Update

Nothing to report. Woke up, went out to lunch, watched Buffy, walked the dog, read, ate dinner, read, fell asleep, woke up, showered, blogged; will read and go to sleep. I would get out more, I swear, if only I could get myself to wake up earlier.

Oh yes, there's one bit of news. My car is at the dealer's and they called to say that I need to repair my fuel injection something something. That means I haven't been getting the best gas-mileage I can get, right? I KNEW it. I felt like it had gotten worse, but I wrote it off as a psychological reaction toward the rising gas prices. Lesson? Trust my instincts; I'm not as crazy as I think.

Cowboy Troy

The musical guest on Leno tonight (caught it on accident; NBC was late playing Conan). That was the strangest sight I've ever seen: a black guy playing country music. I thought country music represented everything people of color were supposed to oppose on principle, like segregation and intolerance and...well basically, the red states (Conan's Nascar-racing-gun-toting Jesus). Whatevs, it's possible I was misinformed. But get this: Cowboy Troy also rapped to country music...

thereby proving once and for all that those are two genres that can't be mixed. Instead of a fusion, it was more like listening to country on your radio while you played rap on your headphones, at the same time.

* * *

On a happier note, I also caught a rerun of Conan that featured the Walker Texas Ranger clips. One of the clips didn't have Walker in it at all, but a bad guy in camouflage with a machine gun who punches a grampa in the guts. A little girl jumps up and screams, "Don't hit him like that!" and the bad guy pimp-slaps all 4'6" of her vehemently.

In-N-Out

Did you know that you have to go through at least two rounds of interviews, and get picked out of an applicant pool of about 12-25 people PER WEEK, before you can work at In-N-Out? Who knew that they hired such creme de la creme to flip burgers? Literally! This is plain ridiculous. If it turns out to be a bust, I'm giving up and going to the beach for the rest of the summer.

Epic and Novel: Toward a Methodology for the Study of the Novel

An article by Bakhtin. Pretty sound, incisive, provocative, and yet...SUCH A SNORE! No wonder the comp lit types just read summaries of the major theorists instead of the primary texts, and pretend like they know what they're talking about. As wonderful as it is to read for a living, this is definitely the part of my job I would describe as the "ass." And not in a good way, either.

No more theory. Not before I read something light first, like Dickens or Austen.

Another Sex and the City Marathon

"Why do we even have to get married? Why? Give me one good reason. Aside from the not wanting to die alone thing.....which is something to think about, I admit."

The Birth of Tragedy

That was a painful read. It's a pretty short piece, but it took me three teeth-pulling days to get through it. My general verdict is that some of the observations are very good, but the overall schematization is Hokeyland itself. I especially couldn't suppress my irritation whenever Nietzsche started talking about the Apollo vs. Dionysus interrelationship in art - which means that I was irritated at every other page. And all that nationalism stuff was just plain weird, as expected.

Surprisingly, Nietzsche's observations about Plato turned out to be pretty astute, which is not something I would have hoped for from a thinker so hostile to Socratic philosophy. Of course, after Kaufmann, my standards for talking intelligently about Plato have gone down considerably. Now, as long as you don't say brain-dead things like, "Plato is feminine," I'll grant that you have an okay understanding of Plato.

In conclusion, it was a real labor for me to remember to pick out the merits while I was reading this treatise - so persistent was that hunch that I was essentially reading fluff. There were parts that were acceptable. But all in all, I find this very distressing. I wanted to take a real liking to Nietzsche, seeing as my most-likely-to-be-future-mentor at UCLA is a big Nietzsche buff. I'll have to give the dude another chance...but not just yet. I'll take a fun break first.

Christ on a Stick

I think I've relapsed into my old obsession. Well, the vacation lasted for almost a week. Baby steps.

Shadows and Fog

Weirrrd movie. Not bad - funny - and for a while I even thought it was going to be a pretty good movie. And then it ended without an ending. And you know, endings are always the deal-breakers for me.

"The only love that lasts is unrequited love." - Whore (Jody Foster)

Ha! Ain't that the truth.

Like a Pre-nup

I finally did what I vowed I'd do: I sat down and watched Sex and the City for six hours, straight (season 3). I will continue doing so until I've done the whole series.

Tonight's episodes covered Carrie's affair with Big, who's married to Natasha ("what a bullshit name"); her ongoing guilt toward Aidan, who's in love with her and so good to her; and yet her continuing inability to extricate herself from the situation. Carrie at last manages to end the affair; but tortured still by her guilt, she confesses to Aidan - even though the affair is behind her.

Aidan says, "I wish you hadn't told me."

I can't remember where else I read this, besides Gone with the Wind, but it seems to be a popularly-held, if fringe, belief that confessing this kind of thing when it's firmly in the past is the ultimate act of selfishness. It's unburdening your bad feelings and making the innocent person carry them instead.

It got me thinking: if I were Aidan, would I want to know the truth? Most certainly yes! I know it has to be on a case-by-case basis, varying on what you'll be losing and is there any hope of saving it; but I also know me, and (as Miranda says) I would want to know all the facts. Therefore, I propose that this is something couples should discuss before getting too deeply into a relationship, just like they do pre-nups before marriage. We should all ask: if I made a mistake in the past that is now securely over, would you want to know about it? Would you be able to get over it, or would you rather we kept a good thing going?

