Swiiiine feva.

Alright, I don't know if I have the swine flu or not, but the sick-day count is officially at Day 9 (if we're running a conservative estimate). Can I possibly get you to conceive of how truly shitty that is, in light of timing? I got sick over Thanksgiving, missed an entire preparatory week of classes and work and studying for Finals Week, and tomorrow that week begins and I'm still at least a few days from recovery. There have been two visits to the ER, two chest X-Rays, every symptom possible, and a load of prescriptions (antibiotics, steroids, an inhaler).

Last night I slept for 12 hours. Today my stomach feels weird, my energy is low, my cough is deep, and my brain feels like jello. I have been attempting a Hindi essay and knowing that much of my grammar and verb usage is coming out poorly. Tomorrow I have a physical science exam at 8:30AM. I have yet to study.

I'm getting to that part of sickness where you imagine socializing as if it's some extraordinary feat, worlds away. I can see myself, weeks into the future, fancy drink in hand in a bar with Christmas lights strung up, wearing one of my Party shirts, healthy, in make-up, laughing. (I don't actually know how or where this situation would take place, but it's a good stock image.)

HEALTHY PEOPLE, ENJOY YOUR HEALTHINESS.

I also have the urge to wipe down this entire apartment seven times with antibacterial wipes. Lengthy sickness has made me somewhat germophobic. Can I drink out of that glass again, or is it covered in SEVEN MORE DAYS of ILLNESS? Can I sleep on this pillow or will I reinfect myself? THAT DOOR must be COVERED in VIRUSES. AHHHHH.

It doesn't help that the boys have been stalking around and coughing and acting like they're somehow even close to how crappy I feel (hint: if you're still drinking beer, M., NO, you're not all that sick, now are you?) They should not try to be stealing my illness thunder, as absurd a concept as that is. Because you really don't want to look for whatever this crap is. Because it sucks. And it saps your energy. And it makes you whiny, as whiny as I am right now. (Notice: I will start acting human again in a few days, I think.)

My birthday is a week from tomorrow. First, I want health. Then, I want a cupcake.

Expensive things I want

1. A digital camera that takes high-res, gorgeous photos to inspire me. I would photograph food, flowers, and faces. I would create art projects for myself. And for you.

2. One pair of shoes that could be categorized as sexy.

3. No negative moneys in my bank account.

Food count: I have lentils, rice, and pasta. Outta milk again. Organic v. cheap, this is why I will never gain enough for a camera. Also, heart-stopping debt.

Work count: BA reading withers from inattention, stupid Bollywood skit requires memorization, something about a world music research paper nags at my memory, and what is ozone again? Where is my time going? Are evil elves in my wall siphoning it away?

Cripping debt + life in box + lazy = no sexy shoes.

Boo.

BAistan

I haven't told you about my BA yet, have I, Blog?

Well, I'm probably not going to right now either, because while it's endlessly fascinating I can't give too much away at this point. I have done some research and I have a lot left to go. I can give you the key words in descending narrowing order, however, which are: Afghanistan, Taliban, Pashtuns, ethnic nationalism. I promise it's very, very interesting.

One of the nice things about focusing on a BA topic is getting to fall into the depth of a subject again. Being on the quarter system, and taking four classes a quarter, means you can get into lots of things but you can only fall so deep into each one. Examples from my college experience: Marx, Durkheim, pirates, Russian literature, the world water crisis, AIDS, museums, early American colonization, the Beat Generation, Bretton Woods..

But with this BA, it's all Afghanistan all the time. I am learning odds and ends. I am collecting and printing articles from journals I doubt more than 80 people read. I'm investigative. It turns out I can't really go to Afghanistan and interview a member of the Taliban, so I'm sniffing out primary sources wherever I can. The number of formal interviews given by the Taliban to the press and recorded can probably be counted on two hands. I need ethnographies, travel writing, first-hand accounts, anything that takes into account ethnic relations.

I haven't been able to explore at all the past week (midterm PAIN and SUFFERING on a grand scale), and have been insufficiently lazy for the past several. I only have about seven articles read and miscellaneous bits of a number of books. So these last five weeks? It's Go Time. I need mega-discipline. I need to at least imagine that I'm on Adderall.

Anyway, in my more leisurely exploration of everything Afghan/Taliban/South-Central Asian, I have found some things worth sharing (learn something new today!):

Ghosts of Alexander is a frequently updated blog of political/social/cultural commentary on Afghanistan mainly, but also Central Asia more generally, by a PhD candidate doing his research in Tajikistan. If you want to actually know complex things about Afghanistan, this is an interesting read. I am thinking about emailing him for help with sources. (Also: we have a mutual Facebook friend. The world is small.)

The Kalash are a genetically unique tribe in the mountains of Pakistan; they're disproportionately blue-eyed and blonde. And also, still polytheists. Apparently there's speculation that they were left over from Alexander the Great's army. Just, wow.

Finally, Afghan Atheist. Because religion should piss everyone off, at least a little bit.

...I seem to be on some kind of pan-Asia mental tour. It started three years ago in China, trekked West to India, went up through Pakistan and Afghanistan, and now I'm eyeing Central Asia while I'm at it. Check in on me in three years and I'll be up around Turkey.

I am hopeless.

(As my roommates try to help me with physics concepts.)

M: "Now, let's say I have a cookie, and I'm breaking the cookie into a third and a two-third piece at a rate of 1 cookie per second. And then, I start breaking cookies into halves instead of thirds and you actually have two halves and the halves are the same so you'd have the coefficient of two..."
E: "But you don't have any more and you're not doing it any faster."
J: "Because the oxygen molecules are actually the same.."
M: "...let's just stick to cookies."

Epic intelligence fail.

lookit what I found

I am in musical love with Hype Machine. It is my new Youtube. It is magical.

Hype Machine collects mp3s from a million music blogs and compiles them in one place--it is a remarkably thorough music aggregator. This means you can type in any artist and receive not only sparkly and recent (and sometimes older) music from that artist, but also relevant live versions, covers of and remixes from that artist. Even better, type in a song you like and you'll more than likely hit upon covers and remixes of it. It delivers the fresh and revitalizes the tired.

Because it's put me in such a fine mood, y'all should partake of my bounty.

Basia Bulat - "Gold Rush" (New album drops in January, YES)
Basia Bulat - "Snakes and Ladders" (Mellower version of the Oh, My Darling track--much improved, IMO)
Canasta - "The Model" (Kraftwerk cover)
Ruby Weapon - "Two Weeks" (Grizzly Bear cover)
Laura Marling - "The Wrote and the Writ" (Johnny Flynn cover)

Professional passion.

One of the (incredibly lofty) newspaper internships I'm applying for requires that I write an "autobiography" of at least 500 words. Writing about myself isn't terribly difficult (I mean, I do it on here often enough) but trying to remember and decide what's important from the 21 years of my life thus far is strange, at best.

Perhaps the most notable aspect is something I think about often--passion. I think about it and it confuses me. I'm not sure that I have a passion.

I'm a passionate person, that isn't the problem. I'm passionate about life. I still want to do many things. But mainly, these things are not productive on the measurable scale of capitalist development. I feel indifferent about things like running a company or creating products. The many things I want to do are controlled entirely by me--going to X country, learning X language, learning the capitals of every country in the world, learning to cook X kind of food, learning to play a certain instrument, writing a novel, walking or biking a long distance, learning to better understand and appreciate things like physics. None of these things are marketable.

In writing an autobiography for a journalistic internship, I am probably expected to express a passion for journalism. In fact, I do not have one. The truth is, as I've rolled around and peeked at various careers, journalism is simply the most appealing in that, I imagine, it allows me to be as much myself as possible. It gives me not unlimited, but very generous independence in constructing a "product." It allows me to continue learning diverse things on the job as part of the job. It allows me to leave the building and be outside and journey to new places. I am not passionate about the process of framing a journalistic story, but I am often interested in the subject and passionate about my freedom.

Because I have no "professional" passion, I fear the ease of being depressed or at least uninspired in whatever future occupation I am swept into. As I get closer to graduating, this "swept into" thing feels more and more likely. I am a picky human being, hugely idealistic and easily dissatisfied and discouraged. I will have to make money. My skill set, background, and experience are not unusually compelling. And I don't have a professional passion. That means, more than likely, I will have to devote hours to producing something I don't care about rather than learning.

Not sure how to spin this one, autobiography readers. You will want to hear about how my passion for journalism developed and I can't give you that one. All I can offer is why journalism may be one of the few livable options I foresee.

In any case, it doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot. This is the sort of supremely high-end paper that will hire wunderkids who set up makeshift video reports after the tsunami struck on their Thailand vacation, or did independent investigative journalism on the perilous refugee situation in a Central Asian country, and then published it on their blog.

All my blog's got are long-operated, occasionally updated reflections on my life.

Most people I know are excited about working. I am not. I feel dread. Where are you, marketable passion?

musings on internet boomers.

While looking through the photos my dad posted to Facebook today, I noticed one caption that struck me as odd: "A wicked game of water volleyball."

I hope you caught the oddball element--the gratuitous and colloquial use of the word "wicked", which I am certain my 61-year-old father would never use audibly.

While I realize that the walls have been scaled by baby boomers and middle school kids alike, and Facebook is now a watered-down and universalized version of its previous university-elitist empire, interacting with my parents via Facebook is still vaguely creepy, like running into them at a party after my second drink. I now know how my parents present themselves, and likewise, they know how I choose to display myself. I know that one of my dad's favorite quotes is from "Saving Private Ryan" (the other is from "Shakespeare in Love", apparently) and that my mom, given the chance, will flood those personal boxes with information about herself. (One of her interests is "heated discussions about God and the state of the World" and in the favorite quotes section--I love this--she has written, "be the change you want to see in the world (or something like that) by Gandhi I think.")

