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| Spring Break: The Numbers |
| 02.29.04 (8:47 am) [edit] |
I'm washing my pants and trying for some sort of closure. Here goes.
Pages of [i]Native Son [/i](still unfinished) read: 360
Miles driven: 345
Dollars spent: 96
Hours of [i]The Sims [/i]played: 25
Blog entries written: 12
Job applications turned in: 8
Beatles CDs rediscovered: 8
Times Prince CD listened to: 5
Friends visited: 4
People from high school talked to: 4
Loads of laundry done: 4
Inches of hair removed: 3.5
Fits of self-loathing: 3
Antonio Banderas movies watched: 2
Nights in bed before 4 a.m.: 2
Conjugal visits: 2
Nervous breakdowns: 1
Essays written: 0
I'm going back this afternoon. I have mixed feelings on the subject. Anyway, better check on those pants.
Listening to: I Found Out by John Lennon
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| I ain't gonna work for no soul-suckin' jerk. |
| 02.28.04 (10:36 pm) [edit] |
Applied for more jobs today: turned in the Capitol Area District Library application and filled two more in at Celebration and NCG Cinemas. I'm really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel: I do NOT want to work at Celebration Cinemas. For one thing, the place is infernally loud. Maybe I just made the mistake of applying during the week [i]The Passion[/i], the movie it seems all of America has decided to see in unison, was released; but for whatever reason, the theater was packed with noisy people talking over the already blaring sounds of the arcade. For another, as I was walking out I had just begun to adjust to the din, and noticed at that moment that the music playing in the background was Heartbeat, by Don Johnson of [i]Miami Vice [/i]fame...not a song I want to hear 40 hours a week. Then there's the dress code. Yes, folks, I applied to work at a place that upholds a [i]dress code[/i]. And it is as follows: no make-up on men. No earrings on men, or body piercings for either sex. On men, no hair that that touches the bottom of the shirt collar. And my personal favorite: no perfume or cologne. Why? BECAUSE THEY WANT THEIR CUSTOMERS TO SMELL THE SCENT OF FRESHLY-POPPED POPCORN WITHOUT OLFACTORY INTERFERENCE. Yes people, THEY ACTUALLY SAY THIS IS THE REASON.
I do not want to work at a place that gets their panties in a twist over cologne because it masks their precious, insidiously fanned popcorn odor. Nor do I want to work for a corporation who print some phony mission statement about "bettering the community" on the front of their application (it's a fucking MOVIE THEATER, people) and call their staff the "Screen Team." And while my hair might be short now, when in two or three months that condition changes I do not want to cut my hair because some fascist fucker working at a multiplex thinks it's offensive. If I work at Celebration this summer, I will hang myself. Or maybe I'll take a cue from Mel Gibson and crucify myself; there seems to be money in that.
On the way home from NCG, I drove by a church with a little billboard in front that just said "THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, IN THEATERS WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 25." How bizarre. Why even bother advertising this movie, if it's on CNN all day and churches are giving it completely unsolicited free publicity? Does that seem unfair to anybody else, when plenty of worthwhile films whose only crime is their secularity die in the box office because God isn't on their side? Shouldn't there be separation of church and Hollywood? Or failing that, shouldn't they have to advertise [i]You Got Served[/i] and [i]Dumb and Dumberer[/i] on church billboards too?
Yesterday I saw another sign on the back of the Knights of Columbus building, aimed at the Planned Parenthood across the street: all it said was "Life Is God's Gift." What kind of world is this, where all this righteous anger is directed at people who are just trying to take us out of this ridiculous religious sense of sexual guilt and into a healthy society? Exactly what the hell is wrong with passing out condoms to people who choose to use them and be responsible, instead of bringing more unwanted babies into the world? Why ignore abortion when acknowledging it might save more lives?
This is Zach's obligatory political post. I think I'm just feeling bitter about religion again, for a few reasons. Let me paraphrase myself: "Does that seem unfair to anybody else, when plenty of worthwhile people whose only crime is their secularity are judged by others because God isn't on their side?"
Anyway.
I also attempted watching [i]The Man Who Fell To Earth [/i] (the pretentious wanker's choice for films starring David Bowie) for the second time today, and this time I actually made it all the way through. I'd rented it myself over Christmas break and gave up at the halfway point, because the film is so impressionistically edited it actually forces the viewer to make up a plot just to fill in the gaps. At the time I mistook this as just bad editing; when Ben called me up and asked if I wanted to watch it tonight, I decided maybe it was time to reevaluate it and see whether that continuity issue was actually artistic intent. It was, but the movie still sucked. The dialogue was ridiculously quiet, the music was just ridiculous (it was one of those classic "Soundtrack by the director's cousin who owns a Casio" flicks, only this one wasn't porn and there were seemingly arbitrary times when the Casio was replaced by blaring loud banjo music), the acting (other than Bowie, who unlike the Pope is infallible) ranged from merely overstated to heavily exaggerated to just plain atrocious, and yeah, the plot was almost entirely impenetrable.
In retrospect, it all makes a lot more sense (once you forget that while you were watching it there were many cases where actual story time was replaced by lengthy fantasy sequences of what appeared to be emaciated gray Teletubbies bouncing on trampolines, accompanied by splashes of milk), and the imagery was in places really interesting. A sex scene in which Bowie and his partner pass a gun loaded with blanks back and forth and fire it in eachother's faces was quite affecting in particular. It was all very artfully shot, the photography was beautiful in places. I liked the theme, too: instead of the aliens coming to Earth to destroy us, this alien comes to Earth and is destroyed. That said, it's not a movie I want to watch again and again. Or really, ever again. In fact, at 2 hours 20 minutes in length, you'd have to strap me down [i]Clockwork Orange[/i] style to get me to sit through it again. About the only good thing to come of it was that I got to see Bowie's cock (finally!). But that's the only real endorsement I'm willing to give this movie, unless you're really bored, have a spare two and a half hours and want to see a lot of Teletubbies frolicking through the desert and spaceships shaped like wedges of cheese.
I keep making this movie sound better than it really is.
Back to school tomorrow. I still need to write that fucking [i]Native Son[/i] paper. I'm not looking forward to seeing Studs again, either. Eight more weeks...but then what? Three Megan-rationed months of sneaking around her parents, around whom I don't think I'll ever be comfortable again? No thanks.
I wish I could just do I want to do, right now. But I can't. Facts of life, I guess. I'm getting to work.
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| Sick of this life. |
| 02.28.04 (11:02 am) [edit] |
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Now I know it: I can't be happy until I can find someplace to be alone. But how long do I have to wait?
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| I'll admit it, Prince: I do relate. |
| 02.26.04 (10:01 pm) [edit] |
I just saw Prince on Jay Leno, and even though he didn't hump anything, even though he didn't do that doing-the-splits-while-pl aying-guitar thing he does, even if his pants did have an ass on them...I'm excited. Why I am I excited? Where to begin? He's releasing a new record. Judging by the track he played on Leno, that record is going to be heavily influenced by old funk and soul (this song was James Brown-ified right down to the Hot Pants reference and Maceo Parker solo). Supposedly he was in the studio with his old partners/arch-enemies Wendy and Lisa. AND he's going on tour...even hitting Detroit by the end of the summer! I am, and this is no hyperbole, [i]thrilled[/i]. Seeing as I'm still smack dab in the middle of my ravenous Prince fan period, this is the best thing I've heard since the Pixies reunion.
Now, needless to say, I still have a grip on reality. The song he played tonight was catchy and funky, but it was no Kiss or Let's Pretend We're Married. It was more of a Sexy Motherfucker...in fact, when they first started playing, I thought it [i]was[/i] Sexy Motherfucker, and that's probably not even in my Top 20 Prince songs. And again, he didn't hump anything...worse still, he announced his new tour as a "family show," which means I probably won't ever get to see him hump anything again without the aid of my [i]Purple Rain[/i] DVD. But let's cut him some slack: for a guy who's spent the last year or so more famous for his door-to-door Jehovah's Witnessing than for his music, that was a damn good performance. He danced, he shrieked, he threw his guitar, he wore an asymmetrical gold jacket and high-heeled boots...he's still got it.
And I'm excited: for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, the new record and the tour (he says it's his last, but it's never the last when they say it is...I'm not missing it, anyway). Watching Prince put in even a merely solid performance like this one, 25 years into his career, makes me wonder why the hell somebody like Michael Jackson, who was never as talented as Prince in the first place and then proceeded to dry up a good five years before Prince supposedly did, is getting all these accolades and Prince is considered a has-been. Just compare the two of them...I'm not even talking about the whole child-molesting thing. Prince is a fucking musical genius and a brilliant performer, and the fact that he's not recognized as such when people like Jackson are just proves that mainstream music is all about money and politics. Oh, well. Enough of this belly-aching. I'm getting on Ticketmaster to see if there's any information about this tour...I can't wait to see Prince live!!
Listening to: Erotic City by...you know.
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| ...And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry. |
| 02.26.04 (9:06 pm) [edit] |
I betrayed myself today. I did the unthinkable, something I promised myself many times I would never, ever do.
I visited my high school.
Now, in my defense, it wasn't quite as bad as the usual college-freshman meet-and-greats, where you go in with a big cheesy grin and a Devil-may-care attitude to smugly say hello to old teachers and underclassman friends and, if you're lucky, be hoisted upon the shoulders of the adoring throngs and carried back to the college of your choice. I did go for a reason--to get the yearbook I ordered more than a year ago and still have not collected--and my plan was to slip in unnoticed, strike quickly and escape. Even this, however, is a little tough for me to live down, and the fact that things didn't go as planned makes it even worse.
I made it past the office, that much I can be proud of. At this point I was a little smug; I'd already passed by at least half a dozen people I recognized, some of which I may have even been able to refer to by name, and hadn't gotten so much as a wave. Maybe my disguise (short, black hair and horn rims--I looked like a young Elvis Costello, or a skinny Clark Kent) worked and no one recognized me. Then I heard my name. I whirled around. It was Ben...I'd been cornered. I gestured wildly to get him to stop saying my name, and he laughed at me. "Zach, you're like seven feet tall," he said. "Everybody saw you coming in and you know it." This kind of took the wind out of my sails, but no matter; Ben and Callie (I'd just picked her up from middle school, which kind of spurred the whole high school idea since they're right next door to eachother) in tow, I continued my beeline to the library and successfully made it there without being caught again. Then things REALLY got out of hand. The librarian was gone for the day, I was stranded in the very heart of Williamston High School, and I had to make my way all the way back out without being caught. I was doomed.
