So, instead of reading or studying for LSATs, I watched a Devil Wears Prada on recommendation from my baby, Jeremy.
Normally I don't take movies seriously-- normally, I don't watch movies period. But why not take it seriously? Why not take everything seriously?
Anyway, good movie-- not something I'd consider a favorite, but fun to watch. By the end, I thought the movie repudiated what Miranda stood for-- or not repudiated, perhaps, but at least made clear that there were concessions she'd made for her fabulous life. A life without love, without knowing how to be altruistic or to ever do anything without expecting something in return.
I almost wanted to go into a "what is love?" shpiel, but I forgot that I don't believe in it.
I immediately thought of Atlas Shrugged after I finished the movie. AS is definitely one of my favorite books of all time, if not my favorite, but I don't know that I find Randian characters to be ethical.
I talked about the movie with Jeremy afterward, who disagreed with...more or less everything I thought about the movie, I think.
Perhaps I'm wrong. I want to try out this little experiment.
A life of no-nonsense, of very little patience, of a lack of compassion to everyone who hasn't broken their backs to earn it.
I suspect at the end of the day, I'll be dissatisfied-- that this lifestyle isn't categorically valid, but...let's pretend I'm going to test this unbiasedly.
I'm pretty sure I read some things trashing this type of egoism in an ethical theory class. I should look those up again.
Cheers.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Incorrigible Implants.
Woah, it's been a doozy.
Hello, family. Another post, haphazardly posted from my room.
I'm back at Tufts. It's been over two weeks, in fact.
I had this entry planned about how hellish Friday was-- or perhaps more bizarre than hellish-- but that was all on the condition that Friday was the 13th. My computer's set to Japanese time so I was sure that the day's worth of frustration was due to it being Friday the 13th, but Jeremy tactfully informed me that it wasn't. Now my Friday the 13th post is ruined and I'm not sure my petty, bourgeois annoyances are even worth relating.
I can talk about Revolutionary Road. To be honest, the book has a great beginning and a great end, but the middle sort of dragged for me-- though I figured it would be this way. I still really adored the book; Yates has a great way with language and crafting pathetic but sympathetic characters that's really engaging.[Did I just write that sentence?] But I guess one thing I did notice is that unlike James Baldwin or Haruki Murakami, Richard Yates doesn't really inspire me to write. He just leaves me feeling kind of sad, I guess.
I do recommend this book. It's essentially about a married couple in the 1950s, idealistic and flawed and unsatisfied, and all the foibles they have as parents and people and everything. A couple who shouldn't be married, who shouldn't live where they live, who shouldn't have children, who shouldn't have the friends they have. Perfectly dysfunctional.
I don't know how to go further without spoiling the book, but the book is moving: the husband is such a manipulative, self-satisfied sort of man and the wife is...more complicated. I feel bad for her at times, that she's a little too confused to know what she's doing. And there are sexist overtones at points in the book-- read at your own risk.
Some quotes:
Cute exchanges like this:
"I happen to be very annoyed with Maureen at the moment,"she was saying. "This vacation mix-up is only the latest in a long line of foolishness, but that's beside the point. The main thing--" and here she looked at him keenly--"The important thing, is that I'm very deeply concerned about her too. I've known her a good deal longer and I believe I know her better than you do, Mr. Wheeler. She's a very young, very insecure, very sweet kid, and she's gone through a lot of hell in the past few years. Right now she needs guidance and she needs friendship. On the face of it-- and I hope you'll forgive my speaking plainly-- on the face of it, the one thing she definitely does not need is to get involved in a pointless affair with a married man. Mind you, I'm not-- please don't interrupt. I'm not interested in moralizing. I'd much rather feel that you and I can discuss this thing as civilized adults. But I'm afraid I must begin with an awkward question. Maureen appears to be under the impression that you're in love with her. Is this true?"
The answer was so classically simple that the framing of it filled him with pleasure. "I'm afraid I don't think that's any of your business."
She leaned back and smiled at him in a canny, speculative way, letting little curls of smoke dribble out of her nostrils, picking a flake of cigarette paper from her lip with the lacquered nails of little-finger and thumb. He was reminded of Bart Pollock at lunch saying, "Let me see how good a judge of character I am," and he wanted to reach across the table and strangle her.