Now, using the parameters I drew up long, long ago (think: age 15) to judge people via the internet, I am faced with the ability to label my parents with specialty labels normally reserved for the guy from my biology class (i.e. "Oh my god, he lists Nickelback in his favorite music?" or [true story] "Ew, he's a Republican.")

Now, of course I know my parents better and in a completely different context than the guy from biology. But really, isn't so much of the information in the way people choose to display themselves, in the in-between stuff, rather than the facts? One of my "friends" updates her status bar hourly after each break up, to let the world know how crappy she feels. I know very little about her, but I do know that she's something of an exhibitionist. I can also identify several narcissists, who happily spend hours photographing themselves in slightly varied positions in front of their closet door, or some other mundane space, in order to post all 57 on Facebook and wait in the glow of the screen for the hoped-for compliments.

OK, so I sound a little judgmental, but don't we all have new ideas of people due to the wily internet and the opportunity it gives people to package themselves? It's this realm that creates a new, weird social space. My mom now calls me to tell me she read the link or watched the video I posted to Facebook. That's not bad. It's just weird.

It's particularly curious for me to watch all of these adults represent themselves in such a clunky way. Being "friends" with more than my parents has given me a decent sample size, and a lot of adults just can't seem to adapt. Their messages and updates are rife with spelling and grammatical errors. Is the internet bringing baby boomer stupidity to the forefront, or are older adults just really lazy and clumsy?* (Bonus question: are younger people growing up and expressing themselves in writing likely to be better spellers?)

*Aside: I don't claim that young people are somehow more intelligent or better educated.. maybe more are just familiar with spell check.

My thoughts are that basically, we have a younger population that "gets" the internet, and an older population that doesn't. Some things--memes, pervasive irony, evolving netspeak ("zomg"), themed blogs--are more intuitive than anything, a sort of dog whistle separating those who understand this part of pop culture from those that don't.

What I find interesting is that older people are taking so long to learn. Maybe they just don't care?

an atom in a world of molecules

Let's talk about...

First of all, I feel like an atom in a world full of diatomic molecules.

Aside from that, tonight I finally got to go to a party. Last weekend made me beg for the week again (how is it that at 21, all of my friends put "doing homework" at the top of their Saturday circa 11pm schedules?) but this weekend I got a text from C. relating the glorious news: "I found a party, big and impersonal! Come join?"

It was what I needed. When I say needed, I mean it with a capital N, and possibly with a preceding "desperately". I needed something outside of hanging out with a couple, which is basically my only option anymore. How did the world turn into only a combination of twos? How is everyone so fortuitous? I mean, I expect there are other people in my sorry position of have-I-seriously-been-alone-so-freaking-long-lyhood. But really--it's a bit ridiculous how I know so few of them. My friends are almost all in the love bubble, and oh, how I believe they take it for granted.

On TV, there is an illusion of the bar scene, where attractive singles order their margaritas and sup them in a sultry fashion before the personal and understanding bartender. Always in these situations, other attractive singles float into the picture, as if life were fair enough to grant attractive singles. I am nearing the D-word--I am nearing the need to put on lipstick and go to a bar and sit alone on the stool and wait for the illusion with which TV presents us.

So tonight--the party of someone I didn't know--was needed. I got to nearly flirt with a third-year physics major/Vermonter for a while, someone I was perfectly happy to continue the conversation with, until he left at a friend's prodding. And there it went. But for a moment it was there--a prospect, a possibility. The reminder that I'm not entirely dead to the world of relationships. If he had stayed... well.

I wouldn't, by the way, be using this language if it weren't for years of caked on loneliness leaving me feeling so sincerely left out of the loop. Sincerely in the most sincere way. It makes me fear how no one I know who reads this will actually know what I mean. No one has gone so long without what can be called a significant other. When it starts to feel like true alienation from society, you have what can be called a problem. You have a serious fixation problem and you need to give in.

My friends have been filling in the gaps recently, and I've learned to adapt to calm. But if the third-year physics major had stayed at the party, I might feel differently right now. As it is, I feel a bit better in that at least I met someone. Really, that simple. I met a human that might have theoretically been interested.

I am this far gone. Even as I apply lipstick in the morning and feel curiously positive about myself. This is the result of knowing no one in my situation. It is freakish. Knowing no one who can have an actual boyfriend history at this age. It is alarming. It is a case study. I am a case study.

In other news, there is other news. But really, when you're this girl, who wants to write about anything else two gin & tonics under?

fomenting

I am in Hastings.

Things I have been doing a lot of lately:

--Reading
--Baristaing
--Thinking

I had this goal of reading 100 pages every day this month but I've done poorly every day. Seventy then fifty then ninety, and today only twenty (though I worked 3 to close.) But I've forgotten how much my parents prod me to help them with things and go for walks and scratch their backs and the like, and I suppose that's a good excuse.

Anyway, I've been collecting many thoughts and sorting through emotions and generally being productive on the inside of my skull, which is the most important thing. I will be here for another eight days of reading and baristaing and thinking.

signs of life

...and days before I leave the dreaded Bend.

I'm at the ice cream place, and as I bring the plate that held a piece of cherry cheesecake to the front counter, the guy at the register introduces himself and asks me to join in the bet with him and his coworker that he can do 200-300 push-ups in 5 minutes. He then engages me in conversation for a few minutes. If I wanted, we could probably be friends. Of course this happens at the very end of my stay here...

Oh well, I am generally very cheerful about leaving. I have 3.5 articles left to write, an interview tomorrow concerning zombies, two lunches with editors, and an exit interview left. Time to bid this town goodbye, and hopefully my lack of a social life and sprawling laziness as well.

If history is any indication, my locations over the next two weeks will only produce better feelings--hometown as a stress-free medicant where I may be able to hunker down with some books as I watch my brother, and Boulder as an energizing base before the unparalleled experience that will be my 4th year.

Hyde Park at this point is my nurturing, loving home. Every time I've been there this summer, I've walked the streets smiling compulsively. Summer does Chicago good. Hyde Park hums with dog-walkers and baby-strollers and bands of European students, bakeries teem with dignified, greyed professors picking up apple croissants, it all feels so right. Sushi choices, good beer, bookstores that burrow deeper and deeper. I fear I am becoming a yuppie. (At the tender age of 21!)

Giveaway #1: My deodorant, face wash, toner, shampoo, and conditioner are "all-natural" and have things like juniper, tea tree water, and mint in them.

(#2: I refer to myself as a "vegetarian" but I eat fish.)

Oh well. Let the labels fall where they may.

I am both in fear of, and braving looking forward to the impending year. A BA is only 30-50 pages, which means it is only really 15-25 pages, which means it is only 2-3 times as long as your typical paper, and so it shouldn't cause me interminable stress and bouts of crying, as they are wont to do. Still, my fantastically compatible advisor ditched me for Yale, and now I have to convince someone else to care about Pakistani ethnic groups and nationalism, which is sure to be tangentially related to all of their subjects (why such a dearth of Pakistan scholars at the U of C?)

But I'm confident I can do it.

Oddly, my lazy summer has regrounded me in certain ways concerning education. Certain things stand out--a certain independence from the cult of academia (i.e. take what is good and useful, leave what doesn't work), a rethinking of the term, a more liberal and free approach to my future (i.e. so many paths to take, so many ways to take them!), a resurgence of thought about life and information (i.e. more thought about depth vs. breadth of subjects, about the nature of focus).

I credit some of this thought to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which I have yet to review on here but which had a residual and unexpectedly freeing effect. I will try to review it soon.

Most importantly, my mental state is such right now that I feel I can approach academia, get knocked down several pegs (as this year is sure to do), and withdraw the tools to fix myself. I feel a bit more tenacious.

With such a meandering post, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm ready to get back in the ring.

wait, what?

People bringing assault weapons to protests? Does this seem like remotely a good idea?

Reunited

...and it feels so good.

Today I wasted several hours after work. And then I felt bad about myself. And then I took a bath. And I was trying to read Blood Meridian, which is good but I wasn't very good at paying attention. I wanted to be reading, but something else. So I picked up one of my academic books from my stack--one I intend to use for BA research--and after a couple of pages my brain began to wake up. Thoughts! Deconstruction and theorizing! Words like "discursive" and "dichotomy"!

Maybe it doesn't seem like the most riveting of writing, but it was exactly what I needed--a reminder of how it feels to think in the unemotional, hard world of academic writing.

My university is stressful, scary, and usually destructive to the self-esteem. But it's also reassuring to know that there's a place in my life where things are extremely meritocratic, the truth is pursued relentlessly, and you don't win unless you have a damn good point.

Last year, via C., I found this: Andrew Abbot's "Aims of Education" speech. Every year the new students get one. It's meant to ruminate on why their education has a value equivalent to the massive loan they're likely to incur four years hence. Afterward, a professor is dispatched to each house for a post-speech discussion. My year, the speech wasn't so great. But this one, if you take the time to read it, is excellent.

I love this cornerstone.

jewish cowboys

The vast expanse of a night, bed, morning:

Now there's no tomorrow,
only yesterday.
But to live in the past
is to ride your life away.
I can feel in my bones:
I will die all alone.
Back down to the ground,
let the sage brush wait for me.

sorority rant.

Oh, how this has been building up.

I hate sororities. I am just going to say it.

I was going to write about something else but then I received a bitchy email and I'm feeling a little enraged, given that there was no need for its dripping condescension and wagging finger approach. It was, briefly, about car technicalities, from its previous owner. Why hadn't I removed the license plate and sent it to her parents, as we had discussed? she wanted to know. Does this mean I am still driving around with it on? Because that's illegal. And I had better take it off right now and give it to Friend X. Or (seriously) she'd have someone come at my car with a screwdriver and take it off herself (inevitably a herself, inevitably a sorority [gang?] member).