ABC's Welcome to the Neighborhood

[Email transcript.]

Welcome to the Neighborhood is a new television reality show... [It] asks seven families of diverse racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds to compete against each other to secure the approval of three neighbors to win a four-bedroom house in Austin, Texas. The judges are three white families who say the neighborhood "supports the President, traditional Christian values and wants people like themselves" to live in the neighborhood.

The premise of the show is that the white residents of this "picture perfect" community will have the right to select their new neighbors. The families competing for their approval include families who are African American, Hispanic [ie, LATINO], Asian American, a white gay couple with an African American child, and a family with non-traditional religious beliefs--all groups protected by federal or state Fair Housing laws. ABC is sponsoring a program that contradicts these families' legal rights under the federal and state Fair Housing Act.

* * *

If you want to join the protest, email me and I can forward you the info.

Concession to Mailer

Okay, so I thought a little more about his quote about Godot, and I may have found a way to give him some credit. Perhaps Mailer is trying to say that the ADVENT of (Protestant) Christianity, and the promise of salvation through faith alone (ie Christ), undermined the need for the moral structure and proscriptions that should properly belong to any religion. I could see how this might be a description of Godot.

In any case, it was poorly worded and sensationalistic. I suppose that's why the man's a success (sensationalism), because I remember I was none too impressed with his writing.

Waiting for Godot

Finally read a Beckett - the lack of which has long been my embarrassment. And wasn't that depressing. While I can appreciate certain intellectual and aesthetic merits, I can't say that I liked it. If I wanted to read something in the absurdity grain, I would much rather read a Borges, which is at least funny. Life is too tragic, that unless the tragedy is truly exceptional (like King Lear!), I'd just sooner immerse myself in comedy.

But the problem, I find, is that my outlook (life is tragic) leads me to write stories that I wouldn't want to read myself. How does one surmount that block?

Norman Mailer is full of shit. There's a quote by him on the back of my copy of Waiting for Godot: "It is possible that consciously or unconsciously Beckett is restating the moral and sexual basis of Christianity which was lost with Christ..." First of all, when someone suggests that a writer may be doing something "unconsciously," you know that's a red flag for bullshit. But I didn't heed the warning, and enamored by the idea, I searched for that theme while I was reading the play. Of course I didn't find it. Why? I scrutinized the quote again and realized that the idea itself is nonsense. There's no such thing as Christianity before Christ, so how could any aspect of Christianity be "lost" after Christ? Mailer pulled that old pseudo-intellectual's trick of trying to confuse his reader into believing that he, Norman Mailer, is profounder than we could ever hope to understand.

Second of all, I didn't find much in the text to support the interpretation that it's about a sexual anything. Except for that discussion about hanging themselves so that they can get erections. But I believe that sex here is used as one limited aspect of a larger concept, diversion. While the question of diversion (either supporting or undermining morality and faith) permeates the whole play, sex by itself doesn't hold any definite set of propositions. Once again, I think Mailer was trying to get some cheap thrills.

Fat Joke on Conan

British psychologists report they have found that there are nine different kinds of love. Not surprisingly, seven of them involve Ruben Studdard and ham.

Ah! The simple beauty of it. Conan also did his Walker Texas Ranger clips tonight - I was laughing until I was crying. I don't even know why I find that so funny.

Our Worst Fears

of dystopia have come true. In the institution of the American gym.

As I was waiting to sign up for gym membership (to work off two months of 1-2 doughnuts/day) I gazed at the rows and rows of treadmills, ellipticals, stairmasters, cycling machines, rowing machines, weights, and other contraptions that a neophyte like me wouldn't understand, all filled to capacity. I thought, here is humanity enslaved - toiling in these vain and arduous labors in the worship of false idols. World domination has happened. This is how the mighty Caesars brought the world to its knees, two thousand years ago: not by force, but by beauty, humbling magnificence. But, at least the Romans' beauty was in marble and gold and marvels of engineering. Ours is far more stupid, like anorexics and sperm-less no-necks of the silver screeen. For their sake, we chain ourselves to a machine, and we sweat and break our backs, in toils that bear no greater fruit. Like I said, there's something apocalyptic about this place.

And then I jumped onto a treadmill and chained myself to my own vain labors.

Aries

1. the man's man
2. make good hairdressers

Hold up, I interrupted; man's man and hairdresser? Isn't that an oxymoron? Unless, I corrected myself, by "man's man" you mean literally, as in gay.

No, I swear to God, said the Aries. Male hairdressers get more women than anyone. Because they spend so much time around women.

Skeptical face.

Incidentally

1. I finished reading Swann's Way. What a life of pleasure I'm leading! It was exquisite.

2. There's a part in the story where Swann's love for Odette just gets switched off. It happens gradually, as Swann phases through different stages of anguish and comes to various revelations about Odette's character. But to the reader, it's almost as if Swann wakes up one day and stops loving her - because for us, it's the difference of a few pages. Within this short space, Odette goes on a trip and is away for a year, and in her absence Swann detoxes from his habit of seeing her. There's a fulcrum - "to the diminution of his love there corresponded a simultaneous diminution in his desire to remain in love - and on the other side of it, the chapter ends with Swann wondering, in a detached way, how funny it was that he suffered so much for a woman who was not even his type.