"I think I like you, Frank," she said at last. "May I call you that? I think I even like your way of getting angry; it shows integrity." She came forward again, took a coquettish sip of her drink, and propped one elbow on the table. "Oh, look, Frank," she said. "Let's try to understand each other. I think you're possibly a very nice, serious boy with a nice wife and a couple of nice kids out there in Connecticut, and I think possibly all that's happened here is that you've gone and gotten yourself involved in a very human, very understandable situation. Doesn't that about sum it up?"
"No," he said. "It doesn't even come close. Now I'll try, okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay. I think you're a meddling, tiresome woman, possibly a latent lesbian, and very definitely"-- he laid a dollar bill on the table--"very definitely a pain in the ass. Have a nice vacation."
--
Fights like this:
[Frank and April, on why she's been in sleeping in the living room]
"All right," she said, backing away another step. "It's because I don't love you. How's that?"
Luckily the bland psychiatrist's smile was still on his face; it saved him from taking her seriously. "That isn't much of an answer," he said kindly. "I wonder what you really feel. I wonder if what you're really doing here isn't sort of trying to evade everything until you're-- well, until you're in analysis. Sort of trying to resign from personal responsibility between now and the time you begin your treatment. Do you suppose that might be it?"
"No." She had turned away from him. "Oh, I don't know; yes. Whatever you like. Put it whichever way makes you feel the most comfortable."
"Well," he said, "it's hardly a question of making me comfortable. All I'm saying is that life does have to go on, analysis or not. Hell, I know you're having a bad time just now; it has been a tough summer. The point is we've both been under a strain, and we ought to be trying to help each other as much as we can. I mean God knows my own behavior has been pretty weird lately; matter of fact I've been thinking it might be a good idea for me to see the headshrinker myself. Actually--" he turned and stood looking out the window, tightening his jaw. "Actually, one of the reasons I've been hoping we could get together again is because there's something I'd like to tell you about: something kind of-- well, kind of neurotic and irrational that happened to me a few weeks ago."
And almost, if not quite, before he knew what his voice was up to, he was telling her about Maureen Grube. He did it with automatic artfulness, identifying her only as "a girl in New York, a girl I hardly even know," rather than as a typist at the office, careful to stress that there had been no emotional involvement on his part while managing to imply that her need for him had been deep and ungovernable. His voice, soft and strong with an occasional husky falter or hesitation that only enhanced its rhythm, combined the power of confession with the narrative grace of romantic storytelling.
"And I think the main thing was simply a case of feeling that my-- well, that my masculinity'd been threatened somehow by all that abortion business; wanting to prove something; I don't know. Anyway, I broke it off last week; the whole stupid business. It's over now; really over. If I weren't sure of that I guess I could never've brought myself to tell you about it."
For half a minute, the only sound in the room was the music on the radio.
"Why did you?" she asked.
He shook his head, still looking out the window. "Baby, I don't know. I've tried to explain it to you; I'm still trying to explain it to myself. That's what I meant about it being a neurotic, irrational kind of thing. I--"
"No," she said. "I don't mean why did you have the girl; I mean why did you tell me about it? What's the point? Is it supposed to make me jealous, or something? Is it supposed to make me fall in love with you, or back into bed with you, or what? I mean what am I supposed to say?"
He looked at her, feeling his face blush and twitch into an embarrassed simper that he tried, unsuccessfully, to make over into the psychiatric smile. "Why don't you say what you feel?"
She seemed to think this over a few seconds and then she shrugged. "I have. I don't feel anything.
"In other words you don't care what I do or who I go to bed with or anything. Right?"
"No, I guess that's right. I don't."
"But I want you to care!"
"I know you do. And I suppose I would if I loved you; but you see I don't. I don't love you and I never really have, and I never really figured it out until this week, and that's why I'd just as soon not do any talking right now. Do you see?" She picked up a dust cloth and went into the living room, a tired, competent housewife with chores to do.
"And listen to this," said an urgent voice on the radio."Now, during the big Fall Clearance, you'll find Robert Hall's entire stock of men's walk shorts and sport jeans drastically reduced!"
Standing foursquare and staring down at his untouched glass of iced tea on the table, he felt his head fill with such a dense morass of confusion that only one consecutive line of thought came through: an abrupt remembrance of what Sunday this was, which explained why the kids were over at the Campbells', and which also meant there wasn't much time left for talking.