We had discussed removing the license plate, but she had also offered my destroying it as an option. Which I did. About two days after getting the car. It's had a Michigan license ever since. (She made no attempt to emphasize that if I chose this option, I should let her know. Because it was pretty obvious that I would do one or the other. Furthermore, I did not indicate at the time which of these I would do.)

After I pointed this out, she sent a response that tried to diffuse the first, unnecessarily vicious and stupidly condescending email, with an exclaimed, "Thanks for letting me know!"

Thanks for threatening me!

What does this have to do with sororities? Nothing really, except that this is where I keep experiencing attitudes like this. Attitudes that are condescending, cold, and frankly, falling all over themselves to make you feel like they're going wildly out of their way if you ask a favor. It is a sort of exaggerated maturity, I feel like, this certain (cue nasally, wealthy NY accent) Well I coooould do that but it's yooour responsibiiiilityyyy.

You know what's mature? Being a person that understands that other people occasionally rely on people not because they want to take advantage, but because most people play this larger game called Cooperation. If somebody asks me to do something that's easily doable, or even a little bit out of my way, I usually do it unless it's really difficult. And even then, when I break the news that I can't or won't do this thing, I don't make them feel bad for asking. Rather, I make sure to feel bad for not helping. Because people shouldn't have to feel too uncomfortable to ask if you'll do something like let someone into your apartment or mail a letter, granted you let them know you're grateful.

In terms of the sorority, I don't know if this ties to my particular relationship to it via a complex and tense friendship that they probably all know about, or if I'm just not a member of the Ordained Sisterhood and therefore unworthy of basic decency. Or maybe they even treat each other like this. I don't know. I just know that given my tangential relationship to sororities, joining a sorority is the last thing I want to do.

I will choose my friends myself. And I will choose ones that don't send me unwarranted, threatening car emails.

fodder.

I never used to think about my future. Not really. It was always, "Oh, I'll be a writer" and I would see myself with a pen and some paper (like anyone writes novels with pens and paper anymore) and think of a bunch of ideas I wanted to get across, and sew up the image with mild fantasies of success and peoples' identification. I wrote a lot more then, especially fiction, but rarely anything long, and even more rarely anything good.

Writing is the only thing that has ever seemed highly fulfilling to me. Apparently even feeding the starving is not is noble as arranged words and having them read. (I now feel differently, at least in that respect. That's all ego.)

I still would like to write, and still have dreams of writing fiction although the need or maybe the drive has been crushed like wine grapes from a seriously intense education. A high-caliber university education may leave you a more knowledgeable, and deeper, thinker, but if you get out with your self-esteem in tact and not in shreds, any hint of serious creativity is necessarily a result of your own fostering and protection. I have written, at this point, probably a hundred or so papers in college. And despite this, or perhaps due to it, my creativity has not been exercised too deeply. In fact, it has taken a hell of a beating. There is a reason my year ended on a decline in grades. I can't approach Microsoft Word anymore, and stick to the rhetorical structure, without some serious suffering. (Robert Pirsig may have been irritating in Zen and the Art, but he would be a relief to have as a professor.)

It is revelatory, and strange, that it is when I go home that I feel creatively refueled. This has happened on many occasions when I have gone home recently. I profess to hate the town, and yet some of the social experiences I've had (or come into contact with) there have been some of the most interesting and didactic. I closely know someone who is trying to deal with unutterable tragedy. I have a friend who has drastically changed religion and quickly married someone from a completely different culture. People from my high school are getting married and having babies (not often in that order), and some are already getting divorced. The coffee shop has its own mix of unique regulars; there's the transplanted, short African guy, raised English, who now teaches philosophy at a university nearby and will talk forever (he liked that I was reading The Brothers Karamazov, last time.) There's the family of Democrats and the intriguing diaspora of their attractive brood.

The strange sects of Christianity. The small town niches people fill. The blood-thirsty local politics and unbelievably intricate scandals. And surprising conversations that last hours with people you don't expect.

There is a reason I grew up romantic.

schedule and coffee.

My parent's prehistoric computer is, I'm pretty sure, eligible for submission to the Smithsonian at this point, but I will try to provide a little update anyway.

I will be...

In South Bend until the 28th of August.
In Hastings until the 13/14th of September.
In Boulder until the 27/28th of September.
In Chicago from then on.. with probably some random stops in Chicago during this time, too.

I hadn't intended to spend so much time in Hastings, but it turns out I can pick up weekend hours at the coffee shop and my parents will buy my plane ticket to Boulder in exchange for me staying here with my brother for a few days while they drive down to Phoenix (they're moving to Phoenix, has this been mentioned?)

Due to rent/car/gas/etc. payments, my money is rapidly dwindling and I can't afford to just spend all of September loafing (exercising?) in Boulder and not making Adult decisions. I'll still get two weeks in. And, well, the coffee shop is still one of my favorite places. This weekend back home has been unexpectedly Nice. I've become such a snob, looking down on this town. Or maybe I've always been such a snob. I still would never live here again, but to ignore the beautiful bits and pieces and worthwhile people that are here is unfair.

I think I disassociate with things for fear I will become them. I don't want to become a part of chain stores and narrow-mindedness and cultural ignorance. These things exist here, in abundance. But they also exist everywhere.

So, enough. If you'll be in any of these places during these times, or want to visit me, or want me to visit you, let me know. We can get coffee.

Zen and the Art of Paying Attention

I am almost finished with "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which I started a few weeks ago. It has been slow going, and by almost finished, I mean still 100 pages shy. Which brings me to tonight's topic, which relates to one of my bigger concerns recently: my attention span is deflating rapidly, to the point that full-scale books, and even longish articles fail to hold it.

I have been talking to a lot of people about this, because I know it's not just a problem I have. It is clearly a result of the internet, and the type of interaction people are allowed and encouraged to have with it. We don't read newspapers anymore, we read news aggregator sites (I usually read Google news.. and I write for a paper!) We check blogs daily for bite-sized information of some sort, be it political or social or scientific or personal. People look at Twitter--which enforces this tiny attention span with character limits--and get their information in snarky, packaged comments. In between we bounce between.. play little mindteaser games, update our Facebooks and read other peoples' status updates. But nothing lengthy. Spending an entire afternoon on one thing, whether it's a book or a painting or a piece of writing, feels like an excessive investment. We're used to quick leaps, with very shallow dabbling in each bit of information we acquire. It's about maximum consumption, minimal absorption. And it feels like static.

I'm certainly not the first to point this out. Over the past couple years, numerous articles and books have been published on the deterioration of the modern attention span. This excellent Atlantic article comes to mind. The author himself brings in a legion of friends who've felt the same problem. No one I've talked to has identified with me with quite the level of disturbed obsession I've been harboring, but I'm sure a lot of people out there do.

(Authors have been calling it for years. There is a mammoth novel by David Foster Wallace called "Infinite Jest" that serves as something of a sad warning against a reliance on being diverted. I haven't read it, but from what I know, the title refers to a film, or video game, or something, that's reputedly so entertaining that people who come into contact with it never stop watching it. It was published in 1996, but right now that thought seems eerily prescient.)

Wallace hit on something that frightens me more than just the idea of a shorter attention span--in conjunction with it, I am finding my self-discipline to be in such decline as to be almost nonexistent. I made up a reading list at the beginning of the summer. From it, I've gotten barely 300 pages into "The Brothers Karamozov" until, citing Thoreau's convenient quote (something about not reading any book you don't want to be reading) I dropped it straight away (without saying goodbye, because I cling to the idea that I will pick it back up sometime before summer ends) and relaxed into the comfort and ease of a Nick Hornby book. Then I joined a book club whose meetings I can't even attend and I'm now where I started this--near the end of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." And the only way I got here was through a minimal self-discipline. Because now, when I read a book, I spend the first 10 pages ripping my eyes away, or they dance erratically about the page, like I'm about to bounce to the next object on the screen. Eventually (maybe around page 15) I start to relax into it. My speed increases and I have regained an ability to focus. Despite how pleasant and calming it is, I still find the idea of bite-sized information tempting, and have to convince myself again and again throughout the reading that I want to be doing it, that it is more substantial and valuable. And that's ridiculous, considering I'm reading a book about Zen. Granted, the narrator is somewhat obnoxious, but still.

Like I said, I cannot stop thinking about this, both the shrinking of my attention span and the lack of self-discipline to address it. These issues have a set of corollaries that deserve their own attention (ha), but this post is not for them.

I have been considering how to deal with my self-discipline problem (which I believe arises out of my attention span problem, although maybe it's more of a chicken-and-egg dilemma) and radical thoughts keep entering my mind, but they all involve using self-discipline to improve my self-discipline. Read a single book every three days. Watch no internet-TV (an addiction that is growing the more entertaining television shows I find). Wake up early and go for a run in the morning. Study X amount of Hindi. Etc.

Distressingly, I become a mirror of my environment. All of the interns are gone. I have made no friends and cannot figure out how to. My meals have been less fresh, not more, as I cook for one and try to save money, and the grocery store is five miles away. And I watch TV and use the internet maximally.

Last week I had some success--I bought paints and supplies, and spent several hours one night painting. It's sad, but I was astonished at how much thinking I had to do. And how active the process was. And how little I feel I've been experiencing that on a day-to-day basis. The infinite jest, it feels, is on me.

If I work up the self-discipline (perhaps the correct term is "motivation") I'll write about this more in the coming weeks. If not, well...

Singing the blues.

If you have yet to see Sita Sings the Blues, you must do so. Right now. Stop reading! Make haste!

