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October 5th, 2003, 3:21 AM once again it has been awhile. we had a party in the room tonight. but now there is no alcohol, no music or people. Just me. John and five others went to the beach. I cleaned up the room before the party so we could make it messy again. I've got tonic, but no gin. it doesn't matter, i don't need any. i submitted two stories to the literary magazine here on campus. they moved the deadline forward to the 15th, and i was hoping i could squeeze out another story, but that's a completely unrealistic goal. It will be completed though. what else is going on... the last story i wrote (16 pgs) i wrote in under a month. That is incredible to me. after the party i escorted a girl to Delta Phi and played beer pong. In delta phi they have a bookcase row filled with old old encycolpedias. i pulled out one book (1932) and opened it, and what entry did i open to? Christianity. It must be a divine kismet, thinks I. among what i read, I remember reading that Christianity presents God as a being which loves humanity despite its flaws and sin. Which I knew, but it was still interesting to read. i turned to another page, and what entry did i turn to? St. John Chrystom, a father of the early Christian church in Constantinople. His last name means "golden-mouthed", it said. On a separate note, i don't pine for Chau anymore. a good freedom. And i've learned that i can do "even better" than Chau, which is to not say that Chau is not good enough or anything ridiculous like that, but i can find someone even more on the same wavelength with me, someone with even more in common. on the way home i was thinking about Love and it was then that i realized that sometimes real life is better than fiction.
Friday, September 26th, 2003, 4:04 PM guess what? i'm 19 now! whooooooo! college finally opens back up tomorrow. It's been almost two weeks since hurricane Isabel shut it down. My friends told me that the power was out for a week and that lots of trees tipped over. Like, huge 100 year old oak trees. I'll be happy to get back, especially since i left all my books at school and i couldn't do any homework this time, which is kind of a mixed blessing... I did use the time well though. I've almost finished another short story. I started it in the beginning of September and now i'm almost done. I can't beleive it. Hopefully it won't suck. I went to see Chau the day after I came home (because her skool evjacuated too) and I left her second goodbye letter I think i've ever written to anyone. Then I listened to La vie en Rose all the way home. That was a very good decision. Leaving, I mean. Not the French song. The day after my birthday on Tuesday I took Chau to Danville!!! YAY! FINALLY! we listened to music on the way down and I showed her my house and then we ate lunch at the Super China Buffet and went to the mall and then went Goodwill shopping and then we went back to my house, where Chau took a Nap. I finally finished the Faulkner book that i had so impulsively checked out from the library one month ago, and then we left and ate dinner at my Dad's house. On the way back to Lynchburg we talked a lot and on my way back home i listened to music and thankfully did not fall asleep and go careening off the road at 60 miles per hour. I have started a new writing project but it is a very long-term one. I want to research Vietnam, poverty, and Bad Things for material. I already have some material to begin with, but the project is frighteningly grandiose and vauge and i have no idea whether it will yield a novel ten years from now or a short story ten months from now (yeah right) or if it will be a staggering exercise in futility and yeild a huge unfinished melodramatic disaster. Right now the very idea of it amounting to anything at all seems like a enormous longshot, but that is exactly what gets me so excited about it. I hope i can maintain my interest in it. Step one will be to hit the library. Let's see if i can get that far, then work from there. hey, i think if start studying Spanish vocabulary and grammar every day now and practice with Jane, i can improve my Spanish. time to finish my story.
Wednesday, September 17th, 2003, 8:30 PM THEY EVJACUATED SKOOL BECAUSE OF THE HURRICANE!!! FIVE DAY WEEKEND!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! i hear the eye of the hurricane is going to go right over Williamsburg. I can't wait to see what the campus looks like when i get back. I hope the sunken gardens become a lake. oh, Susan told me yesterday that they didn't cancel tour de frat after all. How disappointing. But just think of all those happy sorority girls! Oh well, it doesn't matter in the end, does it?!?!? went to hurricane party at the Drunk Duck last night, which was boring but fun. I love John's nice group of friends! And Michelle cooks like nobody's business. And Rachel can talk sweet to me in Arabic and the Darcy can spin around in cricles. And John swears at things and calls people "clowns". Finished The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway on the way home today. It is a good, sad book. I need a haircut.
Tuesday, September 16th, 2003, 11:36 PM I haven't updated in a very long time. I needed to settle into school. I had lots to say too, but it didn't really seem like worth telling. That's okay, none of it really is, but i like to read it afterwards. Hurricane's a comin'! Hurricane Isabel. Isabel is such a nice name. Just like Andrew, and Andrew was a badass hurricane. So they say it's gonna hit Virginia, or nearby, right? A perrson told me they cancelled shcool for five days after Hurricane Floyd hit here four years ago. The campus is flat and doesn't drain well to begin with, but when something like a hurricane comes along, it must turn into a lake. A big big thunderstorm that makes huge puddles, closes school, and spawns "hurricane parties." I'm very excited about it. About two weeks ago we did shakes for our new choir members, and last week we did the Big/Little thing, where choir Bigs get choir Littles. My Little is a freshman named Todd. Another freshman is a girl named Jane and she is very cool (we have hung out). She is fluent French and Spanish and obviously English. Jane happens to be in my choir family, a cluster of related Bigs and Littles. My choir family in particular is proud to be "the drunkest choir family evar". (On a sidenote, my roommate is fluent in Chinese, Spanish and obviously English. I am fluent in English and Jack-Shit). The social aspects and conventions of the William & Mary Choir have disturbing parallels to those of fraternities and sororities. Which reminds me, the sororities did all their stupid shit last week. Like pref night and initiation and tour de frat, which mercifully didn't happen, but because there was a rape of a minor at one of the frats two weeks ago, which in itself is never good. Tour de frat is when all the new sorority girls find out what sorority they belong to (they're not supposed to talk about sororities or go to parties until then) and then all the sororities descend upon the frats like a plague of locust, shouting stupid shit like "Theta theta theta" until they're blue in the face. If you're at the frats on tour de frat night, you can't get a beer, you can't fricking dance, you can't even get through the fricking door because the sororities just clog everything up with their sheer numbers. It is one of the most irritating things i have encountered, although i cannot at the moment recall what all the other most irritating things I have ever encountered are. Last year, before I knew better, I went to the frats and girls were piled up against the door, chanting the sorority's name, and i was damn-fool enough to wait behind them for 10 minutes, hoping to get in. Finally i couldn't stand it anymore and started shouting shut up over and over again. A girl turned around and said "hey... that's not very nice!" And I stood up on my toes and cupped my hands around my mouth and said, not really to her, just to the world, "SHUT UP. SHUT UP NOWWWWWWW." But they never did, so instead of partying I went home and cried. I don't want to talk about sororities anymore. So many things they do are so stupid and irritating and cliquish, though by themselves, sorority girls are alright. Most of them are like regular people, although with many of them you can tell right off the bat that they're the sorority type. I see it all the time in freshmen. You meet a freshmen girl, get to know her even vaguely, and when you find out that she's joined a sorority, you just aren't surprised one bit, because you know her even vaguely. The preps. But they're alright people by themselves. It's when they get in a mob that they piss me off, and when they piss me off, it's not the individuals i'm pissed at, it's the mob. Oh hell, why should i look down on what is meaningful to someone else? It's not right, but it is fun to be a Grinch. over and out.
Tuesday, August 26th, 2003, 5:07 PM This morning about 9 I woke up and my first thought was this: Damn... i've got to read me some Faulkner. So I climbed out of bed, put on my bathrobe, found my eyeglasses, flipflops and ID and left the room without brushing my teeth. I walked down the hall and into the bathroom, left the bathroom a minute later and continued down the hallway while I knotted my bathrobe shut. I went down the stairs, out the door, down the street, past the UC, past the Crim Dell, up the steps and into the library where I checked out two books, As I Lay Dying by Faulkner and The Thirsty Muse by i forget who; it is a book about alcohol and the American writer. While I was at the checkout desk a thin young man with a Big Camera asked if he could take my picture and i said yes and gave him a big smile. The two ladies at the desk asked me why I was wearing a bathrobe and I told them that I had been struck by a hankering for Faulkner when I woke up and that the clothes would have just slowed me down. The second lady told the first one "I told you so, I knew it was a spur of the moment thing." The first lady who was checking out the books said she liked my bathrobe and I told her thank you and that I appreciated it. I came back to the room, sat down and read for the next hour. It's like a miracle. I can do anything as soon as i wake up in the morning, even write. There's no hesitation, no worry that you're going to miss out on something by doing something else because you simply don't care. John woke up and we went to the hardware store to buy bolts for the loft. We came back and John had the wrong diameter bolts so he left again to get the right ones. John came back but the bolts were too short so he said shit and sent me out in his car to return the bolts and get new ones. I was behind the wheel of a 1980 Crown Victoria and I had to adjust the seat so that I could see over it. It was a huge, square, old car, my favorite kind. I got so excited that I almost drove it onto the curb but fortunately no pedestrians were nearby. Actually i didn't almost drive it into the curb, but it would have been easy because it handles differently from the Jetta, my Action Wagon (i fight crime in it). Nervous, trying to see over the hood, and looking for the parking lot in front of my dorm, I drove into the driveway that passes the Blow Hall. Suddenly a policeman told me to stop and I tried to roll down the left window so he could speak to me but it was stuck so I had to crack the door open. He said, hey! What are you doing! There a one way sign over there! Someone's gonna get killed! He said that today i had won the lottery, this was my lucky day since he wasn't going to give me a ticket. He was really decent about it and I thanked him a lot. That's good that he didn't give me that ticket because it wasn't my car. I gave up on trying to find my building and drove to the opposite corner of the campus where i parked in a staff / faculty zone in front of PBK and ran back across the campus to tell John that I didn't know whether or not his car was going to get towed. He said it was cool, and then we built the loft.
Sunday, August 24th, 2003, 8:00 PM I am BACK AT WILLIAM & MARY. The one thing reminding me that I am not a freshman anymore is the overwhelming presence of new freshmen on campus. In my AIM away messages I say that I am "harassing freshmen," but really i am not. I'm not that brazen. I bump into Lexi and Willoughby (spelling?) all the time.
Some random notes.
blah blahblahhh blah blah... Oh yeah, the school President uses the same speech for freshmen orientation every year!