"Oh, now listen," he said, wheeling and following her into the living room with decisive, headlong strides. "You just put down that God damn rag a minute and listen. Listen to me. In the first place, you know God damn well you love me."
--
And then fights like this:
"Oh," she said. "Oh, Frank, you really are a wonderful talker. If black could be made into white by talking, you'd be the man for the job. So now I'm crazy because I don't love you-- right? Is that the point?"
"No. Wrong. You're not crazy, and you do love me; that's the point."
She got to her feet and backed away from him, her eyes flashing. "But I don't," she said. "In fact, I loathe the sight of you. In fact if you come any closer, if you touch me or anything I think I'll scream."
Then he did touch her, saying, "Oh baby, lis--" and she did scream.
It was plainly a false scream, done while she looked coldly into his eyes, but it was high, shrill, and loud enough to shake the house. When the noise of it was over, he said:
"God damn you. God damn all your snotty, hateful little-- Come here, God damn it--"
She switched nimbly past him and pulled a straight chair around to block his path; he grabbed it and slung it against the wall and once of its legs broke off.
"And what're you going to do now?" she taunted him. "Are you going to hit me? To show how much you love me?"
"No." All at once he felt massively strong. "Oh, no. Don't worry. I couldn't be bothered. You're not worth the trouble it'd take to hit you. You're not worth the power it'd take to blow you up. You're an empty--" He was aware, as his voice filled out, of a sense of luxurious freedom because the children weren't here. Nobody was here, and nobody was coming; they had this whole reverberating house to themselves. "You're an empty, hollow fucking shell of a woman..." It was the first opportunity for a wide-open, all-out fight they'd had in months, and he made the most of it, stalking and circling her as he shouted, trembling and gasping for breath. "What the hell are you living in my house for, if you hate me so much? Huh? Will you answer that? What the hell are you carrying my child for?" like John Givings, he pointed at her belly. "Why the hell didn't you get rid of it, when you had the chance? Because listen. Listen. I got news for you." The great pressure that began to be eased inside him now, as he slowly and quietly intoned his next words, made it seem that this was a cleaner breakthrough into truth than any he had ever made before:"I wish to God you'd done it."
--
And sexist exchanges like these..
...
"Oh, Frank. Can you really think artists and writers are the only people entitled to lives of their own? Listen: I don't care if it takes you five years of doing nothing at all; I don't care if you decide after five years that what you really want is to be a bricklayer or a mechanic or a merchant seaman. Don't you see what I'm saying? It's got nothing to do with definite, measurable talents-- it's your very essence that's being stifled here. it's what you are that's being denied and denied in this kind of life."
"And what's that?" For the first time he allowed himself to look at her-- not only to look but to put down his glass and take hold of her leg, and she covered and pressed his hand with both of her own.
"Oh, don't you know?" She brought his hand gently up her hip and around to the flat of her abdomen where she pressed it close again. "Don't you know? You're the most valuable and wonderful thing in the world . You're a man."
And of all the capitulations in his life, this was the one that seemed most like a victory. Never before had elation welled more powerfully inside him; never had beauty grown more purely out of truth; never in taking his wife had he triumphed more completely over time and space. The past could dissolve at his will and so could the future; so could the walls of this house and the whole imprisoning wasteland beyond it, towns and trees. He had taken command of the universe because he was a man, and because the marvelous creature who opened and moved for him, tender and strong, was a woman.
--
In other news...
I'd like to think it's my strep throat but I've been feeling really aggressive lately-- argumentative, angry, wanting to hurt people's feelings. I've been feeling a sort of obnoxious sense of self-pity-- that kids at this school don't deserve my kindness, that I've been playing with kid gloves a little too long, that I should really be more callous.
I think I just need some more down time. I think I'll be better in the morning.
Cheers.
Hello, family. Another post, haphazardly posted from my room.
I'm back at Tufts. It's been over two weeks, in fact.
I had this entry planned about how hellish Friday was-- or perhaps more bizarre than hellish-- but that was all on the condition that Friday was the 13th. My computer's set to Japanese time so I was sure that the day's worth of frustration was due to it being Friday the 13th, but Jeremy tactfully informed me that it wasn't. Now my Friday the 13th post is ruined and I'm not sure my petty, bourgeois annoyances are even worth relating.
