Telegram from DC #1
My laptop has given its last gasp (again), so I'm down to borrowing Vanessa's kindly lent computer or my machine at work, which means that until I'm up and running again -- god knows when in the dark future that will be -- blog updates will be few and far between. Still, at the risk of being uninteresting, I wanted to transcribe the notes I took while in DC. The MLA was kind of amazing. I met a ton of our recently published authors, almost all of whom I liked and who seemed to like me. Maybe it was because I suddenly became the perfect saleswoman and smiled like my teeth were going out of style. I also saw a bunch of Columbia professors - my cuddly Austen professor, who lamented the posturing and costuming of the whole enterprise - some of whom I hadn't even spoken to on former occasions, but who seemed delighted when I introduced myself as a former undergrad. Nothing like college affiliations to bring out the parental instincts of a university professor -- to be honest, they seem so much more friendly and sincere when they know that you're not trying to get anything out of them, not trying to win favor and to sneak into their precious seminar lists.
The grad student enclave, however, was a whole other story. Seeing herds of young, fragile-looking academic types, with sallow faces and ill-fitting first suits, made me a bit nauseous. The whole thing is so staged for disaster. I mean, all these professors were talking to one another about the interviews they held for 'one' position, commenting on how their individual prodigies were faring at other universities, and generally decrying the job market. It's a pretty dreary thing; the kind of event that leaves battle scars trailing in its wake. I guess it was much easier to be on my end of the affair, selling books and talking about ideas and prospective submissions with eager new PhDs or ambitious young professors. Academics, with their blazers, unnecessarily obscure jargon, and generally weak social instincts, are still one of my preferred crowds. It's just weird to see the business of trading ideas and theories (though theory is dead, apparently) as a genuine business, one that grows more and more corporate in its rituals and protocol.
I went to two very cool panels - one on the idea of 'celebrity' as appropriated into a literary context, and one on the fate of New Americanism in the post-9/11 era. The latter was really intense, with DP and JA, two of the movement's 1983/1985 originators likening the historical backdrop of New Americanism's birth to our present cultural climate. They got very passionate about the whole thing, but the younger speaker on the panel - an assistant professor or PhD, presumably - was easily the most eloquent and rational. He abandoned ornate language and irrelevant terms, all those -isms and -ists that I found so annoying. I mean, honestly, I'm not the most learned person out there, but if you can't get me to understand the main point of your argument, who on earth can? The 50 specialists in your field? There's no better way to project intellectuals as being an isolated and snooty bunch than to encrypt simple ideas in grandiose terms. After all, why have a 10-minute speech when you can deliver an endless and obscure dissertation on cake decorating...
Anyway, the panel was really exciting, especially when a member of the audience took a speaker to task, dismissing New Americanism as an "imported" phenomenon, whereupon the speaker went red in the face and shrieked, "imported? what do you mean by that? are you a nativist?" It was better than watching Richard III. What fantastic entertainment.
Overall, I really enjoyed the whole thing, exhausting though it was. Plus it was great to stay in a hotel room, with a big, cozy bed and a private bathroom. I know there are all those disenchanting shots of people looking lost and lonely in sparse hotel rooms, but what's to bemoan about a well-made bed, good lighting, room service, and a functioning bathroom geared for your pleasure? I love my house in Princeton, but I'm always cold there, have a narrow bed with my old college comforter, the floorboards creak when anyone moves, and our shower is essentially a bathtub with three shower curtains draped around it. It's not quite luxury.
So all in all, MLA was a really great experience: eye-opening, exciting, funny, and demanding. Having people so delighted with our book display, asking questions about our upcoming list, and authors bringing their friends over to squeal over how 'well-designed the book on marxist revolutions in poetry' was, made me really happy. I guess I'm willing to forgive a great deal when it comes to peddling books and thoughts around; I think that both the people and the texts are rather a neat bunch.