Wednesday, August 20th, 2003, 10:52 PM I want Emilea to be our friend. sigh... this is where i would type the refrain to the Pink song two entires back, but that would reveal too much... oops... too late. Well, you get the idea. moving right along... ok, difficult to concentrate with... noise... moving right along... i'm reading the Bible again seriously for the first time since Sunday, which is good, because... oh nevermind... very hard to bear fruits in keeping with repenance... noise... i wrote about 1300 words today! gee whiz! moving right along... hey, guys, i don't feel sad like i did in the former entry! ok, i might fix this entry later. There's a lot of noise.
Monday, August 18th, 2003, 12:05 AM ughhhhhhhhh shit. this is bad. Now i'm listening to sad music, reading a sad book, and feeling sad on and off all day long. And my family notices that i'm in a bad mood. Why can't I just let it go??? I can just let all sorts of things go, but I can't let this go. I promised today that I wouldn't talk to her for a week, but that didn't work of course, because you want to talk to that person every chance you get because someday that person might not be there anymore. But it's the only thing I can think of that might work. Besides waiting to feel better. I'd like to break glass behind the grocery store, mostly because it's fun and feeling bad would give me an excuse to do it, but i can't find any glass in the recycling bin. And I could say something really smartass right now, but i promised myself i would not be hostile about anything. I will not be hostile, I will not be hostile, I will not be hostile... You're supposed to conduct yourself with dignity and grace. Be selfless and grateful for others. Feeling sorry for yourself is simply impractical and inefficient. Duty before pleasure. Ignore your desires if they conflict with duty. Speaking of desire, no sex until marriage. Especially under the stars. You can look at them alright, and pray your head off, but no screwing- please Andrew, that's improper. Why Andrew, you could have been a fucking Victorian.
Sunday, August 17th, 2003, 4:18 PM Here i sit in my room, typing. I have sore joints, a hangover, and a bad taste in my mouth that has nearly disappeared. Let it be known that in my last entry, i was mistaken about the date of Ashley's party. I thought at the time that it would be on Wednesday, but it turns out that it was actually set for Saturday. Well, yesterday was Saturday, and yesterday I went to Ashley's party. I don't know where or how to begin. Does it really matter? No one who was at the party is going to read this, except for Chau, or maybe Lexi, or maybe Ash. Well, it doesn't matter. I'm not writing only for them, i'm writing for everyone. Let me tell you about Lynchburg. It is in the mountains and is the headquarters of Jerry Falwell, an Important Baptist. It is an hour and a half away from Danville and i know more friends there than i do here. Most of the people I know in Lynchburg are gay, because Chau, who acquainted me with all these people, is a Fag Hag. They happen to be the first gay people I have ever met. I also know Lexi in Lynchburg, and she will begin to attend William and Mary this Fall. All these people I know in Lynchburg have graduated high school and are going into college now. Ashley throws a party because it is basically the last time we will all be together or something like that. It is a going-away party, the final fling, and none of us can guarantee that there will be another one again. There are about fifteen of us, myself included. I find going to a real party at someone's house to be an incredible novelty. I've never done anything like it, because, you know, i have no friends in Danville. But I have friends in Lynchburg, and I am very happy to have this opportunity to be with people my age and almost pretend that i have just finished high school, if that makes sense and doesn't sound ridiculous. Right? At three in the morning, there are about five people in left in the house, including myself. All the others went somewhere else to sleep, like home. I am about to go to bed, but i am leaning against the banister and Ashley is downstairs asking, "What happened? What happened?" And I say, "What? Something happened?" and she says yes. And I just shrug my shoulders and say, "We were drunk." But she says "Yes, but what else happened? Do you know?" And I, having felt the bad vibes tonight, told her that, "By now we have gone far past the point where words are able to communicate anymore. Now they just suck. For me, at least there was a magic time tonight when everything I said came out perfectly, and the words said what i meant to say. That's done with. And we're all stinking drunk. I don't know what happened tonight beyond that. I'm going to crash on the floor now. Your sister's room. I have a sleeping bag, look." And I lift my sleeping bag over my head. So what happened? Am I making any sense? I came home today feeling alright but at the same time I felt bad, like i was getting pleasure out of melancholy. Last night was lots of fun, though. I threw myself around the house and hid under furniture and went streaking and rode in a car to a gas station. I walked around the house naked for a half hour. Chau was there, and all the gay people except for Milan were there. I got to talk to Chau. That was nice but it was really sad. I felt sad for both of us. We were very honest with each other. I don't know what i'm gonna do. She's busy and she has a life and has more important things to be interested in, and she has a boyfriend. I don't know what i'm gonna do, but I have to do something other than just wait for sadness to go away.
Screw it, this is an online journal and i can't analyze what happened last night unless i've got some privacy. Shit, I can't analyze last night period. Here are some things that happened, mostly from my point of view.
SCREW THIS. I had all these great things i was gonna say about last night but it all came out as Shit. Why can't I communicate any of this? Last night was one of the greatest nights of my young life and i don't want to forget any of it. I drank 6 beers, slept one hour, watched the sunrise, got snared up in everyone's fucking personal wars, walked around naked, ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich, had a hangover, watched Chau get angry and leave, tracked mud on the carpet, and screamed "ADHD" as loud as i could. It was such a wonderful night. Why can't I cry? Crying would be wonderful right now, because the feeling of crying seems like such a perfect feeling. Unbinding. I'm not sad at all. And you don't even have to be sad to cry. I'm confused though, I could cry with that, right? But it's just that i can't because for crying to occur there has to be some sort of violence, something good or bad that completely overwhelms the psyche. Oh shit, I'm going to listen to the Les Miserables soundtrack now while I swear under my breath and pretend to smoke an unlit cigar as i sit on my desk in my bathrobe. (My shorts smell like beer). DONE oh wait- in Gamma Phi related news, i set up a new special column in my buddy list dedicated to Gamma Phi sisters. Monday, August 11th, 2003, 10:26 AM
Hey everybody.
The fucking moon lays itself like silver gently across the fucking waves, which are like a thousand fucking restless sleepers who toss and turn and mumble and sigh in their fucking sleep, before they rise and somnambulate over the fucking sand. For anyone who cares, I got three new posters for my dorm room next year. My favorite is called "Don Quixote in his Library". At the beginning of Don Quixote, Cervantes describes how the soon-to-be Knight of La Mancha is sitting in his library and reading about all the heroic deeds of the knights of old times, and about dragons and damsels in distress and giants and angels with trumpets bearing messages from God of holy quests. He gets so excited reading about it that he runs around his house, digging up his great grandfather's rusty armor and finding a cooking pot that he can use for a helmet. Then he sets out with Sancho Panza to right all the wrongs of the world. Anyway, the poster is of Don Quixote sitting in his library as angels and demons and knights and maidens flock around his chair. Quixote himself has a ridiculously long beard and looks so excited that you'd think that he's about to wet his pants or something and fly out of his chair. It says "Don Quixote in his Library" underneath, but I've been thinking about crossing out the Don Quixote part with a magic marker and writing in my name instead. Last night I had this crazy dream. It was like a cross between time travel and the apocalypse and The Big O and the book about Mormons that I've been reading lately. And there was a huge thunderstorm last night, and it thundered really loud once or twice, so that each time it shook the hotel room and woke me up I thought- HOLY SHIT- IT'S JUDGEMENT DAY! Chau came home from Florida yesterday!!! The day after i get home I'm going to go see her!!! And I'm gonna spend the night at her friend's house with a bunch of other friends!!! I'm so excited, you'd think i've never had good times around people before!!! And I talked to her last night. She told me that I will find my Love someday, and do you know what i said to that while i was walking on the beach an hour later? "Tss." "TSSSSSSS!!!" Because "tss!" is my greatest sound of contempt. And "pah!" comes in second. I mean, but not in contempt of Chau. I mean... oh nevermind. Chau says that she knows me better than I think she does, and I will trust that she does. Maybe it will save me from having to explain things to her that i cannot or do not want to talk about. But most of all it is a very comforting thought, knowing that someone like her knows you better than you think she does.
Wednesday, August 6th, 2003, 1:08 AM Here's lots of little sentences in lieu of an actual entry. Flannery O'Connor would wake up every morning and write until noon. I'd like to do that. Tomorrow, I mean today, I work another 10 - 9 in the gate hut. Good news- mystery IM girl told me her name today. Her name is Liz, which doesn't tell me anything more than that, but a name is still nice to know. It's a formality. Of course, now I have two more mystery IM girls to deal with. They too are gamma phis. We go to the beach on Thursday. I'm thinking about changing the format of the journal so it's more accessible. I don't like all these fucking distractions. I don't like to worry about stupid shit all the time. I'd like to just go BOOOOOOOMMMM and then there would be no more distractions. That's about what happened this morning, except i was hung over and that doesn't count at all.
Three new animes on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network!!!
good gosh FLCL is my new favorite anime. It even beats Big O! That's impressive because The Big O even beats Cowboy Bebop! in my book. wow in FLCL all these people are careening all over the place and robots come out of this kid's head and there's a girl on a scooter with a wind up guitar that smashes things and theres this girl who's in high school and likes the kid who has robots coming out of his head. wow and it's done in a way that just barely makes sense. But the best part is that the people careen all over the place. I like to careen all over the place, too, but i can't do it like they do on that show because it's a cartoon. That's really wild. I hope i don't like it just because it's new. I mean, what happens if you like something just because it's new, and then it gets old? You don't like it anymore. Puppy love. It doesn't matter. Everything dies. And why am I getting sentimental over an anime at 1:30 in the morning? --- I miss her AGAIN but that is not anything new. It's starting to get on my nerves but that is no one's fault. originally i had that typed that further up in the entry, but i decided to move it down to the bottom so that it would be the last thing that I read.
