nothing quite takes your faith out of the human race like watcing somebody watch television. the only thing more demoralizing is that i most likely look the exact same way when i'm watching.

what a fucking day. it passed by like a golf ball would pass through a sore throat

I've decided, since nobody read this god damned thing, to use it as a venting area.

let's go through everything that has come to the forefront in the last few days

my god damn roommate slams the door every single time he enters or leaves the room, including 8:00 a.m. this morning, waking me up as he went on his way. there is no way i can combat this. this afternoon i slammed the door on my way out when he was trying to nap but i don't think it worked. the reason it didn't work is because he has this ability to block out extraneous sounds and stuff that i can't, and he just doesn't notice my music or my slamming the door or whatever. this ability has not found a home in me. he will never get the point even if i stood there at 3 in the morning opening and slamming the door every 5 minutes until 8 o clock in the morning. the other reason it will never work is that i would never confront him directly about this kind of thing so everything is moot.

my floor was an absolute dump after this weekend because nobody on this entire floor has ever had to clean up after themselves their entire lives.

i'm extremely, and silently, ambivalent to almost everybody around me, but i would never say anything about it. this will continue to be a problem for me, because there is no way i'll be saying anything about it because i don't want to be viewed as an uptight person, which i am not. i hate this city and i hate the students here. my classes are hard yet i still have hours upon hours just to sit there and get upset about everything. every girl i think i might have an interest in somehow ends up saying something or doing something or looking like something or somethinging like something that makes me throw any feelings out the door. i don't even know what i want but i know i haven't found it yet and i'm not so sure it's going to show its face eventually.

i am what i hate about myself and that's a circle with zero and infinite corners.

what the fuck am i doing here

other than that everything is good, though

yayy

I'm in the library, and I'm sitting in one of the study tables where a bunch of people can sit, and there is also a paralell table right in front of the one that i am sitting at. that might not make sense, but let me put it this way: think of it as an equals sign...=...and i am sitting facing northward at the lower dash....anyways, sitting at the paralell table is a girl who i am able to identify because she is wearing some sort of jersey that has her last name plastered over the back of it. the reason that this is important is because this is a girl who has face-book-friended me but has yet to actually meet me. for those of you not familiar with facebook, save yourself the trouble and don't familiarize yourself. for those of you who are familiar with it, this person not only facebook friended me but also facebook friended every member of the class of 2009, whose total comes to somewhere around five hundred students. i, in comparsion have about 20 facebook friends. so, in my head, i thought, how funny it would be for me to go up to her and introduce myself as one of her facebook friends, and have an incredibly awkward conversation directly afterwards. I smiled and laughed when her friend, who was sitting next to her at the time, got up and took off her swearshirt, and while doing so looked at me and saw me smiling in their direction, ultimately thinking that i was glad to get a free peep show from somebody. the world works in mysterious ways.

this weekend's assignment for fiction writing was to write in the first person with a character who is not like you (me). it proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be, but i'd like to share it with you. it is yet to be titled.

As soon as I stepped outside I knew that it was way colder than I had thought, so I ran back upstairs to the apartment and grabbed my Trinity sweatshirt off of the kitchen table. I slammed the door behind me and ran downstairs. There wasn’t any time to wait at the stop light, so I timed my crossing between a black Lincoln Navigator, what a sweet car, and some other piece of shit that was riding a few seconds behind it. I skipped down the steps into the subway stop and saw one just pulling away. I forced myself in between the closing doors, pushed them to my sides and ran to get the one remaining seat. I lifted my cell phone out of my pocket; the interview started in fifteen minutes. Some Trinity alum, a friend of my dad’s, who works at a magazine, said he could help me out. My parents decided I need to start making money for myself this summer, which is completely unfair and irritating, since all of my friends will be partying in Nantucket while I’ll be sitting in a goddamn office.
“Is that Trinity in Hartford?”
I looked up. A black guy, must have been forty something, in an ugly sweatshirt and a dirty beanie, was sitting right across from me.
“What?” I said curtly.
“Your sweatshirt. Do you go to Trinity?”
He had a stupid smile on his face, and I saw that a few of his teeth were pointed in random directions, and they were the color of an egg yolk. He wasn’t looking directly at me, yet there was no question that he was talking to me.
“Yeah, I do.”
“My brother worked in the cafeteria there for a while,” he wheezed. “Had an apartment and everything.”
I faked a smile and nodded in acknowledgement. The subway pulled into a stop. Three more stops to go.
“They laid him off about six months ago, though.”
“He might have made the omelet I ate for breakfast once or twice,” I said a little louder.
“They told him he had violated a health code, even though he didn’t think so. He wasn’t too bright, so he probably did. He doesn’t have my brains! Ha ha ha!”
He obviously wasn’t listening to anything I said. The car grinded to another stop. I considered hopping off and walking the rest of the way. I looked around at the other passengers; everyone had their heads down. I wanted this guy off my ass already.
“Now he’s just wandering around looking for a job again. He’s been living with me for a few months now, but doesn’t pay the rent, ever. I keep telling him to look harder but he can’t find anything.”
I nodded again in his general direction.
“Maybe you know of something? One Trinity guy helping out another?” He put extra emphasis on the word ‘Trinity’.
“I don’t think so.” I decided to get out at the next stop and just walk the rest of the way. I stood up and moved to the door.
“Don’t you know of anything? He needs something!”
“I don’t know of anything, no. Maybe he needs an education. Maybe if he had read the health code this wouldn’t be a problem.”
He looked at me with empty eyes. I think I had finally shut him up.
The subway stopped slowly and I got out. I didn’t look back towards him as I got out and walked to the staircase, but I felt his eyes on me all the way up the steps and on to the street. I began walking the few blocks to my interview. If I was a few minutes late, this interviewer would have to deal. It had warmed up considerably since I had been on the subway, but I decided to keep my sweatshirt on anyway.