I mention this because tonight, I felt like I had a similar experience, of an obstinate obsession just being switched off. I'm referring, of course, to my 20-month love for Asshole #1, springing inexplicably out of a relationship that was really only a month long. I do have a fear that this might be but a temporary reprieve (which has happened more than once), and that tomorrow I'll wake up as wretched as I've always been. Nevertheless I hope that I may have found my way back home.

What happened tonight? Part of it is that I had such an amazing time hearing the Futureheads, it made me realize that a greater joy comes from within me than any that came from him. I saw a world that was purely me, that harmonized with my past and my tastes, that had nothing to do with him, and in which he would never quite fit in - and I loved it. In short, I discovered that the world that he opened up for me was less valuable than the one I had myself.

Though I refuse to admit it, I can't not introduce this possibility: that another reason is that Asshole #1 may be single again (I have stalkerish reasons to believe), and well, the heart is a perverse muscle. But I refuse to admit this as a factor in my switch-off because I've known this fact for over a day, and it didn't make me any less miserable yesterday. It actually made me feel more regretful, because my geography will probably never intersect with his again.

But the real epiphany that came tonight was this: I'm a different person than the one I thought I was, these past five years when I was living at school. Here in my SoCal skin, I'm back to being the shy, sensitive one - the persona I've always been growing up. Then something weird happened at school, and I blossomed into the vivacious, edgy person. I guess there's so much vivacity and edginess around here that I become positively demure by comparison. And the surprising thing is, I'm more comfortable like this. More socially awkward, maybe, but more relaxed.

Anyways, the point is that the SoCal me never would have fallen in love with Asshole #1; this me hates cocky men and loves the dreamy, thoughtful type. Somehow I was swept away by his insecure energy, his talkativeness, his brashness and his utter inability to interpret a person's feelings. Even now I'm trying to conjure up an image of my love for him; but when I look at these memories with my new, and calmer eyes, all I can see is a little boy, or a clown, or - to put it most cruelly - a buffoon. But I won't go that far; after all, I was madly in love with him, for whatever reason.

The Futureheads

I said godDAMN!!!! I have never seen a really, really good punk band play live...until tonight. Wow! I didn't go in expecting to be impressed. Not only was I impressed, I was blown away!

It's like the Sex Pistols resurrected, after taking a few classes on music theory. Kind of anthemic, very British - nihilistic. I don't think Americans can be as nihilistic as the British, what with them having a queen and everything.

The Onion's Michael Jackson Joke

A headline:
Enchanted By Own Innocence, Michael Jackson Molests Self

* * *

I was thinking more about my denuded toilet dream, and I've come to the conclusion that I may have the opposite anxiety, that no one gives a damn about anyone but himself. It's true: one could be bare-assed in the middle of a public square, and as long as it isn't he who has to suffer, every passer-by wouldn't even mark it on his radar. Even mocking it would deflect his precious attention away from himself.

My brother criticizes Sex and the City as being unrealistic because none of the main characters seem to communicate as friends - so busy are they obsessing about their own lives. One of them will say, "I have such and such a problem," and her friend will reply, "No way, that totally reminds me of something that happened to ME..."

To which criticism I replied: as in art, thus in life. People LOVE to talk about themselves. I think I may be getting a little tired of it, because like everyone else, the only life I really care about is my own, so it's exhausting to feign interest in anyone else's. Sometimes, when I'm lucky, it isn't necessary to pretend - if the life is genuinely, objectively interesting, or if the storyteller has an entertaining style. But other times, I feel like I'm in hell, when I have to listen to some monotone account of how such and so found a certain friend attractive, and of this friend's subsequent sexual conquests, all involving people I don't know, or care to know ever, or have the least bit of respect for - for this monotone tale would have established only one strong impression in my mind, and that is that all these conquests are singularly douche-bags...

Don't worry, if you're reading this, I'm not talking about you - because clearly you can take an interest in a life that isn't yours, right? And to a reasonable extent, I do think I'm interested in my friend's lives, at least more so than the Average Joe (for I read friends' blogs; though this is not to say that I'm any less egotistical than said Joe). I'm actually thinking of a specific friend whom I visited recently, and who has many other endearing qualities to make up for his/her utter boringness. My dealings with this person have become a kind of symbol for my more general exhaustion with humanity, overwhelmingly characterized by solipsism.

So much for the poo chapter. I still haven't thought much about the vampire-rat chapter.

Recurring Dream

I have only one recurring dream, and that is that I'm taking a poo upon a very public toilet that, strangely, doesn't have an enclosing stall. I'm always perched on that seat feeling embarrassed and wondering why people aren't laughing at me, but the throngs that surround me are hardly perturbed. They definitely notice me, and often we make eye contact; but I'm the only one who seems to think that there's anything wrong with the scenario. Sometimes it takes place in some public square, like at school; and last night, it took place in a restroom with other people taking poos right beside me; and so on and so forth. In the case of last night, I was doubly embarrassed because it turned out I was in the restroom that belonged to the opposite sex.

