.
Here's one.
December 6, 2006--
I, like a fool, like a child, never give up hope.
3AM and what helps when I feel like I will certainly throw up is a cold cloth over my heart, to slow it down. Really, that should be indication enough. Is it the sickness that comes first, or the tailspin of thoughts down into some truly ridiculous psychological territory? Each encourages the other, and I get into this unhealthy mindstate, sort of everything pent-up being allowed to play and multiply, until I'd do almost anything to get myself to relax. I understand the mind-body connection, Love in the Time of Cholera, those desperate early morning actions that completely betray every rational thought a person has. Phone calls, plane tickets, a climactic obliteration of pride and self-respect, a surge of primal need.
It isn't sane... everything you can say adds up to nothing. What if it happened, if you got the person's attention? Then what? Words can't possibly explain it. It's all you, a feeling dancing in your mind, a fantastic vent of frustration and anger and longing all sort of culminating in something incommunicable. Because it is fundamentally not grounded in reality. It's psychological, subconscious vomit rising to the surface. It's essential humanness. Centered, admittedly, around someone important--but no one worthy of such intense emotion should have allowed you to get so far gone.
I'd like to believe I'm not alone in this, that everyone descends into a melodramatic puddle once in a while, reaches into their past and grasps for what has most strongly represented life. I guess it's a nervous breakdown. Except I'm publishing it rather obscenely, maybe for the sake of catharsis.
Almost December 6, 2007--
To me, one year ago:
It's okay. You're here, you're sane, you're faulted, you're loved.
Before the year is out, you'll better understand a few things about love:
1) You know better than anyone what you feel. Period.
2) A truly complicated relationship is no less complicated when the apparent tumor is removed. That only means you have to look dysfunction in the face.
3) In a relationship, more important than how deeply you care for someone is whether you're cared deeply for.
And, on the other side:
4) It is terrifying to be held responsible for someone else's emotions. Especially when you care for that person.
I would tell you to proceed with caution, but you will do no such thing. I would tell you to wear sunscreen, but you didn't do that either.
When you get to this date, you won't be resolved. You won't be satisfied.
You will be embraced. You will be progressive.
You will be okay. You have your friends.
You have me.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Fire and Ice
It started snowing early this afternoon. Now, the world outside is turning to ice. Everything is crispy and shiny with the orange of street lights. It makes me remember why I like winter. And wonder whether or not I was born on a day covered in snow, or ice, or whether it was just gray and dark.
Yesterday I watched "Match Point", and this is what I liked about it:
1) The character that is supposed to be sexy and smoldering and detached and exciting eventually descends into someone needy and whiny and inconvenient (understandably so). Anyway, this displays that sexy detached excitement is a pretense and that underneath it, everyone is really someone who pays electricity bills and wants to sleep soundly. Treat lightly the first impression.
2) The climactic moment that makes you go "Ooooh" gives you completely the wrong idea before the end.
3) It leaves you unsatisfied in exactly the way you're supposed to be unsatisfied--this is how it makes its point.
Yesterday I watched "Match Point", and this is what I liked about it:
1) The character that is supposed to be sexy and smoldering and detached and exciting eventually descends into someone needy and whiny and inconvenient (understandably so). Anyway, this displays that sexy detached excitement is a pretense and that underneath it, everyone is really someone who pays electricity bills and wants to sleep soundly. Treat lightly the first impression.
2) The climactic moment that makes you go "Ooooh" gives you completely the wrong idea before the end.
3) It leaves you unsatisfied in exactly the way you're supposed to be unsatisfied--this is how it makes its point.
welcome, december
...you're beautiful in your way.
The past few days have been really nice. They have involved:
I think, if I believed in reincarnation, I would suspect that I existed about 2,000 years ago, had red hair, and spent a decent amount of time walking along the rocks that border Ireland's Atlantic coast.
The past few days have been really nice. They have involved:
- Cookies
- Quiet music while lying on the floor with two other people, looking into the Christmas lights hanging over the window
- Weather finally supporting the use of long underwear
- Sleeping in
- Talk about boys
- Painful nostalgia tempered by soft blankets, hot tea, and a rational mind
- Tofu soup (upon which I may be growing increasingly dependent) at the Snail with 3 wonderful girls
- Third World Cafe
- An amusing conversation about Mormonism
- Dances--most notably Kate Bush's perturbed-fairy dance in the "Wuthering Heights" music video
I think, if I believed in reincarnation, I would suspect that I existed about 2,000 years ago, had red hair, and spent a decent amount of time walking along the rocks that border Ireland's Atlantic coast.
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