It's a

I'd like to tell you readers a little thing that happened today. In my fourth class of the day we were discussing a Yehuda Amichai that was hauting and beautiful and I gave my two cents about it and I think people liked what I had to say, and I was proud of that. I was tired, though, because that was my fourth class of the day, three of which had to do with analyzing literature, the fourth of which dealt with a foreign language. And as I was walking out of the classroom, into the area outside the building, a person who was also in the class said to his friend a few words about the class, and then said "it's just a poem." And at that moment, ladies and gentlemen, I felt extraordinarily thrilled to spend hours upon hours looking at poetry and literature every week to uncover its meaning, supremely happy to have travelled 2500 miles to Trinity College, ecstatic that my parents are shelling out 40 grand a year for school so that I can sit next to a person who says that it's just poetry, and its not worth discussing, in a CLASS that is about LITERATURE, makes me really excited to do all of the reading assigned to me every week, to try and catch literary lightning in a bottle for myself, and to know that i am doing all of this while surrounded by people who will without hesitation look me in the eye and say it's just poetry.

I'd love to be able to say to them something that they really care about or are really passionate about isn't worth analyzing, to make them feel like they are not in the best environment for what they want to do, make them feel guilty that they have an opportunity some people would work every day in their life for, only to get there and find that nobody else gives a shit, but the only thing I could come up with is that I don't give a shit about not giving a shit, which is precisely the truth, which is precisely why i have this to say to all of you:

Fuck you, i'm going to love poetry anyway, and it's my god-damn school too, so go fuck yourself, i'm going to be passionate about it and make you feel as uninspiring as you have made my image of the other spoilt fuckers sitting around me every day.

A treatise

Reader, you and I have an aloof relationship, as is proven by the string of zeros lining the center of this webpage (like a string of pearls, really), and yet despite this distance between us I feel i must make a confession, if not for the purpose of being read, than certainly for the purpose of being written and excused from my conscience.

You of all people know I like to avoid the majority's observations, and being "back" at school certainly has been an oft-used topic for my bretheren's online diaries and journals, and under normal circumstances I would be at my most heightened awareness to avoid this topic, and yet it dawns on me that it has affected me more than I would like to admit or allow it to.

My break, while not filled with pyrotechnic social activities or scintillating affairs with intoxicated femmes, allowed me to view my college self in my home environment, and I liked what I saw, reader; I truly was proud of myself, which has always been an elusive activity. I felt I became especially close to my parents, with whom my relationship had always been cordial and familial but never much beyond that. I developed a new connection with both my parents on a deeper emotional level and a healthier psychological co-habitation of our abode on Horizon Drive. My greatest improvement, however, came in the form of my relationship to my grandparents.

My mom's parents' histories had long been filled with unconnected stories and facts and a largely gray area inbetween. Before I continue, however, know this, reader: Each summer for the past 20 years or however long it might been, they have gone back to their birthplace Vienna, the very city they were expelled from for being the dreaded "J" word. Why, you might ask, would they want to go back to a place filled with such a history of anti-semetism, that didn't want them in the first place? Why would they return to the very place they were forcibly removed from? This question plagued my mother for years and years, and she has a distaste for everything Germanic because of it. She cannot, for the holy life of her, understand their infatuation with the Viennese culture. I, too, was a bit confused by this seemingly paradoxical interest of their. It is true that it is their birthplace, their original home, but can a home that behaved in such a way continue to deserve the title of home?