I can talk about Revolutionary Road. To be honest, the book has a great beginning and a great end, but the middle sort of dragged for me-- though I figured it would be this way. I still really adored the book; Yates has a great way with language and crafting pathetic but sympathetic characters that's really engaging.[Did I just write that sentence?] But I guess one thing I did notice is that unlike James Baldwin or Haruki Murakami, Richard Yates doesn't really inspire me to write. He just leaves me feeling kind of sad, I guess.
I do recommend this book. It's essentially about a married couple in the 1950s, idealistic and flawed and unsatisfied, and all the foibles they have as parents and people and everything. A couple who shouldn't be married, who shouldn't live where they live, who shouldn't have children, who shouldn't have the friends they have. Perfectly dysfunctional.
I don't know how to go further without spoiling the book, but the book is moving: the husband is such a manipulative, self-satisfied sort of man and the wife is...more complicated. I feel bad for her at times, that she's a little too confused to know what she's doing. And there are sexist overtones at points in the book-- read at your own risk.
Some quotes:
Cute exchanges like this:
"I happen to be very annoyed with Maureen at the moment,"she was saying. "This vacation mix-up is only the latest in a long line of foolishness, but that's beside the point. The main thing--" and here she looked at him keenly--"The important thing, is that I'm very deeply concerned about her too. I've known her a good deal longer and I believe I know her better than you do, Mr. Wheeler. She's a very young, very insecure, very sweet kid, and she's gone through a lot of hell in the past few years. Right now she needs guidance and she needs friendship. On the face of it-- and I hope you'll forgive my speaking plainly-- on the face of it, the one thing she definitely does not need is to get involved in a pointless affair with a married man. Mind you, I'm not-- please don't interrupt. I'm not interested in moralizing. I'd much rather feel that you and I can discuss this thing as civilized adults. But I'm afraid I must begin with an awkward question. Maureen appears to be under the impression that you're in love with her. Is this true?"
The answer was so classically simple that the framing of it filled him with pleasure. "I'm afraid I don't think that's any of your business."
She leaned back and smiled at him in a canny, speculative way, letting little curls of smoke dribble out of her nostrils, picking a flake of cigarette paper from her lip with the lacquered nails of little-finger and thumb. He was reminded of Bart Pollock at lunch saying, "Let me see how good a judge of character I am," and he wanted to reach across the table and strangle her.
"I think I like you, Frank," she said at last. "May I call you that? I think I even like your way of getting angry; it shows integrity." She came forward again, took a coquettish sip of her drink, and propped one elbow on the table. "Oh, look, Frank," she said. "Let's try to understand each other. I think you're possibly a very nice, serious boy with a nice wife and a couple of nice kids out there in Connecticut, and I think possibly all that's happened here is that you've gone and gotten yourself involved in a very human, very understandable situation. Doesn't that about sum it up?"
"No," he said. "It doesn't even come close. Now I'll try, okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay. I think you're a meddling, tiresome woman, possibly a latent lesbian, and very definitely"-- he laid a dollar bill on the table--"very definitely a pain in the ass. Have a nice vacation."
--
Fights like this:
[Frank and April, on why she's been in sleeping in the living room]
"All right," she said, backing away another step. "It's because I don't love you. How's that?"
Luckily the bland psychiatrist's smile was still on his face; it saved him from taking her seriously. "That isn't much of an answer," he said kindly. "I wonder what you really feel. I wonder if what you're really doing here isn't sort of trying to evade everything until you're-- well, until you're in analysis. Sort of trying to resign from personal responsibility between now and the time you begin your treatment. Do you suppose that might be it?"
"No." She had turned away from him. "Oh, I don't know; yes. Whatever you like. Put it whichever way makes you feel the most comfortable."
"Well," he said, "it's hardly a question of making me comfortable. All I'm saying is that life does have to go on, analysis or not. Hell, I know you're having a bad time just now; it has been a tough summer. The point is we've both been under a strain, and we ought to be trying to help each other as much as we can. I mean God knows my own behavior has been pretty weird lately; matter of fact I've been thinking it might be a good idea for me to see the headshrinker myself. Actually--" he turned and stood looking out the window, tightening his jaw. "Actually, one of the reasons I've been hoping we could get together again is because there's something I'd like to tell you about: something kind of-- well, kind of neurotic and irrational that happened to me a few weeks ago."