12.31.2005
12.17.2005
Strike Out
Contrary to the social ease and savoir-faire that I daily project (of which you, beloved reader, are well aware), I made another ungraceful blunder this past week. It all began very innocently, when on Thursday evening, Christoph had some of his friends over for a drum session.
Now I’m not overly fond of all of the people who have at some point or another made an appearance in our house. Try as I may (and I don’t try too hard), I’m not particularly impressed by the undergrads at Princeton. I’ve met too many self-indulgent people who assume that they're really alternative, when in fact they’re really a bunch of preppy white boys who think Bob Marley was the dude. I’m not disputing that Bob Marley was the dude. I’m just saying that I went to high school with these kids, many of whom are genuinely kind and nice people, but who also make the mistake of assuming a status that distinguishes them from the rest of the anorexic, polo-wearing population. Even if you put up an African mask in your room or rock out on the bongos, it doesn’t mean that your values reflect a genuinely counter-culture worldview.
Ok, all of that came out of nowhere. Anyway, Christoph had his friends over, and we had a jolly nice evening. Vanessa and I drained a bottle of wine, Christoph and Samir were playing the drums and tambourine, and we were very happily chatting. Then Mike and Chuck joined us and things livened up even more, especially as we continued to drink glass after glass. People were quietly tapping at the drums, someone was strumming a guitar, and I, of course, began to talk about poetry. Soon we got into this interesting conversation about the Victorian poets, and Joyce & Hemingway, etc. I had been reading some stuff earlier in the evening, and Vanessa, acting out on what I secretly envisioned, grabbed my enormous book out of the kitchen and cudgeled Christoph into reading – Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Soon we had collected a stack of poetry, and each one of us read something while someone played an instrument in accompaniment. It was quite wonderful at points – though I’m very sensitive to hearing pieces that I love read aloud by others. Sometimes you’ve made something – especially poetry, in my case – so much a part of yourself that hearing someone else re-appropriate it in their own voice feels like a violent blow. But I got over it. Amongst all of this, we were smoking a small amount of herb and getting both high and tipsy.
At 2:40, Vanessa decided it was time to go to bed, and that’s when the dynamic shifted. I was nervous then, as the only woman around, but I love people and new situations and am generally curious to see what will happen, so I figured I’d stay a little while. Suddenly, I found that one of the other guys had supplanted Vanessa on the couch next to me, and was generally sprawling all over the place. While this was fine, it did strike me that for a well-endowed couch, we were rather closely bonding in the physical sense. But I didn’t think anything of it, until we suddenly reached a point wherein this kid pointedly cut off my laudatory comments on his girlfriend’s singing talents by declaring her the “EX-girlfriend.” I was rather shocked at the very meaningful way in which he said this (though he was stoned, perhaps everything becomes more declarative when you’re stoned?), and I mumbled something about how I was sorry for always putting my foot in my mouth, blah blah, whereupon he very sweetly said, “no, not at all,” and patted my thigh. Now I’m all about hugging and patting and touching people’s shoulders when I’m comfortable, but there was something more charged in his gesture than I liked. I guess the thing is that as with Blaine, when I assume that people are in serious relationships or incapable of being interested in me, I’m pretty open and affectionate with them. Maybe too open. But I do get nervous when I feel a lack of private space and my skittish tendencies start to kick in.
So for the next 30 minutes, I found myself edging ever-so-gradually toward the end of the couch, wondering why on earth boys think that breaking a musical phrase down to its structure and tonal arrangement could be remotely gripping, and plotting my final escape. In my defense, it was going on 4, and none of the rest had to be up by 7:30 for work. I just didn’t see fit to prolong the evening any further, so I rose from my seat, skipped across the room, thanked everyone for a great evening, and sort of bolted upstairs. Now in my mind, I thought I made a modest and unassuming exit. But the next morning, Christoph criticized my propensity to do these things, citing that I mentioned my “boyfriend” as I exited, as if to bury any potential brewing in that room in the deep, dark ground.