As they are getting up in age, and the trip to Europe is not a short one (they live in La Costa now), they feel that this coming spring/summer could be their last chance to enjoy everything it is they like to do in Austria. As such, they have requested the presence of my family in Austria so that they can show the younger generation (myself and my siblings) where it is they came from. Indeed, I myself am only two generations removed from that city. While my parents, who have been to the area before, are not terribly excited about it (especially my mother, whose dislike of Austria cannot be understated), I am quite excited. I live for travel, I feel on top of the world when I am doing so, and I am at my happiest while doing it. I have not been to Austria, although I have been to a number of other countries on the European continent. As this time is approaching, they invited me over for Schnitzel (fried meat) and veggies, a transplanted Bavarian treat, and as we ate we would discuss plans for Austria.

What eventually occured, however, was not a scurry of maps and places, train fares and hostel availability. It turned into a question and answer session that will be ingrained in my memory for long after I am physically in Vienna. I asked question after question, every slight doubt I had about their blurry (for me) beginnings, about how they were persecuted, how they were able to get out, their parents, their parents' parents, jobs, friends, politics, journeys, the army (in my grandfather's case), my grandfather's parents who were two of 1,000 refugees allowed into the US during WW2, their early years in New York. At the end, I felt closer to them than perhaps I have with any person at any point in my life. I now carried their lives from the old world within me, and it will likely be my job to write them down and share them with my other children. I accept this job dutifully and without complaint; in fact, I do it with determination and ardor.

Allow me, reader, to now jump from occurance to idea. As I was pulled closer to my grandparents that night, I understood the torment of the human condition (such a jump!). It is indeed a sad fact, but as beings of conscience, humans are destined for sadness. We become close with others around us, yet there is no chance that these relationships may last forever. Every bond must break with nature's whisper of command. The struggle, then, is to create something that will last beyond this command, beyond what nature intended for us. I think I found it in that conversation with Oma and Opa (grandma and grandpa, in German). I began to establish it with my parents, and two other certain individuals whose eyes will likely never read these words.

I arrived back in Hartford, and upon putting my head down on the pillow I began to cry. It was not homesickness, I am safe to say. It has been 3 nights since I had that discussion with my grandparents, and already I am 3,000 miles away. Just a few short days between making that life-long connection and making my way across the country. What I came to realise is that my Oma and Opa will not be there for me forever, they will, however strong their characters are (that's another entry), be taken by nature at some point. That is the torment of my and every human's existance - the impossibility to bring them back.

But that is not why I broke down, either. I began to cry not because of that thought, but because I believe that night I started to mature in that I could now be safe to remember them after they themselves are not with me anymore. I now have their stories, their lives. I have a part of them that can be with me forever, and that is not a light burden to carry with me. I have no intent of letting it go, but as these stories slowly take the place of their faces and bodies, I believe I will become an adult. And that is no easy task itself. I want to hold onto them, I want them to be there. I want to take off my shoes before I enter their house, to eat dinner on their plastic tablecloth, to hear my grandfather's joyous, heavy laugh. But when those are no longer available, I'll have that conversation that we had.

And perhaps, reader, I have made a similar connection with you, as you have made it to the end here. You have now seen into me a fair bit, and maybe these words will help you understand me a little better, if that is an activity you had hoped to undertake. I'll have no idea whether you read this or not, or whether anyone will read this, but something invisible to you and I will connect, will change, will become one with this reading. Reading and writing are dependent activities, as you know.

If we can't be with each other now, and only that metaphysical window has been opened, I feel I'm ready for the challenge. Soon, I hope, we can be in each other's arms and taste what will be the present moments, in all their color, flavor and texture. My hope is that they are sweet, rich and without a past or future.

Tension & Release

The indefinable societal phenomenon known as "fun" and myself have never gotten along terribly well, and I can't help but try and overtly analyze why that might be.

It seems to me that "fun", as we shall call it, is not as fluid a definition as one might think. "Fun", in my broad definition, is the temporary loss of obedience to the in-coming pressures such as stress, work, familial relations, etc, and the sublimation to the instincts which so often heed us from doing, to use a puerile colloquialism, "doing what we want". Whilst some may propose their own definitions on fun, it seens the continental definition requires these two instances.