And almost, if not quite, before he knew what his voice was up to, he was telling her about Maureen Grube. He did it with automatic artfulness, identifying her only as "a girl in New York, a girl I hardly even know," rather than as a typist at the office, careful to stress that there had been no emotional involvement on his part while managing to imply that her need for him had been deep and ungovernable. His voice, soft and strong with an occasional husky falter or hesitation that only enhanced its rhythm, combined the power of confession with the narrative grace of romantic storytelling.
"And I think the main thing was simply a case of feeling that my-- well, that my masculinity'd been threatened somehow by all that abortion business; wanting to prove something; I don't know. Anyway, I broke it off last week; the whole stupid business. It's over now; really over. If I weren't sure of that I guess I could never've brought myself to tell you about it."
For half a minute, the only sound in the room was the music on the radio.
"Why did you?" she asked.
He shook his head, still looking out the window. "Baby, I don't know. I've tried to explain it to you; I'm still trying to explain it to myself. That's what I meant about it being a neurotic, irrational kind of thing. I--"
"No," she said. "I don't mean why did you have the girl; I mean why did you tell me about it? What's the point? Is it supposed to make me jealous, or something? Is it supposed to make me fall in love with you, or back into bed with you, or what? I mean what am I supposed to say?"
He looked at her, feeling his face blush and twitch into an embarrassed simper that he tried, unsuccessfully, to make over into the psychiatric smile. "Why don't you say what you feel?"
She seemed to think this over a few seconds and then she shrugged. "I have. I don't feel anything.
"In other words you don't care what I do or who I go to bed with or anything. Right?"
"No, I guess that's right. I don't."
"But I want you to care!"
"I know you do. And I suppose I would if I loved you; but you see I don't. I don't love you and I never really have, and I never really figured it out until this week, and that's why I'd just as soon not do any talking right now. Do you see?" She picked up a dust cloth and went into the living room, a tired, competent housewife with chores to do.
"And listen to this," said an urgent voice on the radio."Now, during the big Fall Clearance, you'll find Robert Hall's entire stock of men's walk shorts and sport jeans drastically reduced!"
Standing foursquare and staring down at his untouched glass of iced tea on the table, he felt his head fill with such a dense morass of confusion that only one consecutive line of thought came through: an abrupt remembrance of what Sunday this was, which explained why the kids were over at the Campbells', and which also meant there wasn't much time left for talking.
"Oh, now listen," he said, wheeling and following her into the living room with decisive, headlong strides. "You just put down that God damn rag a minute and listen. Listen to me. In the first place, you know God damn well you love me."
--
And then fights like this:
"Oh," she said. "Oh, Frank, you really are a wonderful talker. If black could be made into white by talking, you'd be the man for the job. So now I'm crazy because I don't love you-- right? Is that the point?"
"No. Wrong. You're not crazy, and you do love me; that's the point."
She got to her feet and backed away from him, her eyes flashing. "But I don't," she said. "In fact, I loathe the sight of you. In fact if you come any closer, if you touch me or anything I think I'll scream."
Then he did touch her, saying, "Oh baby, lis--" and she did scream.
It was plainly a false scream, done while she looked coldly into his eyes, but it was high, shrill, and loud enough to shake the house. When the noise of it was over, he said:
"God damn you. God damn all your snotty, hateful little-- Come here, God damn it--"
She switched nimbly past him and pulled a straight chair around to block his path; he grabbed it and slung it against the wall and once of its legs broke off.
"And what're you going to do now?" she taunted him. "Are you going to hit me? To show how much you love me?"
"No." All at once he felt massively strong. "Oh, no. Don't worry. I couldn't be bothered. You're not worth the trouble it'd take to hit you. You're not worth the power it'd take to blow you up. You're an empty--" He was aware, as his voice filled out, of a sense of luxurious freedom because the children weren't here. Nobody was here, and nobody was coming; they had this whole reverberating house to themselves. "You're an empty, hollow fucking shell of a woman..." It was the first opportunity for a wide-open, all-out fight they'd had in months, and he made the most of it, stalking and circling her as he shouted, trembling and gasping for breath. "What the hell are you living in my house for, if you hate me so much? Huh? Will you answer that? What the hell are you carrying my child for?" like John Givings, he pointed at her belly. "Why the hell didn't you get rid of it, when you had the chance? Because listen. Listen. I got news for you." The great pressure that began to be eased inside him now, as he slowly and quietly intoned his next words, made it seem that this was a cleaner breakthrough into truth than any he had ever made before:"I wish to God you'd done it."