!!!! I guess the question on my mind is, “what the fuck boyfriend is this?” I don’t think I said anything of the sort. But, as I was told, the problem is these mixed signals I seem to issue. I mean, I love intellectual (fore)play – it’s what drives me to get into conversation with people in the first place, with both men and women. But as Christoph noted, not everyone starts reading love poetry in French, or reciting lines like “Body of my woman, I will persist in your ache,” out of the blue. I don’t do these things in order to win any favor. It’s just what I think, and the pleasure is in sharing a moment with other people who get it too. It's not a come-on.
I don’t really know what do about it. Intellectually, I’m all about the mutual stimulation. Emotionally and physically, I need a solid foundation of trust and comfort. Sure, I say this after letting that guy – Aubain? – kiss me all along my body, in public, while I laughed. But the point is that it just wasn’t the right space for any kind of physical intimacy. In a different context, had there been another woman in the room, or had we not had everyone's focus on us, I would definitely have been less stiff. I would have probably slouched into the couch and deliberately perpetuated the mood, just wanting to see where it would lead. Because attraction itself – as a palpable phenomenon – is incredibly enticing.
I sound like a fool – but it’s hard to hit a balance between enjoying attraction and wanting it to stay at a safe level. I hate myself for being skittish, but I also want to laugh when I hear things like, “men always have an agenda.” Do they think we don’t? Because to put it mildly, most women I know aren’t at all the demure kind. I almost “always” have an agenda, and you’d better believe I’ll toy with the idea of executing it. I don't love those gendered constructions people throw around. Why would you conclude that identity isn't an amazing and fluid thing, that women can't be brutal and men can't be gentle? Aren't we all a bit of both?
Contrary to the social ease and savoir-faire that I daily project (of which you, beloved reader, are well aware), I made another ungraceful blunder this past week. It all began very innocently, when on Thursday evening, Christoph had some of his friends over for a drum session.
Now I’m not overly fond of all of the people who have at some point or another made an appearance in our house. Try as I may (and I don’t try too hard), I’m not particularly impressed by the undergrads at Princeton. I’ve met too many self-indulgent people who assume that they're really alternative, when in fact they’re really a bunch of preppy white boys who think Bob Marley was the dude. I’m not disputing that Bob Marley was the dude. I’m just saying that I went to high school with these kids, many of whom are genuinely kind and nice people, but who also make the mistake of assuming a status that distinguishes them from the rest of the anorexic, polo-wearing population. Even if you put up an African mask in your room or rock out on the bongos, it doesn’t mean that your values reflect a genuinely counter-culture worldview.
Ok, all of that came out of nowhere. Anyway, Christoph had his friends over, and we had a jolly nice evening. Vanessa and I drained a bottle of wine, Christoph and Samir were playing the drums and tambourine, and we were very happily chatting. Then Mike and Chuck joined us and things livened up even more, especially as we continued to drink glass after glass. People were quietly tapping at the drums, someone was strumming a guitar, and I, of course, began to talk about poetry. Soon we got into this interesting conversation about the Victorian poets, and Joyce & Hemingway, etc. I had been reading some stuff earlier in the evening, and Vanessa, acting out on what I secretly envisioned, grabbed my enormous book out of the kitchen and cudgeled Christoph into reading – Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Soon we had collected a stack of poetry, and each one of us read something while someone played an instrument in accompaniment. It was quite wonderful at points – though I’m very sensitive to hearing pieces that I love read aloud by others. Sometimes you’ve made something – especially poetry, in my case – so much a part of yourself that hearing someone else re-appropriate it in their own voice feels like a violent blow. But I got over it. Amongst all of this, we were smoking a small amount of herb and getting both high and tipsy.