Someone once told me that the standard interpretation of this dream is that I'm afraid of vulnerability and exposure. This makes sense, because following that dream last night of my public poo was another dream in which I was a vampire Slayer, discovering and eradicating a race of vampire rats. I read somewhere that dreams of infestation, involving rats and other vermin, signify a fear of invasion.

But, if I'm so afraid of exposure, WHY WOULD I KEEP A BLOG? I think I'm a pretty open and talkative person about my feelings and my personal life. I like to share, and I hope to be a writer someday. What would I be afraid of?

The answer is clear; those quack psychologists best come up with a different interpretation.

The More You Know

Testosterone supplements, while making you feel more virile, actually depletes your sperm count and can make you infertile.

Huh?

W. Friend: Does this top go with these bottoms?
A. Friend: It's okay. Do you have anything in beige or black?
W.F. [changes to a black skirt]: This skirt is too short.
A.F.: I don't think it is. It's as short as my skirt.
W.F.: Yeah, but you're you. And you're Asian.
A.F. and Me: ????!

Interpretations?

(Asian people are slutty and are expected to wear short skirts? Asian people have short legs, so short skirts go down to their knees anyways? I wonder if W.F. even had the remotest clue that what she said was offensive.)

Heart Attack!

Heather Locklear was on Conan last night promoting a movie in which she plays Hilary Duff's mother. I thought, who the hell is going to buy that SHE is HER mother? So I looked up Duff's age, expecting to find something like 24 or 25...and OMG! she IS young enough (conceivably) to play Locklear's daughter! I felt old.

I agree with Candace Bushnell: no one should be born after 1985. It's too much.

Finding Neverland

I adored this movie. I even recommended it to my mom, which is something I can't do very often.

Watching it after reading that particular passage in Swann's Way (see below, "The Same"), it got me thinking more generally about period pieces. How much of art relies on evocation to move its audience, and how much on, oh I don't know, the story or the technique or the work itself? In other words, would we be as deeply affected by a piece of art if it didn't remind us of something else? The immediate Aristotelian response would be no, all art is representational after all. But I thought that we moderns have progressed so far beyond that notion that our art is free simply to Be and not to imitate.

My instinct is to regress to the classical conception of art (essentially, mimesis), and agree with Aristotle: art would not be pleasant (in a visceral, not intellectual sense) if it were not evocative; and moreover, if it were not evocative of something that, if not itself pleasant, can at least be romanticized. Imagine reading a story about a beautiful blossoming love, say, that takes place in a entirely unattractive setting - like fat-ass boy meets fat-ass girl over the internet, each in their dark smelly rooms, munching on Doritos. Personally, I just don't think it could be compelling. This story could maybe win our sympathy in parody form. But as a serious love story? Not convinced.

The Same

This book is amazing. So finely wrought, it's like reading a poem in tome form. And best of all, it has a sense of humor! Marcel Proust is not overrrated, not by a long shot. Every minute is a joy, almost.

...then we would enter what he called his "study," a room whose walls were hung with prints which showed, against a dark background, a pink and fleshy goddess driving a chariot, or standing upon a globe, or wearing a star on her brow - pictures which were popular under the Second Empire because there was thought to be something about them that suggested Pompeii, which were then generally despised, and which are now becoming fashionable again for one single and consistent reason (notwithstanding all the others that are advanced), namely, that they suggest the Second Empire.

Swann's Way. Combray. Childhood, eloquent of love.

...At once my anxiety subsided; it was no longer (as it had been a moment ago) until tomorrow that I had lost my mother, since my little note - though it would annoy her, no doubt, and doubly so because this strategem would make me ridiculous in Swann's eyes - would at least admit me, invisible and enraptured, into the same room as herself, would whisper about me into her ear; since that forbidden and unfriendly dining-room, where but a moment ago the ice itself - with burned nuts in it - and the finger-bowls seemed to me to be concealing pleasures that were baleful and of a mortal sadness because Mamma was tasting of them while I was far away, had opened its doors to me and, like a ripe fruit which bursts through its skin, was going to pour out into my intoxicated heart the sweetness of Mamma's attention while she was reading what I had written. Now I was no longer separated from her; the barriers were down; an exquisite thread united us. Besides, that was not all: for surely Mamma would come.

As for the agony through which I had just passed, I imagined that Swann would have laughed heartily at it if he had read my letter and had guessed its purpose; whereas, on the contrary, as I was to learn in due course, a similar anguish had been the bane of his life for many years, and no one perhaps could have understood my feelings at that moment so well as he; to him, the anguish that comes from knowing that the creature one adores is in some place of enjoyment where oneself is not and cannot follow - to him that anguish came through love, to which it is in a sense predestined, by which it will be seized upon and exploited; but when, as had befallen me, it possesses one's soul before love has yet entered into one's life, then it must drift, awaiting love's coming...

Weezer

Excuse me? Weezer is TOTALLY influenced by arena rock! I don't even see why this was ever an argument. Have you heard the new song? Perfect Situation, or something like that. It has not one, but TWO guitar solos, for fuck's sake - one of them is the intro, ie the first thing we hear is a guitar solo. And, may I remind you that it is no longer 1993, so we can't blame it on something in the water, like Weezer was just another victim of the epidemic. In 2005, you have to really WANT to be arena rock to play guitar solos.