I had heard about this little wunderfilm back in Chicago, but only from a brief glance at a newspaper. The film festival I've been researching/interviewing people for (my recent interview with Sean Astin included) is including Sita in its repertoire, however, and today, after watching a trailer, my curiosity finally overcame me. Thankfully its creator, Nina Paley, believes in freeing creative content, and has offered it online for free.

Sita Sings the Blues has come to me at the right time. Alone in my room, I'm also singing the blues for a number of reasons... figuratively and literally. Not prone to need to sing in the past, the desire has been recently freed, perhaps by T.'s gracious teachings and encouragement. I'm still not much of a singer, but that doesn't stop me from doing it. Still, being in a silent bed & breakfast does. I realize when I'm driving (or watching Mamma Mia!) just how terribly I need to sing. The car allows me to. But most of the time, there's not really anywhere to go.

Anyway, Sita is also about a woman using her creativity to take control of a crappy situation. If your story has no happy ending, make it into an art project! I love it.

I remember doing this the winter before last, when I was so angry I thought I might lose all control of my actions. So I left the apartment, went to A.'s, and Kyle, A. and I painted. I painted an angry dog biting its own tail. It was immensely therapeutic.

The memory, and my various blues, and watching Sita, has given me a strong desire to paint something again. Oh where in South Bend are the art supplies...?

Now watch the film.

One or the other.

I am going to need either a friend in this town, or a coffee shop open past 11pm. One of the two. But it needs to happen.

I have been avoiding writing, not because nothing interesting is happening, but rather because I have been overly reliant on the internet--maybe I don't want to put forth mental effort without giving my brain a break from this machine.

I have done some reading. The Brothers Karamazov waits, tucked away in my bag, for when my intellect can pull it together and take another bruising. It's a good book, so far as I can see (I'm just short of 300 pages), but dense as a mother.

And, let's face it, reading is only so satisfying. Without the social stimulation of friendship, I can cook and read, but I'm still rather blah.

And here's the thing--I do not know how to make friends in this town. Two other interns share the apartment upstairs, but they only have a couple weeks left and while they're friendly enough, it's apparent that they're not really interested in hanging out. Which, to be honest, is just as well--I don't get the feeling we'd click anymore than a few randoms on an elevator. Anyway, they get along well with each other.

I rarely see the other interns, and I get a similar feeling from most of them. Most of them are semi-local and have their own home-grown groups, I assume. Many are leaving very soon.

Another problem is the... town itself. At a population of 100,000, it's not precisely small. And yet it carries all the things I dislike and associate with small towns: too few coffee shops, too many churches, too much conservatism, too little liberalism, too many chain stores, too few young people, too many people inside watching television. Walk the streets at any given moment and they're usually deserted, except for maybe someone in the distance, like a mirage.

I could begin going to bars, but that thought makes me a little sad. I went Friday to see a band I have to write about, and I sat alone drinking Blue Moon. There is a certain myth, I think, about meeting people in bars--because unlike the characters on Grey's Anatomy, most people are not secure enough to all wander into a bar alone, hoping to see someone they know but otherwise enjoying the Scene. Actually, most people attend the bars in often large friend groups. This is what I do in Chicago, and it's what South Benders do as well. But I have no friend group. I wasn't necessarily insecure alone with my Blue Moon, but I felt a little reflective. People don't go up and start talking to other people without provoking a range of assumptions. This limits us. This especially limits those of us in a new, smallish town with few other opportunities to make friends.

A final problem is something I have mentioned frequently to some of my friends--generally, most people seem to be satisfied with their stash of friends. They don't need or want more. In that case, there's not often much interest in the whole getting-to-know-you thing... you are a perma-acquaintance, always on loan for a short period of time. Going into our fourth year, there's a routine to our friendships.

Whether here or in Chicago, I am interested in making new friends. I'm happy with the ones I have, but I also appreciate new people and the possibility for new kinds of relationships. Is it my own reliance on other people to befriend me that leaves me stranded? Am I bad at pursuing people and making them into my friends? Yes. I think so.

Well, working on that may take more than the realization. But some coffee at 11pm would help.

oh, so this is journalism.

I just got home from work. It is almost 1AM.

OK, so I didn't work all day. I actually came in at 11AM, left at 5PM, went to a play, and returned to the office at 8:30PMish to review it. I finished around midnight, and my editor usually works nights, so he went over the piece with me. This is my schedule. But not every day.

Because I'm treated like an actual journalist, I'm starting to see what the life of a journalist is like. And what is it like? Random. Especially in features.

I spent Monday-day at work and Monday-night watching a show for a person I have to do a profile on.
I spent Tuesday-day at work and Tuesday-night interviewing the same person.
I took off this morning and worked most of the night.

Since I'm supposed to only work 40 hours a week (grant money details), I only have a few hours left to work this week. That's supposed to involve another interview and another play and another play review, but there's not enough time for that--so I may only do the interview. And take tomorrow morning off. And take all of Friday off.

It's very, very independent, this job. Since most all music & theater & arts events happen at night, I end up working a lot of my nights out, and then with too many hours, so I can/should take mornings off. It's kind of awesome, actually. The best part of this job? Getting paid to be entertained. The not best but still good part? Getting paid to reflect on it.

I could do this for a living. Even if the pay sucks, you have the essential part--a living.

South Bent

I have been here, in South Bend, a couple of nights. I am living in an eerily empty Bed and Breakfast with last-century's moth-eaten baby clothes and black and white photos of serious mustachioed men displayed in the halls. Notes:

1) I still have not met the owner of the bed and breakfast. My key was in an envelope in a bureau--I was told it would be there before I came. I walk through the house several times a day; there is almost never anyone around. It is silent. Silent and full of baby clothes. That said, it's really nice. The architecture is lovely--the furniture is antique. And it smells floral. This contributes a bit to the eeriness.

2) Tomorrow I am going to a theatrical production of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"

3) Sometime in the next week I may or may not be going to a theatrical production of "High School Musical"

4) Toward the end of my internship I have to go... wait for it... to a "professional" wrestling match.

5) My hours are going to be weird--I have tomorrow morning off (sleeping in = YES), but I have to go in to work straight after the play to write up an immediate review for the web. My editor said to budget about four hours for reviews which means I won't get home until midnight.

6) I am to Part II of The Brothers Karamazov.

moment of reflection.

I am feeling empty. I am empty of:

1) creativity
2) sense of self
3) concentration
4) plans
5) companionship

My grades have been on a slight decline. I am now capable of a B-, even when I try. This is not happening to anyone else.

My heart feels less protected, more vulnerable. The achievements, joys, and progress of others register as both threatening and painful. It reinforces my own inability to find the right niche. I seem to be experiencing my dip even as everyone else is somehow finding their place. I am running out of time to be doubtful of myself. I am running out of time to be disconnected in this bourgeois way. Even my inspiration seems erratic and unhelpful. Something needs to shake back into place soon.

Quiet now, at home, novels in a box in my car, but even they don't point in a direction.

things that await

Schedule Update:

Tomorrow--breakfast with Kay, packing everything into boxes, driving lessons with A.
Monday--moving everything into new apartment, meeting with new subletter (a German grad student, who will also be living with me in the new place for a week before I leave, which will be probably Thursday/Friday [in my new old Saturn, the stick shift I have yet to drive, holy Jesus])

I said goodbye to T. today. He is leaving in the early AM of tomorrow for D.C., and it makes me very sad. I have grown even closer to the boy over the past several months, and being apart for him for another whole summer is not a prospect I like. I feel that as I grow older, somehow, my ability to miss people--my vulnerability--strengthens greatly. I miss people more than I used to.

We had a conversation last night that had an interesting impact. It was divided into a reflection on our parents and impacts of where we came from, a sad and scary surveillance of the uncomfortable fact that we are now fourth years (and everything that attends that, from the identity crises that have slowly been building this year to the fact that soon we'll be freed from the nest), and finally a reflection on what we know we want. I talked a bit about something I've been experiencing a lot lately, and not at all reflecting on, which is, briefly, the fact that I've felt my identity confused and wrenched between the (capital-A) Academic and the creative. It always seems that only one or the other is possible and I choose the academy to the detriment of the creative--or really, my personality in general. Without having my creative outlets--in constantly pushing them away--my confidence takes a serious hit. Recently, even my academic performance has suffered and as a result my self-esteem is shot.

ANYWAY, we had a conversation musing on this, and I talked about needing to embrace what I always force to the background (creative writing, reading novels) in order to better get a grip on myself, to the point where a bad grade won't be shattering to my sense of identity, as it is now. I talked about needing a serious summer reading list, and wanting to maintain self-discipline, and wanting to re-inspire creativity (with thoughts toward high school, when I wrote all the time, and while 90% of it was crap, some of it was actually decent, and more than that it was creative).

I have been trying to think of a way to emulate that art/life project I've been inspired and fascinated by (mentioned some posts earlier), and T. recommended new ways of writing based on medium. Writing by pen on lined paper, pencil on lined paper, pen on blank paper, pencil on blank paper, in paint, on walls, etc. In this way I'd better understand what medium feels most natural to me and how different mediums effect my style and thinking process. I was attracted to the idea, and I think I will soon put it into effect. As of now, things are chaotic and yet not so. I have time. Today T. and I lay on my bed in a pile of shirts and newspapers (vestiges of packing) and worked our way through my Teach Yourself German book for three chapters. I tried it out on my mom on the phone tonight: "Ich komme aus Michigan!"

So this is what my summer may hold: less internet, more cooking, more novels, more writing, more writing mediums, and who knows what else. Oh, probably high-quality lemonade. I believe the Bed & Breakfast at which I will be living will have a wrap-around porch, and there's simply no way I will not be sitting on that porch, reading novels until the fireflies start to light up, with a glass of homemade lemonade in my hand.

