The Sound and the Fury

Thank you for your concern ;  I’m fine, I just needed to write.

Props to Jayda for knowing that the quotation was from Anna Karenina (though I wasn’t quizzing anyone, so you sadly get no prize aside from my literary admiration).

I hope to see both Jayda and Kevin over break?  (The question mark telling them to give me info.)

I was just looking at the profiles of Dylan Zavagno and Adam Palay on Facebook (hate to mention it but gotta) and it made me really depressed. It made me think about all the people that I will never become friends with, or who I won’t be as good of friends with as I would like to. Then I have some friends I would not mind never seeing again. I don’t feel bad about that either. I don’t particularly care for them ; I’m not reciprocating any feelings they have ; deal with it. Adam and Dylan, however, are beautiful, wonderful people with interesting personalities and, thoug I know them, I don’t know them nearly as well as I would like to. I have missed my window of opportunity. Hopefully I will stumble upon more people as amazing as them, and hopefully I will get to know them as well as I want to, and maybe some day I will not care if I never see them again, but at least between now and then I will have known them. Also, reading Jane Kauffman’s poetry makes me depressed. It is so beautiful. When I’m at school I realize that I can’t make the inside jokes that I had with my friends back home. I can’t reference Stage Write pieces. Most of my college friends probably don’t even know what Stage Write is, despite it having been so important to me in high school. Now that I’m back home, I realize that I can’t make inside jokes that I share with my friends at school, and I can’t reference things that happen there (aka making “box” references at anything sexist). Nobody’s even fighting, and I feel like screaming “Why can’t we all just get along!?!?”  [People who like beer pong are idiots, and should be euthanized.]

I finished reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves. I’ve got grammar on the mind.

Jane dropped out of college, and is going to be going to art school next year for creative writing. SAIC, in fact. Sometimes I hate Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt means that I’m rich and spoiled. It means that I have no creativity, and that all of my friends are the same: cautious duplicates yuppie (did I use that word right?) nightmare. I hae the tuition and what it means about me and my family. I hate the fact that I have no financial aid and that I didn’t even bother applying for scholarships. I hate my collared shirts. I love my converse. I want to dye my hair green and get paint all over my clothes. I don’t have the skill to get into art school and nobody bothers to tell me otherwise (because it’s true). I lack talent (talk to Lizzee or Amy Trummer for that) ; I am a concept artist, meaning that I have started hundreds of projects with very interesting and creative ideas behind them, but I lack the ability (or the focus) to complete them. I also use novel-ness to cover up the fact that I still can’t draw a human, much less paint one even remotely realistically. My still-life drawings are embarassing (I’m hugging a pillow right now). How ’bout this : the Vanderbilt art department sucks. I don’t know about the English department, but I’ve heard it’s not stellar. I want to go into music. I lack the balls to do so. Education is a ridiculous number of hours (none of them too easy, either). [The keys of my computer are warped and golden through the bottom of my swirling drink ; it smells like vinilla.] Performance is so dificult and stressful and not useful when you graduate and find out you’re still not good enough to play with anything other than a mediocre orchestra with no particular reputation. I wish I knew music like Emma Burrows. My sister knows more music theory than I do, and I hate talking about music with John Saba and Tricky because it makes me feel bad about myself. [My right hand is cold and refuses to heat up.] Africa! I want to be a 19th century Englishman in Africa. Maybe the mosquito netting will shield me from expectation. But then again, are movies escapes? Or are they just tricking us into…no, they’re escapes. Books, on the other hand, well, they do the same thing. Only with the thinking part more mandatory. I don’t understand how some people just don’t read. I’d much rather read than watch tv (though when the tv’s on I often feel the opposite). I lack sufficient self-confidence to write a novel. Plus, I have no story. Fantasy novels are stupid. I’m not smart (sciencey) enough to write sci-fi. [My drink sucks, and I'm just now realizing this.] Realistic fiction grabs me by the throat, stares me in the eyes and growls “You’re just a kid, now beat it.” [Eggnog, that's what I'll do.] [Ugh, I think I'll stick to water.] I haven’t written anything seriously in months. I atrophy! I miss Jane and Alex Hanes, despite them being two of those friends-I-wish-I-knew-better (though I’m not sure we were ever even close enough to call each other friends. I even want the boys shirts and gym shorts and the not washing for weeks. Even the cigarettes. Smoking’s bad for you ; don’t do it. I need to write (there’s no “k” in the word “need”). I have no time. I have all the time that this weeks has to offer (which dwindles as we speak. Though you remain silent, you recognize this fact, and the knowledge (with a “k”) flits between our looks as I continue talking, no longer paying attention to the words : reminiscing is knowing that you have passed on, crying in your head knowing that nothing can stop the moment but unable to conjure up some real crying.). In an attempt to sound less pretentious, he fails miserably, and even the cheesecake at Cafe Coco seems locked in a stone-cold ivory tower, repelling rescuers, claiming it needs no rescuing. I feel compelled to use the f word, and I am torn as to whether my inablility to do so idicates and inner strength or an inner weaknes.