Sunday, August 3rd, 2003, 2:08 PM Hello devoted readers, today I write you from the pool gate hut on a sunny afternoon. The fact that it is sunny is important, because it's been cloudy and drizzly for the past few days. Dammit, I may like rain, but I just got to have my sun. But there's a lot of big clouds. It looks like it may storm. Once I read a story by Ray Bradbury about a girl who lived and went to school on Venus, though she was originally from Earth. In the story, humans have terraformed Venus so that it is a huge jungle-swamp where it is always raining. It rains so much that the Sun only comes out once every seven years. One day, the children at school are picking on the girl because she is more withdrawn than the others. It is because she misses Earth- especially the sunlight. They lock her in the classroom closet, and while she is in there, the sun comes out and the children run out and play in it, forgetting about the girl. When the clouds cover up the Sun and it begins to rain again, the children come inside and remember the girl in the closet. Silently they open the door, and the the girl walks out and stares at them. Funny, the last couple days when its been cloudy, i've been in a funk too. The other night I was talking to Phil who lived across the hall from me last year, and he said that he was feeling "emo". Apparently "emo" is when you feel sorry for yourself, sigh a lot and listen to Dashboard Confessionals. I personally become neurotic, have arguments with myself, and refuse to do anything productive. I stalk around the house in my white bathrobe, staring at the floor and muttering. A person who knows me well- like Myself for instance- might ask, "Why Andrew, why don't you just pull a mental rocket launcher out of your ass and blow the emo away, just like you always do?" Alas, my friend, it's not always that easy or that simple. Getting drunk doesn't work either. I think getting drunk is only worthwhile if you're surrounded by people who are also drunk or if you can get to sleep before you're sober again. Actually, getting drunk isn't worthwhile period, but it passes the time. Anyways, I'm in the gate hut and it's a pretty day. I am working on a new story and reading good books. I go back to school on the 20th, so I have seventeen days to finish a rough draft and read three novels. Man I love saying that. Seventeen days to conquer the world with a fricking army. It's all pride. I bet it is. Sheer vanity. Sometimes I get stressed out about trying to accomplish everything i set out to do. Chau tells me to relax because it's summer break, and then leap out of my chair (not really) and type "no it's not! It's opportunity! All of it!" and then I feel like Captain Ahab, who has nightmares of the Moby Dick at night and squeezes his fists so hard that when he wakes up at dawn he finds bleeding nail marks in his palms, who paces up and down the deck brooding and snaps at the crew, who screams "From Hell's heart I stab at thee!" just before he plunges a harpoon into Moby Dick and the white whale drags him under the sea. Man, Ahab was the coolest; he's the reason I read Moby Dick. But he's also a nut. I must remember to keep things in perspective and not sell my soul to anything. If you put God first, everything else should about fall into place.
Tuesday, July 29th, 2003, 10:25 PM hey everybody. Nothing real important to say in this entry, but i'll talk anyway. I'll give eeeeeeverybody an update: My website is about a year old now. I started it July 14th last year. Yippee Skippee. An update on grandma's farm: Michael wants to back out of the deal for some damn reason. Still don't know who mystery instant messenger girl is. But get this: she's a gamma phi. Oh the horror. Susan helped me verify this when she talked to her, though Susan doesn't know who she is either. You may remember Susan from one of my first journal entries. We hung out a lot in her room last year, and that was wonderful. However, my dealings with Susan, as well as other accidental, awkward, and usually unfortunate interactions with gamma phi's have created for me a reputation in the sorority. Well, i mean, it's not a horrible reputation, but... i mean, it's a reputation. Maybe a deserving one, too. But I don't want people thinking that i'm someone i'm not! It's happened before, and it really gets on my nerves. Oh oh oh, gamma phi beta. It must be like a mafia, that once you're in, you can never escape from it. I mean, they're everywhere!!! The gamma phi ray of moonlight will follow me throughout the days of my college career, because i can't escape from it, i can't fight it, I can't stop the moonlight.
Lately i've been trying to read, write, work, and keep religious while fighting the urge for materialism, instant gratification, diffusion and apathy.
Done.
Friday, July 25th, 2003, 4:00 PM whaaaaaaal i'm in the gate hut again today, 10 AM to 9 PM. I love working gate hut because you get to read and write and say hello to all sorts of wonderful people as they sign in, or tip out of your chair because you leaned back too far; or scramble around on the floor, stirring up dust and making hissing noises, clutching at your hair as if it something were in it, pulling open the shades because you say you "really like the heat", and arguing with yourself because you feel writer's block and apathy and isolation and futility and all sorts of other terrible things closing in on you little hut from all sides like towering waves until the moment you retreat into an epiphanic trance and see everything as if it were the first time you'd ever seen it in your life.
but none of that crazy stuff has happened yet today. Crazy things have happened in the past few days, though, four remarkable, riveting incidents that i cannot come straight out and tell you about for various reasons respective to each one:
but i'll try to get as close as i reasonably can. (1) Three days ago on the 22nd, a charming girl from William & Mary instant-messaged me out of nowhere and told me that I was a LOSER. I was a LOSER, she said, because I wore a bathrobe to her english class. She also told me that I was conceited (I am) and that i was gay (a frequent suspicion) (No I am not, though if you ask any citizen of Lynchburg they will tell you Yes). She will not tell me her name or who she got my screenname from but i know that she has brown hair, which tells me nothing but is a fine thing to know about anyone. I would post our conversation except she would probably get pissed and stop talking to me, which would really be a shame because we happen to both get bored at the same time of day and talk to each other for entertainment. (2) Two days ago, my friend had a night that was both wonderful and terrible. After she told me about it the next day, i crept off to the writing corner of my room and typed this, thinking i might use it in a journal entry. And no it does not have to do with getting laid. At least not directly, I think. Sometimes, when i hear or think about something really bad, like me going to jail, or someone losing their leg or dying or getting a spinal injury or having a baby they don't want, or a friend getting disowned by their family, I think of an angel falling through the sky so fast that his or her wings get torn off. I'm not trying to be over dramatic or anything, but there is a great amount of pathos in that image. And once the angel lands on the ground without killing itself, it's a fallen angel, and it's stuck walking around like everyone else. Although it might not have to be so bad, if you didn't think about where or how he or she was before. And wings can be very heavy. So maybe it's about how important flight is to you or how much you don't mind walking.
(3) I have terminated my secret project that I never told any of you about in the first place. Not even Chau knows about it. In fact, the only non-adult i told about it was Jenny, who lifeguards with me at the pool. I was trying to drum up a thousand dollars this summer for the secret project, but since I don't have secret project anymore i don't know what i'm gonna do with the money once i've got it. Keep it, I guess. Both Mom and Levi told me that the secret project was a bad idea. Man, I thought i was really doing something good, but it turns out i wasn't and now i'm embarrassed. Or humbled. It's like only giving the people in Africa food and no contraceptives, so that the population has enough food to grow to the point where they need food again, when really what they need is food AND contraceptives, because the contraceptives will inhibit population growth. At least I hope no one has. Good grief, that'd be awful. Anyways, I'll get over it. The secret project I mean, not the condoms. At the pool, at the beginning of the week, I had written in my name for 3/4 of the hours on the gate monitor scheduel in my ruthless efforts to plow towards the future glory of the secret project. But other people want to work, too, and Katy called me on it today, so i gave her some of my hours. The way I was, it will not do to be like that anymore. The project was a like a mammon. But I need a new project, something else to drive after with unrelenting determination. Like this new story i've started. Oh crap, just forget it, i'm through with the proud, ruthless, flamboyant "projects". I won't curse my new story by calling it a project. I'll call my story a story, because that is what it should be. And i will be humble. (4) Yesterday evening I mowed the grass, and when i came in, it was twilight. And from that point on, until 1 o'clock in the morning, i felt as if my person was still in twilight. And then I talked to Levi online, and when he revealed to me how horrific the secret project was, what terrible monstrosity i was trying to bring to reality, i felt stunned. He also told me that i was an adult. And then I listened to the song called Heaven, the dance club remix version, not the original one by Bryan Adams. And that made me think of all these good times and even good times that haven't happened yet. It is one of my favorite songs. And then Chau got online and we talked about being young and all. And then I realized that I am both young and an adult, and how at a loss I am to describe the green, yearning sensation that came with that revelation. A secret, subterranian feeling. A sapling tree, that's it. Like a sapling on hormones. Or a first kiss.
Thursday, July 20th, 2003, 4:08 PM hello. Yesterday they auctioned off grandma's farm. It would have been sad except my cousins Michael and Scott got it. Grandma would be ecstatic, but Scott and Michael get along about like oil and water, so it'll be interesting to see how things go from here. It was a boring auction. It's good property, but only two parties wanted to buy it, all the others just came to watch. The auction company, they drove a truck up in the yard, and the auctioneer, he stood in the bed of it with a microphone and a wooden cane that he used to bang on the rim as he spoke in rhythm with this leather voice. He read over legal documents, the cane went WHAM- and now it's time to go into narrative mode:
"Niiiiiiiiiice piece o' land," he says. "Anymore questions? Clean... niiice house, 70 acres of land... creek frontage... Questions... the concrete dog does not, i repeat, does not come with the property..."
"ONEhundredfiftythousandANDonehundredandfiftythousanddollarsONEHUNDREDandfiftythousanddollars-" And this another man is walking around slapping a piece of rolled up paper in his hand right, right? This other man is asking people if they want to make offers. Michael has a big bland face and a fine nose and he talks real slow. I have only heard him speak twenty times in my life. He has narrow blue eyes. It stands as a given that everyone on my mother's side of the family has blue eyes, but Michael's are pale blue. After about a minute Michael calls him over and talks to him while the auctioneer is still doing his schpiel. ONEhundredandfiftythousandandoneHUND-"
The auctioneer is an old man with an aquiline nose and is wearing a straw hat. He bangs on the truck and it goes WHAM!
A glaring woman with wide hips and a narrow head on the other end of the yard calls the offer man over and bids 180,000. "ONEHUNDREDANDEIGHTYTHOUSAND!!! At this point I think Scott walks over to Michael and tells him that he has money too, and that they could buy the farm together. They are in the yard, next to the porch and behind the bushes with some other people where i cannot see them well. Scott is almost exactly like his brother Michael except he has this little blonde mustache. I don't think I like that woman with the long head, so i start wanting Michael to get it. Uncle Eddie, who farmed the property for a while and didn't come to the auction, Uncle Eddie said he knew that Michael would try to buy it. Michael has lived no further than 7 miles from the farm his entire life and visited Grandma every other day before he moved out of Aunt Linda's, which is just up the driveway. The auctioneer announces that, now, the bidding will only happen in thousand dollar increments and he twirls the cane and slams it down on the lowered tailgate of the truck. Michael and Scott raise it for a thousand, and then the lady with the wide hips and narrow head raises it for another thousand. This takes about five minutes. Then noone bids anything. "Gol-lee this is about the slowest damn auction I have ever done. Is that it?" After another minute Michael and Scott bid another thousand. The lady with the narrow head is walking around in circles and she calls the offer man over and raises it another thousand.