500-1000 words on life, please.

Apparently I see fit to procrastinate writing a reflective article by writing a reflective blog post.

Last week I voluntarily signed up to write a 500-1000 word article on my "experiences in Pune" for some South Asian publication that I think gets distributed from our campus. They were looking for someone to write something, sent an email to everyone in the program, and I--being all idealistically go-get-'em on the topic of journalism--responded. The return email includes the words "any angle" and requests a description of the program and any long-term impact it had on me.

I now see that I am in a bind, given that:

(a) I don't know whether what I want to say will be acceptable--not that I feel negatively about my experience with India, but what I would have to say would be much more realistic and less of the "such pretty temples!" variety. The guy with whom I have exchanged emails is clearly Indian and has "South Asia Outreach" as part of his contact information in his signature; something tells me this is supposed to be a positive and heartwarming piece about how India is such a warm and spiritual place, I have now learned life lessons, etc.
(b) Only 500-1000 words on my "experience in Pune"? That's enough to talk in-depth about maybe one thing, and even that would have to be semi-superficial.

Should I tell the story of the guy who fixed my shoes, and thereafter explore the dangers of objectifying just as you are objectified? Should I talk about the guys, and the way they provided a personal scope into the culture and politics? Should I talk about all the different kinds of foreigners and how obnoxious tourists are?

There is literally so much I could talk about, and it would be hard to cut it down. I think I'm leaning toward the second option now, as it's something I can relate back to the program most easily--but this just opens more doors.

Onward.

Deletion.

Last night when T. and I made ourselves tea and Korean Ramen noodles and sat down in anticipation to watch John Adams, we were disappointed to find that it wouldn't play. It would get stuck over and over in different places. We were not to learn of John Adams' illustrious accomplishments.

When I closed the program and checked my disc space, I found, to my horror, that my C drive had almost no free space. My computer is overloaded with crap. I deleted fully 4 GB out of my Recycle Bin (ridiculous, I know) and cleared my Temporary Internet Files, etc. Still, as it stands, my computer has only 8.16 GB of free space, out of a total of 73 GB. I have a billion photos and a billion songs, and I need to clear some things.

The casualties:

1. Antony and the Johnsons.
2. Beth Orton.
3. British Sea Power. (But only The Decline of British Sea Power; I'm keeping Open Season until further notice.)
4. Carla Bruni.
5. Desmond Dekker.
6. Justin Timberlake. (Actually I didn't know I had Justin Timberlake.)
7. Mariza.
8. Pavement. (Another thing I don't listen to but must have assumed I would, at some point.)
9. TV on the Radio. (It just hasn't taken.)
10. Manu Chao. (Clandestino filled a niche first year. But I never want to listen to it again.)

And with that, I still have less than 10 GB free. I am perplexed.

At least my life is a little less cluttered now?

My favorite minimalist is...

I love being able to say I have a favorite musical minimalist--it sounds so sophisticated. Although it doesn't really seem fair to categorize Yann Tiersen as a minimalist, given that his music feels so gorgeously full and nuanced; I tend to associate minimalism with the ultimate of the genre, Philip Glass, who, despite being a U of C alum (have to mention these things when possible), hasn't grabbed me musically. I suppose that's because my one brush with his work was through Koyaanisqatsi, which, while a fascinating movie, hardly provided the kind of music I'd want to listen to outside of the context of collapsing buildings and mass produced plastic items. Of course, just now I'm discovering some of his piano work through Youtube and finding it to be rather beautiful...

Anyway, back to Yann Tiersen. I discovered Yann like most people: through the Amelie soundtrack, which I bought several years ago to accompany my copy of the movie. I don't often buy soundtracks (or CDs in general) but the Amelie soundtrack is so soaring and emotional that I felt I would need to have it available. Eventually I stopped thinking of it as just the Amelie soundtrack, and started thinking of it as Yann Tiersen's music, which led me to the rest of his corpus. This was sometime during first year, and at some point there was a click and I realized that writing papers to the music of Yann Tiersen was both an uplifting and inspiring experience. It was wordless (with the exception of a few songs) but not boring--it wasn't so much that it blended into the background as that it worked somehow in concert with my thoughts. I wrote probably half of the essays I wrote first year to a set of his albums.

This is an improvised version of my favorite of his--Rue des Cascades. I have mentioned it before, two years ago, but I'm so routinely blown away by it.

Perhaps I should begin to explore minimalism more in depth...

I hafta.

Ouch. Making yourself blog everyday is not ideal on Friday nights, when white wine saturates. So only one thought: contexts are changing without me and I may need to create new contexts within which to build a home. I wouldn't say I'm homeless now, but the project of self-location is suffering with respect to the way I feel pulled and prodded into spaces, rather than in a position of direction. I have lost direction.

It is perhaps time for a change.

not comfortable.

12:49am, starving, and my options? Oatmeal & brown sugar, "Oriental" Ramen noodles, portabello mushroom gnocchi. Looks like it's door number three.

We spent today in Evanston, working, as projected. Evanston is weird. It's weird precisely because it's so clean, so white, so rich. So suburban, so Stepfordy. After three years, I'm used to the South Side--we're a little grittier, a little more varied down here. Hyde Park has some beautiful little town houses covered in ivy, but we also have, you know, minorities. I've come to imagine Hyde Park as a sort of normal environment--all kinds of people, all kinds of nationalities and races, all kinds of beliefs. We have the Adam Smith-totin' U of C econ department; we also have Barack Obama. We mix it up, at least a little bit.

It's going elsewhere that reminds me, disturbingly, how strictly divided most places actually are. On the north side, so many places (exception: Devon) are almost completely white; south and west of here, it's all African Americans. Hyde Park is one of those in-between neighborhoods that manages to blend things. I'm not ignorant enough to believe that there is no segregation, but I think Hyde Park's better-than-average diversity insulates me from seeing how obvious it is elsewhere. It also makes it more apparent when I do leave the neighborhood. And it kinda creeps me out.

So here's the news that almost everyone ignores--or forgets:

America is still enormously segregated, for many sinister reasons.

Just take a minute and think about it. And with that I go to bed.

Victorian sexy magical realism (!)

Tomorrow I have to write a paper. It is a paper that has been haunting me for a week, one I spent an entire day writing the outline for, one I need to do well on because my last paper in this class? Not good. Not good at all.

The grade I got on this paper put me in the kind of mindset that offers revelations. I thought about ducking into a bathroom, locking myself in a stall, and crying. But I didn't do that, instead I decided to forgo the crying and imagine what usually comes after: deciding to be re-motivated, deciding to be inspired to seek greatness, etc.

My TA for this class, I imagine, has a very hard time giving people positive comments. I imagine this not only because he shredded my paper, but because he seemed to have no problems with my outline for my new paper and still managed to suffer in delivering any positive feedback. Instead of "Good!" he writes "Ok, good." As though everything I had developed until that point was really unimportant and uninspired--the crappy appetizer, really, to the insufficient meal I am providing. One can see him furrow his brows as he allows himself to acknowledge that perhaps I have finally made a valid argument. And the thing is, this guy? He's like 25. He's devastatingly, painfully young in his tweed suit vests and patent leather shoes. I don't like being thrown to the wolves by a guy I could flirt with at a frat party.

Anyway, tomorrow is going to require focus, so I can make this the best damned English paper he's ever seen--or at least, not the most shitty. It needs to glisten and provoke him to angrily etch, with clenched teeth, if needbe, an exclamation point behind the "Good" acknowledgement. It tears a hole in my self-esteem that it's the English paper I run into problems with, but we can't always excel, I suppose, at what we assumed.

So A. and I are going to Evanston, to bury ourselves in a coffee shop and not emerge into the June sunlight until we've produced pages of shining inky beauty. This is a strategy I've adopted before--pick an undervisited part of the city, find a coffee shop, hunker down--and it usually bears results. Hyde Park is too distracting, what with everybody here. Coffee shop oases in other parts of town offer the dual benefits of (a) not being as depressing as the library in mid-day and (b) not providing insta-procrastination opportunities.

I have been two things especially recently, and they are (1) inspired, and (2) unfocused. Take for example the books I am currently reading:

1--Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen (a Victorian satire; oh, Jane!)
2--Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie (magical realism and Indian history!)
3--The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis (an 80's tale of amoral, sexed-up college students)

Yeah. Inspired and unfocused.

Back in the Saddle.

Guess what? I'm writing again. Every day.

The day before yesterday T. was here, doing work, and I was rereading my blog(s). He asked what I was doing and I told him. He made a face that perfectly mimicked the face I might have made if someone told me they just started "really getting into" Blink-182.

"Why do you do that?" he asked.

"So I can remember what I thought."

"But isn't it like a diary? Isn't it awkward?"

And the thing is, no, it isn't awkward. And it isn't like a diary. Because when I talk about uncomfortable personal things on here, they're always safely disguised--anonymous shadowy figures pervade my social life, and all you know if how I sometimes feel about it. My actual journal, on the other hand, is an unchecked drama involving the kind of things you might say on a therapist's couch. Things like loneliness, however, I have no problem talking about on here; it doesn't require my outing any other characters, and it seems like a pretty relate-able human emotion. There is the human condition, and there is emo blogging, I hope most things I write identify more strongly with the first than the second.

I had felt, when I came back to this after my halfhearted attempts in India, that it was not awkward or diary-like but somehow selfish or narcissistic--vomiting your tiny, meager life into the void of the internet for the satisfaction of one or two people looking at it. I don't agree with any of these descriptions anymore; now I just think it's useful. It's useful to know what I thought a year ago, to know what happened to me a year ago, and to practice my writing. Writing for an audience, even an invisible one, requires more effort than a personal journal (although I wish I treated my journal with more thoughtfulness and respect, as I'll be looking back on that too). It begs for slightly more focus and hopefully for a point.