Seems harmless, no? I must agree it is harmless, but upon further thought it is not the opposite (which, in this case, is not harmful, as some wordsmiths may infer, but perhaps productive or meaningful?) either. And, in my insatiable quest for un-harmless co-operation with my super-ego, I have dutifully and self-assuringly passed on all of the hands which "fun" has offered me.

Whether my pulsating self-doubt and angst within uncomfortable situations has played is the true genesis of my hesitation to admit succumbing to "fun", or whether it is merely a bi-product of it, is certainly up to debate. There is certainly a level to my mind which I have no access to, yet is eternally at the controls of my movements and thoughts. Why is it that I despise the word? Why do I see it as such a hiderance to the realization of the full potential of this mass of teenagerdom so mobilized yet so unenthusiastic?

"Fun" seems selfish, quite simply, Reader! I see myself constantly at odds with my young adult bretheren. How is it that they are so willing and able to drop all thoughts of that which constitutes un-asked for responsibility? Why is it that this task has eluded me so much that I fear when, finally, I attempt to grab it by the throat, my arms will whisk through the air without the slightest hinderance? Consciously, I feel guilty that I am allowed to withdraw my name from those to whom the world has been dependent upon (those with money, living in America), when really I have done nothing to deserve a place in this priviledged group in the first place. Why, then, should I be allowed to stop worrying about all of those whose names have been forever off of this list? How might we be able to explain our willingness to stop fighting for their benefit?

Of course, you, Reader, are no doubt screaming into your monitor, "We are supposed to fight for others every minute? Are we not of course humans as well? Must out lives be devoted entirely to those outside of ourselves?" Reader, nothing could be farther from the truth. Further, I will admit that it is impossible to be actively improving the world every second of one's day. Unfortunately (perhaps), those who can help are those who have the resources and have worked for themselves, which in turn has been turned into working for others. You do indeed deserve that time to enrich yourselves, to let the tension slowly drip out of the cores of your muscles, to be a solitary person without bonds to those around you. Indeed, this "fun" time may even replenish your abilities to improve the lot of those around you.

For myself, however, I feel I have been dealt a different card. Truly close relationships have come as a rarity to me, and I feel I must fill the radius I put between myself and my acquaintances with grandiose ideas, thoughts of everything beyond my grasp, the finishing touches to plans yet to be put to pen and paper. I have been blessed with a healthy familial relationship, and a brain whose contents allow me to thwart uneasiness due to studies. What stress, then, Reader, have I the need to release, to escape from? Ah, here, Reader, we have arrived at our genesis, our Garden of Eden, if you will.

While many of us may not feel guilt from removing ourselves from that which makes us stressful, perhaps I feel I would be removing myself from the wrong stress. Or, perhaps in my own arrogance, I believe the inverse of the rest of my bretheren. I am perfectly capable of handling any and all criticisms should the latter emerge true.

For this evening, however, the candle burns low, the moon, momentarily, retains jurisdiction over wan deserts and foreboding oceans, until the sun returns from its open-eyed slumber. The crickets resume their symphony after short breaks, taken to ensure that nobody, in fact, is listening; owls vibrate the back of their throats and send their sonorous notes across valleys and mountains. And I, I lay my consciousness gently on a bed of down and ease my body into its perfect, solitary freedom.

shadowing

a few years ago, when I would get angry, really angry, and it happened a lot, i would scream, i would punch walls and doors, i would throw everything i could get my hands on across the room, including valuable things, i felt my pulse boil instantly, clenched fists, etc.

today i looked at my face in the mirror and felt a similar way because i was disgusted with what i looked like and i knew it was nobody's fault but my own. in one of those blind rages discussed earlier I tried to scratch up my face, but that didn't accomplish anything except that now i have these red marks on my cheeks.

its been a fine week but ive seen things that other people have or have accomplished that i want for myself that i could have had if i had had a different attitude.

i'm disgusted at what I can produce when I have such high expectations for myself. my body is me, i suppose, but i can't control it, cause if i could, i wouldn't look in the mirror and want to scream so loudly that my vocal chords burn. i guess my body is me but i am not my body, in this instance.

fuck

this turned into an emo song.

6 degrees of Elton John

one of my dad's best friends' daughter's husband's brother is david furnish, who is married to Elton John

action and reaction

i got a postcard in the mail the other day, inviting me to participate in a social action internship this summer in The District.

And then I thought:

You know something,

I'm sick of talking about it. I've heard so many speakers, done so many events, read so many articles, I'm sick of talking about it. Sick of reading about it. Sick of thinking about it. Sick of hearing about it.

God damn it.

It's time to DO it.