Then Michael and Scott wait for the offer man to walk over and they keep him there. The auctioneer wants to know if they're going to do anything because they're taking a really long time and he says, "Now really, i cain't be here all day. Just gimme a yes- or a no. A yes- or a no. Come on, good, clean property... A yes- or a no." He taps the cane gently a few times on the side of the truck, on a little desk-shaped piece of wood where papers are referred to during furniture auctions.
Uncle Jim is in the corner of my eye, sitting on the front step of the patio when I see him get up and lumber over to where Michael and Scott are. Uncle Jim is much bigger than I am and tends to mutter out the corner of his mouth. His mouth and eyes turn down like the scowl on a mask of Greek tragedy. Uncle Jim comes into your room at the Christmas get-together and adjusts the speed on your cieling fan before he talks to you a minute and leaves. I'm expecting him to say to Michael and Scott something exciting, like, "Listem here, dummit, are you gone to buy thisahere property or nut?" but i think he just tells them he'll give them the extra thousand dollars they need. By now the auctioneer has quit counting altogether because he is waiting and when the offer man tells him 230,000, he waits a few more seconds twirling the cane and quietly says "Done" into the microphone and steps off the truck bed. Everybody starts walking all over the front yard. An old lady finds me and asks if me if i bought the farm and i wanted to say yes, but i told her no instead because it isn't nice to confuse people. Another old lady walks up and grabs me by the shoulder and says to her, "Sheryl, this here is Vickie's boy. He didn't win the farm. Michael and Scott won the farm." Michael and Scott were over at the truck signing papers. --- Anyway, that's about all for the auction story. I think i'd like to go to some other auctions sometime because they're so interesting. I had some other things to say in this entry, since i forgot what they were and i'm tired of writing, i'll just shut up.
Saturday, July 12th, 2003, 12:41 AM
hey there
today i mowed the lawn, took the grant proposal by Habitat for Humanity, deposited the paycheck and ate a peanut butter banana sandwich WITH HONEY-NUT CHEERIOS ON IT, making it a peanut butter banana honey-nut cheerios sandwich and raising the already hallowed peanut butter banana sandwich up to an even higher level of goodness. The only thing i can readily think of that would further amplify the intensity of the new peanut butter banana honey-nut cheerios concept would be to replace the smooth peanut butter with crunchy, since crunchy peanut butter is always a special treat between two slices of whole grain bread. But would that make it too special? I do not know. Previously, I have been leery of using the crunchy peanut butter with bananas because i thought it might be too "extreme" you know, if you catch my drift. I mean, crunchy is special, and so are bananas, so what happens when you put them together? Too much of a good thing? I don't know. I don't know if it would be right. I mean, what happens when technology outpaces ethics? The advent of using cheerios in a peanut butter sandwich has made me feel more willing to break previously unbroken boundaries in peanut butter sandwich making. However, I am also concerned that there will be too much crunchiness occuring if I have both peanuts and cheerios in my sandwich. Not only that, I don't think it'll make any difference in taste. Actually i don't think it'll make any diffference to anything, so what am i talking about? in other news... My family and i went to the Levering Orchards up in the Blue Ridge mountains today to see a production of Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard. The mountains are wonderful. All the trees were green and not cut down. At the Orchard they grow apples and cherries. Apple and cherry trees up and down the hills. We sat in a clearing in front of a rough plank stage with about forty other people and on one side the land went down and on the other side it went way up high to end in a ridge. At the top of the ridge i could see the treetops waving slowly in the breeze like they were a slowed waterfall or cattle grazing on the sky. They never stopped moving. The play started during the day, lasted through sunset, and finished after twilight ended when it was night, and even when it got dark and the play was almost over i kept looking behind me up at the ridge to watch the trees move, and i thought about how nice it would be to sit in the trees and watch the moon or something while they kept moving all night. When i went to the grass parking lot during intermission it was sunset and i could see the whole valley below. If i were in the trees on the ridge at night, I would see the city with the lights flickering below and moonlight flooding the sky. Ohhhh wow the play was good. I read the play in Mrs. Ford's class in my senior year, but it didn't make as much sense until i saw it performed. It was funny and sad. It also saw that it touched the mystery of personality. People did happy and sad things that could not be readily explained, though they could be percieved in the vaugest way. Now i want to read more of Chekov's works. I hear he wrote many short stories. The girl who played Anya was very pretty. "Cute" comes to mind, but does not work. She was pretty- pretty in a way that was even better than being violently gorgeous. If i described her I would mess it up, and to call her part white and part Thai or southeast Aisian would be horribly reductive and inaccurate. But she was short and had short brown hair. She was naturally tan but not very tan, like coffee but with lots of cream in it. Her eyelids were long and flat and she had these small, hard pouty lips that were small and hard without actually being hard. She smiled in a graceful way. Her face was not round or bullet shaped, it was something else with hard, compact edges that were hard and compact without being dense. It is hard and emabarrassing to describe people's faces. The program said she was a junior at UNCG. After the play my family and I went back to the car with our chairs and things but I ran ahead and left the chairs at the car saying that i had to go back to the stage and find the cap of my pen. Except I really ran up to the girl who played Anya and told her the play was really good and she smiled and said, "Well... thanks for coming!" And then I walked away wishing that i could have thought to ask her name or start a conversation or something. In the car driving home, we were all talking about the play (except Emilea, who didn't want to see the play) and I had to talk about the girl who played Anya.
"I liked that girl who played Anya. She was real pretty."
Now would be a good time for me to growl, thinks I, but Emilea pulls off her her headphones and says, "Do what?"
'The girl who played Anya. I thought she was pretty."
oh wow, that girl who played Anya was pretty.
Tuesday, July 8th, 2003, 7:13 PM
today is part II of my gate hut chronicles.
i have about an hour to say something about this day before I get off work and the sweat of the day has dried. Like most things I write, the need to communicate things exactly as they were will be crucial until afterwards, when they will become wierd and awkward. Like the used, sticky feeling of dried sweat. I'm sure the whole phrase "the sweat of the day" will cool, too, but i don't actually give a shit. I also hope i'm not putting on airs and being extra extra dramatic or like, hallucinatory or something. There's nothing worse than an artist who doesn't tell any kind of truth. Like a con-artist hahahahaha okay, now the sun is in the pines. Let's go. oh damn, now i don't know what to say. A lot of my time today has been like this. All I wanted to do today was say something that sounded beautiful and right. After i finished lifeguarding for Jenny, i came back down the walkway and tried with my notebook open but it didn't work, so i gave up and just started thinking again. Thinking. These crazy evanescent thoughts that don't manifest into words so well because they simply ignore words. They don't even know what words are. And like, watching the light go through the water in a plastic bottle and seeing it explode out the other end all over a pressure-treated 2x4 painted mostly brown. I'd go out to the water fountain to fill it up ever so often and when the water was hot, you could tell by the bubbles. the sun is orange and hot now like an ember. It is burning through the pines. when the sun was higher i'd watch the light slant through the rolling curtains that surround the gate hut; they are made of long, hard plastic segments the color of bamboo or straw mats. A dry color nothing like the lambent water in the pool. Pool water almost the color of clear sky, and once, at another time when i was on the stand, i thought that if i tricked myself hard enough, i could make myself think, if i jumped off the stand- hanging in the air for that instant before gravity pulled me down- i could make myself think that i was perched between two skies. the sun is down too deep for me to see now because the pines are too thick. But what happens now is that the sun tunnels into the dirt and leaves the burning sky to put its own self out. The blue flame of the sky dims to become twilight. What i thought about today, though, was this new story i'm working on, and all these unwritten things and new ideas started sailing around and eventually they all blurred with what has been written and all the old ideas i have remembered, and what they became was this glowing light, like prism light, except not a rainbow at all. The reason i say prism light is because light is really what happens when all the individual colors, all the blue reds yellows greens oranges and indigos are all together at once. Except it was like regular light too, so that i had all the colors themselves along with the white light, so that neither the white light or the colored light ever overpowered the other. This is a stupid explanation and it actually isn't what it was like at all, but since i have to deal with the concrete, and sight comes first, that was what the story i had felt like. And i felt incapable of creating that light of the story through words. With enough years, i will do it, though; and I feel like if i can only get these damn lights to come together in the right way, no matter how bad twenty stories might end up, i will not have failed at what i have set out to do. (Like Lily Briscoe. Please, someone out there has to have read To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. Lily Briscoe, she is a lot like what i am talking about.) Now it is twilight. Within the next 30 minutes, the blue flame of the sky will fade and die into night, and the sweat will dry when the heat of the fire is gone. A lesser heat will reverberate until the morning. Ah, here is my boss. She says it is hot tonight. I am finished writing.
Monday, July 7th, 2003, 4:28 PM hello everyone. I am at the pool working gate hut, and it is hot. It is a very nice day. We even have the wind! Wow! The wind just blew a sign off the gate hut! Lemme ketch it! For those who don't know, who is most everybody reading this, the gate monitor sits in a little hut at the entrance to the pool and makes sure that the members sign the clipboard when then come in. If they have in-town guests, they have to pay three dollars and sign a little card saying who their in-town guest is. The gate monitor also HANDLES THE PHONE (it is funny and vaguely lewd to put the phrase "handles the phone" in all caps). Members cannot talk on the phone for longer than three minutes, because that's just not cool. It ties the line up so no one can call in, and if no one calls in, then i can't HANDLE THE PHONE. Sometimes people call to ask about membership or party tickets or swimming lessons or wanting to know if someone is "there," which means "at the pool." This last responsibility involves running up to the pool and shouting, "Hey! is Hannah Rigsby there? I mean here?" Wow! The wind just blew the sign off agin! Lemme ketch it! So what i do is sit, take people's money, and HANDLE THE PHONE. I get paid $5.50 to do this for an hour, although i have friends who are summer interns who get paid $9.50 more to do even less. I think. Well, i mean, yeah, if they wanted me sit in an office under flourescent lighting all day they would have to pay me that much, too. Has anyone seen "Office Space"? I haven't. It's a movie, though.