And Beverly Hills: it has one of those guitar-vocal solos that Slash always used to do. What more do you need?

Call it ironic if you'd like. But I maintain that you don't make music you consider shitty just to be ironic, if music is what you do as a profession.

(ps - This is not to say that Weezer is predominantly arena rock. They have other influences as well. This post was very argument-specific.)

Dillinger Escape Plan (Sigh)

I heard a new band today that I liked. Sadly, it confirmed for me that no matter how old and mature and tubby I get - no matter how much punk or rockabilly or jazz or hip hop or NEWS I dig - there's a part of me that will never, ever change. It's like I'm beyond self-improvement.

I gravitated again to the most embarrassing of my old passions: metal. What an odd twist of events that I found out about Gigantour through the Dillinger Escape Plan website - the band that was a breath of fresh air for me today! Gigantour, which by some huge irony I never heard of, even though it's being headlined by THREE of my old favorites: Megadeth, Dream Theater, and Nevermore. Megadeth and Dream Theater I once loved so much that I would have sold my soul for them (to use metal-speak).

Fell back onto old habits. I'm immutable. Or incorrigible.

Trauma Is Feminine

according to Loveline. I did not know this.

Earlier in the show, Adam was going on about how men are programmed to take shit, whereas women are more likely to walk away and say, never again! Dr. Drew, the cute boring one, joked about listeners mailing in our complaints - presumably about the sexism - but he basically agreed with Adam.

A little later, a woman called in about how her husband refuses to go south because an old girlfriend once urinated on him, and he was traumatized. Dr. Drew and Adam both IMMEDIATELY called him out on that as a hoax. This was surprising. To me, it sounded like a legitimate story. But Adam pointed out that boys will repeatedly do the same stupid things, and bounce back up, like a surfer who gets his arm bitten off by a shark but then continues to surf at that exact same break. The urination story was the kind of lie a dude would tell who KNEW it was exactly what a chick would believe: being scarred for life.

REALLY?

Drew then expressed concern over what kind of character this woman's husband was, and cautioned her in general. Is it so obvious that this husband is a shyster? To quote an old 90s song: things that make you go "hmm."

It's come to this

I must have really run out of an audience for my stand-up act, because I found myself telling one of my Michael Jackson jokes to my mom, of all people. She laughed.

What does Michael Jackson like about twenty eight year olds?
The fact that there are 20 of them.

* * *

There's something apocalyptic about this place. I used to get nosebleeds every day back when I was in high school. When I went to college, they stopped immediately. Now I'm here again; the air quality so dense with pollutants that my face is erupting in blood. Isn't that something like how the end of the world is supposed to look?

Or maybe I should just stop picking my nose.

Slow

Doh! Back at home and using AOL. The connection is so slow I'm aggravated. I suspect blog updates will be getting more infrequent as a result.

There are some good things about being back at home. One of them, which I will take advantage of now: showering in a shower without a bright-orange (mildewed) curtain. Brggh.

This blog is pretty gross, yeah? Gross-out and the French: two of my running themes.

Oh Crap

I graduated today, and I even got hooded. This time last year was the happiest day of my life, so you'd think I'd be glowing today as well. Instead, I feel myself slipping again into my weekly ritual. Criminy! I really should start calendaring this insanity, like girls' menstral periods, to see if there's a regular pattern. On the bright side, I'm going home tomorrow, so it doesn't matter if I'm crippled with despair for the next day or two.

I'd like to think that I'm just sad because, you know, it's so hard to say good-bye to yesterday. I feel like I'm depositing my life into a glass box, like a diorama (sp?), and walking away from it. We say that we'll keep in touch, and that nothing will change, but I know this isn't true. I'll never be able to come back, anymore than if I was going to the moon.

Yesterday I saw Andres again for the first time in a year (sorry to embarrass you!). He looked at my bookcase and said, wow all your English books are gone. Yeah, I left them at home, I said; I don't study that anymore, remember? I know, he said, it just didn't hit me until now, that you've changed. And I KNOW we were thinking the same thing, as English majors, how my bookshelf was a metaphor, the visual proof for what happened to us. We used to be as thick as thieves. In a lot of ways, this hasn't changed. We've kept in touch often and discussed all the same stupid minutiae we always did; an outside observer would be amazed at how our conversations haven't skipped a beat in a year. But I knew that he just wasn't under my skin the way he used to be. I was different, and I feel like he was different too. Well duh, one might say. But it made me sad all the same. I missed our old friendship.

The fact is that proximity breeds closeness; you lose it, subtly, when you're not breathing each other in every day.

Meanwhile, I can't stop myself from changing - getting older, getting fatter, maybe getting wiser (or, just more boring). This feeling is especially acute during graduation, because other people are staying, and I'M the one who's leaving. It's like you get to see your life go on without you. Beloved habits, unfinished projects, bitter desires...I have to let them go and move on.

What's the difference between a slut and a bitch?

A slut is someone who sleeps with everyone at the party.
A bitch is someone who sleeps with everyone at the party except YOU.

Tequila

is my new drink of choice. Painless because you shoot it all at once, and ho boy! does one shot give you a buzz! I've had other single-shots before, like vodka, and that didn't even compare. Of course I still prefer to be on nothing, but I have to admit that the buzz can be fun (albeit uncomfortable).