--
And sexist exchanges like these..
...
"Oh, Frank. Can you really think artists and writers are the only people entitled to lives of their own? Listen: I don't care if it takes you five years of doing nothing at all; I don't care if you decide after five years that what you really want is to be a bricklayer or a mechanic or a merchant seaman. Don't you see what I'm saying? It's got nothing to do with definite, measurable talents-- it's your very essence that's being stifled here. it's what you are that's being denied and denied in this kind of life."
"And what's that?" For the first time he allowed himself to look at her-- not only to look but to put down his glass and take hold of her leg, and she covered and pressed his hand with both of her own.
"Oh, don't you know?" She brought his hand gently up her hip and around to the flat of her abdomen where she pressed it close again. "Don't you know? You're the most valuable and wonderful thing in the world . You're a man."
And of all the capitulations in his life, this was the one that seemed most like a victory. Never before had elation welled more powerfully inside him; never had beauty grown more purely out of truth; never in taking his wife had he triumphed more completely over time and space. The past could dissolve at his will and so could the future; so could the walls of this house and the whole imprisoning wasteland beyond it, towns and trees. He had taken command of the universe because he was a man, and because the marvelous creature who opened and moved for him, tender and strong, was a woman.
--
In other news...
I'd like to think it's my strep throat but I've been feeling really aggressive lately-- argumentative, angry, wanting to hurt people's feelings. I've been feeling a sort of obnoxious sense of self-pity-- that kids at this school don't deserve my kindness, that I've been playing with kid gloves a little too long, that I should really be more callous.
I think I just need some more down time. I think I'll be better in the morning.
Cheers.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
This just in: bodybuilders from Uranus are CRAZY
I'm running for dictator of Asia.
Vote for me.
I'm also really awesome with chopsticks.
[Yes...this post is really about nothing.]
Meeting Perris in a minute.
Sort of feeling angry and in charge. I'm really taking this reinvention of myself seriously. Starting with clothes at first.
Part of me wonders if this is because of Jeremy, if I actually want to *be* him. I talked about wearing suits and stuff before but I'm definitely moving faster because of him.
I want this cute suit from Zara[I saw it in Japan, actually, but I decided to get my 5351 suit instead, pictured in the first photo]and I want a Blackberry. I will be getting both. Just don't know when.
I cannot WAIT to get a job. I'm tired of being poor.
I suppose I'm making my transition back into a fashion queer? Whatever. Either I'm splurging on this or I'm getting new tech gadgests/a new computer. Consumption's consumption.
Sorry, another substance-less post again. I'll write real prose soon-- PROMISE.
Cheers.
Vote for me.
I'm also really awesome with chopsticks.
[Yes...this post is really about nothing.]
Meeting Perris in a minute.
Sort of feeling angry and in charge. I'm really taking this reinvention of myself seriously. Starting with clothes at first.
Part of me wonders if this is because of Jeremy, if I actually want to *be* him. I talked about wearing suits and stuff before but I'm definitely moving faster because of him.
I want this cute suit from Zara[I saw it in Japan, actually, but I decided to get my 5351 suit instead, pictured in the first photo]and I want a Blackberry. I will be getting both. Just don't know when.
I cannot WAIT to get a job. I'm tired of being poor.
I suppose I'm making my transition back into a fashion queer? Whatever. Either I'm splurging on this or I'm getting new tech gadgests/a new computer. Consumption's consumption.
Sorry, another substance-less post again. I'll write real prose soon-- PROMISE.
Cheers.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Debunking creationism, in Croatian
I need to move out.
And I'm tired of being gay, at the moment.
That's a good way to start.
Hey y'all. This is my delayed coming back to America post. I'm sort of pressed for time at the moment-- Jersey City Pride soon and whatnot, but I figured I should make a few bullets on what post-Japan's been like.
Flew into JFK in NY last Tuesday. I suppose it's been over a week now.
Jetlag was horrible. Took me a long time to get over it.
I haven't been up to much. Reading. Not studying for LSATs.