My first mistake was standing around to talk to Ben out in the open. Right away, a girl I used to know from marching band walked by giving me a funny look. I gestured "no" to her and she kept walking. It was a close call. After that, things were deceptively quiet for a while; my smug "they don't recognize" me attitude faded and I began to suspect that I wasn't being approached simply because nobody cared about me in the first place. But when Ben and I took our conversation to the cafeteria, that all changed. Out of the blue, I was accosted by another girl I knew, this one flinging upon me, hugging me, and starting an actual conversation! This had me distracted and confused; I was like a scared animal. Wild thoughts of killing both Torey and Ben with my bare hands and making a break for the nearest exit loping on all fours raced through my mind. Then, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, my former video production teacher, Mr. Lutzke, literally attacked me, saying something about Jack White and proceeded to throw stage punches in my face and grab me about the sides!
Lutzke detained me for a little while, but I managed to break free. He, Torey and Ben all left, leaving me alone with Callie and, more importantly, another chance to escape. But like an idiot, I squandered this chance by walking back to the library to check one more time and see whether the librarian was back. I didn't find her. What I did find was Renato, the tiny Filipino who had been my frequent video production sidekick last year. He looked at me long and hard, then suddenly leapt into my arms (he does that). Another schmooze session. He said he might be going to Michigan next year and we should party together if he does; I politely declined, saying I'm afraid of being beat up at parties. He liked that joke and for a second I thought that was what got rid of him...then I realized that some sophomore girls had just walked by, and remembered that Renato has one real weakness and that is girls who are younger, blonder and thinner than he is. I couldn't have gotten his attention again if I'd wanted to.
After the Renato encounter, I resisted a few crazy urges to drop in on ex-English teachers and escaped at last from the belly of the beast, in one piece by the grace of God alone. I was still a little shaken, though, and here's why (at this point I'm starting to be serious again): I didn't actually hate the visit as much as I wanted to think I did. In fact, I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the attention. Walking back into a place in which I had rarely felt anything but awkward, insignificant and unwanted and being greeted with open arms felt good. And it sickens me that I'm that kind of person, who wants to go back for the attention and the good feelings. I feel like such a whore, because I could have and should have done the whole visit way more low-key than I did. Instead, I paraded around in a subconscious attempt to be noticed. Maybe I just wanted to prove (to myself, at least) that I wasn't the total non-entity in high school I often suspected myself of being. Maybe I was suffering an unsightly bout of nostalgia. I don't know. But I don't have a lot of respect for what I did this afternoon, and worse still, I'm coming back tomorrow. I need that yearbook before they set it on fire or something.
As a kind of conclusion (oh, let's face it, more like a total non-sequitur), I watched the second [i]Lord of the Rings [/i] extended edition for the first time today--yeah, I know, I'm behind the times, you bunch of dorks, but some of us have GIRLFRIENDS and don't have time to watch a three and a half hour movie at college, and besides, I was a nerd before it was fucking COOL to be a nerd, so stick that in your pocket protector and...do whatever it is you do with a pocket protector. Anyway, though, watching the extended edition just reinforced for me my belief that [i]Return of the King[/i] is the worst of the series by a longshot. The first two movies are so damn GOOD. I mean, sure, the special effects are occasionally a little cheesy (every time a character overlooks a CG battle scene it looks like he's doing foreign correspondance via bluescreen for the [i]Daily Show[/i]), but the drama can be so human and so real, much more so than in the books from what I've read. And that's one problem with the third movie: the character development is practically nil. Sure, there was the thing with Faromir and his dad, but that felt like it wasn't given enough attention to really establish it as part of the story. I thought the entire Rohan side plot of [i]Two Towers[/i] was much better; the drama between Wyrmtongue and Eowyn and Aragorn and Theowyn (or whatever the king's name is) was riveting. In fact, it felt like almost everything in [i]ROTK[/i] had already been done in [i]Two Towers[/i]; I remember watching the big climactic battle sequence, yawning and going, "I liked it better back when it was called the battle of Helm's Deep." Sad but true. The first two movies are leaps and bounds better, as far as I'm concerned, and I think so even more after watching the second one (which I think may be my favorite) again.
I think my main problem might be this: of the three movies, [i]Two Towers[/i] is the darkest. It's the one where the future is least certain. That to me makes it by far the most interesting. But even by the end of the movie, things are taking a turn for the better: Isengard falls, Rohan is saved, Aragorn seems to be pretty high in the opinion polls, Sam gives Frodo that big rousing inspirational speech...the whole trilogy has climaxed, and already there's a sense that everything is going to be okay. Which gives the third movie no suspense whatsoever; it's just three of hours of, "All right, destroy the fucking ring already!" It's a damn shame. Then again, maybe my opinion will change after I see the [i]Return of the King[/i] extended edition, since the trend seems to be that I prefer the flow of the longer versions overall. I guess we'll see in November (or knowing me, late next February). Until then, though, I remain disappointed in [i]The Return of the King[/i], Oscars be damned.
Listening to: fuck it, the whole second disc of the [i]Beatles Anthology 1[/i] (hence this post's title)
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| Of jobs and haircuts and Antonio Banderas |
| 02.25.04 (8:17 pm) [edit] |
It seems that, sometime between now and the last time I searched in vain for a decent job, I'd forgotten how much I hated job-hunting. Let's just say the last week has reminded me. Both today and Monday, I got up at ungodly (for me) hours to drive all over the Lansing area, picking up pieces of paper on which I write the same mundane facts about myself to turn in and then maybe--MAYBE--get a job at the end of April. I'm starting to feel so hopeless about it, because I'm reminded so much of last May, when I did much the same thing (at many of the same places) and was met with such utter disinterest that I ended up having to take a miserable job as a dish washer at a restaurant called the "Williamston Roadhouse." Sometimes I fill out an application, look over the answer, and think, who is the mentally-challenged 14-year-old who wrote this thing for me and why did I let them do it? A few greatest hits (written in all caps because it's the only way I can print even semi-legibly): "I HAVE EXPERIENCE WORKING IN A LIBRARY AND AM KNOWLEDGEABLE IN THE AREA OF CATEGORIZING DIFFERENT TYPES OF BOOKS." "I GO TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, WHERE I STUDY CREATIVE WRITING AS WELL AS FILM." "I AM HARD-WORKING AND CAPABLE OF STAYING ON TASK."
It's all just so tedious and mundane as to be almost ridiculous. I honestly can't tell whether what I'm saying is actually this stupid, or whether I just think it's stupid because the things I have to tell about myself are paradoxically obvious and yet not at all helpful in understanding me as a person. I just hate putting myself out here like this to be judged; not just judged, but judged by standards I don't even care about. I can't wait until I get a job and this shit is all behind me (for another year, at least). Though the way I'm predicting things to go--that is, another year with six applications in and no interest anywhere--I might as well be trying to win the lottery.
I hate jobs. Working for them and looking for him. I think I'm just going to find some rich old eccentric pervert and let him paint nudes of me in return for food, lodging, tuition and the occasional spending money. That may sound degrading to you, but if you've ever washed dishes, you'll know it's actually an improvement.
In better news, I saw Ben today, for the first time since the David Bowie concert last month (which was, if you're wondering, excellent). We had a nice long chat over a truly awful movie called [i]Two Much[/i], starring Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith. In the movie, Antonio Banderas plays a con man who falls in love with Melanie Griffith's sister, but he's already [u]accidentally[/u] become engaged to Melanie Griffith because--get this--while he's sitting there talking to her, a guy on the floor upstairs drops a ring through the floorboards, it falls onto her lap, and ANTONIO IS TOO MUCH OF A JACKASS TO JUST SAY HE DIDN'T KNOW WHERE THE RING CAME FROM. That's right, folks: you [i]can[/i] be bluffed into marriage, and don't you forget it. So anyway, in order to get with the woman he really wants (and evade Melanie's ex-husband, who incidentally is a mobster), Antonio (or "Art," as his character is called--all too fittingly, as he is a former artist who now specializes in selling artwork) puts his con man skills to work and invents an imaginary twin brother named "Bart," who of course looks exactly like Art, except his hair is not in a ponytail and he wears these little round glasses, thus rendering him completely unrecognizable to his fiancee. He then goes about dating [i]both[/i] sisters, as two different people ([i]TWO Much[/i]...get it?). Obviously, this presents the following problem: even if the woman he's after falls in love with Bart but still hates Art (which she does), and even if Melanie Griffith falls out of love with Art (which I imagine she probably would), how the hell does (B)Art manage to reconcile the fact that his quasi-girlfriend is now in love with someone who doesn't exist? I wish I could tell you the answer to this quandary, but we turned off the movie before it ended. All I can tell you is that it had something to do with a carful of comical old men jumping a bridge during a car chase and a lot of gratuitous shots of Antonio Banderas's chest hair. I must see the beginning and end of that movie.
In a last piece of good news, I got my hair cut today and I like it. No, it doesn't look like the picture (it never does), in fact it's much shorter, but I feel about twenty pounds lighter without all that hair and I look like an upstanding, clean-cut young boy. I can't wait to find out how low-maintenance it is next morning. No more half hour in front of the mirror trying to dry and shape my hair every morning! I can take that wasted time and use it for something worthwhile...like sleeping, something I've been doing so little I ended up dozing off again this evening while I was reading [i]Native Son[/i]! Can you tell how happy I am by the amount of exclamation points I'm using?! Because I'm actually not this excited at all!
Listening to: 1969 by the Stooges
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| NEWSFLASH: A Zach Hoskins Fashion Update!! |
| 02.24.04 (8:45 pm) [edit] |
For those of you interested in keeping up with new developments in the world of That Hoskins Style (TM), here's an update in the form of what will be, God willing, the haircut I'll have as of about 3:00 tomorrow. Oh, and if anyone is feeling cheeky, whomever can guess the name of the lucky young scamp whose hair I'm copping gets a complimentary lapdance from yours truly.
![]() =http://img8.photobucket.com/a...
Have at it, kiddies.
Listening to (ironically enough): Grown So Ugly by Captain Beefheart
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| Sure 'nuff 'n' yes I do |
| 02.24.04 (8:19 pm) [edit] |
Today: went out for lunch with Mom. Read [i]Native Son[/i] and dozed off a lot. Talked to my friend Ben on the phone. Left a lot of one-way messages to Megan via Internet and blogs. Played [i]The Sims[/i]. Bought [i]Safe As Milk[/i] by Captain Beefheart from my friend Matt for five bucks.
Tomorrow: More job-hunting. Getting a haircut. Hanging out with Ben in the afternoon. Finishing [i]Native Son[/i].