If my foray into journalism ends up being more than a foray, I will need both focus and a point. My thoughts seem so disorganized and deeply unfocused that sometimes I think writing is when I figure out what I think at all.

So I'm nourishing my blog again, day by day. This summer will not be neglected.

There you go, invisible audience.

Kajra re, kajra re...

And my self-discipline dissipates horribly.

I spent too much of today exploring Bollywood music--a strange desire to hear exclusively Indian music entered my head and I courted it. My Hindi final is tomorrow, so there's nothing like pseudo-immersion to help my studying (false). Jordan and I watched almost the entirety of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai on the quad Friday night and I found myself approaching the movie in a weirdly nonchalant and understanding attitude. I couldn't stand it, when I watched it the first time--sugary summer camp moments, Polo Sport & Nike product placement--but somehow this time I accepted it. Makes me wonder if I've entered a crawlspace in my mind where suddenly Bollywood movies make sense and provoke the correct emotions. Of course, KKHH is still rubbish in comparison to films that actually provoke pathos, like Devdas (another, but far more serious, Shah Rukh flick.)

Devdas uses the Indian experience for a social commentary and (slightly) less melodramatic Romeo and Juliet tale--Devdas and his childhood friend Paro fall in love upon his return from being educated in England, but despite their love, his family won't accept hers (caste differences, family past of shame, etc.) and a feud develops. Paro's mother vows to marry her off to an even richer man, so Paro sneaks off in the middle of the night to ask Devdas to marry her, but he's a coward and by the time he catches himself it's too late, and she's getting married off to a wealthy widower twice her age, and he descends into alcoholism, and it gets a lot more interesting from there. Devdas includes the Bollywoodesque song-and-dance numbers but it retains a lot of merit from how realistic and adult and ultimately wrenching the story is. The last scene, in particular, is almost overwhelmingly powerful. If you want a Bollywood movie you can take seriously, this is the one I'd recommend.

Anyway, to lighten things up: a better than average song with some distracting English subtitles.

three shots o' blue vodka

..they fade fast.

Spent the majority of today chasing a book, reading the end of the book, and preparing a lengthy outline for an English paper. This morning I woke up frightened by it (withering in the shadow of my last bad grade), but by noon I was on my way to a north side book store, by one I was eating overpriced caprese, and by three I was at the Bourgeois Pig, on a love seat, exploring the dynamic between Naipaul and Adiga in their descriptions of 'the real India' (all about poverty, but how is poverty more authentic than any other experience?)

By six I was home, Japanese green tea in hand, by eight T. and I were having a modest dinner of dal and rice, and finally, by 11:45pm, an outline was sent to my TA. Then an impulsive call, an impulsive and short-lived party-hop, with minimal benefits but a social box ticked off in my mind and pent-up energy put to use. All done. And now it's 2am.

Today felt healthy in a way I wish I could better express. I felt wonderfully inspired after reading about an intriguing art project on a blog I read regularly--self-imposed limitations and an ascetic approach to entertainment intrigues me. I am thinking about adopting a less intense version of her regimen (today I listened to only one musical artist, one I had rarely listened to [Britta Persson], for example) because I think it has fantastic merit. We do have too many choices, we should focus more. Quiet down and allow ourselves less than we have access to; force appreciation and thought where white noise persists.

With this in mind, I was out the door in search of a book I lost last night (a search that brought me to the north side). In response to my paper, and my fear, I sorted it out as such: what requires my attention first?

(1) Calm down; you can write a paper.
(2) What interests you about this?
(3) Why?
(4) How can it be explored?

Simple, but elusive when the white noise of anxiety fills your head. It felt good, calmly and unhurriedly cultivating interest in my paper. Drinking my coffee, stretching my thoughts over hours. Walking the stretch of Fullerton, continuing to feel in love with the green the rain has infused into Chicago's resilient plant life.

No need for white noise.

A word edgewise.

Before the Orange Blossom beer wears off..

Uncomfortable, unpleasant territory awaits me in the next few days (a paper to write, a bristly TA to meet with, a Hindi final Monday) but tonight was excellent--T., A., a back porch, some diverse beer, a guitar, and a conversation about international relations (yes, talk about belonging here). To be with the two of them feels so good, so back to the basics. Makes me remember the summer after first year, with its dinners on the back porch, its treks-about-town, its guitar tunes. It was easier.

Luckily summer creeps ever closer, despite the finals week barrier. I feel OK about being in a smallish Midwestern town, as I was for the first eighteen years of my life. Have I mentioned my internship in any way? Perhaps I shouldn't specify too specifically, in case I end up doing some kind of back-to-the-homeland, city girl analysis (on here, of course). We'll put it at this: print journalism, feature writing, Indiana.

Drowsiness has caught up with me. More after the pain of tomorrow.

another rainbow.

Tonight's agenda: Ate hummus on sourdough (as dinner?), wikipedia-ed through worlds of information on bog bodies, and wondered why I am not an anthropology major.

Summer has shone its face on us in what has suddenly become mid-May, and I am daily astonished to wake in saturated sunshine forcing its way through my four drawn Venetian blinds, in a morning pocket of warmth that already begs for looser clothes and iced tea. Summer finds me still a student in the quarter system, but my mind and body refuse to process that information--I am too happy as I walk to class, too influenced by the vibrancy of the greenness and insistent joy of the birds, too interested in establishing my place in nature rather than sitting in a closed room with a circular mahogany table. I could read academic articles but I could also read Jane Austen! I could buy cereal or I could eat ice cream for breakfast! (Which I did, incidentally, this morning.)

Summer is a reward for winter, an ever-cycling rainbow after the flood. I understand deeply and intuitively solstice festivals and wish--really--that they were still celebrated. Every season needs to ground you in its intentions each year. Summer is intended for life, play, exploration. It deserves to be recognized with bonfires and dancing and alcohol (why not mead?) -- June is convincingly the happiest month every year, always surprising in how patently good it is. July is for settling and growing only slightly disenchanted with the summer thing (the heat of mid-day forcing you back inside too often) and August stands on its own--strange and disappointing and disorienting in a way that has no answers. September brings relief.

The cycle of summer--extended joy, settling, disorientation--always feels a little like a coming-of-age, every year. It feels like a detached routine that pulls you in. Always falling for the sunshine, always burned by the sunshine, the fatigue and nap attempts, always slipping backward before the end, but usually a moment of self-assessment. Last summer was different for me in India, and it worked backward, but the American summer has a place of deja vu that I dig up every June. And I think it should be toasted, even if we don't see the harvest anymore.

Today T. and I made banana bread. I wore cut-off shorts I made this morning and my bare feet, a breeze came in through the window and I felt dazed, lazy. Summer.

this post is for audrey.

I have had something to drink for four nights in a row. Tomorrow is a Sunday and I'll have tea instead.

I have been reading Gandhi's autobiography and it makes me feel slightly ashamed of myself--only slightly, because Gandhi was religious in a way I probably never could be. But his sense of morality and his self-regulation is careful enough to beg a kind of immediate admiration from those who take him in. The man believed things, and he believed them earnestly. Even the beliefs I practice earnestly I harbor a great deal of doubt for, and while I don't regret that, I have to wonder how functional they are as beliefs--are all beliefs transitory? Or are only my beliefs transitory? Static beliefs might frighten me too much to adopt.

I am in something of a good mood. I found something one of T.'s friends told me tonight about psychology interesting. He explained about some recent research a professor is doing -- apparently if one believes one is lonely, that's all that matters for their psychological state. The person might not actually be lonely. Conversely, one who spends very little time with people and feels satisfied in this, while this person may actually be lonely, will not suffer from the same psychological effects of someone with greater connections who perceives their own loneliness. So it's all in the head. As I reliably complain about loneliness... I found this information useful.

As for updates, T. is teaching me how to sing, A. is going to teach me to drive stick shift, and I will be trying to teach myself to swim like a swimmer.

Fights keep breaking out at this loud party outside, and I'm too sleepy to round this out.

the clumsiest shape.

Sigh.

Went to Jimmy's tonight and felt slightly fifth-wheelish then slightly third-wheelish. It was fine combined with a Blue Moon, but otherwise I suppose would feel pretty sad. I discussed things with my roommate, along the lines of: "What is necessary at the outset of a relationship?"

I wrestle continuously with myself over my loneliness bullshit, and the idea that I should just wait until something natural occurs aggressively takes on the notion that maybe my stagnant mental state subconsciously won't allow something that could conceivably work. It is exhausting. Truth versus fiction, but I never know which is which. Intuition versus rationality, how much of each is required in this situation? It began raining and we ran home in the rain. I wore the wrong shoes again. Now I hear thunder outside and rain tapping at the window, taps me softly back into my daily contentment-lull. When do you decide you've had enough of this? What do you do afterward? Nothing seems writeable until it's filed away for a while.

As it is, I float on Okkervil River songs and my Professional Life and its duties. I stopped my internship and now have what feels like far fewer obligations, though that's deceptive. BA proposal is due Monday. But I don't feel stress. Wrap in blankets, down a beer at Jimmy's, rainstorm, mull over, be grateful and relax.

the way you hate me is better than love.

I have so much to write about! I made a list! It has three things on it!

Two parties this weekend, strange affairs. Friday night's indie film organization party, with chokable smoke billowing through the room and the following conversation overheard by Sarah and me:

Guy: "No, we're not having sex, I'd know if we were having sex."
Girl: "I'm not sure; I think we might be having sex..."