I’ve been told that we all feel depressed sometimes. I’m almost always happy. I hear people say that they’re depressed all of the time (sometimes they are lying, but who am I to judge). When I get depressed and feel like I want to be happy again, I feel bad because of the people who say they are depressed most of the time. Why should I be happy and they shouldn’t (even though they might be lying)? It’s not quite the mean reds, but it’s close. [Audrey Hepburn is so tragically Scene in that movie. If it were filmed today she would have been indistinguishable from Jane Kauffman.] So what it comes down to is the fact that I want to be able to write. My peotry is so pretentious and, though I joke that this is a good thing and makes me better than everybody else, it is really just frustrating for me (because I can’t write good poetry) and everybody else (because I’m being pretentious). [Why didn't I just try watering it down before pouring it down the sink?] Where has my self-confidence gone? It got flushed clockwise down the toilet with my feces and my work ethic. I’m realizing more and more that I could easily piss away my entire life in some job I find tiresome, never bothering to find the time to do something I love. Life is beautiful because you can always reinvent it, even when I’m 50 [I never really learned where the numbers were in keyboarding class. I still have to look.]. Do I have the courage to completely walk away from my life halfway through it if I wake up one morning and find that the last time I did an oil painting was years ago? Do I have the guts, the daring, the tenacity, the perseverence, and other synonyms to get something of mine published? So I want to paint what I want, I want to write what I want, and I want to make the kind of music that I feel like making. You know what, fuck money! [Is that triumph or a downfall?] Isn’t having too much of it part of what’s got me the way I am? But I have to eat. “All happy families are alike ; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But I have to eat. [While I'm at it, I'm going to ignore spellcheck.]

If you’re going to leave any trite, contrived messages, save us both the trouble. If you need to, you can pretend you wrote them. That way you can feel good about yourself, and I won’t have to read any quasi-heartfelt drivel. [My esaphogus still burns a cold amber, even as my eyes droop.] [I am done, though I am far from out of things to say.]

“Lay their bodies down to worship. Amen. Amen. Amen.”

It’s been a little while, so there’s some stuff to talk about.  Last Wednesday Figal-sensei had our class over to his house for an end-of-the-semester party.  It was a blast.  First off, there weren’t enough seats in cars for all of us, so we did the clown car thing, and had seven people in a five seater.  Our car with Lily driving didn’t get lost, but Neelam’s car (unsurprisingly) did.  They also almost had heart attacks from her driving.  Figal’s lady-friend was over (the one whom he had the hot date/sleepover with the previous weekend), and she brought her two little sons, who were very cute.  She bought us all popsicles from Las Paletas, a popsical shop that specializes in hand-made Mexican popsicles; they have both normal flavors and typically Mexican ones such as tamarindo (it’s a type of fruit).  Figal also had pizza and soda for us.  Then, we watched the anime version of Metropolis based on the Osama Tezuka manga.  It was probably the fifth or sixth time that I’ve seen the movie, and I still tear up at the end.  Mrs. Figal’s (as we’ll call her because I think they should get married) older son, who’s eight-ish (I believe, correct me if I’m wrong), is an emotional age, and was sobbing after the movie because (spoiler!) Tima dies.  His mom had to explain to him that, yes, she did die, but it was okay, because she gave her life to save the humans.  It’s such a touching story, and I can hardly take the end when she asks “I am who?”  And when Kenichi gets handed her heart by Fifi!  I know exactly what that little boy was feeling because I feel the same thing every time after that movie.