There. Now you're all caught up.
Listening to: Zig Zag Wanderer by Captain Beefheart
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| You've got the universe reclining in your hair |
| 02.24.04 (10:58 am) [edit] |
I hope I've given the impression in this journal that I'm really happy to be home, because I [u]am[/u]. At home I have a room where I can be alone whenever I want to, people I actually like and respect, a laundry machine that doesn't take quarters, and the prospect of at least reasonably good--free--food every night of the week [i]including Sunday[/i]. Maybe I'm easily pleased, but I'm a sucker for that stuff. Ever since things started kind of getting weird with my roommate and everything at the end of last semester, I've felt infinitely more comfortable at home than at school. With one major exception, however: I miss Megan so much when we're both at our respective homes. I always wish I could somehow combine the two, so that I could be happy because I'm someplace where I belong and happy because I'm with her at the same time. So yesterday was really good because I got to do just that, if only for a day.
Things didn't start out so well, of course: Megan wanted to come with me to look for jobs in Lansing, so we both had to get up at 8:00 in the morning. This was pretty painful, and I ended up doing that thing where I just shave instead of showering and give the false impression of being clean. But I got out the door by 9:00 and was at Megan's at 9:30. It was so nice seeing her again. I don't really care how needy I sound, missing her so much after just two days apart; I really wanted to see her all weekend and I was happy when I finally got to.
The rest of the day, though, was great. We got some job applications, which is never exciting (or fun, for that matter), then we had lunch with my family, watched Lifetime and cuddled on the couch, fell asleep, played [i]The Sims[/i] with Callie, went out to dinner together at my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant, watched [i]Spirited Away[/i] (one of us is a closet anime nerd, guess which one) and just spent time together. It was [i]really[/i] nice, and I was disappointed when I had to drive her home at 1:00. The only thing that would have made the day better is if we got to fall asleep next to eachother. But I guess that will have to wait, probably until next year (all I have to say is, every time something like this happens, I get really excited about my single room). As it is, yesterday was probably already the best day of my spring break, and I can't wait to see Megan again on Friday. For now, though, it's back to [i]Native Son[/i], and yes, the fucking [i]Sims[/i].
Listening to: Rip Off by T. Rex
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| My 15 Minutes |
| 02.22.04 (10:12 pm) [edit] |
I was just informed that my blog is at number 27 on the Hot Blogs list...I checked it and indeed it is, just two notches above "bLiNk 182 KiCks AsS!!", five ahead of "Only for DumbAsses" and leading "Sentient Vomit" by seven. I have yet to topple "[life of an unwanted lesbian]" from spot number 26, but that's about to change. Cue training montage.
Anyway, I guess this means I can't keep calling my readership "all three of you" anymore. So from now on, you're "my throngs of devoted fans." Enjoy!
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| I don't care what anybody else says, I still love the fucking Beatles. |
| 02.22.04 (1:22 pm) [edit] |
It's funny how you can forget about the things that made you ungodly happy when you were younger. Like the Beatles. I know, I know, they're everybody's favorite band, but they meant even more to me at one time than they do to most other people. From age 11 to age 15 or so, approximately 98% of the music I listened to was performed by the Beatles, either collectively or as individuals. They were [i]without doubt [/i]my favorite band of all time. I was passionate about them. When I was in seventh grade, I would argue their musical aesthetic over Nirvana's with all the grungy eighth graders, even going so far as to write an article in the school newspaper about how John Lennon's death is far more important to commemorate than Kurt Cobain's. Even after I started listening to other bands, I distinctly remember challenging a random person on the Internet's assertion that Led Zeppelin were the best band of all time with the words "if it weren't for the Beatles, Jimmy Page would be playing guitar on a street corner." I was dead serious. It got to the point where when I was in an argument, the best, most bone-crushing retort the other party could possible use against me was, "Oh yeah? Well, the Beatles suck."
Maybe that was why I kind of fell out of love with them for a while: I liked them so much, it left me vulnerable. It's tough being an oldies kid in a Top 40 world. Or maybe I just wanted some variety. Any band will get old after four straight years of constant listening, especially when that band is already overexposed (they're the fucking Beatles, plus this was right smack dab in the middle of the mid-'90s Anthology craze) and only has ten proper albums of recordings to their name anyway.
But for whatever reason, I stopped listening to the Beatles as frequently, and then I pretty much stopped entirely. I moved on to other things. I've come back, of course; pulled out [i]Rubber Soul[/i] or [i]Revolver[/i] and remembered how much I used to like this band. However, these little periods of nostalgia are always separated by long stretches of time where I forget all about my first musical love (well, besides Queen, but we don't talk about that). Since I came home, though, I've been rediscovering the Beatles in a big way. Take away all the hype, all that "best band of all time ever" bullshit, forget about all the shitty people who have been influenced by their music, and THEY ARE A REALLY FUCKING GOOD BAND. Every single record is at least good. Most are excellent. [i]Hard Day's Night[/i], [i]With the Beatles[/i], [i]Help![/i]...I've been overlooking these records for too many years. Hell, I even just listened to [i]Let It Be[/i] and [u]enjoyed[/u] it. [u]A lot[/u].
Now I'm listening to [i]Help![/i], and as I listen, I think I can say for sure why the Beatles are so fucking amazing: it's not about the experimentation, all that "revolutionizing-rock-and -roll" stuff; it's not about defining the '60s or being spokesmen for a generation. It's about craftsmanship. They wrote some of the best songs I've ever heard, to this day. The early stuff is innocent pop perfection, the later mature and accomplished without losing any of the simplicity or charm. What's more, they're probably one of the best-produced bands of all time; the drum sound is crisp and snappy--listen to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)--and holy shit, when that guitar solo on the album version of Let It Be comes in, it sounds like I could take a bite out of it. This was a band that knew their stuff, and no matter what anybody says, that would have been true whether they were the first rock group to use a sitar or not. That's why I love them so much. There may now be other bands more relevant to me at this stage in my life, and that may never change, but I still love the Beatles. And I'm not afraid to admit it anymore.
Listening to: It's Only Love by the Beatles
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| I really have to do something productive tomorrow... |
| 02.21.04 (10:26 pm) [edit] |
Today was another lazy day, this time disgustingly so. I woke up at about 1:45 in the afternoon, ate some leftover pizza for lunch and then spent literally the rest of the day--until a little after midnight--playing tag team S[i]ims[/i] with Callie. We were on the computer for like 10 hours! I mean, it was fun. We found characters on the Internet who were the members of Kiss, then built a mansion for them and Callie proceeded to use cheat codes to make them wreak havoc on eachother. Gene Simmons was swimming through the halls in a pink Speedo. Ace Frehley pooped in Paul Stanley's bed on multiple occasions. At one point, I believe it was Ace who came at another one (Peter Criss, maybe) from behind with a knife, chopped up his ass, pulled a fully prepared dinner out, put it on the stove and then served it up.
All the same, though, I really feel a little disgusted that I wasted so much time on the computer today. I tried and made up for it by reading [i]Native Son[/i] for the last hour, but the damage has been done. My day is gone and I can never get it back. Tomorrow, not only will I make lunch for myself and Callie (parents are out of town for the weekend...one might ask why I'm not throwing a stereotypical parents-out-for-the-weeke nd party, but keep in mind who's writing this), I will set my alarm for 11:00, maybe even 10:30, and I will make it my goal to do something other than play computer games for the majority of the day. I will not watch Callie make mincemeat of a Kiss member's ass for more than two or three hours, tops. That's my solemn vow.
All right, maybe three or four hours. But I mean it, that's [u]it[/u].
I wish Megan were here. She'd give me something to do besides play video games.
...I can't really decide whether that was a double entendre or not. Oh, fuck it. The end.
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| Making out with three sorority girls in Acapulco? NO! Playing computer games with my little sister! |
| 02.20.04 (9:41 pm) [edit] |
Well, despite the fact that spring is still officially a good month away, U of M's Spring Break has begun. I'm at home now and really enjoying the time off.
It's no secret that my semester so far has been really stressful. There's the dramatic content that's been vented pretty extensively in this journal, but then there's also just the workload. The 15 credits plus 10 hours of work a week. The studying, or alternatively the stressing when the studying is being put off. The worrying about money (after finally caving and eating a pleasant anniversary dinner with Megan, I ended last night with something like 75 cents in my bank account). I mean, I like being independent and I like being away from home, but it really does wear away on me sometimes. I needed a break, and I'm glad I got one.
What have I done on my break so far? Basically just hung out with my little sister, Callie. She's twelve, but we're very close considering the age difference; really good friends. We got pizza for dinner, then basically spent the rest of the evening up until about five minutes ago playing video games, first [i]The Sims[/i] and then the James Bond game she bought for PlayStation. It felt great to just be able to relax and play video games, even if I did have a weird I'm-turning-into-Erich moment when I noticed I was playing James Bond while listening to Dee-Lite. And it's always nice to see my family again.
Of course, things are going to get busier soon enough. I have a book and a play to read ([i]Native Son [/i]and [i]Julius Caesar[/i], respectively) and an essay for Chicago Literature to write. I need a haircut, I need to dig my car out of the (fortunately melting) snow so I can take Megan out to dinner in East Lansing sometime this week, and I might be going to Detroit with Dan and Megan sometime, too. For now, though, I'm going to keep taking it easy. I think I'll sleep in a lot tomorrow, since my parents might be driving down to Ikea and won't be there to wake me up and just because I deserve the rest. A week without Studs, Cait or midterms to worry about...this should be nice.
I just wish Megan could be here to enjoy it with me, too. I really miss her already.
Always pleased to kill a good mood and end on a bittersweet note,
Yours Truly
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| Not worshipping Satan is for pussies |
| 02.19.04 (2:16 pm) [edit] |
Well, things appear to be on the upswing. Despite my only getting about three and a half hours of sleep last "night" (yes, bedtime was 4:30 just like it's been since I can't even remember when), I did what I'm pretty sure was a good job on my Japanese exam today. Two down, one to go, plus Cultural Anthro, which I'm becoming less and less worried about. I not only BSed the last third of [i]Native Son[/i] in the form of a reader response last night (I didn't even finish skimming it), I also put in an impressive performance in class today that I think got me back in the professor's favor. Even that dinner I was stressing over last night turned out not so bad...plus Helena gave me some lubricant. In case I want to try butt sex, I suppose.
