Kibblesen Bits.

Schmaltz.

Final lap

What I thought was going to be the shittier of two final papers is now probably going to be the better of the two.

What I thought was going to be a mediocre paper may turn out to be one of my best.

Virginia Woolf's The Waves as a Guide to Surviving Modernity.

Also, soon to come: Wicked and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Deciding on the Merits of Fantasy

in the thick of it / longest post ever

I'm flying through The Waves by Virginia Woolf in the library. I don't usually study here, but it's going well.

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Now I'm finished. This book, like many, benefits from a single extended reading. On the other hand, taking a long time to read it--that is, in a stop-start fashion--can contribute to the sense that you have read through an entire life. The impressions we have of our own lives begin to mix with those of Woolf's characters, and our capacity to identify with them grows. For once I think that the technique of this novel, rather than my personal tendency to project myself wholeheartedly into the emotions and characters of movies and works of literature, is what makes such identification so viable. I can't explain what that technique is here, because the product of that endeavor would look like a final paper for this class...

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I am looking forward to living in a mode where I can express myself directly, face fears head on, and live in the present. I may be making progress.

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In the new corner of the internet I've built I will turn myself into a subject of observation. With time I may learn to defamiliarize my writing, my music, my interactions with people and the environment. That is, to see it as new and strange. More specifically I will see through an imagined set of foreign eyes unburdened by my own habits of perception and thought. The idea is to see those very habits as an outsider. This is a war on Narcissism.

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Please please please check out a musical act called "The Books." They specialize in aleatoric music: "Aleatoric, indeterminate, or chance art is that which exploits the principle of randomness" (wikipedia). If I had read this before hearing The Books I would have approached their music with expectations and skepticism. Fortunately I only read about it afterward, and thanks to this I am free to express my feeling that The Books, using found audio, cello, acoustic bass and acoustic guitar, inhabit a very important niche in what we consider music today without gratuitously offending the conventions of western music. What I mean is that while there are still time signatures, rhythmic patterns, melodies and harmonies, the use of found audio samples for percussion, melody, and thematic inspiration makes for a revolutionary musical experience.

Music is everywhere. Step outside and listen: animals, people, machines, plants, weather. The Books are keenly aware of the vast soundscape that confronts us every day, so listening to their music is like walking through an alternate universe of sound peppered uncannily with the aura of nostalgia and mystery. As you might suspect, walking outside while listening to this music on some good headphones is exhilarating--most of the time there persists a jarring but fascinating contrast between what you should be hearing and what you are hearing, and for preciously short segments the two worlds actually correspond.

The Books remind me how much our perception depends on the detection and interpretation of sound. I had an idea recently for an art project. Here are the steps:

1. Prepare to spend about twenty minutes recording the sounds of an environment that maintains a relatively consistent level of ambient noise, such as Times Square.
2. Within those twenty minutes arrange for actors to approach the recording device and deliver a casual monologue as if they knew the listener.
3. Find someone who is willing to spend a while in the same crowded place (at approxiately the same time of day) with headphones on and instruct them to go to the spot where the ambient audio was recorded.
4. Once at the location they will put on the headphones and listen to the recording with the actors' monologues.

The result: As the listener accustoms himself to the incongruities and correspondences between what he hears and what he sees, the appearance of voices close to the designated spot will produce an eerie sense of a person's physical presence. It amounts to a kind of "ghost audio tour."

Why I think it will work: In short, sound data is also spatial data about the environment. For example, when someone stands a foot from you and begins to speak, your brain will detect a physical presence that corresponds to the way that the sound data is being perceived; even if your eyes are closed you will probably be able to tell how far away the person is, their stature, and a sense of how they are moving.

I'm not that interested in the paranormal, but I am interested in how our senses interact and confuse each other.

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I don't know what you were referring to exactly, but I want to fast forward, too. I have movies in my head of different parts of this planned vacation. Don't take this for obsession--I play all kinds of movies in my head when I'm in between busythings. But some of the details I've thought about verge on silly. For example, I thought about what we will buy to feed ourselves (besides booze) when we stop at a supermarket on the way there. I have a strange desire to mix hedonism with spiritual balance. We will sip wine from the bottle (to each his or her own bottle), lose articles of clothing because it's already hot in the summer and hotter when you drink (though I'm not excluding the possibility of other motivations), and all the while we will eat luscious vegetarian food. Can you cook that up? I can wash, chop, stir, and lay things out on a plate in a way that pleases refined aesthetic sensibilities.