Went to Bookoff in NYC, finally-- a second-hand Japanese bookstore. Picked up some comic books.
Have been hanging out with my bicurious and cute galpals, Genna and Kazumi.
I was seeing them quite a bit last week. Went with them to a gay club, Rush. Didn't really enjoy it. Either I needed to be drunker or something else, but. I guess in general I feel really disconnected from club kids.
I had this plan, which I don't think I wrote in my blog, after my experience in China and Japan. That I would be more antisocial, less hopeful-- and by less hopeful, I don't mean that in any actual sense, I guess. I suppose what I mean is that instead of a sort of wide-eyed and expectant attitude, praying with every breath that I'll meet someone great, not necessarily someone I'm romantically interested in, but great nonetheless. Instead of having that sort of attitude, I would just...live, doing things that I do, sticking with my routine, work, work, work.
So, I guess not really antisocial at all.
Anyway, after the club, I met Jeremy, who's interesting. We're friends, who have hooked up a few times? I don't really know what to call it. He says 'friends', I say 'friends' for lack of a better term. I'm not really good with this sort of thing-- I didn't even realize that dating and being someone's boy/girlfriend weren't the same until...maybe two or three years ago?
I also met Steven yesterday, and a bunch of his friends. Pretty interesting. I'm pretty sure I came off boring, though. Sorry! Haha.
Also went to the pier on Christopher Street for the first time. Was pretty interesting.
"Interesting" is an adjective I like, nowadays.
I suppose I should shower. I'll try to come back and write something with a little substance later.
Later.
And I'm tired of being gay, at the moment.
That's a good way to start.
Hey y'all. This is my delayed coming back to America post. I'm sort of pressed for time at the moment-- Jersey City Pride soon and whatnot, but I figured I should make a few bullets on what post-Japan's been like.
Flew into JFK in NY last Tuesday. I suppose it's been over a week now.
Jetlag was horrible. Took me a long time to get over it.
I haven't been up to much. Reading. Not studying for LSATs.
Went to Bookoff in NYC, finally-- a second-hand Japanese bookstore. Picked up some comic books.
Have been hanging out with my bicurious and cute galpals, Genna and Kazumi.
I was seeing them quite a bit last week. Went with them to a gay club, Rush. Didn't really enjoy it. Either I needed to be drunker or something else, but. I guess in general I feel really disconnected from club kids.
I had this plan, which I don't think I wrote in my blog, after my experience in China and Japan. That I would be more antisocial, less hopeful-- and by less hopeful, I don't mean that in any actual sense, I guess. I suppose what I mean is that instead of a sort of wide-eyed and expectant attitude, praying with every breath that I'll meet someone great, not necessarily someone I'm romantically interested in, but great nonetheless. Instead of having that sort of attitude, I would just...live, doing things that I do, sticking with my routine, work, work, work.
So, I guess not really antisocial at all.
Anyway, after the club, I met Jeremy, who's interesting. We're friends, who have hooked up a few times? I don't really know what to call it. He says 'friends', I say 'friends' for lack of a better term. I'm not really good with this sort of thing-- I didn't even realize that dating and being someone's boy/girlfriend weren't the same until...maybe two or three years ago?
I also met Steven yesterday, and a bunch of his friends. Pretty interesting. I'm pretty sure I came off boring, though. Sorry! Haha.
Also went to the pier on Christopher Street for the first time. Was pretty interesting.
"Interesting" is an adjective I like, nowadays.
I suppose I should shower. I'll try to come back and write something with a little substance later.
Later.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Red soil, blue skies.
Thanks to a kick from Colton, I'm writing a short post.
Sorry I've been MIA. I haven't really had an internet connection for a while. Just flew back into NY about a few hours ago. Looooong flight.
I'll try to write something later. I'm tired and jet-lagged.
Later.
Sorry I've been MIA. I haven't really had an internet connection for a while. Just flew back into NY about a few hours ago. Looooong flight.
I'll try to write something later. I'm tired and jet-lagged.
Later.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Humble Bees and Daisy Kisses.
So...
I just got anally raped by my Kanji and Grammar finals. Wow.
I...don't know if I'll get those As this semester.
Ugh. It's all up to prayer now.
Listen to Disturbia with me. Don't know why I'm liking this song suddenly.
Probably gonna read more 1984. I'll go to the library and work on my paper in a bit.