At 2:40, Vanessa decided it was time to go to bed, and that’s when the dynamic shifted. I was nervous then, as the only woman around, but I love people and new situations and am generally curious to see what will happen, so I figured I’d stay a little while. Suddenly, I found that one of the other guys had supplanted Vanessa on the couch next to me, and was generally sprawling all over the place. While this was fine, it did strike me that for a well-endowed couch, we were rather closely bonding in the physical sense. But I didn’t think anything of it, until we suddenly reached a point wherein this kid pointedly cut off my laudatory comments on his girlfriend’s singing talents by declaring her the “EX-girlfriend.” I was rather shocked at the very meaningful way in which he said this (though he was stoned, perhaps everything becomes more declarative when you’re stoned?), and I mumbled something about how I was sorry for always putting my foot in my mouth, blah blah, whereupon he very sweetly said, “no, not at all,” and patted my thigh. Now I’m all about hugging and patting and touching people’s shoulders when I’m comfortable, but there was something more charged in his gesture than I liked. I guess the thing is that as with Blaine, when I assume that people are in serious relationships or incapable of being interested in me, I’m pretty open and affectionate with them. Maybe too open. But I do get nervous when I feel a lack of private space and my skittish tendencies start to kick in.
So for the next 30 minutes, I found myself edging ever-so-gradually toward the end of the couch, wondering why on earth boys think that breaking a musical phrase down to its structure and tonal arrangement could be remotely gripping, and plotting my final escape. In my defense, it was going on 4, and none of the rest had to be up by 7:30 for work. I just didn’t see fit to prolong the evening any further, so I rose from my seat, skipped across the room, thanked everyone for a great evening, and sort of bolted upstairs. Now in my mind, I thought I made a modest and unassuming exit. But the next morning, Christoph criticized my propensity to do these things, citing that I mentioned my “boyfriend” as I exited, as if to bury any potential brewing in that room in the deep, dark ground.
!!!! I guess the question on my mind is, “what the fuck boyfriend is this?” I don’t think I said anything of the sort. But, as I was told, the problem is these mixed signals I seem to issue. I mean, I love intellectual (fore)play – it’s what drives me to get into conversation with people in the first place, with both men and women. But as Christoph noted, not everyone starts reading love poetry in French, or reciting lines like “Body of my woman, I will persist in your ache,” out of the blue. I don’t do these things in order to win any favor. It’s just what I think, and the pleasure is in sharing a moment with other people who get it too. It's not a come-on.
I don’t really know what do about it. Intellectually, I’m all about the mutual stimulation. Emotionally and physically, I need a solid foundation of trust and comfort. Sure, I say this after letting that guy – Aubain? – kiss me all along my body, in public, while I laughed. But the point is that it just wasn’t the right space for any kind of physical intimacy. In a different context, had there been another woman in the room, or had we not had everyone's focus on us, I would definitely have been less stiff. I would have probably slouched into the couch and deliberately perpetuated the mood, just wanting to see where it would lead. Because attraction itself – as a palpable phenomenon – is incredibly enticing.
I sound like a fool – but it’s hard to hit a balance between enjoying attraction and wanting it to stay at a safe level. I hate myself for being skittish, but I also want to laugh when I hear things like, “men always have an agenda.” Do they think we don’t? Because to put it mildly, most women I know aren’t at all the demure kind. I almost “always” have an agenda, and you’d better believe I’ll toy with the idea of executing it. I don't love those gendered constructions people throw around. Why would you conclude that identity isn't an amazing and fluid thing, that women can't be brutal and men can't be gentle? Aren't we all a bit of both?
12.13.2005
The Nutella Monologues
So many things are spinning through my head right now: Christmas cards, weekend parties (so many! I guess my ratings are going up!), talking to Steph on Sunday, getting tipsy on sidecars with Abby, the Christmas pornography special, eating a vat of ice-cream after waiting 4 hours for a meal, being a dork with Christoph at the yoga marketplace, baking key lime pie in winter (so seasonal! so apt!), Brokeback Mountain (brutish and beautiful, I cried during the sex scene; there was something so urgent about it), etc. I have a feeling everything's going to implode tomorrow, but right now I feel weirdly giggly. I think the Nutella has gone to my head. Can you OD on hazelnuts?
Oh, and there was that moment when my friend gave me his address in San Marino, and I shrieked, "dolphins, right? there are dolphins?" and he said, "Dan Marino??"