Anyway,  I’m very glad that finals are over and that I’m finally home.  I saw a lot of my friends today, including Nathaniel, Kristy, and Katy.  The four of us played Monopoly with my sister.  Nathaniel won.  I’m a little bitter.

Listening to:  Squarepusher

Reading:  Gravity’s Rainbow (still!) by Thomas Pynchon

Finished:  Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Last night I had diner at the Elliston Place Soda Shop with Eva, Kelly, and Grant.  My mom read a review about this place that said it was very good.  It’s 50’s dinner and soda shop with some of the greasiest food ever.  I had gravy covered beef, fried corn, green beans, and cornbread.  The corn wasn’t that good, and their roles aren’t amazing, but the cornbread, green beans, and beef were incredible.  I had some of Eva’s chocolate malt, which was also excellent.  I highly recommend this place.  Later that night I went to Cafe Coco with Jayda and Kevin, and then stayed up til 3 catching up with Katy Lindquist who I hadn’t talked to in a while.

As far as finals go, my bio final went very well, but I have my harder finals coming up.  My paper for Figal is less than perfect, but I can’t do anything about that now.  My Greek Civ. final is tomorrow.  That class really shouldn’t be that hard.  The material is not particularly difficult.  However Professor Kitchen is a tough and often enigmatic grader.  It’s very hard to know what he wants, and he expects us to do analysis rather than just regurgitate the information we learned.  That’d be fine in an English class, but this is a class on Greek civilization.  Why is he making us think?  And as for Spanish, I don’t want to talk about it.

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts,
with stoutest wrists and loudest boasts,
he thrusts his fist against the posts
and still insists he sees the ghosts.

How many people share your name?

Green tea.

By the same people that did “Let’s Get Some Shoes”.

Finals have finally started (pun intended). Sorry. Anyway, I had by bio final this morning at 9. It wasn’t that hard. I completely forgot what alleopatric and sympatric speciation were, and had to make up a definition for adaptive radiation. As usual, I rocked the extra credit. I still find it amazing, and I am very thankful, that she gives us extra credit. My Figal paper is due Monday, and it’s looking like it’ll be long, so I better get going on that.

I’m really looking forward to Christmas break. Hopefully it will snow while I’m home. Right now it’s 45 in Nashville, and it just doesn’t feel like Christmas. I do have hot chocolate that Aunt Nancy sent me (speaking of which, I need to write thank you notes from our Thanksgiving Christmas present exchange), but it’s not the same as having it by the fire with a book, no responsibility, Mannheim Steamroller playing in the kitchen, and the smell of my mom making sugar cookies. Hopefully I can actually get through Gravity’s Rainbow over Christmas, since I didn’t remotely make my Thanksgiving break deadline (speaking of which, I need to write Mr. Berger-White about To the Lighthouse).

I got the new Decemberists album The Crane Wife from Eva. It’s very good, and just as catchy as Picaresque. They went in a little harder direction, actually using electric guitars in this album. I really like the fact that their albums have some sort of a theme. Not only do they have a distinctive style, but several of their songs directly continue the same story, not to mention other songs which have the same theme and might have the same characters.

Speaking of concept albums, I went to The Great Escape the other day, and they had a copy of The Light of Things Hoped For by Brave Saint Saturn for six dollars. Not only was it cheap, but it is also an amazing album. It is the second album in a concept trilogy by BS2 detailing a crew of four astronauts (the band members) on a survey mission to Saturn and its moons. They lose radio contact when they are unexpectedly propelled into the dark side of the moon Titan. Unfortunately, I can’t find the first album. It seems to be out of print. The third one is expected to come out some time this summer. BS2 is a spin-off group started by Reese Roper, the lead singer from Five Iron Frenzy (my favorite band, if I haven’t already said so). BS2 is much darker that FIF, having no horn line and tending not to poke fun at itself as FIF did. This is an excellent concept album containing both harder and more ballad-like rock songs, along with digitized vocal tracks detailing the plot. They also incorporated electronic elements (such as sampling and using the vocoder) with great effect.

Although I’m much more of a biology than a chemistry person, I know many of you have suffered through a semester of chemisty. Here’s a little something to cheer you up and help you study for the test:

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