Best of all, it's Megan and my five-month anniversary today, which I realize is the schmaltziest thing in the world to announce, but it still makes me happy. She gave me a copy of the poetry collection she submitted to the Hopwoods and some pictures Roz took of the two of us to commemorate the occasion. It was really nice of her...kind of makes me feel bad we can't go out to dinner or something, but I've got less than $10 in my bank account right now and I think Megan has maybe a little more than $5. That college student poverty thing they told you about? They weren't lying.
All in all, though, I'm feeling good and tomorrow spring break begins. I could do well to keep my good mood in mind, so I don't forget there's a light at the end of the tunnel next time I'm feeling down. But hey, if I did that, what the hell would I be writing about in this blog? Happy thoughts? I'll have none of that.
Incidentally, perhaps in honor of my new Satan-whipping-bikini-cla d woman logo, last I checked my blog had been viewed 666 times. That rules.
Listening to: Angry Inch from [i]Hedwig & The Angry Inch[/i] (yes, I'm listening to showtunes...fuck you)
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| Because EVERYONE cares about my study habits! |
| 02.18.04 (8:46 pm) [edit] |
Just got [i]Native Son[/i] in the mail today...book must be finished so I can write a reader response for Chicago Lit. tomorrow. Currently skimming last third.
Also for Chicago Lit., must finish web project proposal with Megan.
Absolutely must put in at least a little studying for the Japanese exam tomorrow morning.
Anthro can wait until tomorrow. [i]Julius Caesar[/i] can wait until spring break. But am I going to be up until 4:30 again this morning?
What do you think?
Listening to: the world-famous techno dance party.
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| Post Script |
| 02.18.04 (1:58 pm) [edit] |
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Funny how easily a "shower" can become a "shave" when you're lazy.
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| Schedules do not become me. |
| 02.18.04 (1:44 pm) [edit] |
Today has been the busiest day I've had in a long, long time. I'm stressed out. I feel like I haven't bathed in days. I've been out of the room rushing around since 11:00 this morning. Maybe this is normal for most people, but compared to my usual sedentary lifestyle, it's alien and extremely, extremely uncomfortable.
I started out the morning with another of my sporadic visits to Cultural Anthro lecture, then I met Megan to take a tutorial in the HTML program Dreamweaver at the Graduate Library's "Knowledge Navigation Center" (read: Nerd Central). We're doing a web project together for Chicago Literature and have been procrastinating so much that we ended up taking the tutorial on the last possible day; we now have until 10:00 tomorrow to write up the outline. After the library, we headed to the Frieze Building for another last-minute errand, finding out where we need to be for our Japanese oral exams this afternoon. As it turned out, our times had been switched from what we had signed up for, so we were no longer taking the test together. Fuck. Now I had to worry about matching my almost complete unpreparedness against someone who had actually studied. With this hanging over me, we walked back to East Quad for lunch and a very brief study session before heading back to the Frieze (actually the MLB, in my case) to take the exam. It didn't go as poorly as I thought it would, except I kept messing up and using the impolite form of family member names for the other person and the polite form for my own. Other than that, though, I think I did okay.
Anyway, after the exam I met Megan again in front of the Frieze Building and we walked over to the Student Activities Building to sign our housing contracts for next year. So my room assignment is now official. By this time it was after 2:30 and going back home before my 3:00 Anthro discussion would have been pretty pointless. So I went to the Undergraduate Library to peruse the selection of books for the William J. Branstrom Prize...yes, I have in fact decided on [i]Lord of the Rings[/i]. Why is this? Let's just say the only reason why I'm a William J. Branstrom scholar in the first place has a lot more to do with the easiness of the classes I took last semester than anything else, and I had somewhat less use for a copy of [i]Bartlett's Quotations[/i] than the average top-5%-er. From the library I headed straight to my discussion, as expected, played a really half-hearted game of two-days-before-midterms study "Jeopardy" and took a sample quiz that, while once again I did better than I expected, basically demonstrated that I need to fucking study. At this point I was supposed to go in to work and pick up some extra hours, but I was so exhausted and moody that I decided to skip it.
God, I feel dirty. I look like I've been lying in a ditch for a week, and I just took a shower yesterday. What the hell? I'm supposed to go down to Markley to eat with Helena at 6:00 and I don't even want to. Too much of a walk, plus I look like shit. It's bad enough that Megan, the KNC people, the cafeteria staff, Dong sensei and the students in my Anthropology class had to see me; now I have to present my unpresentable self to Helena, too? Plus Megan doesn't even want to go...she feels uncomfortable because she wasn't explictly invited. If she's not going, I don't know if I can get up the motivation to go myself. I guess I already committed to Helena, though, so I'll haul my carcass out there.
On the way home after my Anthro discussion, I saw a homeless person doing a handstand. Just when I'd come close and was about to walk past him, he dropped out of the handstand in front of me and barked out the word, "Change!"
Maybe if I were really pretentious I'd read something into that, like that I need to change my lazy ways and become an upstanding citizen capable of dealing with commitments. As it is, though, I just think it was really fucking weird.
I need a shower.
Listening to: Salt of the Earth by The Rolling Stones
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| Diplomacy |
| 02.17.04 (9:02 pm) [edit] |
Megan's mom finally e-mailed me today, and I'm pleased that the fight for which I was preparing never really occurred. She kind of caved, actually...one thing I wasn't expecting her to do, based on everything I'd been hearing through the grapevine. So I wrote one last apology back to her--not kissing any ass, just kind of smoothing things over, though I did make sure to deny that I ever said anything about Jeff "feeling up" my sister. All in all, I think it was handled pretty well. Whether or not Megan's mom actually likes me is still basically unclear, but frankly that's not important; the important thing is that my chances of Megan and I seeing eachother outside of school don't seem to have been reduced, and that's all I was really worried about anyway.
Now, though, I'm actually going to have to do some work. My Cultural Anthropology quiz and midterm are imminent and I haven't done a lick of studying. Or reading, for that matter. I'm in for a fun night.
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| The William J. Branstrom Freshman Prize |
| 02.17.04 (11:55 am) [edit] |
I just checked my mail after Shakespeare & Rome to find an envelope from the Office of the Registrar. I have to admit, when I opened it I was excited. Visions of scholarships danced before me. I went to U of M this year with absolutely no money, just loans and work study, and frankly the more people I meet who are here on scholarship the more I feel like I deserved better. So imagine my surprise when I opened the letter and saw that I had received the "William J. Branstrom Freshman Prize" for being in the top 5% of my class the first semester of school.
Then, imagine my surprise when I discovered that the "William J. Branstrom Freshman Prize" is a fucking book.
You heard right. A [u]book[/u]. I was in the top 5% of my class last semester and all I get to do is pick from a list of books and get the one I selected on March 15. There's also an Honors Convocation, but fuck that. I think I'm going to choose [i]Lord of the Rings[/i], just pick the least intellectual book of the bunch out of pure spite. Freshman prize, my ass.
I'm going to work.
Listening to: Megan nag me about writing in my journal instead of paying attention to her.
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| Shit. |
| 02.17.04 (8:52 am) [edit] |
Yeah, I did it again. I slept through my first two classes.
This morning I was supposed to get up at 8:20. For some reason I woke up with my roommate's alarm at 7:45, but then willfully dozed back off because I thought, hey, my alarm's going off in a half hour. Instead, I woke up from a deep sleep, during which I had a dream where I was reading a book that was like some bizarre combination of [i]Studs Lonigan[/i] and [i]Forrest Gump[/i], then looked over at my alarm clock and saw it was 11:00. I think I might have made the classic (ally stupid) AM/PM mistake when I set it last night. God damn it. Midterms week, too.
But hey, at least I'm well rested.
Listening to: Erich's techno dance party. Highlight: a man repeatedly shouting "Stop lying!" in a thick Cockney accent, to the beat.
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| I got dem ol' midterm week procrastination blues, mama. |
| 02.16.04 (11:31 pm) [edit] |
Today was a very boring day. I made a rare appearance at my Cultural Anthropology lecture, met with the professor for my Shakespeare class to discuss potential revisions for a paper on [i]Titus Andronicus[/i], picked up a few extra hours at work, had dinner and then proceeded to spend the whole evening putting off the studying I absolutely must eventually do. Yes, it's midterms week, and instead of being a good boy and hitting the books, I've been taking naps, screwing around, writing e-mails, playing that insidiously addictive Java game Bookworm for hours on end...hell, I'm procrastinating right now, even as I write this, and quite frankly I wouldn't even be awake to procrastinate if it weren't for the fact that I have laundry in the dryer and no clean underpants for tomorrow. Why am I doing laundry at 2:30 in the morning? Take a wild guess.
Every time I actually have to study, I end up doing this stuff. I don't even panic about it anymore (assuming that I ever actually did). I just go with the flow and assume that I'm going to come out all right...it's getting dangerously close to crunch time, though. I have a quiz in Anthro coming up on Wednesday, in addition to Japanese exams Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and an Anthropology exam Friday morning. I also have to read [i]Native Son[/i] by Richard Wright, but I decided to be thrifty and order a $2 copy from Amazon.com and it still hasn't come in the mail yet. I'm supposed to be a third through by 10:00 this morning. Oops. One of these days this lifestyle of mine is going to bite me in the ass. Until that day comes, though, it's 45 more minutes of Bookworm, folding my laundry, and then bed. I'll study tomorrow. Maybe.
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| Fulfilling my non-whining quota: a Valentine's Day synopsis |
| 02.15.04 (8:03 pm) [edit] |
Just in case any of you handful of people who actually take the time to sift through this garbage are sick and tired of all the bitching I've been doing, here's something that will brighten your life with day-after-Valentine's Day cheer: I actually had a good night yesterday, and you bet, I'm going to tell you all about it.
My first Valentine's Day as a significant other (before this year all Valentine's meant to me was a three-month period where Necco conversation hearts are in noticeably increased supply--and yes, I mean specifically [i]Necco[/i] hearts, Sweethearts to be precise; none of that Brach's bullshit for me) began at about 1:05, when I woke up from a lengthy cuddle session with Megan exactly 10 minutes before we were supposed to meet Roz for lunch. We ate a nice lunch with Roz, who was delightful as always. Things were going great. I still stank of the cigarette smoke from the Sights concert the night before, but that would quickly be remedied when I went upstairs, jumped in the shower and took care of some last-minute stuff for the evening.
Then fate intervened. Actually, that's not true. The constant temptation and drain on my free time that is this very journal...intervened. When I got back to my room, I popped on the computer, just to check my e-mail. It turned out I got a couple letters, so I responded to them, thinking I could just take my time. Then I thought, hey, last night I was so upset about that concert and Megan's mom and all that, maybe I should just get it all out of my system and purge myself so I can be happy today. That was when I made my mistake: I sat down (well, technically I was already seated) and wrote the longest, bitchiest, boring-est blog entry known to man, the fruits of which labor can be read (if you're strong enough) directly below. I wrote like a man possessed. I wrote until my fingers were bleeding and I could not write anymore. Then, I looked at the clock.