It was put to good use tonight. The Bang took me out to this big, radio-sponsored all-day alternative rock festival, and it got cold after sundown. We said, either we buy a liquid jacket, or we make ourselves get up and dance to Jimmy Eat World. Except...how does one dance to Jimmy Eat World? We opted for the jacket. The Bang had a long island iced tea, and I had a tequila shot.

Turns out we could have our cake and eat it too, becauase thanks to the jacket, we soon found out the answer to the question, how do you dance to Jimmy Eat World? So much fun!

One thing I found out about myself: I do not like the Foo Fighters. I used to think I was neutral to them. They were the headlining band, so it was an anticlimax when I sweated through 6 other bands before we finally got to them, only to discover: "Oh I forgot! I always change the dial on this song." We left early, shortly after this epiphany.

Gypsies in Oregon

have names like Burger, Hot Dog, and my favorite, Beaver. Strangely enough, these guys seem to be minimally preoccupied with the double-entendres.

Answer to Lux Interior's Penetrating Question

The panties I'm wearing are white. I've been wearing them since Tuesday (40 hours). I will now change them, as I need to so badly, after I shower, as I need to so badly.

I FINISHED DOING THE LAST THING I NEED TO DO EVER.

Exams

Funny how by the time you get to taking exams, you're totally out of steam. Emily F and I were sitting in our elegy exam today, and neither or us had the will to finish. And mind you, she's actually a motivated student, unlike me. We contemplated not doing the essay question and just being like, "Micah, you know, that last page just didn't get copied," or, staging a coup. But he's such a reasonable teacher; I made myself get through it.

Life sucks, I suck - yeah whatever, it's not like I'm not aware.

O Susan, you're all that I wanted

in my inbox. I'm fraught with anxiety as I wait for you to tell me whether or not I passed my Greek exam - and if I need to finish this paper to graduate, or if it's already a lost cause and I should pack up and party.

Motorhead

Can I just say how much I love Motorhead? Pretty much any day of the week, I am always in the mood for it.

Two Exams

One Greek, one Latin, both more or less sight translations - ha!

Horace Ode 4.13

The gods heard my prayers, Lyce, the gods
heard, Lyce: you have become an old woman; and yet
you wish to seem beautiful
and an impudent drunk, with games and drinks

and a tremulous song you bother
reluctant Cupid: he stands watch now
upon the beautiful cheeks of Chia,
who is blooming and learned in the lyre.

For ruthless he flies over the whithered
former beauties and he flees you, because your yellow
teeth, and your wrinkles
and your snowy head make you ugly.

Nor do purple Chian silks, nor precious stones,
bring back to you the times which once and for all,
buried with the public records,
the winged day enclosed.

Where does desire flee, alas, and where your color? Where
your seemly movement? What you have of her - of that woman -
who used to breathe love,
who used to snatch me away from my wits,

who was loved most after Cinera, and whose face
was famed for pretty arts? But the fates have given
brief years to Cinera,
while they are about to preserve Lyce,

equal in years to the old crow,
so that the fervid youths may be able to see her,
not without much laughter -
a torch fallen in embers.

Horace Ode 3.13, first half

I have an exam tomorrow, so I suppose by blogging I'm studying for it. I thought this was such an elegant picture of pathos, the goat:

O spring of Bandusia, brighter than glass,
worthy of sweet wine and not without flowers,
tomorrow you will be given a kid goat,
whose forehead, swollen with his first horns,

is designed for love-making and fighting;
in vain, for he will stain your icy
streams with red blood,
this offspring of the randy herd.

Zodiac Bullcrap

I found myself having a good number of conversations these days about signs. It made me realize that I don't know one tootin thing about my own sign. I happen to know that scorpios are sexual beings, because scorpios LOVE to broadcast that - with good reason - but as for the rest of the zodiac I'm completely clueless. It occurred to me that I should at least find out what my sign is about.

What did I discover? That it's a load of bullcrap! Not one thing about my sign is true about me, pretty much. According to the stars I'm this paragon of stability and discipline. I know for a fact that I'm emotional, and one lazy-ass flake. Furthermore, I've often noted that many famous people born ON MY VERY BIRTHDAY were total nutcases (incidently, I found a new one today; ask me about it). I mean like crazy religious cult leaders that led their congregations into mass death. Stability, huh?

Okay, I have to admit that there was one thing that rang kind of true - as is inevitable with these broad, vague, and often contradictory zodiac descriptions. In love, I'm supposed to attract people who don't understand me. Now, if we substitute, "people who don't understand me" for "Republican," I might concede that the stars are onto something.

Suicidal Tendencies

Caught my attention while I was listening to my car radio:

"What did you say? You think your life sucks? Well 99% of life is what you make of it. So if life sucks...you suck!"

(ps - these are just song lyrics. I'm over my depression for this week.)