And I'll climb the hill in my own way. Just wait a while for the right day. And as I rise above the tree lines and the clouds, I look down, hear the sound of the things you said today.

"A Real Update"

Some people have been lovingly pestering me to post a "real update." As if any update I post could be, or should be, regarded as real.

Seriously, though: for one post I will write as if this were one of those "Welcome to my life!" blogs.

It's the end of 8th week and I'm graduating at the end of 11th week. Count the days, people. I've got senior-itis pretty bad...I waked and baked today--I've never done that before!--and then went to work, which is where I am now.

I have some things to look forward to: 1) Graduation 2) New Apartment 3) Internship (which may turn into a job) 4) Independence 5) A three day sojourn with none other than Miss Madeleine at my family's summer house in Cape Cod. All of those things will happen in the three day span of June 14-June 16 (Bloomsday!). They are all good things, except that some of them seem a little scary when I think about them.

This weekend is the last show of the school year at which my band is playing. On Saturday we get paid $400 to play; on Sunday I'm running and playing at an all-day performance that I organized with nine separate acts. I've had to work with a very prudish person as my co-organizer. I'm not even talking about his sexual behavior. For example, I was brainstorming with my bandmate for a title for the event and we decided it had to be something that could form the acronym "S.H.I.T." In about ten seconds I came up with "Spring Hits In Time." Genius, no? When I told the co-organizer (he was doing the poster) and pointed out the acronym, he got squeamish and nervous about it real fast. As I tried to explain why this kind of obscenity was appropriate to the edginess of rock musicians, I felt the gap between him and the band community staring me in the face. Oh well, he'll learn eventually.

Today I am going to return a book and a movie that I borrowed from the Czech. I will also be telling her that I don't want to be seeing her anymore. I think she understands; if she didn't, she would have called me more in the last three weeks.

I'm in a barrel heading for a waterfall. There's the feeling that nothing that happens now will have any bearing on my life as it exists three weeks from now. This is not as oppressive and dreadful as it feels. It's actually liberating. I'm looking forward to starting afresh in a way. New music projects, new efforts to align myself ethically, new lovers, whatever...it all amounts to waking up from a long dream.

P.S. Sometime soon I will be disappearing into a different corner of the intarnets. Some of you will know where I'm going. Some of you won't.

Advice From a Notable Blogger

raymi: so whats your story then
me: i'm in my third year at the university of chicago, and I spend more time on my band than I do doing schoolwork
and it's not a stupid band, if my word can be taken for that
we have some payed gigs, but they're not gigs that get us any real recognition
and that doesn't bother me too much
raymi: ahh
what are u called
me: i'm kind of fascinated by the idea of playing small shows for a really long time because it's so much less stressful
Saturday Realism
raymi: hmm
what kinda music
you might need a name change
no offense
me: haha
raymi: thats a bit gay
me: you have no idea how spot-on you are with that comment
raymi: saturday is good realism is a no no
liek totally new agey pass
it's dated
me: can I explain where the name came from
it's retarded
we were high
somebody said "Sunny Day Real Estate"
and I said "what? Saturday Realism"
and someone else said "Band name!"
and I wrote it down
fuck that's lame
you're right
raymi: well its funny that way
but its an inside joke
which is only funny to like 4 people
to the rest of the world it is GAY
me: I don't even like inside jokes
hahaha
you know what though
do you know what reputation my school has?
raymi: even if you were called saturday morning
no what does it have
me: we are notoriously self-referential, obscurity-loving, and dorky
I try to fight this image
obviously with limited sucess
raymi: well you need an image overhaul
me: yeah
the dumbest thing
I'm about to go into marketing
raymi: because that me mentality only works in small cricles
think global
also think less gay
me: you're right
hahaha
you have no idea how right, even
raymi: well im pretty smart i think i have an idea
what do you guys dress like
me: I guess appearing gay in spite of not being gay is not such a good idea in the end
everyone in our band comes from a completely distinct music direction, so we don't look like we play together
the other frontman usually looks pretty grungy
the drummer wears aviators and stylized sweatshirts
raymi: you need to look put together
me: the trumpet player wears a sweater
that's probably true
raymi: you basically have no right to use the word realism in your band name if you arent even functioning on reality
coolwise
me: is it really as important to look cohesive as it is to sound cohesive?
haha
raymi: well thats whats worknig right now
me: you mean in music in general these days
raymi: like when i was in a band with my dad it was obvs that i stood out, young cool girl with old dudes
me: aha
raymi: it would have worked if they had a quirky look
but they didnt they wer stubborn
me: isn't there some charm to that?
oh
raymi: well then the band would be called raymi
u know when an artist stands a lone but they have all these back up musicians
anyway is there a picture of you guys i can see
me: yes, let me look
me: this is a candid photo
of, left to right, frontman who is not me, trumpet player, and drummer
Picture
raymi: oh so u have a chick
thats good
use that
get her to wear whimsical arty dresses
then yer solid
change name
ok i have to talk shit about the movie juno now
me: you have to go you mean
thanks for the advice then
I'll see how it works out
raymi: well im on here still i just ahve to focu on a blog post right now
me: oh, well I look forward to reading it
I should probably listen to the prof anyway