It was THREE. I'd been on the computer for an hour and a half, and I still hadn't showered, wrapped Megan's present, written her a card (I hate greeting cards except as an ironic gesture, so I knew I'd have to write my own and fast), or, most importantly, bought her the flower I was determined to buy her come hell or high water after four consecutive anniversaries where she bought me flowers and I got her absolutely nothing! What's more, it was Saturday and I had no idea when the florist closed.
Now, needless to say, this panic was pretty unwarranted...I should know, my mom herself working for a flower shop, that florists don't close until late on Valentine's Day--the one at which I ended up buying Megan a lily didn't close until 8:00 that night. But I was freaking out nonetheless. What's more, I'd left my coat in Megan's room and she was nowhere to be found! I paced. I started abusing the Starburst Jellybeans my parents had brought me this week, going through about half a bag in mere minutes. I left three frantic messages to Megan: by e-mail, a note that I slid under the door, even as a comment on her blog. I also showered, which is proof that I was at least a little bit on the ball.
At 4:00, Megan showed up at my door with her coat. I rushed out of there like a shot, hoping desperately that the store would not be closed. When I got there and saw how late it was open, I felt a little stupid. But whatever. I bought Megan a white lily, rushed it back to East Quad, wrapped her present, wrote her card, prettied myself up and was at her door by about 5:30.
The rest of the night I won't really give play-by-play treatment, since I wouldn't be able to do it justice. Suffice to say it was very nice. We reenacted our first date (bad table manners and all) at Sushi.come, a nice sushi restaurant with the dumbest name I've ever seen, then rounded out the Japanese Nerd Night with mochi ice cream before coming home and watching [i]Purple Rain[/i] and [i]Amelie[/i]. Oh, I should probably mention too that the presents we bought eachother were both--and no, we didn't consult on this at all--movies starring Prince. I got [i]Purple Rain[/i], she got [i]Under the Cherry Moon[/i]. I don't know whether to be touched or worried.
In any case, it was a wonderful Valentine's Day, even to the point where Megan's roommate was away so we got to spend the whole night together. I'm STILL contact happy from yesterday. So if you came here expecting bitching, you came to the wrong place, sister. It was a really beautiful night. And I'm going to round out a lovely weekend (yes, even Friday night--the audience may have been assholes, but the Sights still rocked and it's not like Megan is crippled for life) by rushing upstairs to watch [i]Home Movies[/i] with...well, you know who with. So, positivity junkies, I'll leave you alone with these happy feelings for the night. I'll be back with more bitchiness tomorrow, worry not.
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| Angry mothers and people who still think moshing is cool...can't I just go enjoy a concert? |
| 02.14.04 (12:12 pm) [edit] |
Let me start this on a positive note and say that the vast majority of yesterday, right up until about 9:00 or 9:30 at night, was [i]wonderful[/i]. I skipped Anthropology in the morning and just cuddled with Megan for the three hours before Japanese class instead. We were really happy together all day, then at 7:15 or so Dan and Roz stopped by all dressed up for the "Sweetheart's Ball" and Megan took pictures of them like we were their parents on prom night. All this might not sound so fantastic, but you have to understand I was feeling GREAT, better than I've felt since I came back to school last month (not that that's too hard).
Then Megan's mom called.
Now, I've been chronicling the drama that is my relationship with this woman pretty closely in the last couple days, so I shouldn't have to set this up too much. Just as a reminder, though, what she discussed with Megan today was not the deeper-seated issue of my (non-existant) faith, but just the apparently offensive things I supposedly said a couple Saturdays ago to her son. And she's [i]still[/i] upset. Even after I wrote her an apologetic, almost disgustingly polite e-mail (when I should have been, and AM, offended by her assumption that I would conduct myself like that in front of my girlfriend's 13-year-old sibling!). Even after the whole fucking thing has been explained to her what seems like ad nauseam. I guess she is now swearing up and down that I told Jeff not to "feel up my sister"...she says that not only did she hear me say this, her husband did too; and even after Megan told her she was there and I definitely and positively did NOT say such a thing, she said Megan was just lying to stick up for me. I am so fucking tired of this woman. If she would sit down and think for 30 seconds--just [u]think[/u], not about me as a horrible non-Catholic who's corrupting her daughter, but about me as a person, a person she's seen with Megan and with Jeff on several different occasions and who has only behaved himself in their presence with the utmost respect and appropriateness--she would realize that I would not say anything even remotely sexual about my little sister, especially not in front of my girlfriend, her parents and her young brother and sister. I am offended that she doesn't even consider the fact that I am extremely close to and good friends with my sister Callie, and that I would not even think something like that about her, let alone say it loud like she claims. I am offended that she hasn't taken the time to get to know me enough to realize that I'm not some fucking incest pervert detailing lurid fantasies to little boys. But she hasn't. Megan got in a fight with her over the phone, and once I get the return e-mail she's been threatening to send, I'll probably get in a fight with her, too.
What the hell did I do to deserve being treated this way? I tried to make a good impression on Megan's parents. I tried to get to know her family as people. I wanted to be a part of their family, because I didn't want to deal with another extended family like mine, where nobody even wants to talk to eachother. If I'm ever going to start a family with Megan, I don't want to raise children in that kind of environment; I know how bad it feels because I had to deal with it all through my childhood. But no matter how hard I tried, it seemed like I was doomed to failure from the start. The mom now openly dislikes me, and I don't think the dad ever accepted that we were more than just good friends in the first place. It just makes me want to shake them and ask them how old do they think their fucking daughter is. Growing up happens. Boyfriends happen. Normal parents are thrilled to see their kids getting out of the house and moving on to their own lives. Instead I'm stuck with a lunatic quasi-mother-in-law who wants to keep her daughter under lock and key until some mythical "good Catholic boy" (Like Ted Kennedy? Like Cardinal Law?) comes along to make HER happy. Well, fuck this. I'm not trying to make her family happy anymore. As long as Megan is happy, I'm happy. If her parents don't like me, that's their tough shit.
I'm just afraid I won't be able to see her anymore outside of school. This is so stupid.
Anyway, we talked about that for a while, and then things got better because we walked down to the Blind Pig to see the Sights with the Avatars and the Waxwings. The Avatars were a band with a lot of potential who looked like they still hadn't really found out who they were...the singer had a great voice, but she seemed to be doing kind of a half-hearted Karen O impersonation that really just didn't fit her at all. I liked their sound, though (pretty much standard dirty garage stuff, though I detected more than a little Johnny Thunders in a couple of their songs), and like I said, they definitely have potential. Plus, the world's biggest Avatars fan (at least, so I assume) was there, dancing like the whitest guy at the wedding reception, and imagine my excitement to find out that he was the same sleazeball who hit on Megan and Helena way back on Halloween at a Shonen Knife concert at the Magic Stick! That really made my day.
Things kept looking up when the Waxwings came onstage. I've seen them twice before, opening for Blanche at the infamous Jack White Punch-Out show and playing a great version of It's Cold Outside by the Choir at Detroit Sounds and Spirits, during which the singer gazed deeply into my eyes for about a full minute (I swear!). Each time they've been really entertaining, and this time was no exception...they were power-poptastic. And yes, the singer did look at me again, this time while jerking off his guitar and fixing me with a kind of uncomfortably sultry gaze. Which was a little weird, but hey, it was a good set.
So by the time the Sights came on, I was excited and had basically forgotten about all this bullshit with Megan's parents. The Sights were raw and energetic and, for a while, really fucking good. I need a record by them...yes, I've been saying that for about two years now, but this time I mean it. I really like this band. But I should have known from the way things were going before that the night was bound to end on a less than positive note. Throughout the concert, I'd been consistantly annoyed by a couple assholes I had the misfortune of standing next to. It started out with me just annoyed at the way one guy kept showing off the bizarre assortment of patches on his jacket (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the RAF target [i]and[/i] the Beastie Boys...on a jacket with the Who's logo painted on the back? Who the hell is this guy?). Sometimes the way people carry themselves just gets on my nerves a lot. But it's not like I'm psychotic; I wasn't that annoyed, I just rolled my eyes and thought, well, this is what happens when you try to go to shows in a fucking college town. But then, they really crossed the line. About halfway through the Sights' set, Who jacket and about four other pricks who got their concert etiquette from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video started [u]moshing[/u].
This might demand a little explanation, since I was complaining about this in person to someone earlier and they seemed thoroughly confused as to why I was so upset by moshing. Well, this is why: grunge is dead, motherfuckers. Didn't you get the memo? There are very few (VERY few) places where moshing is still acceptable, namely high school parties and the Warped Tour. Other than that, if you want to go listen to REAL music, then leave that stupid macho bullshit in 1991 where it belongs. Nobody moshed to bluesy, organ-driven, Mod-inspired garage rock back when that kind of thing was in vogue, and nobody should do it now...it's not appropriate for the music and it's DEFINITELY not appropriate if the rest of the audience is not interested in doing it and even openly and visibly annoyed at your behavior. At one point, these five or six jackasses (because this was not a "mosh pit," just a couple of stupid bastards who showed up to the wrong concert) got so out of control that they trampled Megan's foot and hurt her really bad. By that time I was so fucking fed up I was going to sock one of them in the face if they stumbled back into us again, but miraculously they managed to stop just before I snapped, so all that happened was I gave one a little shove forward when he got too close (to my satisfaction, it was the long-haired douche bag in the Who jacket). I was a little disappointed, though I guess it's just as well because if I'd punched somebody, the fucker would probably have thought I was dancing with him.
Here's an honest plea from someone who actually goes to concerts for the [i]music[/i], not to make an ass of himself and yell "Be Like Normal" between every song: if you feel the urge to mosh, take yourself somewhere safe and isolated, find a hard surface, and beat your head repeatedly against it until you're satisfied. You'll get just as much needless violence and aggression, plus there's also the added benefit that if you splatter your brains out, there will be one less mosher on the planet and the rest of us can go see shows in peace. I have a feeling the band would agree with this sentiment, too, since they were visibly annoyed by the moshers throughout the show and didn't appear to be coming out for an encore when Megan and I left.