Or today when I referenced Ebonics (actually meaning "phonics") in a very serious conversation about disabled children. Yup, class all the way...
So many things are spinning through my head right now: Christmas cards, weekend parties (so many! I guess my ratings are going up!), talking to Steph on Sunday, getting tipsy on sidecars with Abby, the Christmas pornography special, eating a vat of ice-cream after waiting 4 hours for a meal, being a dork with Christoph at the yoga marketplace, baking key lime pie in winter (so seasonal! so apt!), Brokeback Mountain (brutish and beautiful, I cried during the sex scene; there was something so urgent about it), etc. I have a feeling everything's going to implode tomorrow, but right now I feel weirdly giggly. I think the Nutella has gone to my head. Can you OD on hazelnuts?
Oh, and there was that moment when my friend gave me his address in San Marino, and I shrieked, "dolphins, right? there are dolphins?" and he said, "Dan Marino??"
Or today when I referenced Ebonics (actually meaning "phonics") in a very serious conversation about disabled children. Yup, class all the way...
Avatar
"In Hindu mythology, Aditi was the goddess of the boundless sky; the original, ultimate mother. Her name means "free from bonds", "the unfettered" or "limitless", and the Vedas hint that she was once all-encompassing. She undoubtedly pre-dates them, and was once the goddess of the past and the future, the seven dimensions of the cosmos, the celestial light which permeates all things, and the consciousness of all living things."
At last a description worthy of me...
"In Hindu mythology, Aditi was the goddess of the boundless sky; the original, ultimate mother. Her name means "free from bonds", "the unfettered" or "limitless", and the Vedas hint that she was once all-encompassing. She undoubtedly pre-dates them, and was once the goddess of the past and the future, the seven dimensions of the cosmos, the celestial light which permeates all things, and the consciousness of all living things."
At last a description worthy of me...
12.10.2005
Freshman Year
Earlier this week I told a colleague from work that the winter landscape was exacerbating my melancholia. The upshot of this was that he laughed his head off and I went back to photocopying my manuscript in silence. I realize that these statements are sort of on par with those high-drama moments that characterize the first (and, let’s face it, second, third and fourth) seasons of Felicity that I religiously watched in high school. But like Felicity, I meant it with ringing sincerity.
Working for the three editors I currently assist just hasn’t been going well for the past month. I’ve been riding through incredible shifts of emotion, panicking about small crises and having continual breakdowns in private at work and at home. One of the worst parts about this is that despite being a very vocal person, I tend to shut down on the communication lines if I’m really really upset and feeling challenged. The difficulties at work began to creep into every nook and cranny of my life, prompting me to consider the merits and weaknesses of my character and behavior. I began to complain in fits and starts, projecting the idea that I couldn’t stand work, when really, I do – I enjoy what I do, but I’m not doing the job for which I was hired. I guess one of the problems is that I’m so new to the professional world. I never feel quite certain of what my rights are, and I suspend my feelings too easily on things that aren’t even emotional to begin with.
Anyway, lately I haven’t felt much like talking to people who aren’t involved in my life. It always came out as a failed attempt – a long rant or, worse yet, a lament that provoked no response from the listener. And there’s nothing worse than indifference or dismissal from people you’re turning to. Because it’s actually rather serious since my work is the only reason I’m even here in the first place. I can’t think of my life without my job because that would entail me living with my parents, and I just cease to exist as a person in that context. Yesterday I realized, in a breakthrough fashion, that I was transferring all my frustration and unhappiness about work into more personal channels, perceiving relationships as being more troubled than they are.
The point of writing all this is really for myself. I think I’ve been trying too hard to phrase things in a way that courts other people’s attention, or letting myself down in an attempt to meet their needs. I’m giving up on that. I don’t know what’s going to happen at work. Next week I have a meeting with a few supervisors to discuss what we can do going forward. It’s the best news I’ve had in a long while at work. Because at least it means that they too realize that I’m horribly overstretched right now, that it’s not just me being incompetent or inefficient. There’s nothing worse than feeling that you’re ill-suited to the most basic of jobs; that you, by your very nature and mental framework, are incapable of succeeding.