Going Away

CH and I agreed that it would be a good idea to take the Metra to someplace far up north and spend the day there. The catch: we're not allowed to talk. The only reason we're going together is because she felt that it would be a useful exercise for her as well.

Earlier we had planned to attend a 10-day meditation retreat at the end of the school year, but it turned out that the retreat started two days before I graduate. Perhaps at the end of the summer. [I harbor a hope that through meditation I can learn to feel more.]

It's finally bright and warm outside and so I cook up ideas like this. Spring bubbles the brain and the body.

I was in contact with the Czech just before and at the end of my amphetamine and sleep-deprivation binge last week, and then not again for six days. She seemed annoyed with me last Friday, because I was so gentle a week earlier and where had that gone off to? I called last night to explain that I needed to avoid her when I was being business-like, and that I wasn't trying to break relations. She told me I didn't need to feel any obligation, that we were replaceable parts for each other. It stung me a bit to hear that, but I suppose it has to be admitted.

Caring and Not-Caring

What would happen if, one day, I started caring? That is to say, what if I were able to tell the difference? I cannot tell the difference because I gain an advantage from flattening the difference.

Not-caring compels one to cruelty at worst and to coldness at best. Cruelty and coldness evoke a typical set of reactions. That reaction is visible in most people and it reflects pain.

I learned early and intuitively that the sight of pain in others caused me pain as well. Wanting to avoid the sensation of pain, I altered my behavior such that it caused others pain as seldom as possible. This alteration included the cultivation of a revulsion to the sight of a person crying (once I caught myself inching my chair back during an emotional moment in a performance of Arthur Miller's The Crucible).

Thus it hurts to care. Not only does it hurt, it makes things complicated. I interact with dozens of people a day. I probably do not care about most of them, and if this were visible to them (for my face is an emotional ticker tape*) they might feel hurt and subsequently refuse to interact with me.

*[Ed.: It turns out that this is probably not the case. It occurred to me recently that though I may wear masks in order that others can see through them, other may not even be looking deeply enough at me to realize there might be a mask, and that in general not everyone has the same relationship to masks of personality as I do.]

It matters to me, on some level, that they feel I care about them and that I know I am on good terms with them. Why must I be on good terms with everyone? "Only out of a compulsion," one person said, and I would have been hurt if she had not been incisively correct. To be on good terms is to be stable. Stability is needed to do all of the many things with which I fill my day (schoolwork, basic bodily needs, drug abuse, band affairs, general social exchanges).

Why do I fill my day so? Not out of ambition (for I couldn't name one if you payed me), but again, out of compulsion or habit. In boarding school and in other places it mattered more to act as if one were driven than to actually be driven.

I'm also told that it can feel good to care, but I don't know much about that.

Into the Memory Box

During my first year of college I realized that there were always going to be a number of things I would keep with me when moving from place to place. I threw a lot of them away when I moved out of the dorms, but I found a box for the letters and other paper artifacts.

Every few months I would try to find a way to organize those paper artifacts in a way that made sense (cf. the pleasure of arbitrary categorization, 1 post previous). Eventually I gave up, so the last system of classification is still in effect: one category for each girlfriend or close female friend, and one for home and miscellaneous friends, each category held together by a rubber band.