Needless to say, I was not in a stellar mood when we left the Blind Pig, though I felt better after Megan told me she thinks her foot is okay. I'd even say that overall, yesterday was a good day. But Christ, between Megan's stupid mother and a bunch of drooling MTV-educated wannabe punk rockers, I came out of what could have been a great show (and a great day) feeling just as pissed off as I was entertained. I mean, can't I just be allowed to be happy for more than 24 consecutive hours, without having to worry about not being able to see my girlfriend all summer--or for that matter, having bodily harm done to my person by somebody who still thinks moshing is cool? What a night. That's all I have to say. What a night.
But it's Valentine's Day, and I still stink of cigarette smoke, and tonight's going to be better. I'm gonna take a shower and stop thinking about all this crap.
Listening to: the hidden track on the Go's second record
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| OK, fine. I'm still in the band. |
| 02.13.04 (2:10 pm) [edit] |
Apparently I jumped the gun on the whole getting-kicked-out-of-Run -Little-Bunny thing. I guess this is a DIFFERENT band, which might not even end up being a band at all, and I still have to show up to rehearsals and play drums and all that crap.
Dammit. I thought my Wednesday nights were going to be free.
Hello again, rock and roll lifestyle.
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| Well, goodbye rock and roll lifestyle, I guess. |
| 02.13.04 (1:50 pm) [edit] |
So I was on my way to the computer lab just a few minutes ago, when my eye was caught by a very intriguing sign. It read as follows:
[b]DRUMMER WANTED
East Quad band seeks drummer. Email djra@umich.edu.
Influences: My Bloody Valentine, The Smiths, Interpol, Pixies, Wilco, Stereolab, Modest Mouse, The Constant Sound, et. al.[/b]
Now, seeing as I'm not desperately in search of a band (one is more than enough, or so I thought), I wouldn't have even looked at this sign twice if I hadn't noticed that the influences seemed just a little too familar. I thought, who do I know who listens to My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab AND Modest Mouse (besides the guys at any indie record store in the continental United States)? When I looked up to read the e-mail address, a chill ran down my spine. Actually, I lied, I just started laughing. My suspicions had been confirmed. Apparently, I have been phased out of Run Little Bunny.
I'll admit it: I can't say this came as a particular surprise. Dan and I (and for that matter, Roz) have very different musical goals, the ability of which to gel together has always been met with a lot of pessimism on my part. Then there's the issue of my work ethic. Which is to say I have none. I hate practicing. This has been made pretty clear to Dan, upon whom is typically thrust the unenviable task of making the other members of the band get to work. I completely understand his (and probably Roz's) desire to work with another drummer with more compatible tastes and a more positive attitude. I don't even mind that he appears to have kicked me out of the band without telling me (and not just because that was my own specialty back in high school). In fact, I think it's funny and more than a little exciting. I got kicked out of the band I co-founded...that's SO rock'n'roll!
But Dan, I have one beef, and that's this: could ust "some other drummer" design kick-ass, Iron Maiden-inspired, METAL-tastic T-shirt logos like this?
![]() =http://img8.photobucket.com/a...
And this?
![]() =http://img8.photobucket.com/a...
And this?
![]() =http://img8.photobucket.com/a...
Could he, Dan Ray? COULD HE?? I think not. And I know for a FACT that whatever hack you manage to dig up could never come up with something as booze-guzzlingly, virgin-defloweringly, Satan-worshippingly awesome as this:
![]() =http://img8.photobucket.com/a...
So just know, Dan, that even though you are probably gaining a drummer with a reasonable work ethic and maybe even something approaching proficiency on his instrument, even though I'll leave quietly and there will be no hard feelings; you are STILL losing the most talented design consultant you could ever have hoped to meet. And he's never coming back.
I hope you're happy, Dan. I just hope you're happy.
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| I can see why mothers-in-law have such a good reputation... |
| 02.12.04 (5:21 pm) [edit] |
I had lunch with my friend Helena today at a deli in the Union, and it was really nice. I don't see Helena as often as I probably should because she lives about a 15 minute's walk away, I'm lazy and we're both pretty busy anyway. But we got together today and had a nice talk about the same old shit I've been writing about here for the last week. She was really understanding and fun to be around, as always. I'm glad I met up with her today.
Apparently Megan's mother is now praying for Megan to meet "a nice Catholic boy." I don't really have much to say about this that I haven't said already, I'm just sorry that she's that narrow-minded and can't imagine anyone who isn't Catholic being a good person. I'm done with her, though. She still hasn't answered the apologetic e-mail I wrote her about a week ago, trying to explain what supposedly happened that Saturday night, and word on the street is when she does it may be less than complimentary to me. Well, I've been polite for long enough, and if she turns around and spits in my face now, I refuse to kiss any more ass. I still want to see Megan outside of school (a lot), but if her mom's going to make trouble, I won't set foot inside her house ever again. I'll pick Megan up and take her back to my place, and frankly we'll probably have a nicer time there anyway.
I just want to be able to make one decision on my own, without worrying about stepping on somebody's toes. Is that too much to ask?
Anyway, contrary to appearances, I'm actually in a good mood. Which is why I'm getting the hell off the computer and away from all this negative energy.
Listening to: The Pinocchio Theory by Bootsy Collins (quit laughing, I can be angsty and funky at the same time if I damn well please!)
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| More motherly (and fatherly) love |
| 02.11.04 (6:39 pm) [edit] |
My parents visited tonight to take me out to dinner and talk, and not only am I well-fed, I feel a lot better about the stuff I've been moaning about in this blog. See, this whole semester has been more dramatic and depressing than I'm either used to or enjoy, but for a long time I didn't want to tell my parents how upset I was. After all, I'm out here at this expensive school, putting [i]them[/i] in debt, and the last thing I want is for them to worry about me being unhappy. But that was a really silly thing for me to think, because they came tonight and everything really is okay, even those $1200 I spent in a moment of reapplication panic. And they brought candy!
I realize this is perhaps the lamest and most saccharine post in my blog's admittedly short history, but I was just really glad to be reminded of how supportive and understanding my family is. The next week is going to be a lot more tolerable after tonight, and I'm still looking forward to going home and spending some real time with them. Even if my car is currently stuck in a snow bank.
Listening to: Like Calling Up Thunder by the Gun Club
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| Five Things That Make Me Happy (because you've heard enough about what makes me mad) |
| 02.11.04 (1:25 pm) [edit] |
1. Going for bubble tea and mochi ice cream with Megan last night, talking for an hour, and not wanting to say good night.
2. Taking an hour-long nap with Megan and no interruptions.
3. Megan's roommate is out of the room for the rest of this week, including Valentine's Day.
4. Valentine's Day.
5. My mom is coming to visit in ten minutes or so.
...Look, I love my mom and I love my girlfriend. If you want machismo, you've come to the wrong place.
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| And for those shorter of attention span and gentler of nature... |
| 02.10.04 (10:44 pm) [edit] |
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Megan read her poetry tonight and it was beautiful.
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| So, whose life is this anyway? |
| 02.10.04 (10:35 pm) [edit] |
I'm not what one would call a "God-fearing" individual. I suppose I'm an agnostic; I don't waste a lot of time on categories. I believe in the concept that one creates one's own destiny. There is no "fate." There are happy (and unhappy) accidents, there are strange coincidences, but ultimately, there is no outside "guiding force" that affects the lives of human beings. Ultimately, we decide what to do with our lives--and act on these decisions--on our own.
At least, that's what I [i]thought[/i] I believed. Lately, though, the whole idea of my being in control of my own destiny has looked more and more like wishful thinking. My ability to do what I want to do has shrunk to the point where it looks like the "guiding forces" (not gods, mind you, just people who don't like to mind their own business) are going to be taking the wheel any time now.
I have a girlfriend. This is nothing new, since I talk about her so much this may as well be [i]her[/i] journal. And unfortunately, that girlfriend has a mother, a mother who is currently angry at me for no discernable reason but whose anger can be traced at least in part to that whole thing about me not being "God-fearing." And when I say "God-fearing," I mean Catholic. To be fair, she hasn't said as much to either Megan or I: instead, the reason why she is "upset with me" now is because of some "inappropriate" things I may or may not have said to Megan's little brother, regarding himself and my sister. Let me go on record and say that the incident in question was exactly as follows: I mentioned I had a sister about his age, he jokingly implied that he might be interested in dating her, and I jokingly told him to, and I quote, "Keep your hands off my sister!" I did not, contrary to what appears to be the popular belief, go into a legthy, lurid sexual fantasy concerning Megan's and my respective 13- and 12-year-old siblings. I didn't do this because, shit, maybe I'm just NOT THE KIND OF GUY WHO THINKS ABOUT HIS LITTLE SISTER THAT WAY. I made a harmless joke, it's being blown out of fucking proportion and I think there's more to it than meets the eye.
What do I think is the real problem? Well, for starters, I don't think I fit this woman's image of the ideal boy to be dating her daughter. I was afraid of this happening from the start; when I first met her I was wearing black nail polish and a Flaming Lips shirt that has "FAG" in big block letters with tiny "lminlips" written inside. And then there's the whole issue with my religion or lack thereof. In the beginning, I was very sensitive to her impressions of me: I liked Megan a lot, so it seemed logical to want to be the boy to warm her mother's heart, as it were. But as time goes by, the whole idea that I'm putting myself out to be judged by someone, someone whose opinion on the subject is irrelevant, is beginning to infuriate me. So I'm not Catholic (and I honestly think that is part of the problem; she's not telling Megan to bring me to church with her for nothing). So what? I'm not deflowering virgins or making Satanic blood sacrifices. I'm a perfectly polite, decent human being who is frankly a much better person than a lot of Catholics I've met. I care about Megan...a lot. I don't want to pat myself on the back too much here, but I'm a good guy. I just happen not to believe in God. And hey, maybe one of the reasons why I don't believe in God is because there are just too many shallow and hypocritical idiots out there using their religion as a public face-saving device and a "get eternal salvation free" card for me to have much faith in the system. So the idea that someone like that would be considered a more appropriate partner for Megan than I would be just because he calls himself a Catholic, is both frustrating and, yes, offensive.
Still more offensive is the idea that she seems to think she has some kind of control over me. Apparently the plan is now for her to "have a talk with me" about my "inappropriate" behavior. Well, lady, I'm not ten years old, and even if I were, I'm not [i]your[/i] ten-year-old. Naturally my first impulse is to not take this bullshit. In theory, I could be part of Megan's life without being part of her family's. And you can bet that I would love nothing more than to tell this woman to mind her own goddamn business, taking the Lord's name in vain to her face and everything. But here's where my lack of control comes in: for all that I feel like an adult and for all that I am capable of functioning on my own and making my own decisions, whether or not Megan's parents like me basically determines how often I get to see Megan outside of school. And they know it. I'm sick of having to live up to some stranger's impossible standards of what is acceptable. I'm sick of being held accountable for a stupid religion I don't even believe in. But there's nothing I can do about it, because if I don't swallow my pride and take this condescension like a whipped puppy, I'm going to have to sneak around with Megan even more than I already do...or else basically kiss her goodbye.
