Soiree in the 'burbs

I suppose I have reached the age where I can say: "I went back to my hometown, visited my high school friends...you know..." Though I feel like I should be older, have my hair cut into a tasteful bob, be driving a nice car, laugh, compliment so-and-so's pearls.

No, I am tastefully disheveled, wearing flannel, really nervous. To see my friends.

I smoke more cigarettes than I should, they disapprove, or, at least feign disapproval. I laugh lightly as they disapprove still frantically searching my bag for my lighter. As I light each once, I am focused very intently on the box, the surgeon general's warning written in German, something I have an annoying urge to show off each time - tapping obnoxiously at the large foreign print.

The conversation is,...jumpy I guess. His summer. Her summer. My summer. Her summer. My summer. Her summer. His summer. Snapshots of what they did. Familiar names, etc. We gossip a bit. Though I can't recall what about... the one crayon drawing in the dinner window is placed dramatically in the left hand corner, coffee stained spoon, upside-down ketchup bottle, my bag tipped over on the floor, one white waiter, mexican waiters hovering 3 booths behind us why?, lady with short grey hair sitting alone trying to attract attention (is she waiting for someone? is she escaping her god-awful children?), Ricky's dad sitting alone at the counter, that chocolate-chip cookie looks good, the kid putting his visor over his eyes, the waiter asked only if I wanted milk, not sugar, striped hoodie, all the boys in here are wearing white t-shirts, one girl with her parents, someone is looking at me, the left-over bacon on that plate should really be made into a face, lime-green shorts, no small children, is someone talking to me? Yes.

All at once there are too many people in the diner. I think its getting warm in here. Eating with their own respective people, silently looking around, guaging the scene. Someone dated someone for a week this summer, some boy hooked up with a boy, someone is staring at my shirt.

"How was your summer?"

"It was -"

"That's cool."

I am regailing my friends with stories from my summer. Stories that, though they seemed important at the time, don't feel like they've happened at all. I'm making it all up. I was just in bed with the comforter over my head escaping the sun... Nothing has happened, nothing at all. I want to make them laugh. I want to cooly express the proper emotions in the proper fashion. I think I will have a seconed cup of coffee. Do they charge for refills? Doesn't matter. Mother's cash is in my wallet. Was I in the middle of telling a story? The words are falling over themselves. Should I tell them that part? Look, I already am. I wonder if they throw away those cookies at the end of the night, or if it would be the same one if I came back 3 days from now? Where did my napkin go? Oh right, I was talking.

I guess we are taking photos now. That was clever to bring your camera. You can take pictures of this gathering, post them on the internet. You will never forget that you interrupted conversation so that you could take stage photographs, get people to take photos of you. What memories! Awww.

People are looking, the flashes are bouncing all around the dinner. Are the snickering? They are jealous. Clearly we are having fun. No, that was such a bad photo...erase it, puhlease! I don't know what I would rather be doing! (Beer, walking up/down Broadway, flailing a little, headphones, muussiiccc, alone) Okay, okay. We are going outside. To do what? To stand in the parking-lot of course.

Hahaha, I'm funny, he's funny, she's funny. Hug hug hug. Maybe I could go to Barnes & Noble tomorrow, purchase some DVDs? The streets in this town are deserted. People are wandering, talking over eachother. There is a pause in the conversation, I will fill it. We are all waiting for our turns to talk...

I am taking the 11:38 bus home. I am the only female. I am the only white person. I am listening to Nirvana.

I Want to Be Sedated

How cool! A Ramones reference!

But seriously.

I have learned that life can be a lot better when my judgement is impaired. For instance, to illuminate for you what on earth I am talking about, last night I was out to dinner with my parents and some friends of ours. It would be understandable to say that I was incredibley bored. However, wine was served and perhaps overall I had 4 maaayybe 5 glasses. This wine made a conversation like this:

- Yeah we had some trees taken out

- Oh yeah? How was that?

- It went very well. The guys were real charming.

- Oh good! That's excellent!

A hell of a lot more interesting. 

Now for a direct reference to the title of this post:

In the car this morning the song came on. Never before in my life could I have empathized more. My mother was jabbering on again about how she hates our friend's girlfriend. Assholes in sports cars where cutting into traffic. The lady at the checkout counter where I bought my scone had an irritating voice. Radio ads are totally obnoxious and make me want to take an axe to the dashboard...

Perhaps if I could get my hands on a tranquilizer it would all be better.

Jaws

I saw Jaws for the first time last night. People who have had the pleasure of seeing it previously warned me: "You'll never go in the fucking water again!" They would scream. Then laugh delightedly, proud of the fact a major motion picture has kept them from sticking a toe into opaque ocean.

It was not "scary." It was fucking awesome. However, Jaws is not a "good" movie. The cinema crowd would not put it up there with La Strada or any other Existential head-up-ass film. But it is certainly not among the ranks of Earnest Goes to Camp. Certainly not.

It's corny and contrived and funny as hell. You really couldn't ask for a better time.

Even from the beginning, you have the first shark attack scene with the naked blonde flailing about in the water screaming "it hurts!" Her pathetic cries for help and her frantic thrashing are, well, comical.

And of course Robert Shaw as the jaded deep-sea fisherman who helped deliver the Hiroshima bomb back in his youth and has seen men in the water dying all around him. Physically and emotionally scarred! He is ominous as hell and gives off the perfect cheesy cinematic mysterious air. He can wield a harpoon like nobodies business.

All in all my favorite character was the shark because it didn't follow any goddamn rules and liked to prey on people who probably just would have ended up old and wheezy hooked up o a respirator anyway. At least the attackees are forced to confront their own humanity before they end up in shark belly and the mourners are forced to feel real goddamn emotion.

I would have been content if the shark just ate everybody and left the jaded fisherman.