At least I'm pretty much done with my Japanese classes now. From here on out, it's mainly papers.
Also, here's a story on our "schizophrenic" Axis of Evil policy. Found it interesting.
Here.
Be back later.
ETA: The forces at work on youtube are quite fast. New video since the one I originally posted has been taken down.
I just got anally raped by my Kanji and Grammar finals. Wow.
I...don't know if I'll get those As this semester.
Ugh. It's all up to prayer now.
Listen to Disturbia with me. Don't know why I'm liking this song suddenly.
Probably gonna read more 1984. I'll go to the library and work on my paper in a bit.
At least I'm pretty much done with my Japanese classes now. From here on out, it's mainly papers.
Also, here's a story on our "schizophrenic" Axis of Evil policy. Found it interesting.
Here.
Be back later.
ETA: The forces at work on youtube are quite fast. New video since the one I originally posted has been taken down.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Milking neutrinos from a dead dwarf star.
This is shameful, but I've started listening to Mindless Self Indulgence again.
I found about them from my carpool, back in high school. At first I hated them but after listening to them for a good two years or so, my brain was poisoned.
The FGWSS album from 1999 is the most familiar to me. Golden I might be my favorite song. "Holy Shit" is also pretty good, I think.
Here's a fan video for "Golden I" if you want to give it a listen.
Yeah, I pirated all their albums. Don't judge me too harshly-- I still have no intention of going to any of their concerts.
Also. I saw this video a while back and thought it was funny. Excuse my blasphemy; I'm sort of on strike from Catholicism at the moment.
Maybe the key to being a consistent blogger is just using a lot of youtube. I've discovered Meghan's secret!
Alright, I really need to do some work now.
So far, it's:
--Memorize my speech for tomorrow
--Do my Japanese exam review packet for tomorrow
--Study for Kanji Final[Wednesday]
--Study for Grammar Final[Wednesday]
--Write my paper on Zen Ethical Theory by Friday...in Japanese
--Write a paper on Kafka on the Shore[Before Semester Ends]
--Write a paper on a Japanese Experience class, or something[Before Semester Ends]
--Turn in all my essays[Before semester ends]
Uhhhh. I guess it's all mainly busy work but a paper on Zen ethics? Like, a serious philosophy paper, in Japanese? I'm unsure of what it's supposed to look like, but I think he said something like a preliminary rough draft would be about 5 pages? But the actual research students here have to write 10 page papers. Do I...really have to write a ten page paper in Japanese on comparative ethics?
Uhhhh. I never should have tried to be an overachiever and sign up for this optional Japanese philosophy thing. Hopefully I don't bomb too badly.
I should get back to work now.
I found about them from my carpool, back in high school. At first I hated them but after listening to them for a good two years or so, my brain was poisoned.
The FGWSS album from 1999 is the most familiar to me. Golden I might be my favorite song. "Holy Shit" is also pretty good, I think.
Here's a fan video for "Golden I" if you want to give it a listen.
Yeah, I pirated all their albums. Don't judge me too harshly-- I still have no intention of going to any of their concerts.
Also. I saw this video a while back and thought it was funny. Excuse my blasphemy; I'm sort of on strike from Catholicism at the moment.
Maybe the key to being a consistent blogger is just using a lot of youtube. I've discovered Meghan's secret!
Alright, I really need to do some work now.
So far, it's:
--Memorize my speech for tomorrow
--Do my Japanese exam review packet for tomorrow
--Study for Kanji Final[Wednesday]
--Study for Grammar Final[Wednesday]
--Write my paper on Zen Ethical Theory by Friday...in Japanese
--Write a paper on Kafka on the Shore[Before Semester Ends]
--Write a paper on a Japanese Experience class, or something[Before Semester Ends]
--Turn in all my essays[Before semester ends]
Uhhhh. I guess it's all mainly busy work but a paper on Zen ethics? Like, a serious philosophy paper, in Japanese? I'm unsure of what it's supposed to look like, but I think he said something like a preliminary rough draft would be about 5 pages? But the actual research students here have to write 10 page papers. Do I...really have to write a ten page paper in Japanese on comparative ethics?
Uhhhh. I never should have tried to be an overachiever and sign up for this optional Japanese philosophy thing. Hopefully I don't bomb too badly.
I should get back to work now.
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