The Tree

Question:
Hey Andrew! I just turned 12 and I wanted to say your music has really inspired me to do stuff I was afraid to do. I have your album "I Get Wet" and I listen to it every night. I wanted to know how you would tell a girl you like her, but not like saying "you're hot" and shit like that. If you know, please respond!!! Later dude!
asked by Andrew on Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Answer:
Dear Andrew,
...Thanks so much for listening to "I Get Wet". It pleases me to know that it's helped you face your fears. Remember that it's not bad to be afraid, as long as we can face our fears and use them to understand ourselves more clearly... although the idea of "No Fear" is still very appealing and exciting in it's own right - I think it's essentially the same as "Face Your Fear". This brings us to the issue of the girl: Talking to a girl (or anyone) is technically very easy - all you have to do is open your mouth and make words come out. It's knowing what words you want to say that can be difficult - plus, how to say them, when to say them, and then... what will SHE say in response? When you like a girl, you have to put your pride on the line. Attraction, love, romance, and intimacy are all risks, and each time we engage in an experience with another person, we put ourselves in a vulnerable place. I personally think this is great. I think exposing oneself to the passions of life is the only way to form - it's an opportunity to loose sense of who we are, only to snap back with a better understanding of what it means to be "myself". The more you reduce the importance of pride and the fears of embarrassment, the more opportunities will present themselves. Meaning: no matter what, you're going to be O.K. and the more vulnerable you can be, the less you'll need to protect yourself from being hurt. You don't need to worry about what exactly to say to this girl, just walk up to her and say "Hi"... Do your best to look in her eyes when you talk to her - that might be hard at first, especially if she's really beautiful, but do your best to look into her eyes when you're speaking and when you're listening to her. You'll have to pick one eye, as it's impossible to focus on both eyes at once - although you can focus on the space right between her eyes, at the bridge of her nose - that will appear to her to be the same as you looking in both her eyes, but actually you won't looking at either of them - it's the "light" way to make eye contact, and I recommend the real and "heavy" way: pick one eye or the other and stick with it (or switch back and forth). Even if she looks away, you need to force yourself to keep focused on her eyes. You'll see that it's not so bad after a while. You can also try looking at her mouth, especially when she's talking to you, and especially if her mouth is lovely. Remember, it's moments like these that make life worth living. Don't pass up the chances to take a risk! That's all we have. When it feels scary and nervous, that means you're onto something! That means you're going for it! No matter what happens, and no matter what she says, you will have accomplished one more experience to add to your real-life education. You'll learn from it and it will make you stronger, and no matter what, you'll still have the music you love and another day to try it all tomorrow... and into the future, your friend, Andrew W.K.
answered by Andrew W.K. on Friday, June 3 , 2005 4:27 AM

Rapper's Delight

Man, I forgot about this song. I was listening to it today on some old skool radio station that plays in the city.

have you ever went over a friends house to eat
and the food just aint no good
i mean the macaroni's soggy the peas are mushed
and the chicken tastes like wood
so you try to play it off like you think you can
by sayin that youre full
and then your friend says momma he's just being polite
he aint finished uh uh that's bull
so your heart starts pumpin and you think of a lie
and you say that you already ate
and your friend says man there's plenty of food
so you pile some more on your plate
while the stinky foods steamin your mind starts to dreamin
of the moment that it's time to leave
and then you look at your plate and your chickens slowly rottin
into something that looks like cheese
oh so you say that's it i got to leave this place
i dont care what these people think
im just sittin here makin myself nauseous
with this ugly food that stinks
so you bust out the door while its still closed
still sick from the food you ate
and then you run to the store for quick relief
from a bottle of kaopectate
and then you call your friend two weeks later
to see how he has been
and he says i understand about the food
baby bubbah but we're still friends

Took My Big Greek Exam!

Results pending.

I Love David Johansen Like David Johansen Loves Janis Joplin

"I love Janis Joplin like a queer loves Judy Garland." When I saw the reunited Dolls play last October, they covered "Piece of My Heart." And the devotion was palpable. I dig the analogy, it's so vivid. It captures so perfectly how much I love that queen.

I was studying earlier tonight at what passes for the local dive bar in this affluent town. Advantages to studying at a bar: the vibe is just much more relaxed, because everyone is there to have fun; the people are much better looking; the music is so loud that it drives out all the distracting thoughts, and you can concentrate much better - provided that you are like me, and have no problem drowning out background noise. I remember reading a Dave Mustaine interview once, where he said something like you tend to like the kind of music that harmonizes best with your body's natural rhythm. The people who like metal are often really tense, and they feel most at home with sounds that are fast and brutal and intense. As much as this statement smacks of that hokey kind of music theory that the Greeks seemed to love, I've gotta say that I agree with him here. I'm always most relaxed in loud, pounding environments. And no one (who reads this blog), I think, would contest my being a tense person.

Anyways, one of the loud songs that came out on the jukebox tonight was "Piece of My Heart." I loved it for Johansen's sake! Funny how experiences take on a different timbre when you receive them through someone else, and when you regard them through the lens of love.

But to reminisce again about the Dolls show: by far my favorite moment was when they covered a different song, one by Memphis Minnie called "In My Girlish Days." Take a minute to picture that. It was fabulous!

Disturbing Mind-Images

(I noticed that the episode was narrated to me incorrectly. So here's the script I ripped off the web.)

Actor [singing]: Why not use a trick we actors use, cover your eyes and ears to see what it would be like to be blind and deaf. See what plays inside your mind.

[Cartman does so and it is followed by a montage of horrific scenes, the holocaust, someone on fire, grisly operations, a dead rat being eaten by another rat, etc.]