Hot diggity damn, there goes the sign!
I guess i also get paid to read, write, and type insipid journal entries, though this is the first one i've typed at the pool. I also lifeguard here, but I wouldn't type while doing that. Lifeguarding can be brutal. Once again, you are paid to sit, but you have to you know, like, guard lives and stuff which gets tedious. No running. Adult swim. Thunder- everyone out of the pool- 20 minutes. These dictates make my job exciting. When I climb up the ladder and onto the chair, slip on my black sunglasses and twirl the mighty shining whistle, I become a death-dealing, fate-sealing lifeguard of destiny, even though neither of these adjectives really apply to my job. I don't really want to talk about lifegaurding anymore. But don't worry, I really am a competent lifeguard. Now i'm going to write for the next four hours. This story- i want the first draft done as soon as possible. Although, Greg, he told me a few weeks ago that sometimes it's good to rush and sometimes it's not. It was the ten-month percolation in my mind, the boiling and condensation of ideas on the last story that i wrote, that i feel has made it decent. I don't really care though. I have something to write, and i'm going to ram it out of my pen and onto paper as hard as i can. Good solid work. Not like gate monitor, or even, i would like to say with a sneering contempt i cannot use fairly, lifeguarding. I don't always like to sit, and i could lifeguard standing though i'm not usually allowed. But I am sitting for a reason when I sit down to write. It is hard to sit down. Sitting down is the most crucial act of writing.
ah-
here it is. We'll fix it up so it won't take off again. Would you like to know what it says?
Private Party Schedueled For: Tonight July 7th 2003 Pool Closes At: 9:00- Sharp!!
Saturday, July 5th, 2003, 11:43 AM
Happy Fourth of July!!!
It's been awhile since i last updated, ten days, so i'll give you a summary of what has come to pass or something. It's not very interesting, though. I've found that the older something is that i talk about on here, the more spontenaeity it loses. I finally finished my story on June 29th. That took almost ten months since i started on it last September. Good gosh i'm glad it's done. I mean, i can still revise little things, but it's pretty much done. I emailed it to lots of my friends, but so far, Chelsea from choir is the only one who has gotten back to me about it. She sent me some revisions. I'm really pleased with the story, especially when i look at what i started with in Sepetember, which was crap, and compare it to what i have now. The only problem is that i can't put it on my website because then i would have to go through 30 pages of writing, formatting HTML code into it. I don't really want to do that. I'll think of something. I've started writing a second story.
Lifeguarding is pretty boring. I tried to get a second job at the ballpark but they were all like "uhhhh we don't have any openings but here's an application anyway..." Chau has gone to Florida. My trip to see Chau at the opometrist's last week inspired me to go out and get glasses on the first. They are black and my mom says i look like Dexter from that cartoon Dexter's Laborotory. right now i'm in Williamsburg. My family and i came to see the fireworks. They were good. I love fireworks. Wow, I met two girls at the hotel pool the night before last and wow they were pretty. Oh wow, they are the first girls i have met all summer. I saw John Mallory from choir directing a tour this morning, so i joined the group as they were going into the Wren building. I asked him how many times the Wren building has burned down and he said three. Then he pointed at me and said that that was a very good question coming from a rising sophmore who happens to look like he's twelve. What i'm gonna start doing is thinking of these ridiculous, obscure questions about the college, so that whenever i see one of my friends directing a tour, i can sneak in and ask them a question when they ask "Any questions?" Then i'll ask my question and they'll be stumped, but when they see me, they'll snap their fingers and say "Gosh golly darn it, that good old Andrew!" as they lead the tour group away without answering the question. Come to think of it, i could be a tour guide. Man, that would be fantastic!!! Sarah is here for the summer and right now she is letting me use the computer in her dorm. I think i'm done now, though, and now i'm going to wander around in the bright steaming jungle that is the college campus on a July summer day. Then I must hit the library. I must hit it, and make it the site of the wondrous isolated artist things that i must do today. Or something. Hit it.
Wednesday, June 25th, 2003, 7:24 PM yeah! it's been a GLORIOUS DAY!!!!!! here is my GLORIOUS DAY!!!!!! This morning I lifeguarded a party and got paid seven dollars an hour as opposed to the usual six dollars and fifty cent. I burnt my shoulders some but not much, and even that's good because it gives the skin a good sweaty feeling like its been used. I am fully aware of how idiotic and carcinogenic that sounds. When i was done, i went to Lynchburg to see Chau at work and give her the rice shirt that i bought for her on vacation. Chau works as the secretary in her sister's optometry office and I kept her company. Privately, I thought it was a huge novelty that i was wearing swim trunks and my lifeguarding shirt in an optometrist's office. Chau wore a beautiful deep blue dress. She's going to CNU next year, which is very close to W&M, and hopefully we will see each other lots. Anyway, I considered this the last time i would see her before college started, since she's going to Florida soon. It was good seeing Chau. Then I drove home, and on the way, i had this terrific thought that i was going to put in my story, where I think i deconstructed the meaning of the word nothing. Because, see, if you give nothing; which means the nonexistence of something; a name, then you're actually acknowledging its existence by naming it. Like, the word "vacuum" means an absence of something, and yet a vacuum is something; it is the absence of something. If it has a name, then it has to be something, because you couldn't name it if it didn't exist. It would have to be unknown to not exist. Anyways, i was all excited about this, and I imaging giving my story to professors at school and them going "woooooow, you deconstructed nothing without any previous knowledge about what you were doing! You're really smart!" and when I got home, my two books had arrived!!! I ordered two books last week. One is Mystery and Manners, a collection of essays by Flannery O'Connor; and the other is The Habit of Being a collection of letters by Flannery O'Connor. (Flannery O'Connor is my favorite writer). As I was eating Beanie Weenies for dinner, I read an essay in the former called The Nature and Aim of Fiction. And as I was reading it, I realized that I knew almost nothing about writing, which was humbling and accurate and was really really awesome! And I was also persuaded while reading the essay that it would be a bad idea to plug my conceptual decronstruralist thing about nothing into my story! Because it's probably bullshit or doesn't belong there! Flannery O'Connor saved my ass! Sort of! Now i'm going to eat circus peanuts and write! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAW!
Sunday, June 22nd, 2003, 2:53 PM hey there. Today was Levi's (my minister) last day at church. Now he's moving to Dale City, which supposedly is in NOVA. He's taking his son with him, but his wife and two daughters are staying in Danville because Tamara got drum major for the GWHS band. That's supposed to be a big opportunity, being drum major, but I hope it doesn't hurt them. You know, splitting their family in half for a year. They'll be fine. I have faith in them. God does not abandon his servant. Anyway, we sang a duet for service today. It was called "God of Mercy, We Implore Thee." It is a beautiful song. We were worried that I wasn't going to sing loud enough, but i think it turned out okay. At least Mrs. Craig said she could hear us at the piano. I messed up once but saved it so that it didn't sound bad. Mistakes seem to have a way of not mattering as much when you're singing for the final performance. And, as it was in church, everyone thinks it's great no matter what. I'm singing another solo in July, even though i can't remember that title and I haven't given it to Mrs. Humphrey to practice yet. I was practicing the song in the church with Levi and Mrs. Craig on Friday, and when we were done, I went into his house, because i've never seen the inside of the parsonage before. And the moving crew was there and i gave Levi a bunch of chocolate that i bought in California and everyone was like, "oh, hey Andrew." Caleb was sitting under a blanket in Heather's room playing Pokemon. I went in and sat on the floor and looked at the walls and miscellany that hadn't been packed, thinking, this is a room, part of a house, where people have lived. The walls were lavender. I sat there for ten minutes and noticed that the varnished wood around the doorways was the same orange color of the wood in my grandma's house. When you're in someone's house, do you ever look out one of the windows and think, "this is what the person who lives here sees when they look out this window"? Almost wonder what it would feel like to be another person? Not actually the thought of being that person, just the sensation being someone other than who you are. I could see the church from Heather's window. I looked out the window over the kitchen sink and I saw a deep, sloping ravine covered with kudzu and edged with trees. I would have thought I was being nosy except there weren't many things in the house anymore and it didn't feel like a home anymore. I know this because when i tried to go in Levi and Tricia's room, lots of things like a bed were in there and i felt like i was intruding even though no one was there. I stood in the living room. I would have gone downstairs and stood in the other rooms, but everyone but Caleb was down there moving and i thought i would get in the way.
People at church ask me what i'm gonna do all summer.
Speaking of writing, I will have a story finished by the end of this month (with luck). I made a lot of progress on it while I was on vacation. Vacation was great. We went to the west coast and saw lots of wondrous things like Alcatraz and Mt. St. Helens and Seattle and the Space Needle and Mt. Rainier and the San Diego Zoo and Hollywood and a Vietnamese Pho restaurant in the Korea section of LA. Done!
Wednesday, June 18th, 2003, 9:51 PM HOWDY HOWDY HOWDY! gee, i forgot to tell all my loyal viewers that i'd be gone for the next two and a half weeks on a vacation to the west coast. I'm sure they were all devastated when they checked my site day after day, hoping for a single update and found nothing. I feel horrible, like the time when I was ten and i went to florida and i forgot to leave food for this little tiny frog i had and when i came back, i saw that he had jumped out and died. anyways, you get to hear about it now. The trip i mean, not the frog. I'm not even sure i ever owned a frog. wait, yes i did. it was actually three frogs. They started out as tadpoles. My parents bought them for my sister and I when they went to the A&A nursery. We put them in this little plastic dish that you normally put plants in, y'know? and we put some sand in and some water and covered it all with plastic wrap and we watched them grow into little tiny frogs about the length of a fingernail. We fed them with flakes. We put lots of extra flakes in before we left on vacation, but when we got back, all the flakes were gone and they had jumped out from under the plastic wrap and dried up on the white counter. One had fallen in the sink. speaking of domestic pets, does anyone remember reading that children's book where they told the kid not the give the goldfish too much food and he did it anyway? and they ended up having to put the fish in a swimming pool because it was so big? I wonder how that story ended. I think they let him out to sea or something, but i'm not sure. I don't think he actually died. You know why? I mean, it's a little too dark for a children's story, but also, if the fish dies, then the next logical step is to flush him down the toilet, right? But what do you do if he's too big? If you can't flush him down the toilet can you? If not, then as a writer, you can't kill him, either, can you? ha! HAHA! i crack myself up! maybe the story ended with the kid waking up and realizing that he was just having a bad dream. Good grief, what the hell am I talking about. Time to talk about the trip. i don't feel like it. I'll do it later, when I have something interesting to say.