The girl's friend noticed us laughing and made sure to lean toward us and whisper: "They're talking about in the movie."

Tonight was terribly nice. Korean food, coffee outside in the first warmish evening in six months (starless but still), music in my apartment, exodus to Capetown party, one stale g&t, and perhaps an entire hour of animal charades. A fine and decent night. BA ideas & advisor requirements hang in the not-too-distant future, but I'll cross these bridges when I come to them. School angst does not become me. Tomorrow: Hindi essay, pirate essays, A Passage to India, coffee with T.

Neh, I don't have it in my right now to be any more lyrical. It's past 2:30am, and sometimes things feel blunt.

the lonely.

So much can come out of being alone. You can't know this until you've been alone for a long, long, long time. Long enough to ache and crack and wrap your arms around yourself and barely stop yourself for reaching for someone you know definitively won't fill the void. Long enough for a sudden panic to envelope you when your friend and her whatever are together enclosed in a room, for confused rage and panic to seem the obvious feeling to fill your personless room. It isn't something that tips you into insanity, not when you've still got friends. But it curls around you insidiously, like shrinking walls or a stifled scream. And only if you're so fundamentally lonely can you know this feeling.

Years from now, there will be some point in which I am not lonely, and I will know that I've experienced what it's like to be there, absolutely. It will be a road I know, another proud notch in the belt.

The Mouse.

We have a mouse. Or do we have mice?

I noticed him the first time nearly two weeks ago, when I spilled some spaghetti on the kitchen floor, looked down mechanically, and saw, amid the sprawled grocery bags, a little brown ball bolt in the other direction.

Mentally, this is how I processed this occurrence:
1. Alive.
2. Brown
3. Bigger than cockroach.
4. Mouse-sized.
5. Mouse.
6. Holy Jesus.

I don't deal well with mice. To me, having an animal larger than an urban invertebrate unwelcome and lurking in your apartment hints toward disturbing health and sanitary issues. When we first moved in to our 1212 apartment, I had a difficult time with the occasional cockroach. Then I became accustomed. I have never seen a cockroach in this apartment, but the mouse is just too big a step up. Becoming familiar with the unwelcome mouse is too close to graduating to rats, and that is something I certainly never want to be comfortable with.

I realize, though, that mice are simply a reality--in urban centers, in apartment buildings, especially in decrepit urban apartment buildings that strain and gasp at the trial of heating your unit and reveal holes and gaps throughout the infrastructure. This place isn't a mouse house because it's gross, in the way of old food and garbage everywhere; it's a mouse house because it retains that old Chicago, worn wooden floor, crumbling interior character. This I tell myself. Especially in light of my recent frenzy of cleaning, my lemonizing the floors and meticulous organization and almost overkill cleaning of the microwave.

And yet. Tonight--nearly two weeks later--the mouse made his second appearance, in a kitchen too clean for his furry little ass. He breezed in from the hallway, saw me, increased his speed, nearly ran in to the bucket with the mop, and went under the table. Sitting at the table, I let out a short but necessary scream, and calmly stood on the chair. I did not panic further. I allowed perhaps 30 seconds of fear. I then dismounted the chair, and calmly left the room. This is an improvement over last week, when, in my rush to leave the kitchen, I tripped over myself in the hall and psychotically crawled into Amulya's room.

I will sweep up every grain of rice. I will spray jets of Fresh Laundry Fields, or whatever, into every corner. I will further lemonize our floors.

I will defeat this mouse.

I still exist.

Went swimming tonight, it was nice. Laps and laps and the water weighs you back and you feel tired but you don't sweat. Afterward your whole body is exhausted. In Boulder we got drunk and went to the pool room for the hot tub but all I wanted to do was swim laps. Laps and laps and laps.

I'm not sure if I know how to do this anymore, after having written for the Weekly--gearing things toward an audience, being edited--for several months blogging feels self-indulgent and pointless. Also feels good. Laps and laps and laps.

India Chronicles: The Hospital

November 5th, 2008--Pune

I wake up in the hotel bed and the sickness that has been plaguing me for two weeks--intermittent fevers, horrible cough, weakness, an eventual runny nose--has manifested into a visibly swollen right side lymph node. It is terribly sore and makes swallowing difficult, but I don't really care because this is the first day the sickness is not weighing as heavily on my mind--it is election day. We are about to get a new president, and I turn on Ioana's computer while she sleeps to check the progress. It is still early on, and Obama is slightly ahead but few of the votes have come in.

I leave the room in my sweatpants and begun wandering the hotel halls, looking for people who are up and watching the news. I run into Clara and we huddle in her room, transfixed by CNN and feeling the tension. We hear people awake down the hall, and several of us go down to the dining area for breakfast (chocolate flakes and masala chai) and run away with the plates; technically I don't think this was allowed, but the staff was hardly going to argue with us. We are buzzing and talking and hushed and shaking.

Eventually the mass of people awake ends up in one room, and the votes are coming in faster and faster, Obama is speeding ahead. California lies in the balance, states keep coming back blue, and suddenly California is in and CNN flashes a message across the screen: "Projected Winner: Barack Obama."

There is screaming and jumping and more screaming. No one can handle it. There is nothing to be said, all anyone can do is smile idiotically and jump and scream. The room can't contain our joy and we careen out of it and down the hotels hallways, Clara and I tear up to the third floor to Arvind's room where we knock on the door and jump up and down. He is on the phone--as per usual--but when he opens the door we hug him and scream more and jump. We run downstairs and run through the halls making noise, and the hotel staff looks both alarmed and avidly curious. It becomes surreal when we make our way into the dining room and the waiters are gathered around the tiny television watching the ubiquitous Bollywood music videos, calm and bored and oblivious to the way we feel our lives have changed. I feel scandalized and want to change the channel and show them, but instead I go back to the room with everyone else and wait for the speech. A bottle of champagne appears and makes its rounds, but I am too sick to partake. Tilly gives me a cough drop instead.

The speech comes on the TV and draws tears from many of us, as we pay homage to the wonder that is our new and novel president--and our neighbor. People mumble things about being proud of America through their weeping and we all hug, people that barely speak hug, everything is good. Our profs find their way into the room and there is further celebrating, and more champagne is consumed. Eventually things dissipate. It is only 10am, and the whole day lies before us to wonder.

***

I start to worry about my frighteningly swollen lymph node and the pain I have in eating and seek out Arvind, who has already taken me to the hospital twice. When he sees my neck his eyes widen and he agrees to take me back once more. I have to pick up my blood test results from earlier in the week anyway, to rule out malaria.

***

As we stand in line waiting for the blood test results, I am suddenly overwhelmed as I've been on occasion for the past two weeks and my eyes well up with tears and I burn red with fever and embarrassment. By the time Arvind (my TA extraordinaire) turns to look at me there are streams running down my face and I'm sputtering slightly and this is the first of several times that he will experience my crying. I laugh and sputter. "I'm just sick of being sick," I explain ridiculously, and he pats my arm and nods. People have been staring at the white girl as I walk down the halls, and the crying has attracted even more attention; I feel horribly self-conscious as the stereotypical foreign girl with the weak constitution who can't handle their country--I feel somehow insulting, and want no one to see me, but everyone sees me and I just stare downward.

After being directed from place to place in the hospital, I finally have a chance to see a doctor--someone high up, the head of some department. He is the typical middle-aged Indian doctor, with glasses and a furrowed brow and mouth set in a small semi-frown. He asks me some rudimentary questions and pokes around at my enlarged lymph node, saying things in rapid Marathi to the nurse at his side. Then he tells me he wants me to stay at the hospital until it goes away. "It might be an abscess and we don't want it to burst. We might have to do a minor--MINOR--surgery and remove it with a needle if it doesn't go away."

The words "abscess" and "burst" sound big and urgent to me, but I feel more relieved than anything. I want to be in the hospital, I want to be poked and prodded and stuck with IV's, if that means my sickness will go away. I have been avoiding the outside, missing the guys, sleeping and grumpy, while everyone around me has been enjoying every second of sunshine and practicing yoga and shopping on Laxmi Road. I want nothing more than to be admitted to the hospital.

***

My room is surpringly nice, for a room in an Indian hospital. It is private and even equipped with a television. I lay down on the bed and suddenly feel so much better; I have been given a place to get better, and there are no other demands placed upon me. I have a television. Barack Obama is the president. Also, I don't have malaria. It will be okay.

Arvind calls the profs to tell them the news and he sits down in a plastic chair and we talk politics. I don't know him very well at this point but I feel comfortable with him and enjoy his company. He has taken me to the doctor time and again, dealt with the bureaucracy, without acting even a little impatient about it; he has even been sympathetic. We are deep in elated Obama conversation when Mark shows up, and somehow I have become something like manic. I am making a million ironic jokes a minute, throwing self-deprecating remarks at my intidimating professor and actually making him laugh. I believe I will be better tomorrow. I imagine having lots of energy, running around, feeding an appetite on dosas, hanging out with the guys.

Eventually they leave and my burst of energy ebbs and my fever is back. I lay under my blankets with my head on my pillow and watch CNN as Obama is discussed endlessly from an Indian perspective. Will he stop outsourcing? Will he help improve relations with Pakistan? I watch the exist same 10-minute clip of his story play at least three times. At some point I turn off the TV and it is quiet and I feel somewhat less happy. The team of Keralan nurses come in and stick me numerous times until they get a vein and start me on saline fluid. The smiling and shy guy from the cafeteria brings me a pack of food--which looks horribly unappetizing--and some hot milk, which I actually partially drink.

Arvind and Clara eventually return to the hospital, and Clara--bless her soul--says she'll stay the night (there is a bed on the opposite side of the room.) I don't know how to thank her for being so wonderful. The three of us sit around and gossip for a while, about the program and the profs, until Arvo must return to the hotel and Clara and I stay.