The category for home and friends contains mostly birthday letters from my sister and something an old friend sent to remind me of the absurdity of boarding school life.

The categories devoted to GIRLS WHO HAVE PLAYED AN IMPORTANT PART IN MY LIFE show a wider variety of materials: a thick paper rectangle painted in water color, inscribed with a poem in Spanish; photo collages; an origami paper crane made from a candy wrapper; laminated flowers for bookmarks; notes passed during a political philosophy class; letters I wrote but never sent; used mailing labels; a poorly drawn map of the region of South America called "el cono sur"; snippets of eavesdropped dining-hall conversations...

The paper trail ends around November 2005. I like to look at it because it proves that I existed in relation to other people, that I was beholden to another and in general, to an other. What would I call on to do the same thing now? My facebook page? My blog? My email inbox? In the absence of any other tangible record, the document they present is essentially a really boring porno with occasional editing glitches that reveal brief of scenes of sincerity and happiness from another film. Then the porno resumes.

I am eating my world. At times I am also fucking it with abandon but mostly I am eating it, stuffing chunks down my gullet without looking at them and certainly without tasting them, even taking from the plates of those nearby. I eat and I eat and I never grow fat, but I begin to emit a putrid smell, detectable from miles away. For every chunk I swallow another member of the dining party leaves the table, unable to tolerate the stench any longer. Soon the only diners left are those who can acknowledge the foulness of their own odor, but I'm too busy inhaling cheesecake to notice.

Even when the food is depleted and all the guests are all gone I will stay at the table because I will have forgotten that at one point I had not yet sat down at the table. I will have forgotten the world outside the table and will continue to sit with a smile on my face, breathing in my own noxious fumes.



Really, though--what'll it take?

Analyzing Pleasure

The four basic pleasures, organized in an efficient and all-encompassing list, stolen from the brain of University of Chicago student Paul Brown.

1) Arbitrary categorization. - This very exercise of categorizing the pleasures is a perfect example. However, it's something we do a lot of the time anyway.

2) Solid-liquid interaction - A broad category that includes food, sex, sports, or drugs, or anything related to physical objects or materials.

3) Correcting somebody when they are wrong - Self-explanatory.

4) "Who's driving the boat?" - A hypothetical situation goes along with this one: so you're on a boat with a bunch of people, enjoying the sun, the pleasant splash of sea foam on your face, and it occurs to you to wonder who is driving the boat. You know you're not driving the boat, and you also don't know of anyone else who could be driving the boat, and this thought process occurs to everyone on the boat (except the person driving the boat) at the same time, causing everyone to exclaim at the same time, "Who's driving the boat?!"

This pleasure breaks down into two parts. The first, the pleasure of paradox, is contained in the fact that everyone has figured that somebody else is driving the boat, thus abdicating personal responsibility. The second pleasure is the pleasure of collectivity, which expresses itself at the moment when everyone exclaims, "Who's driving the boat?!"

Appendix:

5) Creation/Destruction - My friend Christine suggested this one to the creator of the list. This is the pleasure that derives from building a deck of cards and knocking it down, burning something, building sand castles, and the production of art. Mr. Brown argued that this pleasure falls under the category of "Who's driving the boat?!" because it exemplifies a paradox, but her appeal to this decision is still pending further consideration.

Looking Messed Up

Occasionally I'll run into someone who is more perceptive. Their evaluation of my condition is accordingly more accurate. The last time it happened I was trying to explain why I'm still looking for internships if I'm graduating at the end of the year. I could barely finish the sentence. I told him he hadn't seen me in months. He answered, "Yeah, but you look really messed up." The accuracy of his appraisal gave me a distinct feeling of comfort.

Sometimes it's a bother to be read like a book, and so many people can do it with me. Other times it's a relief to know that some people know what species of monster I'm battling, even if I don't tell them anything about it. It makes my confusion more common, less bizarre, less inviting as an object of obsession.

On Sunday I wrote a very long and wordy email to my father. I had to do it because he had sent several emails my way and their coldness frightened me. I did not want my immaturity to be the cause of family tension. I wrote another long email like this at another crisis point in the past and it garnered the same criticism as the most recent one: as Chekhov wrote, "Conciseness is the sister of talent." My mother quoted that line to me over the phone. I hadn't intended for her to read it.