Germany

I was in Germany for a month

I really don't want to write a whole fucking blog on it.

What I will say:

- I drank and smoke probably a little too much

- I love Berlin and just want to skip over this next portion of my life and live in a rotting building and be a bum there

- My friend with whom I was staying is no longer much of a friend

- I have learned how to compromise a hell of a lot and I have learned how to walk for endless miles bleeding and limping

shit.

Sans Ecole

So, I don't have school today. Working on my last assignments before Graduation are about the last things I want to be doing.

I did finish my Finnish project - but I am now at the tedious point of having to do my bibliography. I was very stupid and did not make one as I went along in my research. Fool.

I also have to work on my term paper on Kerouac. I do love him, really really love him. BUT I am not in the mood to write a 12 page paper on his influence (or whatever I said I was going to write about). I am 1) too tired for large assignments and 2) not feeling that Kerouac needs a whole 12 page essay on him. I'd rather just read his books and feel him.

But this is what getting an education means. So, I reluctantly comply.

I really just want to be eating bread with jam and reading Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg. (The Danish title looks particularly beautiful: Frøken Smillas Fornemmelse for Sne)

It is an excellent book by the way. I am not really a fan of mystery novels. If I want thrill I'll just watch a movie. But this seems to be in an entirely different league.

It's about this woman named Smilla Jaspersen who is half-Greenlandic. She was born in Thule (Qaanaaq), Greenland where she spent most of her childhood. She now lives in Copenhagen and gets embroiled in this web of mystery regarding Danish-Greenlandic relations and sectrets and shipping. What makes it particularly a good read is the main character:

Smilla Jaspersen is in her late 30s and she is a very headstrong, cynical woman. Her insights on human nature and humanity are brilliant. She also conjures up many memories from her Greenlandic childhood which are fascinating in themselves. She comments on what its like living in a major European city from the perspective of someone from the tundra, basically.

This has made me very fascinated with Greenland. I hardly knew that people could live there! It does have a very small population, but it is a nation of Inuits with a very distinct and unique culture embedded in tradition and folklore.

I must do more research on this! (Though, I should be churning out a bibliography and writing scores of prose on Kerouac).

Carob Chip #459,706

Unrelated photo. I was intending to write a little ditty on this Jasper John's exhibit I saw at the Met a few weeks ago - but I have other more urgent and pressing matters on my mind like:

- Why wasn't I born Scottish?

- Where can I get my hands on some retired vhs tapes?

- If I we were born with no knees would we really have evolved into the super beings we are today?

Well, only kidding - these are answerable:

- Because God hates me

- Goodwill (but sacrificing quality)

- Yes - but we'd be doing the goose walk and then what would there be to distinguish us from nazis?

I read an interesting article today in "Philosophy Now" (a magazine I've never heard of until today) - it stod out to me on the magazine rack because there was this picture of an eyeball and it said "PARANOIA" in large alluring letters. Obviously I had to get my greasy mitts on it.

Anyway - this particular article had something to do with Kierkegaard and self-deception. I'm a little fuzzy on the details - you know how all that philosophy stuff goes - but it said that most humans don't think that they would ever decieve themselves or are capable of it. Which, of course, is actually untrue - people are decieving themselves all the time. For instance there is a large collection of people out there (we will lable them the "average citizens") who think they have very deep-rooted beliefs and can't imagine every sacrificing these beliefs: but usually when convenient they do. HOWEVER they don't actually think they are compromising any values.

Exhibit A: someone is morally opposed to stealing yet pirates boatloads of music and movies off of the internet. Becasue this person is not actually going into a store and stealing that crap they are decieving themselves into thinking they are still adhering to their orginal code of not-stealing. Or something.

This is relevant because I have been having an inner-dialouge about whether or not I should pierce my face in some fashion. I pride myself on looking tinge abnormal (nothing extreme, mind you, but enough to separate me from the drones in my presence) but I have always felt that a piercing of somesort might place me in a whole new stratasphere of "uniqueness" or some crap like that. But, by thinking a piercing would make me unique is a form of self-deception. Piercings have become in themselves another form of conformity. They are now the cop-out crutch people use to feign whatever artistic image they're trying to give off. So, I don't think I'll be sticking that needle in my face at this juncture in time. Thank you Kierkegaard.

Its easy to decieve yourself.

Like I've been eating great handfuls of Carob chips (because they're so damn good and dairy free) but I keep thinking I'm actually eating chocolate chips becasue of their uncanny resemblence! Unheard of!

Ramble.

Alopecia I think not

So, I am really goddamned bored. So bored that I decided to shave a decent portion of hair off the right side of my head. I do not regret this (really). I do admit, it looks a bit strange and gives me a bad-ass air that I don't really think I deserve. But frankly, I am so fucking tired of the monotony. Yes yes yes my life is altering dramatically blah blah blah but PLEASE I have 8 weeks until graduation and NOTHING is happening in those 8 weeks.

Life changing events really like to take their sweet time. I mean, so many transitions! But I've been saying that for months and it just keeps dragging on and I mean COME ON PEOPLE I need something

So I've just been watching Daria on youtube, thinking about my head, eating pretzels and feeling like a fat lazy tard. But suprisingly, I'm kind of....happy? Whatever that means in my sick and twisted little world.

My dad is weird.

He doesn't like my irrational change of hair style because he doesn't think its original enough. He says anyone can shave off a clump of hair and look artsy or alternative or whatever the hell they want - its too easy. He does have a point. This coming from a man who used to wear lederhosen...in public.

But I'm not doing it to look "different" I was okay with they way I looked before (well, as okay as a teenage girl can be). I just want to shake things up a bit. I have college to try and be attractive. If I'm going to do something ugly I may as well do it now. And so I have.