Speaking of both sneaking around and situations that are out of my control, here's something I've been itching to get off my chest for a long time now: Megan's roommate is a self-righteous, self-serving, self-obsessed, and just plain selfish [u]bitch[/u]. Last semester, her unwarranted annoyance, largely at the fact that I frequently (platonically) slept next to Megan at night, escalated through a series of passive aggressive maneuvers into a "hall counseling" session that was arranged without so much as a word being said to Megan. Now, Megan seems to know the signs and says she gets the feeling another one is imminent. What's so unbelievably enraging is not just that this time, she has gone completely overboard and has not the slightest case to make against Megan; I don't stay overnight nearly as frequently anymore, in fact I do so only about once a week on average and only with her permission, and she knows it. Instead, what seems to be making her so mad (her behavior while perturbed is just transparent) is that Megan has company pretty much every evening, company that includes me.
Okay, so this is getting a little off-topic. This should be Megan's business and not mine. But the fact that her dislike for me is so palpable that it fills the room with a negative aura every time she enters just can't be ignored. And the fact that she's begrudging Megan for taking advantage of her share in the room, all with the flimsy argument that it's "her room" (as opposed to "their room"), inevitably affects me, too. The result is that, much as I just want to spite her and move into Megan's side of the room permanently, we end up being the better people and leaving. Honestly, we are out of that room a ton. A lot of the time when the roommate comes back, we get lost and study (this is usually what we're doing when she walks in, by the way, lest you were picturing a game of naked Twister) elsewhere. This doesn't seem to be enough, though. It doesn't seem to be enough that I don't get to sleep next to the person I love anymore. It won't be enough if I don't get to come over during the day as often, either...should she succeed in making that happen (which she won't). Sometimes, I suspect that it won't be enough until we break up and this spoiled brat never has to even look at me again, because my very presence in "her" room offends her so. Her big issue at that conference last semester was that she didn't feel like she had any privacy when I was around (even though more than a few times, she's left to take a shower WHILE I WAS IN THE ROOM and returned to flounce around in her bizarre combination towel and dress, seemingly without a care in the world...so, um, being naked in front of me of her own will does not constitute a compromise of privacy?). Well, lately Megan and I haven't been able to get any privacy either, in either of our respective rooms. When we fight, we never have time to work things out because there's bound to be an angry roommate (an angry roommate with a boyfriend who has an apartment and an expressed desire to stay in said apartment, at least at the beginning of the year) storming in and muffling us. At the beginning of the year, we got to spend time alone, and it was beautiful. Now, we can't even sit down and watch the Grammys with a couple friends without being the target of completely unwarranted, passive aggressive ire.
Now we're nearing the end of this little (ha) rant, but first something else has to be addressed: one might well ask why we don't just go to my room at times like this. Well, for one thing, by this time it has become basically a guarantee that [i]my[/i] roommate will NEVER be out of the room at any given time of the day or night. Slowly but surely, he is arranging his life so that he can do everything he wants (drink, study, drink, play video games, drink, sleep, drink) without ever leaving the room. Here's something for Megan's roommate to consider: while she's moaning and gnashing her teeth about not having the room not belonging entirely to her, I have to deal with a situation where my room does not belong AT ALL to me. There is a moment every time I reach for the handle on my door when I listen intently for sounds of my roommate's blaring, obnoxious techno music and think, just for one split second, that I could really and truly strangle him with my bare hands if I come in there and see him sitting at his desk playing computer games like he is about 23 1/2 hours of the day. As for Megan staying the night, that's out of the question here, too. Privacy again. Well tell me about it, buddy. I have to find some secluded section of the laundry room at 3:00 in the morning just to have a semi-private conversation with my girlfriend because otherwise I would not be allowed a moment alone (that wasn't pre-arranged, practically begged for, and probably assumed to be sexual in nature) in the comfort of a room half of which should belong to me. That's privacy. And I don't have it.
Nor, bringing things back to the (nebulous) topic at hand, do I have control. I can't do anything about Megan's mom because she holds my future ability to communicate with Megan in the balance. I can't do anything about my roommate because I've waited too long and because at this point our differences are too irreconcilable to be dealt with by compromise. I can't do anything about Megan's roommate because...well, obviously, I don't live there. I'm utterly impotent and the part of my life that at this moment I consider most important is out of my control. I mean, whose life is this anyway?
Kind of makes me believe in fate. And not in a good way, either.
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| Well, I know where I'm living next year. |
| 02.10.04 (4:56 pm) [edit] |
A single in Third Greene, if you were wondering. I got it under kind of dramatic circumstances. I came in wanting to get an economy single, which is the same price as a double; but a combination of the stress I've been under lately, an intense desire to get the hell out of the roommate lifestyle and my socially inept kneejerk reaction to the herding mentality of the re-application process resulted in me springing for a regular single room. Using about $1200 of what will probably be my parents' money. Talk about living beyond my means. In any case, I freaked out, sent my mom a frantic e-mail, basically broke down for about a half hour or so, and then I got a response from mom saying things are going to be okay. So I'm still a little guilty, but hey, I got what I wanted. I'm living alone next year.
There are still some other things bothering me which maybe you'll all get to read about in great detail later (all three of you), but now's not the time for that. I'm going to go see Megan read her poetry at the Undergraduate Library pretty soon and she's going to be wonderful.
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| I'm no Kenneth Halliwell and here's the proof. |
| 02.09.04 (8:24 pm) [edit] |
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Megan is a fantastic writer. Her poetry is subtle and beautiful and utterly wonderful. She's the only poet who has ever made me cry, and I don't think there are very many others who ever will. The fifteen poems she's turning in to the Hopwoods tomorrow morning are absolutely gorgeous and they deserve to win, even if they don't. Are they revolutionary? Radical? Startling? You know what? In a way, I think they are, because it takes an incredible writer to aim for the most written-about subject of all time (yes, they're love poems) and turn it into something that feels so enchanting and fresh and new. These are no "How do I love thee, let me count the ways." And they're no cynical attempt at postmodernizing love into some kind of animalistic power struggle, either. Reading her poems feels exactly like being in love, and I think that is the highest praise I could give them. But just in case it's not enough, here's something else: I would feel honored if I could write just one piece as beautiful as what Megan has written, sometime before I die. Hopwoods or no Hopwoods.
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| My inner frustrated rock critic speaks! |
| 02.09.04 (9:40 am) [edit] |
So I watched the Grammys last night. Yes, I know, that's an indiscretion against good taste comparable to a busload of Socialists taking a trip to Disney Land. But I couldn't resist, because the bastards actually programmed a decent lineup of performers this time: Prince, Parliament Funkadelic AND the White Stripes? I just wet myself. Justin Timberlake's last gasping attempts at musical credibility and Celine Dion's surreal tribute to Luther Vandross (!) notwithstanding, I was going to have to watch that show.
I did, and although I ended up missing Prince (They squeezed him in for the first ten minutes?! Some comeback) and the P-Funk performance did nothing for me but finally confirm that George Clinton is washed-up and decrepit and no longer good for much besides goofy hairstyles and nostalgia, I'll be damned if the White Stripes aren't STILL the best thing to happen to rock and roll since...well, insert your "best thing in rock since" cliche here. Not only did they perform with minimal Broadway-style stage accoutrements (a rarity at awards shows), they went subversive on that motherfucker, aborting a serviceable rendition of the status-quo Grammy-nominated hit Seven Nation Army to launch right into Death Letter--this Gun Club-ized guitar-tour-de-force cover of the Son House song that's basically the Stripes' live Holy Grail. My jaw dropped to the floor; I think I might have even exclaimed, "Yesss!" which is more than a little embarrassing. But it was a great moment; I haven't been this excited by an awards show since the White Stripes at MTV Movie Awards back in 2002, and an "industry" awards show (as if MTV isn't the industry, but you get the point) hasn't captured my attention this much since Beck at the AMAs way back in 1999. I could practically hear those stuffed shirts at the Grammys squirming in their seats--it was beautiful. Not quite Nirvana playing a "Rape Me" tease to the chagrin of MTV executives, but close enough for my purposes. And a very nice surprise just when I was expecting them to be bored and on cruise control--at an awards program where Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Paleolithic Muppet-Stones-pastiche Aerosmith introduce B.B. King as "a man who oozes the blues," how many people could really be expected to understand the White Stripes? Apparently it didn't matter, because they turned out a performance that put Mr. Timberlake's Jazz Odyssey to shame. I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I don't care how hip and trendy and filled with tortured-artiste credentials I would be if I said otherwise: right now, the White Stripes are the best rock and roll band in the world, and the Grammys did nothing but confirm it.
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| Irony. |
| 02.09.04 (9:14 am) [edit] |
"Apparently it's just like a journal, only online and accessible to the public. Its most popular use seems to be as a means of venting one's frustrations, talking about people behind their back, and then complaining when the people you're venting about read it."
-Me, not two days ago
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| An Open Letter To My Friend |
| 02.09.04 (8:07 am) [edit] |
It seems as if in the last couple weeks, my and Megan's relationships with our mutual friend (yes, [u]friend[/u]) Dan have become increasingly strained. The reasons for this are up for debate, since they appear to range from me teasing him about his "making me" go to band practice to Megan not putting his blog high enough on her list of links. Furthermore, this tension would not be nearly so obvious if Megan and I hadn't had enough voyeuristic tendencies to read his aforementioned blog last night and come across a lengthy spiel; the purpose of which was essentially to dig up obscure dirt on especially Megan in order to support his deeply-held belief that we do not really want to be friends with him. Somewhere within this monologue he makes reference to himself "pounding out impotent blog entries alone in his room." Perhaps it will make him feel better if I sit here and do essentially the same thing.
Look. Maybe the problem is an inaccurate definition of "friendship" on my part. See, I'd always thought--from experience if not from popular cultural paradigm--that friends joked around with eachother. That they teased. That among friends, having to analyze every aspect of one's conduct for potential offenses was unnecessary. Apparently I was wrong, or at least we have a differing opinion on the subject. Megan can't jokingly say she "torments Dan" every day on her blog, in the same breath as she says she writes thousands of fan letters to and would like to spend the rest of her life with the musician Prince? We can't make (decidedly mild) jests about your dedication to the band and your manner of knocking on the door? All that sounds like perfectly fine behavior among friends, because being friends with someone is, where I come from, NOT supposed to resemble one long funeral where the sacred corpse is also the host of a Friar's Club Roast.