Later on my grandmother called to say she was glad I had written it. My effort felt cheapened when she called. She means well but the way she makes suggestions sometimes makes me laugh. For example, she frequently offers advice regarding my band. Obviously she doesn't like the music, but her way of expressing this is to recommend that we try playing some old songs that everyone recognizes, or to change our style. She projects her own distaste for our music onto everyone who might ever listen to it.

I have been nostalgic lately for the green herb. It has not always been that way: I have sworn it off several times. Of course, it usually gets replaced by something, like a certain white powder or little yellow pills or capsules filled with bitter orange pellets. After a while with these more colorful friends, I start to miss the simplicity of that original high, the one that spares me the intrusions of disastrously low moods and embarrassing social encounters.

Everything I am studying right now is set to become irrelevant in about 3 months: a ticking time-bomb. Then I say goodbye to academia forever. Some of my class experiences make me suspect that I'll still have questions after I leave here, so I've started considering which professors might be willing to entertain the occasional theoretically-oriented question from that boy who made clear his choice of matter over mind.

A Long, Hard Weekend

Thursday: Drinking with roommate and his girlfriend and then a trip up north to the Czech Republic for the night.

Friday: Psilocybin mushrooms at 7:18 pm. One of the worst six-hour segments of my life. I'm OK now, but for about 24 hours I was reconstructing my brain and slowly recovering from a pervasive emotional vulnerability. I had already had one good experience exploring the psycholandscapes, but I think I know what went wrong this time. It wasn't the visuals that bothered me or any of the strange physical sensations in particular. It was the fact that I and the people I was with were spending time--in as much as I could remember what that meant--in an utterly meaningless way, and all of the objects around me suffered from the same lack of purpose. What is this lighter in my pocket for? For lighting cigarettes, of course, but what is it really for? If at any time I was not moving my body I became aware of a sensation that my limbs belonged to somebody else. Rather, I could still move them if wanted to, but when I did, it seemed like someone or something else had been the agent. When I closed my eyes and put my hands on my face, I felt like I was seeing the vivid closed-eye visuals through my skull, like an X-ray. Whose hands are these? They're yours, my trip-buddies kept saying. They wouldn't acknowledge the problem. I couldn't understand how they were still able to use language in complicated ways, i.e. puns, plays on words, joking in general. There was plenty of laughing, but it terrified me because it was always about the same damn thing: "...the Huxtables, Bill Cosby, how they have a show because they are funny, because it is a joke, or because it is funny...people in New York...Simon and Garfunkel who sing 'couched in your indifference' while we are always falling off the couch...questions questions everywhere, but not a drop to drink...why would we drink it anyway?!" They played loud music and talked all the time and could have done without me.

Saturday: Lunch with my roommate Anna, still feeling very vulnerable. Met up with my other roommate Marcel and got on the bus for downtown with the aim of buying a suit at H&M. On the bus we met Carmel (an anagram of Marcel) with whom I had the loveliest conversation considering my mental and emotional state. He seemed completely straightforward to me, and that was a great source of comfort. Bought the suit - $250 for jacket and pants, more than I've ever spent on an item of clothing, but damn I looked good. Back at the apartment neighbor Dan offers to smoke while Bird Party practices in my living room. By the time Dan and I are done they sound to me like they've got a real tight groove. JR calls me back and in my excited state I decide it's a good night to go skiing. I meet him at 9 and on the way back from the ATM I mention how the snow wasn't so good last time. This leads to an explanation of Mexican drug-war politics to me, which segues into a story about how his car got dented: some guys ran off with the stuff and the money at a big trade-off and he had to ram their car to stop them. "Did you manage to stop them?" "Oh yeah, we got them for sure!" "So what happened to them?" "Well...you know...our guys took care of them." "Oh." I have never been so sorry I asked.

Around 10pm guests started arriving for Julia's going away party/concert. All the instruments were set up by 10:15. The drummer came. DN called at 10:30 to say that the Super Furry Animals were only going on at 11:00, but they ended up going on at 11:15, so he got to the party at 1:30am. By that time I had skied through an entire half-bag with some help from my friends, so it was a pretty high energy set, me clenching my teeth all along and licking my lips constantly. In bed at 4:30am, just after sending an eager text message to the Czech Republic.