Cartman [takes off blindfold and ear muffs]: WOAH!
Actor: Anything useful?
Cartman: No, just the stuff I usually see when I close my eyes.

* * *

I noticed today that I have a zit on my earlobe. Though this image is not nearly as disturbing as Cartman's, I had a little fantasy just now about getting my ears pierced just so I can lance this stupid zit.

New Batman Movie

Oh this poor theme hasn't been beaten into the ground enough yet. I just found out about the movie today from an ad, and then I came home and watched the trailer. It looks as though this new director is trying to out-Tim-Burton Tim Burton in terms of thriller-ness, plus adding a little bit of choreographed martial arts (a la Kill Bill) and some nomad shit (a la Lord of the Rings) for good measure. The love interest is Katie Holmes. The villian is some Asian dude.

It seems like a good rule of thumb that no one should ever try to be Tim Burton, EVER (unless you're Tim Burton; and a Tim Burton who wouldn't do things like the Nightmare Before Christmas, at that). I can't say for sure, but I have a hunch that this project could be heading straight into disaster.

Or maybe this new director is just trying to expunge from our collective memories that Batmans 3 and 4 (and 5?) ever came into being. Well, Nicole Kidman was interested in the project...and that should have been Joel Schumacher's first hint.

To Know Him Is to Love Him

You know what's exciting? To hear finally a song that's become mythic to you. I read a long time ago that one of the first songs that Phil Spector ever wrote was one called To Know Him Is to Love Him. I heard it on the oldies station today, at long last. I knew immediately that that was Phil (or at least I think it was). The song was everything I hoped it would be. The word on the street is that Spector penned it from the epitaph on the grave of his father, who died when he was still fairly young. When I heard the song, sung in the voice of a teenage girl about her guy, I thought, "Yeah, that still sounds like an epitaph" - and not so much like a love song. But still it was sublime, like Spector always is.

I Joke

sometimes about being depressed, but there's nothing trivial about it every single time, no matter that it happens on a weekly basis. It literally means lying prostrate in bed, your heart so stiff with pain that you can't move, turning over one gloomy thought after another in your head until you fix upon one that's sad enough relieve you with tears. And so you're there frozen and crying, and the whole day could pass you by like that if you had your druthers.

Tonight, for once this thought was not Asshole #1, but Asshole #2. Not because I loved him (I most certainly did not), but because I was so horrified by what his soullessness had done to me. He was the darkest incarnation of emptiness I've ever met face-to-face; of course I never met Hitler. He took away my innocence, and my faith in cosmic justice. I remember at the time I called my mom, hyterical with sobs, and she said that though she wished that I didn't have to get so hurt, she was glad that I learned that I couldn't trust people, and maybe now I won't be so naive and vulnerable.

It occurred to me tonight that I am not glad I learned this lesson. The day I stopped believing that all (normal) people shared some common goodness was the day that something important died in me. Unconsciously, I think I've been waiting these last few months for karma to come back and vindicate me, to prove to me that my trauma was not in vain but a necessary step for meriting a greater reward. I'm beginning to suspect that this is a fantasy. And so Asshole #2 crushed one part of me that I loved best, leaving just nihilism in that void. And I've become a colder person for that.

In I Heart Huckabees, one of the existential exercises that Bernie prescribes is to imagine talking to someone you respect, sitting in a tree. Dawn had the Dixie Chicks in her tree, Albert had a childhod English teacher. My tree is definitely occupied by Andrew WK. In my meditation, Andrew WK told me that pain is an essential part of being human; that it makes me feel alive, because I can't appreciate the highs without experiencing the lows; that if I can will myself to overcome this, I will have accomplished something. I was reading Aeschylus today - "pathei mathos" (from suffering comes wisdom; the gods teach us wisdom even though we may be unwilling) - so perhaps Andrew WK was ripping off on that.

But then Andrew WK said something interesting. He told me not to lose faith in people, and to think of all the people I knew who WEREN'T soulless, who were good and honest and kind. I thought of all my favorite loved ones, of course. But the humdinger is that when I asked myself who was TRULY KIND and truly unselfish, only two people came to mind. One of them is my long-time mentor Marcus F. The other is a guy named Joey L.

Two is not great, but I guess it's not bad either. After all, I've only met one person who is truly evil. So if the ratio of good people to evil people is 2:1...well, that's not half bad.

(Thanks, Andrew WK! I feel better now.)

Exercise

I had a thought as to why I'm depressed for like 3 out of the 7 days every week: I stopped dancing this year. This means that I get almost no exercise, because I only go to the gym when I have reading that's portable enough to do on the cycling machine - and even then, the cycling machine has to win out over reading in bed. And forget about swimming; I mean, it's funner than the gym, but I've realized that my time at the pool is 100% PAIN, between the gasping and the drowning and the muscle cramps and the feelings of inadequacy as all the old ladies pass me up. I stopped dancing this year because it requires a steady commitment, and I just couldn't do it with my chronic sleep deprivation and exhaustion. And anyways, I'm way too out of shape to dance now. I was always a little too heavy to be a dancer even in my prime (a well-rounded size 9/10), but now I'm getting on to be rotund even by lay-person standards (no numbers!).

I think my sitting on my ass all day long is deteriorating my psyche.