Christoph and I had a good talk about it on Thursday. He has defined my attitude as one of ‘rational cynicism.’ Sometimes it’s good to have an optimist with you at dinner every night; it helps to put the day into perspective. Periodically I feel like a freshman again. Things are just so new, so bizarre; the smallest decisions seem so charged. Is there a freshman year to the rest of your life? Sometimes I feel like this is it; that I almost never existed as an independent being before I moved to Princeton. It’s funny to realize that whenever you change your location, you can bear all your history around with you, but it’s really only in small flashes that it remains relevant. I wonder whether the Princeton chapter has the same substance as my 1st year at Columbia, whether it will share that compound of being at once unremarkable but vital. I guess that's why I started this blog in the first place. Because I don't think your formative years - formative moments, really - should go unnoticed or inarticulated.
Earlier this week I told a colleague from work that the winter landscape was exacerbating my melancholia. The upshot of this was that he laughed his head off and I went back to photocopying my manuscript in silence. I realize that these statements are sort of on par with those high-drama moments that characterize the first (and, let’s face it, second, third and fourth) seasons of Felicity that I religiously watched in high school. But like Felicity, I meant it with ringing sincerity.
Working for the three editors I currently assist just hasn’t been going well for the past month. I’ve been riding through incredible shifts of emotion, panicking about small crises and having continual breakdowns in private at work and at home. One of the worst parts about this is that despite being a very vocal person, I tend to shut down on the communication lines if I’m really really upset and feeling challenged. The difficulties at work began to creep into every nook and cranny of my life, prompting me to consider the merits and weaknesses of my character and behavior. I began to complain in fits and starts, projecting the idea that I couldn’t stand work, when really, I do – I enjoy what I do, but I’m not doing the job for which I was hired. I guess one of the problems is that I’m so new to the professional world. I never feel quite certain of what my rights are, and I suspend my feelings too easily on things that aren’t even emotional to begin with.
Anyway, lately I haven’t felt much like talking to people who aren’t involved in my life. It always came out as a failed attempt – a long rant or, worse yet, a lament that provoked no response from the listener. And there’s nothing worse than indifference or dismissal from people you’re turning to. Because it’s actually rather serious since my work is the only reason I’m even here in the first place. I can’t think of my life without my job because that would entail me living with my parents, and I just cease to exist as a person in that context. Yesterday I realized, in a breakthrough fashion, that I was transferring all my frustration and unhappiness about work into more personal channels, perceiving relationships as being more troubled than they are.
The point of writing all this is really for myself. I think I’ve been trying too hard to phrase things in a way that courts other people’s attention, or letting myself down in an attempt to meet their needs. I’m giving up on that. I don’t know what’s going to happen at work. Next week I have a meeting with a few supervisors to discuss what we can do going forward. It’s the best news I’ve had in a long while at work. Because at least it means that they too realize that I’m horribly overstretched right now, that it’s not just me being incompetent or inefficient. There’s nothing worse than feeling that you’re ill-suited to the most basic of jobs; that you, by your very nature and mental framework, are incapable of succeeding.
Christoph and I had a good talk about it on Thursday. He has defined my attitude as one of ‘rational cynicism.’ Sometimes it’s good to have an optimist with you at dinner every night; it helps to put the day into perspective. Periodically I feel like a freshman again. Things are just so new, so bizarre; the smallest decisions seem so charged. Is there a freshman year to the rest of your life? Sometimes I feel like this is it; that I almost never existed as an independent being before I moved to Princeton. It’s funny to realize that whenever you change your location, you can bear all your history around with you, but it’s really only in small flashes that it remains relevant. I wonder whether the Princeton chapter has the same substance as my 1st year at Columbia, whether it will share that compound of being at once unremarkable but vital. I guess that's why I started this blog in the first place. Because I don't think your formative years - formative moments, really - should go unnoticed or inarticulated.