Sunday, May 25th, 2003, 9:15 PM
hey fellas, it's time for another...
This weekend, I went to an anime convention, Animazement, in Raleigh, NC, for two days. For the uninitiated, a description of your typical anime convention may be helpful. Imagine Halloween in a hotel convention center, except, instead of candy, you have those those Japanese Pocky things with chocolate on the ends of them and overpriced hotel food. Ok, and people wearing bunny ears and dressed up as anime characters, and some wearing Japanese schoolgirl sailor uniforms, especially the balding overweight forty-year old cashiers you know from comicbook shops across America. Mullets are prominent. Hygeine is not, however, and, walking to the dealer room to waste more money on Gundam toys, you find yourself overwhelmed by a powerful miasma of body odor. You stumble outside for fresh air, the sky, the solitary sun, the natural beauty of finely trimmed hotel lawns, to seek respite from an empty existence of frenzied materialism and fandom subculture that you feel is strip mining your mind into a mental wasteland, converting your body from a warm, breathing organism into an overstimulated, sleep-deprived machine, bulldozing your precious soul far away, onto a desert island. Instead, you find cosplayers (costume players) screaming across the parking lot, inacting some grizzly meeting between the characters of Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon, and somehow, you see in it a pantomine of your own trivial life on this planet. You run back inside to video room, but with each anime you watch, you feel a sense coming on stronger that you, by viewing, are taking part in the existence of obscure fantasy worlds populated by cat ears, ninjas, huge eyed waifs, and giant, city-smashing robots. You are unnerved particularly by your thought about the obscure, limited, imaginary worlds with no existence in reality, and nearly wet your pants when, as an english major, you realize that books also create a kind of obscure world that does not exist. You become sick when you try to make a dinner of the oreos that you found in the hospitality room, and become frantic when you realize that this whole time, you could have been at home attempting to work on your short story. Am i going next year? You bet. I did get to see Lauren, and that was cool, and I got spend the night in her apartment with Adrienne and we all watched Gackt videos, which rocked ass. Dude, Gackt is this Japanese guy who wears eyeliner and dresses like a vampire and sings like a girl, except, he also sings like a guy. He's also a black belt in everything, which makes him extra-badass. So now I am a Gackt fan.
I went to lifeguard today, and it rained a lot. It's raining outside now, and there is thunder and lighting.
Done.
Monday, May 20th, 2003; 9:56 PM yeah, it's been awhile, but not many people seem to read this, especially during the summer, so what does it matter?
well, a few friends do. i left for college last summer, and stayed there a very long time. A year, in fact, if you don't count winter and spring breaks; and during this time, the seasons changed. They changed so much, that by the time i came back, everything was green again, so that it was as if things had never changed at all. Driving across Danville and standing inside my house, i was continually reminded of things that I had done the summer before. So i rearranged the furniture in my room to be disruptive. Now the desk is by my window, and I sit there almost everyday and do literary things. I have removed all the legos from my room, and replaced the long table that they were strewn on with a couch. My mother calls it a love-seat. Haha, I think that's really funny because, you know, i mean, it's not like i'm ever going to be making... well forget it. The wallpaper is making me nervous. I long for the cold white walls of my old dorm room. Now I'll have to start hanging up posters and white sheets of paper.
Life here is good, although I worry about the starving children in Africa and the Asian women in sweatshops. Someday, i'm gonna go out and do something for other people, and not just so i won't have to feel guilty everytime i eat banana pudding or do something i enjoy.
As i've said many times before, i don't have any friends that i hang out with in Danville except maybe two adults. I feel alone here, and that's a mixed blessing. If you're alone, you can hear things like the wind soughing through the trees. You can also get lots of shit done, when you're not preoccupied with being moody and cynical and lovesick and making a big deal out of being alone. You can also use your imagination to build a home-made matter-transporting radio device, and, after you've become an 11 year old boy living in the industrial slums of Tokyo, travel to the Island of the Monsters, and meet Godzilla and Minya and that three headed thing, just like that kid does in Godzilla's Revenge. Man, after i wrote that, I got distracted looking at Godzilla websites for a half hour and forgot what i was going to say next. oh, i went to voice lessons yesterday, and Craig started me on three new songs. One of them is called The Pirate King and it is badass. It's from a play called The Pirates of Penzance. ohhhh man. Pirates are so badass. I started singing it this morning as soon as i got up, going, I am a Pirate Kuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! brrrap-bap-bap-bup-bup, stomping on the floor and sweeping my open hand slowly and generously and truimphantly to the ceiling as if i were holding something heavy. I downloaded a recording of it last night while i was talking online. Hey! everyone do that! download The Pirate King on your personal music stealing programs! because it's awesome! Done!
Sunday, May 10th, 2003, 1:20 AM Hey fellas! Well, I'm still here at college and the hall is still eerily quiet. Tim the RA is the only person left here. Tonight is my last night in the room, and i've decided to enjoy it by eating cheese and circus peanuts while talking to Chau on the phone for two hours and then writing a journal entry. Hey, i even opened a can of vanilla coke. You know it's good times when you've got vanilla coke. My parents came earlier today and helped me clean out the room almost completely. Now there's an echo in here and the room sounds hollow. I leave tomorrow after I sing with the choir for graduation. We sang in a baccalaureate, a concert, and a candlelight processional today, but the candlelight processional was the most interesting. It was tonight in front of the Wren building, and all of the seniors were there in cap and gown. Lots of parents and family were there, too. The choir sang and the senior class president spoke, and the Dean of Students spoke, and a professor spoke, and the the choir sang the alma mater as the seniors lit candles and held them up on the last verse. It had been raining and everything was steaming and hot and there was this one light shining down on the speaker's podium, very warm. Anyways, afterwards i was standing around in my choir robe thinking, ok, goodbye seniors, and someone says hello and i turn around and who should it be but Hong! Hong is staying here until graduation because she is part of honor council. I talked to her a lot at the beginning of the school year, but suddenly stopped talking to her almost completely until these past three days at the end of the school year, which is think is very interesting and symmetrical. so we walked back to the freshman dorms. So i jumped around with Tim to crazy music and then i went into my room and that's a night. There was a point in all this somewhere, but I forgot what it was. Done.
Wednesday, May 8th, 2003, 10:22 PM
I'm back.
I took all the posters down and swept some and cleaned up the shattered remnants of Peter's towel rack and threw away trash. Oh, and you know that stupid money plant that I was going on about a few days ago? Yeah, well the wind blew it over and it got dirt all over the carpet. The leaves were too damn lopsided and you basically had to prop it to keep it up. So now there's almost no dirt in the pot. That thing is going in the trash. Speaking of which, when I went out to the Dumpsters, I went Dumpster diving and I got two rugs, a mop, and four ramen noodlecups. I had one tonight. They're all chicken flavor. Yeah, i know that's weird. But you can find the best things in Dumpsters, especially after people have moved out, because they throw all kinds of perfectly good things away that they don't have enough room for to take home with them. Like, there was nothing wrong with the ramen noodles- they were sealed. Besides, if you ever pull food out of a Dumpster, the first thing you ask yourself is "why did the person throw this food out?" If you can think of a reason, like, because the students were moving out and they had no room for ramen noodles, then it's cool, or at least there's a strong chance that it is. But if you think, this person must of thrown this milk (or ramen noodlecup) out because it's gone sour, then you don't drink the milk (or ramen noodlecup). Normally it's a little risky to pull food out of Dumpsters, although there are rules like this that you go by to make it safer. Anyway, a friend at the choir picnic told me that I could get a good job with lots of money working as a waiter. I think that's awesome, but Mom said that Danville doesn't tip well, and that since Danville has a 10% unemployment rate as compared to the 6% national average, I could have a hard time finding a waiter job. I could work at the hallmark store, but I hate greeting cards. I prefer to make my own out of cardboard. I called my Dad tonight too, and he said that a cousin of mine worked as a waitress at the country club, and made a lot of money there, because people at places like that tip well. So I'm gonna try the country club first. If that doesn't work, I'll mow grass. But I have to make money this summer. Done.
Thursday, May 8th, 2003, 10:39 AM
you know what's good?
I took my last exam yesterday. It's all over now. Most of my freinds leave today. I have to stay here until Saturday though, because i'm in the choir and the choir stays for graduation. I'm looking forward to being practically alone for the next two days- and really the whole summer, too, because i don't have that many friends at home. I'll have even less once Levi leaves for North VA sometime in July, and when Chau goes to Florida at the end of June. You know, like, basically zero. so what will i do with no friends, you ask? read and write. Yes- the traditional isolation of the Artist: I'll have less distractions, and if i don't end up cheating myself like i usually do, i'm gonna plow through a dozen books, and i'm gonna finish this story i've been working on since September, and i might finish another, and another, since i have all these stories that i never finish, and it's gonna be great! what i'm concerned about is how much i'm going to be able to get done if i have a job, though, because reading and writing take lots of time. In lieu of a job, i could volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. But I won't worry about it. Peter, Nate, and I saw X-Men 2 last night. We walked to the movie theater because we couldn't find a ride. It was an awesome movie. I think my favorite part is the scene where Pryo goes crazy and starts flipping police cars. ohhhhhh wow I started laughing it was so crazy. I mean, everyone loves Nightcrawler, but zippos rock more.
Monday, May 5th, 2003, 8:35 PM Die Mainacht, or The May Night, is a choral peice by Johannes Brahms. The original words are by Ludwig Holty, but the english ones for the translation were written by Richard Griffith. We sung it once in choir in high school, and i learned it again as a solo in voice lessons. Now, I'm not one of those people who constantly put shitty alternative pop rock lyrics in their infos on instant messenger and expect people to feel the same way about them as I do when they haven't even heard the song, but I like this song, and i think the words still carry meaning without the music, so think of it as a poem. ---
When the silvery moon shines through the flutt'ring leaves,
Somewhere hid in the leaves,
Where; O vision whose smile
In my eye-
--- In the month of May.