Because, that's right, you dish it out, too. In fact, you dish it out a hell of a lot more than you take it. When "the three of us" are together, the subjects at hand that concern Dan Ray are as follows: he knocks on Megan's and my doors and he wants the band practice. Pretty vicious stuff. The subjects that concern Zach Hoskins? My alleged impotence. My alleged lack of sexual performance (assuming, I suppose, that the whole impotence thing turns out to be false). My alleged homosexuality. The alleged ongoing sexual relationship between Dan and Megan. But look, I don't want to take this argument in the wrong direction: I do not, again, do NOT mind being teased about any of the above things. It's usually funny, and when it ceases to be funny, well, frankly I can just annoy it. I accept that joking around is what friends do. Admittedly, I did complain about this once. But that was only because it was at a time when my girlfriend would join in wholeheartedly with this mockery to the point where I would be sitting in the room ignored. If you want to have a normal friendship where everyone is on an equal level and the jokes are at everyone's expense, then great. I'm all for that. But if what you're going for is a return to the dynamic of Dan and Megan the Corunna Twosome and Zach the odd man out, then no thanks.
Which brings me to another point: I'm sorry that you feel like you're "losing" Megan and I. In this case, though, there isn't really much I can do. We like to spend time together. Some of that time--more of it than we get to--we like to spend alone. This doesn't mean we don't want you or anyone else to not come around as often (we don't HAVE to open the door, you know...do you really think we would if we honestly didn't want to see anyone?). But it does mean that we might not always be clicking our heels together at the sight of our beloved friend Dan. That's just something you're going to have to deal with, and it's not like you're the only one. Do you think we consistantly accept Roz into the room with open arms? There are times when we don't want to see her, either. There are times when we don't want to see anybody. I could apologize for wanting to spend time with the person I love, but it would not be a sincere apology, so I won't. All I can say is that, while I can't speak for Megan, I personally will never feel closer to or want to spend more time with anyone other than her. And that's it. Notice that the preceding sentence did not read "her and Roz," "her and Helena," or "her and everybody except Dan, because I hate him." I'm not making a deliberate effort to exclude you, Dan. I'm just including Megan before I include anyone else, and if that's a problem, it's just something you're going to have to deal with.
Here's the thing. I want to be friends with you. If I didn't, I wouldn't be writing this. What I don't want to do is go around with you, act as your "straight man" (in name alone, but of course) for hilarious jokes about how I can't have sex good, and say absolutely nothing about you for fear of offending. This whole year, there's been just too much shit to worry about. If it isn't me and Megan ourselves (you may be interested to know that you entered the room last night right after we finished a fairly mild fight, hence the apparently less-than-ecstatic reception), it's our roommates and their apparently insatiable desire to keep us apart, and if it isn't them it's this. I'm sorry, but this is too much for me to worry about. We don't hate you just because we make jokes about you--hell, if jokes were a way to measure dislike, then Roz would be the real black sheep in this crew. We just make jokes. And it really is that simple. If this is really something you can't take in a friendship, then maybe you [i]do[/i] need to find somebody new. But don't start using that as ammunition in your desperate struggle to cultivate the fantasy that nobody likes you, because it isn't what I've been going for in the least.
Listening to, in a bizarre stroke of irony: The Bends by Radiohead
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| God I hate greasy me-too indie kids who wear horn rims...NO, I'm not talking about me! |
| 02.07.04 (9:31 pm) [edit] |
Seeing as my days of being reduced to a stuttering idiot before the quicker wits of more socially apt aggressors are--so I thought--behind me, I'd forgotten how insignificant I feel when I'm in some kind of confrontation and don't have the guts to stand up for myself. Imagine my excitement at being reminded of that lovely cocktail of humiliation and botched machismo tonight.
It all started (you know it's a good story when it begins with "it all started") in line for dinner at the cafeteria. I was actually looking forward to this dinner for once, which may be why I was in such a hurry to get into the place. No such luck, though, since I was stuck behind some trendy, bespectacled, greasy-haired wannabe hipster (and yes, I am catching the irony here) who had decided to chat up some girl for upwards of five minutes and didn't want to lose his place in line while he was doing it. Now, what I did at this point was hardly irrational. I mean, to be fair, I probably wouldn't have done it if this guy hadn't been annoying me from afar for quite some time. You know how certain people conduct themselves in a certain way, kind of breeze around like they're somebody important? That's basically this guy incarnate, only imagine that type of person with a very carefully-cultivated "I'm indie rock and dirty" slacker-chic image. Then imagine this same person insisting on flirting with my girlfriend every time I'm more than 20 paces away--not that he's ever so much as made the pretense of striking up a conversation with me, or even her while I'm around. Basically, he had it coming. After patiently waiting for him to finish his conversation (which was, might I add, riveting) I came to the conclusion that this guy must not be that hungry after all, and decided not to interrupt his pick-up attempt. Long story short, I cut in line.
Now here's where I made my first mistake. I was with Megan (as, you'll find, is pretty much my usual condition) and she was spacing out (as, you'll find, is pretty much [i]her[/i] usual condition). And--I can't remember exactly what happened here because at that point I was in a reddish haze--I either a.) neglected to inform her of my plan to cut past the asshole or b.) muttered something vague about going ahead of him, which Megan missed. In any case, now I was about an inch ahead of him (I'm not a very experienced cutter) and Megan was several paces behind and more than a little confused.
So this is where the asshole turns around and goes all surfer-mellow on me. "Are you cutting?" he asked me, in a kind of disbelief. I'm doing okay at this point, still seeing red and feeling assured. "Yeah, dude," I reply not a little sarcastically, matching his casual confrontation note for note, "I mean, you were talking. It didn't look like you were planning on going anywhere for a while." This was where I lost the plot. Maybe it was because of the sheer self-righteous inanity of the next thing he said. Maybe it was because Megan was still confused as to what I was even doing and kept asking me what was going on, bringing up the humiliation factor several points. Maybe it was just because while this whole quasi-confrontation was occurring, the trendy guy was reaching up INTO HIS SHIRT and scratching himself. I don't know. All I know is, he said, "Yeah, man, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna eat," and I accepted it, shrunk to about a forth of my former size, and shuffled back to my place in line.
It's stuff like this that keeps my self-respect constantly teetering at about "Mediocre" level. I thought about it over dinner, and quite frankly I can still find no reason to believe I did anything wrong. Granted, it's rude to cut in line. But it is also fucking rude to try and carry on a lengthy, private conversation, while there are people behind you during "rush hour" for dinner, and still expect to keep your place in line. And maybe it wasn't my job to be Miss Manners tonight, but Christ, I just wanted to eat without hearing about this second-rate Strokes refugee's plans for the evening. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was, because I backed down, I pussed out, and I feel--hate to say it, evolved as I may be--emasculated. Well, I don't anymore; that was six hours ago. But I did.
What does this mean to you? Not much, it was just the most interesting thing to happen today. Other than that my day consisted of an uneventful-though-pleasan t trip to Meijer with Megan and an ongoing evening with my ex-attacker Dan, listening to him try and master the Run Little Bunny demo (so far, sounds like [i]Let It Be[/i] without the talent, the Phil Spector or a lot of the charm), helping Megan with her entry to the Hopwoods and playing a sort of half-hearted game of Super Smash Brothers, which I've forgotten how to play.
That was a sentence that would make Herman Melville proud.
In any case, one good thing at least has come out of the events of this evening, which is that I now have some motivation to dig out an old play I started writing a good two years ago. The play had to do with, among other things, that kind of pathetic state one reaches when he isn't confrontational enough to do anything but repress anger. Like I said, I'd forgotten that feeling so much that before I couldn't write it. If I can remember the way I felt after today's seemingly-insignificant altercation, though, I might just be on my way to pulling it off (one reason why I decided to make this boring story public). We'll see what happens.
This is Holden Caulfield, signing off.
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| There. Now I've got a goddamn blog too. |
| 02.07.04 (5:54 pm) [edit] |
So I'm a college student, and it seems to be the trend amongst arty/hipster wannabe types my age to have this thing called a "blog." Apparently it's just like a journal, only online and accessible to the public. Its most popular use seems to be as a means of venting one's frustrations, talking about people behind their back, and then complaining when the people you're venting about read it. Needless to say, I didn't want anything to do with it. Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of having a journal, but where I come from the only kind of journal [i]real[/i] men keep is the kind that comes with a tiny little key and is called a "diary."
So time passes and I feel fine about my bloglessness, perfectly comfortable. I feel assured, despite the fact that everyone I meet and their mothers are constantly typing away at their online journals, that I will be the last one in the world to get one. I don't need one. I've got my diary. Then something happens. At this point, mind you, I have taken the time to calculate that I am one of two people left on Earth who do not have a blog. So I'm sitting there, all smug and sure of myself, thinking "that other guy's NEVER gonna get one," and suddenly I hear my girlfriend, Megan, squeal with delight. She does that a lot. And naturally, because I'm such an attentive and wonderful boyfriend, I go, "What the hell are you harping on about [i]now[/i], you overbearing witch?" And she's so speechless with excitement, all she does is hand me this [url=http://www.livejournal.com/us...]link[/url]. God damn it. He got one, and now I'm officially the last person on Earth not to have a blog.
Now obviously, I could have gone on like that, and still have been too cool for school and blogs alike. I mean, that would definitely have been an option, had I not opened my big mouth about blogs and my lack thereof while stuck in a room with both cranky Megan and a computer. She literally picked me up over her head and piledrove me into a computer chair, then ripped off my right arm and forcibly used it to type in the address to this website and set up an account [i]for me[/i]. The nerve of that woman. Needless to say, I'm protesting loudly, telling her I don't need or want one, but she's all, "You're always complaining about how you feel left out because all your friends have blogs, and talking about what you would do if you have a blog, and anyway all you ever do when you're on the computer by yourself is read [url=http://rocketboots522.tblog.c...]mine[/url] and that's really creepy." I tell her I want a divorce. She says she'll kill me if I try to divorce her, and anyway we're not married. I tell her to put down that gun. She says she'll put it down...IN MY ANUS. And then we make love.
That, however, is neither here nor there. The point is, now I have a goddamn blog too. And I'll probably write in it and all that crap. Whatever. Thanks a lot, Megan. Thanks for nothing.
Listening To (because that's what all the blog hipsters do, to show off the size of their MP3 collections): Blast Off! by The Monks
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