Sunday: Sleepless, cock-eyed with hangover, I stumbled to Valois cafeteria and ate with two former Argonauts. The band got together and left my apartment for the recording studio at 1:30, an hour and a half later than I had hoped. Oh well. We put down a good take of the Instrumental song, with DN summoning the bass gods for a sick-nasty solo towards the end that took a few takes. In the last minutes DN started laying down trumpet harmonies and we could barely stop if not for the 6pm limit set by the guy who owns the studio. While packing up it finally hit me that I had a ton of work to do, and Dad had been calling all afternoon telling me to call this person and that person and to post my resume here and my cover letter there and that I have to do it quick or else I'll regret it. I'm graduating this year now, you see?

I'm falling apart when the Czech picks us all up and drives my band mates to the Damen stop on the Blue line. As we're pulling away she says, "I should put a sticker on my car that says 'Soccer Mom.'" I want to laugh but it's not actually funny for her. We get to her place and I'm already in her arms when Mom calls to say she told Dad to lay off me. I try to tell her why the hell I'm falling apart like this. I tell her about the mushrooms but not about the snow. I tell her about graduation and jobs and an overdose of Nietzsche and misogyny on the home front. We make love and I manage to forget about most of it. She makes me some food but seems really uncomfortable doing it, not because . We lie down in bed to do some work and I realize I'm coming down with a cold. She makes me tea, juice, and dayquil. "Thanks for taking care of me," I say. "Just like your mother would," she says, or something like it, and looks at me with a look I can't quite read.

She does some grading, I do some writing on her laptop, and then I open a porn website I usually visit because she said she wanted to know what it was all about. They didn't have free , easily accessible porn when she was growing up, after all. The videos take forever to load on her laptop but we watch a few and she checks to see which ones are the most effective. After a while she closes the laptop and leans over to kiss me. I jump on her and pull her clothes off and then we do it a way I've done it with others without feeling strange, but this feels strange. It's over in about five minutes and she's lying on her side with her back to me. "There was something strange about that. Was that strange?" "It was ugly." "Yes, it was. I felt like somebody else." "You were somebody else; I think that's why I turned around." I don't ever want to do that or be that again, and I don't think I'll ever visit that website again.

She was timid, maybe a bit sullen in the morning when she made me breakfast. She still asked for kisses every few minutes. We drove to campus almost in silence. I was reading Double Indemnity by James M. Cain and I hit the ending as we approached the familiar gothic spires: a weird, morbid double suicide. I left a Spanish essay on her bed. I hope she doesn't mind bringing it with her tomorrow.

Reversal

Not too long ago I was complaining of being lonely. I still am, emotionally, I think.

Not too long ago I also mentioned a certain Spanish teacher from last quarter. I sent her an email early Friday afternoon asking her if she had weekend plans. It was worth a shot, I felt, and I had enjoyed hanging out with her in the past even if nothing physical had come of it.

She picked me up on her way out of Hyde Park and we drove through the city engrossed in what was basically small-talk. I felt nervous and I think she probably was, too. We stopped at Dominick's to get wine and then set about making dinner when we arrived at her place.

It's a one-bedroom, second-floor apartment northwest of downtown. The interior is cozy--lots of wooden trim and worn leather furniture. The walls are decked out in various bits and pieces she's picked up in ten years of habitation there: the huge, psychedelically inspired woodcut that her ex made when he was just starting out as an artist--it takes up a whole wall; the square clock on the windowsill illuminated by a magenta faux-neon border; newspaper clippings by the kitchen area; at least one candle on every flat surface; a bull mask, most likely from Spain; a shelf full of books she used for her B.A. and Master's degrees; a stuffed raccoon on her bed, pink sheets and blanket, down pillows with the feathers poking out in a few places.

Chicken, oil, garlic, and peppers on the pan, wine down our gullets. Cooking was a good diversion for both of us, though I wanted to be doing something with my hands. Instead I sat across the marble divider from her with a glass of red trying to be casual. Neither of us had eaten much during the day so the effects of the wine were strong and quick. I can't remember what we were discussing--she mentioned having slept with her students before. Things were moving a little more quickly than I had expected, and I didn't know how to direct the action.

Her friend Veronika came by to eat with us, a Czech blonde also in her late thirties with enough spunk to flip a car. Sensing the atmosphere she had walked into (she offered to leave soon after entering), she was reluctant to say anything about herself, claiming it wasn't important. But I needed her to ease things up and was glad when she engaged the host more directly.