Sunday, May 4th, 2003, 3:42 AM YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!
Sunday, May 4th, 2003, 7:00 PM i don't have much time left to finish this paper. i've been working on it all week and it's due tomorrow, and i keep getting burnt out writing it. I need something to distract me so that i can feel fine again. Probably beanie weenies. Man, those things are good. Yesterday, Tim the hall RA let me have his money plant. Most people call them jade plants, but i've heard money plant before and i like it better. It needs more dirt. actually i'm not sure if i got the money plant yesterday or friday. My days are blending together because of this paper, because working on a paper doesn't give you much to do that will distinguish one day from another. Maybe going over significant events will help. I know for certain i talked to Chau on the phone, took a shower, and hung out with Susan last night. I think me and Peter saw part of Rocky IV yesterday, and the end of Rocky II this morning at 3. Rocky won. On Friday night i think we all ordered pizza and played d&d. Phil moved out yesterday along with a bunch of other people. around that time i stood on the patio in my bathrobe as i held a broom over my head and shouted "Mass exodus! Mass exodus! Pack your material possessions into your caravans and join the mass exodus leaving this institution of knowledge- fly, be free!" Because i can. But i can't remember anything about the money plant. Unless it was Friday morning. I think I can almost focus again now. Yes, I know everyone was very worried about this, and thank you for your balloons, flowers, and letters of concern- i'm right on top of things now. Done.
Sunday, May 4th, 2003, 3:42 AM YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!
Thursday, May 1st, 2003, 9:39 PM There's nothing really to talk about tonight. i'm very busy with exams and the research paper though. yesterday i sang with the choir at Alex Reyno's memorial service. Oh man, i like my bike a lot. It's gold colored and i named it Justice when i got it two years ago and ohhhh when you've got a set of handlebars clenched in your fists and you're soaring down a hill and swerving through the lunch tables by the University Center and getting welts and cuts on your arm as drive too close to the holly bushes by the sidewalk, you feel as if you are the complete master of your own destiny. my bike got a flat today. i took my English exam today and aced it. I got a 96 on my english paper which i got back today. i'm excited about going home. There are so many less distractions there and i'll be able to finish this story i've been working on since September. If i get a job though, there'll be less time to read and write. But i need that job. Done.
Sunday April 27th, 2003, 1:37 PM Taking it slow today, because this is our post-Blowout weekend. What is Blowout, you ask? Blowout is a very special event that happens once a semester on the last day of classes. The students celebrate because there are no more classes! Then they spend Saturday recovering, especially if they started early on Thursday night. Of course, if you're like me and you're in choir, you have a concert Saturday night and another party afterwards. And we all know what kick-ass parties the Kwah throws. So that means things get back to normal on Sunday instead. So let's have it with the Weekend Roundup.
actually, not much happened this weekend. If you know me, that should say lots; and no, i'm not trying to cover things up.
Done.
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003, 4:50 PM gee whiz, it's been awhile. I'm just going to sort of forego the weekend roundup this time, since it's been two days since it happened and i was too busy on Sunday to write about it. I really did want to write about it too, although not that many interesting things happened, looking back. Isn't that funny? You think things are so significant when they've just happened, but a week later, they've grown cold- the memories- and you can't remember them. It both saddens and frightens me, things dying and disappearing like that. I mean, look at what you're reading right now! This journal is not just my narcissism, it's also my attempt to save the world that i live in- documenting things that probably won't matter a week from now, trying to stave off Time's inevitable decay. Maybe i'm a weak sentimentalist and I should look forward instead of back. But we lose so much by not looking back. Besides, looking forward at the future and thinking about all the things that could go wrong makes me a nervous wreck. Charlotte Bronte says, "I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward." oh right, the weekend. My parents and sister came to Williamsburg for Easter. Saturday the 19th was my sister's birthday so i hung out with her for awhile and it was nice. Emilea is now 15. On Easter Sunday we all went to church together and the blackcloth was taken off the cross and the alter and people put lilies around them both. Easter is my favorite holiday. ohhhhh wow it means a thousand times more than Christmas does. I mean, Christmas is important, but remember that Christmas is only a prelude. anyway, things have been very busy. I can't wait until i (force myself to) get everything done and Friday comes and it will be blowout. That reminds me, Lexi isn't coming to Blowout, which i really am sorry to hear, despite what I did not say in the last entry. A person named Alex drowned in the Crim Dell today. I was riding my bike and I saw a crowd and people in the water shouting. It was a tour group and a few of us made tense noises and a few of us looked for bubbles and another few of us called an ambulance on cellphones, but most of couldn't do anything, so we all stood around like sheep until the tour guide called and shouted her group up the hill and the rest of us went up to the sidewalk so the ambulance and police could come in. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so i laid down my bike and sat down on a bench and prayed while they pulled him out and put him in the ambulance, but the ambulance didn't go anywhere so i stopped after awhile. I spectated for a couple minutes, but then i remembered it's not polite to stare, so i rode home. I feel sorry for his freinds and family. That tour guide who screamed her tour group up the hill must be a wreck right now, too, especially because Alex was leading the tour with her. The reason I mention those people and sympathy instead of just keeping it to myself is because i was thinking about my optimism. Colin Smith was hit by a garbage truck last semester. Dr. Defotis' brother William DeFotis died of MS complications in January. My Grandmother died a few months ago from Alzheimer's disease- and at every one of their memorial services, all I felt was inspiration, even happiness. Like, if you twist something around just right, you can see the incredible beauty in it. But i wonder if what i felt was only because i was never close enough to these people feel a loss. I wonder how i would feel if i were in the position of the freinds and family and the tour guide, and if i could pull the same trick again and turn death into beauty if it were up in my face or even breathing down my neck. They say if life gives you lemons, you should squeeze lemonade. But Chau, who is experienced with lemons and has run out of sugar, says if life gives you lemons, you squeeze them in someone's eyes until they turn bloodshot, remembering to dress as a professional clown to increase the horror. Done.
Wednesday, April 16th, 2003, 8:28 PM I have lots of homework. I climbed up into a tree after dinner today and sat there for a few minutes as i wrote in my notepad. That was cool, and now I think i want to look for more trees on campus to sit in. I broke Peter's balsa wood towelrack last week after i tried to swing out of my bathroom doorjamb and onto my hallway door using the doorknob as a foothold. I think what i did was land on it from up near the ceiling. But it's cool, because its time was near anyway. Me and my freinds pretend the long wooden rods are swords and we have duels. Blowout weekend is the weekend after next. I'm very excited, and since this semester has been beating my ass, i think i will have good reason to celebrate. Oh, and I just remembered that Lexi told me she was coming for that. You remember Lexi, of course, from my last Weekend Roundup. I will like seeing her, since, you know, she strikes me as such a really genuine, sincere person. I think I'm going to smash my roomate's towel rack and set it on fire now. Yeah, I know lots of people, and i try to look for the best in all of them, try to accept them for who they are, and, most importantly, trust them, since it seems that i cannot help but be a trusting person and give others the benefit of the doubt. I mean, naturally i'm suspicious of all people when i first meet them, and i have to be around them about a week before i begin to warm up. There is a reason for that. But sometimes, i wonder if something even worse will happen to me someday that will give me a reason to destroy the rest of the unsuspecting nature completely. Maybe i'm being too dramatic, but a smaller something like that has already happened to me before, and that was dramatic, at least to me. But i think it is a good way to be if i always try to accept people for who they are, unless that bites me on the ass someday too. Done.
Sunday, April 13th, 2003, 6:52 PM It's time for another... Weekend Roundup! A good weekend. On Friday I read a book called All Passion Spent, by Vita Sackville-West. It was fantastic. I think that is the best way to read a book, to plow straight through it in a single day, let everything the book has to offer hit you as fast as it can in one concentrated punch. Man, it's like you can run with horses. On Friday the Residence Life commitee drug a scrapped car out in the street in front of Crim Dell and let people smash the hell out of it with a sledgehammer for a dollar a minute. If you give them five, they'd throw in a mug that says "This Is Not Beer" on it. There was free ice cream, too. So I gave them seven dollars and beat on it and left and later in the afternoon Peter my roomate saw me and said he'd give a dollar see me beat on it again, so I climbed up on the roof and beat a hole in the hood with my almighty sledgehammer. I smashed off the steering column, too, and I was about to go for the radiator but i had to leave for choir. Ohhhhhhhh wow it incredible it was even better than Dance-A-Thon last week, condensing all the things that frustrate and worry the hell out of you but you know you have no right to complain about into a ten pound wad of metal stuck on the end of a plastic handle and becoming a like a god until there are fortysomething new craters in the metal and three exciting new blisters on your hands and you feel more impotent still than you did when you started, although you also feel as if you are glowing, and, feeling the blood move through the limbs again, you are reminded of what kind of things you might be capable of doing if only you could figure out how to do them. Anyway, Friday night we played Dungeons & Dragons, the quintessential game of dorks. I think that's fantastic. And at midnight, lo and behold, who should call but Lexi! Lexi is from Lynchburg and will be going to William & Mary next year. I walked out to her hotel and brought her back to Dupont and we talked about many things. I was reminded to always look at both sides of a story and not to believe everything you hear. Lexi's hair is blonde. It is also short, but that's not how things used to be. I would say Lexi and Chau are freinds, except they're not- friends in high school must be fucking crazy. Sure glad I didn't have any. Saturday I think I did homework. The fact that i can't remember too well should tell you something. The housing lottery was on Saturday. My roomate for next year is John by the way. He will be a junior. We're living in the Old Dominion Complex, and it is the best place on campus. We're gonna have a loft, and i'm gonna sleep on top and pretend i'm in a tree fort. Phil, Nate, Peter, Zeke, Eric, Sara, and I watched Psycho that night. It was scary. I love the theme music. Went to Sig Ep afterwards and rescued Susan from being hit on "hard-core" by sketch-ass frenchman with no dancing ability. Was kicked out for no reason by drunk senior who doesn't like me. What the hell- everyone there seems to think i'm a damn KDR pledge! What the hell? I don't even like KDR! And of course, Sig Ep has a rivalry with KDR. People say to me there, hey man, are you pledging KDR? And i say, hell no i'm not pledging the KDR i'm not pledging anywhere because i don't want to be in a frat. Sheeyut. Screw it all and join Psi U. That's where it's at: you join them and there's no way you have to possibly within a shadow of a doubt worry about sacrificing your individualism 'cause they've got green hair. Well, I always worry about individualism like that. I have lots of freinds at Sig Ep, but i know of two who have a vow of unconditional hatred against me. No clue why, because they won't tell me. Nevermind. Maybe i'll bitch and moan about this some other time. Sunday was great. I did homework. At the end of the church service on Palm Sunday they take out all the altar coverings and the candle sticks and decorations and once the cross is covered with black the sanctuary is reduced to its lowest pulse. Done.
hursday, April 10th, 2003, 2:27 AM i am not going to talk about school work, but it is breathing down my neck.