I have a needle in me and am beginning to feel the discomfort of tomorrow but I sleep like a baby through the dark of the night.

I had made it one-sixth of the way through.

you can take the future, even if you fail.

ABBA said it best.

1:32am and I'm still awake. I have to wake up before 8am, but I'm sitting here. Awake. Contemplating.

The ways in which I am strong, rational, and calm with regards to matters of the heart have improved exponentially over the past few years. Even over the past year, I have become almost unassailable in the face of scary love thoughts. I am a beacon of strength, roots buried deep. Nothing can upset me in my little canoe.

Still I wonder where I will be in ten years. I wonder--at this point, even dispassionately--at the tenacity of strings that tie. Do I seal my own fate, the way I look on but refuse to get involved? Do you have to invent your passion, knit it up like a scarf to wrap around a relationship? Are the results of the past a passive ghost in the present, or are they inconsequential?

These questions will be answered or they won't. It's okay, either way. It won't cause a breakdown. Not now.

...just one girl awake in the neighborhood at 1:32am.

scenes from a frat party.

Me: "Which frat is it?"
C: "The Asian frat."
Me: "There's an Asian frat?"

It is an act of desperation that brings me to a frat party; the desperation not to be alone on Valentine's Day. Not to be by myself in any measure. I am 21 and this is, I think, the trajectory of bad Valentine's Days from the beginning of one's life to this point:

[1-11yrs old]--Fun. Involves cards and chocolate.
[12-15yrs old]--Vague hope. Anything is possible. Disappointment.
[16-19yrs old]--V-Day is stupid. Desire to burn things and listen to angry music.
[20-???rs old]--Ridiculous, at this point. Not worth it. But still; ridiculous.

I had forgotten what frat parties were like until I got here and realized why I rule them out immediately almost any time they're mentioned. Ninety percent of the people here are Asian. C. and Lucy and I work our way slowly through the crowd, pushed up against people we have no interest in knowing. It takes ten minutes to get through a hallway, and then C. delivers me two jello shots from heaven followed closely by two weak vodka drinks. They do nothing. We stand close together and watch people like it's the Westminster dog show. She points. "Blonde guy?" I say, and make a face. There's Clingy Guy, who is attached to some poor girl like he's five years old and she's his teddy bear. I feel an urge to hit him for her sake. There's Flannel Guy, who is vaguely attractive but involved with high jinks with someone else, and it's somewhat amusing to watch. There are ten thousand Asian couples. C. runs after Blonde Guy and I stand alone.

I am in sort of a corner now, watching people crowd in for more alcohol, an obvious necessity. Single people exchange rapid glances that will lead to nothing. I wish for an anybody from my past, and wonder how I'd name them as they filed in. Nice Boobs Guy, Tongue Guy, Lacrosse Party Guy, The Only Guy Who Ever Mattered, India Guy, Nice Guy, Four People Guy. And others. They'd all come in and act differently with me, if they saw me there. Tongue Guy would say it's a stupid atmosphere and we should just go chill somewhere, India Guy would want to dance for the rest of the night. They'd all be distracted and some would find a way out quickly. The others I would try to evade.

It isn't pity that I look for, exactly. I could have a relationship if I really wanted it. But I don't just want a relationship. I want a relationship with tea in the morning. And chemistry. And laughing. Or I don't want it. At all.

I get my coat, I leave alone. I didn't find anything but I didn't expect to, especially at a frat party. It is around 1AM anyhow; it is no longer Valentine's Day.

I can be alone.

everybody wants a piece o' pie, honey

Calm. Down.

If you're not. Just.. calm. Down.

That's what I've had to do after two weeks of highly frenetic and unmanageable stress and mysteriously plummeting levels of self-confidence. After papers and advisor meetings and writing articles and passive aggressive editorial scoldings and equally mysterious and plentiful tears. After implicitly surrendering all of my abilities to be accepted or shredded. After caring so much.

Just, calm, down.

You are not what you do. What you do is part of you, but you are a multi-faceted creature of public and private varieties. You are your beliefs and your happiness and your quietness and your choice of actions and what you see when you close your eyes, all alone. You are not a piece of paper or a list of accomplishments.

It's taken me a while to learn this and I'm still in the process. This week I briefly lost my grounding and stumbled around looking for my identity after perceiving that I'd failed at something. Failure should never instigate a loss of identity, momentary or otherwise. That's basing too much on the outcome and too little on the process.

So, breathe.

I'm not done with this week, I still have several hours to work and another paper and at least one internship app, and then a review, but now I'm calm. I hope I will maintain a modicum of calm.

As an end note, my feature is on the front (!) of the Weekly--I'm pretty happy with it. Take a look if you're around here.

action words

On my resume: "Use action words."

My weekend.

Wrote a feature, watched 300 (half), drank some vodka, made my bed, read about Middle East, missed a play, ate some dal, retrieved my phone, cried, ate some cookies, worried, stressed, stressed, read about the Middle East, edited my feature, worried.

putting the "Great" in Depression!

I am poor.

And by poor, I mean, in debt. In modest, not-terrifying debt, mind you (for now), but I've once more dipped into the loan function on my debit account and am therefore not just poor but a debtor. I could explain how this happened but it's a sad story involving tears and rent money and lying to my parents about how much of my tuition refund check remains because I am ashamed of the money disappearing, despite the fact that it all went to legitimate use (i.e. groceries, books for class when the library did not pull through, HEAT). I am ashamed and I feel guilty for asking for money, and so I exaggerated the amount of money I have and I'm back. In debt.

I need to start figuring out creative solutions to this problem. Chinese buns for $1 suffice for lunch (or samosas for $1.50) and are one way of reducing costs. But the truth is, I like to live in (modest but unsustainable) luxury. For example, today I bought an Honest Tea, which increases my happiness considerably but causes damages both monetarily and environmentality (and subsequently emotionally). This is how it starts: I tell myself I will buy an Honest Tea in order to use the bottle for water. But then it's a slippery slide, and slowly I'm buying illicit bottles of Honest Tea because I love the tea (and it uses cane sugar! no high fructose corn syrup!), and I already have plenty of bottles for water. Tea with my lunch is most decidedly a luxury I cannot afford as a meager debtor. And especially not Honest Tea, which might masquerade as Environmentally Friendly but is still born of a corporation and wants my tender, hard-earned dollars.

I already work the maximum hours an undergrad can put in at the library, and it may be draining but still, much like the world, it is not enough. I need other ways of making money or reducing costs. Here are some of my/the ideas thus far:

--Going to the Business School to be a guinea pig for their surveys, thereby making $1-$12 in the process every survey.

--Going to the Business School on Fridays for dinner, because apparently the cafe gives away free food.

--Tutoring high schoolers in something that isn't math or science, which might be difficult because the lab school kids are all smart little private school twerps who wouldn't make it past 5th grade without a strong foundation in any of things in which I would be prepared to tutor.

...and that's about all. Any creative advice appreciated.

hi, ancestors

I like to think about the fact that my ancestors were German farmers and pagans. I like that they lived near the forest and at some point there was a beginning Gunther, because my mother's maiden name is Guntermann.

I think I would like to be a pagan rather than a.. whatever I am. I would like to worship Thor.

I am feeling ridiculous.

I feel ridiculous because I cannot get my phone back fully one week after a man found it on a bus and gave it to his son. His son called my dad. His son and I arranged to meet the next day at a Starbucks at 5:30pm, I told him the intersection and waited. He did not come. I called from friends' phones several times to try to arrange a new time. Over the next several days, I left several messages, mostly kind but increasingly pleading. I left two numbers, neither of which he called. I finally got a hold of him again and he said he would bring it to me the next morning, and that he would call and let me know when and where to meet him. He did not call. I called and left several messages, none of which he responded to. Eventually I got a hold of him again, today, and we again arranged to meet at the Starbucks one hour from when I talked to him. I told him he could drop off the phone there if he was late. He did not come. I waited two hours, until the Starbucks closed.

I feel ridiculous because when I came home today there was a gas bill from the evil corporate "People's" Gas, indicating that I personally owe ~$75 and I have just over $75 in the bank and will not be paid for another week from Friday.

I feel ridiculous because I recently had a tuition refund check of $500 and all of it disappeared into loans on my debit card that I owed the bank for food and money spent over Christmas break and other expenditures for the first two weeks back at school, and into money I owed U. ($180) for the gas bill I was barely here to benefit from, groceries, and a heating device I have to use because our incredibly expensive heat barely works. This is a joke that the gas company is playing on us.

I feel ridiculous because I can't ask my parents for any more money because they sent me $300 and they will send me a monthly rent check and I am 21 and I should be able to manage money and pay for everything myself but instead I am still remarkably dependent despite the fact that I work the maximum number of hours a week possible as an undergrad (and am only making $150 a week).

I feel ridiculous because my parents are not rich and they are still sending me rent checks and helping me pay for things despite the fact that I am 21 and despite the fact that I still don't know what I want to do and am drowning in the options and refuse to shut any doors.

I feel ridiculous because after a week and a half I still have not been sent a project for my internship and my supervisor has not replied to my email.

I feel ridiculous because the teacher I need to talk to for my feature has not replied to the email I sent several days ago asking for a day to meet, even though I sent an email last week too--to which he responded. And because this is a time-sensitive issue, so I may not be able to talk to him and my feature will consequently be worse.

I feel ridiculous because I can't call any of these people because my phone is being withheld by someone who arranges to meet me repeatedly and then doesn't.

This is why I feel ridiculous, and this is why I came home today and cried.

(Bonus: I feel ridiculous because of anything to do with dating. That is all.)