Within an hour everyone got a little more drunk and a little more comfortable. I had checked the hour a few times; it felt good to know it was possible to start one's night at 8 rather than 11. Veronika left at some point. By 11:30 I think we had our clothes off. She was really nervous, more nervous than anyone I had ever seen. She wouldn't let me look at her at first. She said it was a look, and I knew exactly what kind. I told her since I didn't have a mirror I couldn't know what kind of look it was.

She couldn't get over the age difference. I kept trying to explain that I wouldn't have sent her an email that day if it had mattered to me. I guess it was just a matter of time until she got comfortable; all I did was stick to my story.

When that time came, she underwent a transformation. I became a treatment for her, a remedy, an analogous vitamin, trip to the gym, or daily glass of wine (as recommended by Oprah, whose show was just incidentally playing on the TV one day while she was doing work). You can't really take a vitamin five times in a night, though. She said it many times: I was what she needed so badly but didn't quite realize it, and she wanted it to be a regular thing. I couldn't touch her anywhere without her losing her mind completely. On the drive back to Hyde Park almost 24 hours later, she couldn't focus on the road and kept gripping my hand when she wasn't changing gears.

She wants me to come this weekend. Am I going? Probably.

New Diet

Caffeine, Nicotine, Food, Water, Air, Hallucinogens.

This actually turned into Caffeine, Nicotine, Cocaine, Water, Air, and Fatigue.

Power

Often I find myself pursuing relationships with people in which there is a implied power dynamic. I'm talking specifically about people who can effect my transcript. Last quarter it was a Spanish teacher with whom I flirted ceaselessly. This quarter it's a Bulgarian TA with whom I've made plans to go clubbing as soon as I turn 21 (it's different, he's male). I don't know if I do it because I happen to get along with those people or because I'm preparing for a situation in which I might have to take advantage of that relationship. On the bright side, I'm encouraged to act in such a way that would prevent me from having to do that, but it's always a possibility.

Out of the Funk

I'm glad to say I'm out of whatever strange mood had held me captive for almost six days. My faith in my ability to rapidly recuperate from emotional oscillations has been restored. I saw a very strange side of me, of my interactions with people, of the course of my life, of my surroundings...but I don't really regret having to feel so down for the duration of that peep-show.

Today was the first meeting of Work in Progress, a writer's workshop started by a friend in my class in college. It spawned, as I see it, in part out of previous negative experiences with workshops and in part out of a desire to be able to write and talk about writing in a more comfortable, less formal setting than the classroom. It felt really good to be at the meeting, despite being the only male (this doesn't surprise me anymore), because the people present had had similar experiences with writing that I had had, and none of them seemed to embody the traits I often despise in people who are disciplined enough to write on their own. That self-assuredness, that coyness, that smug self-deprecation, I mean. These people seemed eager, like me, to make a sort of fresh start. I'm really glad I joined.

We even got our first prompt! Here it is: "She was on her third cigarette, but it wasn't helping." It seemed pretty straightforward at first, and I anticipated the challenge of writing from the feminine perspective. My roommate, however, brought to my attention two ways in which this prompt gets complicated: 1) Though the character in question is female, by no means does this have to be from her perspective or that of any other woman. 2) The given sentence does not have to be the first sentence of whatever we write. I actually convinced my roommate, sort of a paragon of the strong, silent type most of the time, to join this workshop, and the last thing I saw him do before going to bed tonight was to copy down the prompt on a piece of paper...I'm so excited!

Tomorrow I attend a job fair, a source of considerable stress for me because I will be approaching a number of consulting firms despite the fact that I lack active interest or qualification for consulting. The quest to secure myself financially has really put my "ideals" into perspective. It seems to matter less and less what I do to make money. Besides, I like money, and I like it a lot. It makes me feel good to have it and to spend it, either on myself or for other people. Finally, I've been able to adapt to unusual or unpleasant situations before, so why is this any different? If any of you can come up with a convincing argument as to why this is all bullshit, let's hear it. Keep in mind that one of the main reasons I'm going down this path is because I haven't figured out what I want, and I mean that in the deepest, most far-reaching sense possible.

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Six hours at a time, he could manage. Larger morsels required an extended period of chewing, during which the full scope and complexity of a given taste would come to bear. Within six hours, though, he knew, he would not lose control.