Went for two hour walk to clear head. Everything wet, but no rain. The wind blew hard like impatient exhale and swayed pines. The pines were stark and alien against empty sheet of sky. I liked that. The Crim Dell was eerie and black. I went to see the statue. At the very end of the Sunken Gardens, at the edge of the woods, there is a bronze statue of a boy and a girl listening to a 1950's radio as they lay on the ground and read, and even during the day, they are more horrifying than the pines and the wind could ever be at night. Students, only scaled down so they're like children- it would be worse if they were life size. There's something very sad about them: they will always be laying there, the boy's head resting in the girl's lap, reading the same page, listening with mute ears to the same obsolete radio, their heads tilted the same way as the world goes on without them, growing and changing and exploding and dying and everyday becoming more and more alien from the world that was when they were planted there in the pine needles. The girl is wearing a nice dress; the boy has a shirt and vest. Their combed, indestructable hair. It's horrible when you see the snow covering them, because the bronze eyes gaze out from under a brow of ice. As i type this, the bronze eyes are reading a page with no words. Still. At the same time, though, the stillness is what makes them look complacent. They are very complacent and peaceful, and beautiful too, but you wonder if the boy and the girl each have a name, or if they had a thing for each other and would have liked to kiss, because their beauty is like an austere sculpture in a cemetery. And then i left the horrible horrible innocent statue and sat in a wet black blowing tree and found a slug. I thought about my damn story i'm trying to write. And then i thought about Artists, because i am taking a freshman seminar on Portrayals of the Artist in Literature. I would talk about the Artist, but it would be really hard and i would just mess up the words. But i will do it anyway and not care. The Artist is lonely and sees things and sees through things and has things that he or she needs to say or see or feel or find, find somewhere usually inside the Artist's self, because that is where the Creation comes from. Creation is an important part of it. The Artist creates. The Artist doesn't have to create any actual "art" that you can read or see or hear, but the Artist does create something one way or another, like a vision, or Truth, the meaning in a vast sea of chaos and all of it takes pain and struggle and superhuman diligence. Searching and creating. There are Artists that need Truth and have to go looking for it whether they want to or not. The Artist is a dark horse (galloping).
The Artist is never "artsy." Head cleared. Done.
Monday, April 7th, 2003 9:04 PM This weekend was good. I went to the Gamma Phi formal with Susan. I liked it. The formal was interesting because interesting is such a vauge and general word. We ate dinner in a room with people and lasagna and wine, and the people were bland but the lasagna was delicious. We rode a bus to the winery. There was dancing and people and wine. Susan says she does not care much for formals, and i do not think i do either. During dinner, i tried to imagine what the appeal of a formal could be and decided that maybe it had something to do with- yes- the formality of it. People dress formally, and so maybe i figured they sort of glide or even float across the glossy wooden floor formally and greet and talk and somehow dance to rap formally with expressions on their faces like those emphatic ones of heroes and heroines and gods and godesses in Romantic era paintings, theatrical yet earnest, and sincere even in their deceit. The formal becomes not an event, but an temporary, polished world in which its inhabitants float in an eloquent bliss. At a certain point in my imagination, I actually discarded the idea of formal suits and dresses entirely and replaced it with the more dramatic image of pastel tunics and passionate scarves and other billowy clothes. And there was lots of that, except without the billowy clothes. If you are buzzed or drunk, it is possible to float in an eloquent bliss. The presence of alchohol tends to make everyone more emphatic, and the person who slept during the entire formal with her head on a table was dramatic and very stupid looking. So was the winery owner who stood at the wine table with a glaring, authoritarian bearing. The people danced with great passion. There was great intensity of spirit when Susan got mad at me about something not worth explaining but i still resent severely, and I wanted to go out in the field behind the winery and look at the stars, except i couldn't because by the time i noticed them, i too was busy trying to fix things. That was not good. But later it was okay. Returned to Unit K at 12:30. Hung out with Susan for two hours, left, and went to Sig Ep. Returned to Dupont at 3:00. Donned the Towel Gear to become Towel Man and walked to Trinkle Dance Hall for the Dance-a-Thon. Ay, the Dance-A-Thon, the highlight of my week, even the month. See, Dance-A-Thon is where a bunch of people come and dance to all kinds of music from 7 PM to 6 in the morning. At the end, one of the best surviving dancers gets the 200 dollar grand prize. It's a fundraiser for a dance teacher's son with cancer and lots of money is made off of tickets. Sara and Sara take dance and were running the event and Peter and Nate and Eric were all roped into being dance judges. I volunteered to judge as special guest judge Towel Man from four to six. I danced more than i watched contestants. Hot diggity damn, was all over the place. I was on chairs, under tables, in the bathroom, and in every corner and space of the hall. I was everywhere simultaneously, and i was dancing horribly- but that is the only way to dance, to dance and not care. Oh wow. I had to sit down and rest a few times. Then, just as the sun began to rise, the music changed to polka and i couldn't dance to that, so i went outside and sang as I watched the sky turn. I also practiced my whistling, because Peter has been teaching me how to whistle. Before i could only do this sharp, tea-kettle whistle that goes through your teeth, but now i'm learning this nice Mr. Rogers it's-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood whistle that goes through your lips. And i'm getting better. Then me and Peter and Nate helped clean up and then went back to Dupont. Not a soul stirs on campus at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, even though it is bright like the rest of the day. When i got back, i washed my towels, because the Towel Man is super absorbent and the Towel Gear desperately needed washing. Peter and Nate immediately went to bed and slept until 5:00, but i kept going the whole day until i crashed at 1 AM, on Sunday morning. Sunday passed without event except that i missed all of church except for communion because of the daylight saving time change and Katherine invited me to dinner at the Japanese steak house with Vanessa and Pilar. Katherine brought her car back from New Jersey after Christmas break and has kept it here this whole semester without a parking permit. That was how we drove to the steakhouse. We declined the sushi bar. There were little goldfish ponds. The chef threw food at us, and that was cool. Then i came back and became distracted, to the point where i eventually found myself perched on top of a Dumpster at midnight reading the Bible and watching a star flicker like a candle as the clouds passed below it. I heard some squirrels fighting in the trees and i thought of my eyes. They're tinted. The left one sees green, but the right one sees orange. It's very faint, and when i use both eyes it disappears. Somehow, the absurdity of having to blink between the left and right eyes gives it a menacing quality. You use one, and there's the green; and you use the other, and there's the orange- and they're both there, in your eyes, staring back into your head as they dye everything the color of industrial flourescent lighting. But open both eyes, and it vanishes like it was never there. Chau's sister is an optometrist, and Chau says she says i should get it looked at. After i jumped off, i pulled a coat-hanger out of the Dumpster and took it home. I'm always short on coat-hangers. Done.
Tuesday, April 1st, 2003 11:59 PM Happy April fool's day. I don't think i'm much on April fool's anymore. I wasn't even expecting it because i had forgotten about it. What i used to do when i used to go to Carlisle was tell everyone that i had developed a fourth hernia. Because, you know, i've had three. I'm very busy right now and i don't know why i'm taking the time to write this. I should be reading. It's hard to force yourself to be busy when you don't want to be, but you feel very proud when you do it anyway, even if it was a total failure, like this morning. This morning i went to bed at four after struggling with a two page English essay that i had begun at 12:00 and still haven't finished. By the time i gave up, i was lurching around my room in the bathrobe with an excrutiating headache while eating matza crackers and getting sick off the cheese that i wanted out of the refrigerator. Things had gone horribly wrong and in the process I had ceased to think like a well-adjusted human being. And then, at four in the morning, I started to get Ideas. I got five sentences, sentences for my story, and i wrote them down in my writer's notebook. At that time I also remembered one of my favorite quotes:
"In writing, there is always, ineviatably a flaw...and every time you see one flaw, you see more, until everything is flawed and the flawed crystal shatters. And eventually it's your mind that is the crystal...and CRASH, there's your sanity, in peices upon the floor. -e. e. cummings Oh, yes, it makes so much sense. It's late and even now the headache of this morning is coming back. There's lots of work to do and not enough time but all of it is very exciting. Done.
Sunday, March 30th, 2003, 11:59 PM ok ok ok so i finally decided to start a journal online. I hope i can make keep it going. If i don't, at least narcissism will. Ay, the people must see the world through the eyes of Andrew Harris.
this weekend sucked. yes, we are at war.
(Saturday is of no event, except that: and Sunday was bad because i missed church. I love going to church, although what is more important than what you do in church is what you do outside of it. I called Chau at 12 and woke her up. All people are cute to listen to when you wake them up, not just Chau. For Lynchburg people: yes, i am applying adjective "cute" to all "people" of genders both female and MALE, but no, i am not gay. But i can use the word cute if that is in the english language, because what good is a language if you can't say what you mean to say? Sometimes it's hard enough without worrying about the words you should use. I'd like to go to Lynchburg and lose myself in its rambling roads and staring stop lights and attractive shopping centers. Right now. I could see everyone i know too, which would actually be the reason i'd go, not because of the streets or stop lights or shopping centers, because i can get those in Danville, along with a river. actually, i think Lynchburg has a river too, but i haven't seen it yet. It got wicked cold today, Sunday. I mean, i saw it snowing and it's springtime now. I like rain. anyway Friday Saturday and Sunday were not good because i struggled to make myself do homework that is still not finished. And I have officially failed Lenten. Goodnight, all. |