12.03.2005
5AM postscript
I shouldn't be up right now, but I am. I somehow made it over to meet Heath and Clara last night and stumbled back not too long after. I feel tremendously dull for being so tired on a Friday night, not to mention so easily wiped out by 2 glasses of wine. 2 glasses! But those days of a comfortable wine haze are long gone, my friend. It feels like winter, no getting past it. As Karin & Lina said, the winter of our discontent is here.
Tonight I'm going to the opera to see "La Boheme" with Karin. I'm pretty excited; I've wanted to see this for a few months now. Afterward, I'm supposed to go to a party at AmCaf. Oh god. I brought my pictures of senior year back with me from home last weekend. It's a bit sad to look at them and see what we were up to...all those appletinis and dirty martinis (yuck) and G&Ts...I miss it.
I shouldn't be up right now, but I am. I somehow made it over to meet Heath and Clara last night and stumbled back not too long after. I feel tremendously dull for being so tired on a Friday night, not to mention so easily wiped out by 2 glasses of wine. 2 glasses! But those days of a comfortable wine haze are long gone, my friend. It feels like winter, no getting past it. As Karin & Lina said, the winter of our discontent is here.
Tonight I'm going to the opera to see "La Boheme" with Karin. I'm pretty excited; I've wanted to see this for a few months now. Afterward, I'm supposed to go to a party at AmCaf. Oh god. I brought my pictures of senior year back with me from home last weekend. It's a bit sad to look at them and see what we were up to...all those appletinis and dirty martinis (yuck) and G&Ts...I miss it.
12.02.2005
A Letter
I've had two large glasses of shiraz and am already a little silly. I half want to cry and half want to laugh off the past few days. I need to stop reading the speech of aristophanes from the Symposium; it's depressing the hell out of me. Christoph is playing bizarre spanish jazz next door.
Cummings says:
the trick of finding what you didn't lose
(existing's tricky:but to live's a gift)
the teachable imposture of always
arriving at the place you left
and Yeats says:
But boys and girls pale from the imagined love
Of solitary beds knew what they were,
That passion could bring character enough.
But I have no answers; nothing to say, really, except that the wine was sweet, that I've had a tough week. And I like Spanish jazz and you, reader.
yours in affection,
Adithi
I've had two large glasses of shiraz and am already a little silly. I half want to cry and half want to laugh off the past few days. I need to stop reading the speech of aristophanes from the Symposium; it's depressing the hell out of me. Christoph is playing bizarre spanish jazz next door.
Cummings says:
the trick of finding what you didn't lose
(existing's tricky:but to live's a gift)
the teachable imposture of always
arriving at the place you left
and Yeats says:
But boys and girls pale from the imagined love
Of solitary beds knew what they were,
That passion could bring character enough.
But I have no answers; nothing to say, really, except that the wine was sweet, that I've had a tough week. And I like Spanish jazz and you, reader.
yours in affection,
Adithi
11.27.2005
The Tofurkey Squawked During the Meal
Thanksgiving was pretty decent this year; it started wonderfully and ended with me being quite pleased to come back to P-town. So all around: a smashing time.
On Wednesday night I bolted from work and caught 6 different trains in 4 hours to make it home by 9:30, whereupon my mother materialized like a ghost in her nightgown, pointed to a fabulous dinner on the table, said goodnight, and retired back to bed. Nuts, the family is nuts.
But I truly felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. When my dad drove my sister and I home from our tiny train station, I saw all the old trees, the postboxes, the wonderful big Connecticut homes lit with candle clusters, and felt very very glad. In a totally unexpected way. I’m usually very opposed to returning to the parental abode, but I genuinely felt like the pines along the driveway, my books (!), and even my rose-patterned bedroom were chorusing a welcome. I sifted through my poetry books, re-read my favorite sections of Possession, and slept like a child. When I woke, I heard my family loudly debating downstairs about everything from estate planning to Turkish carpets and the next election. It was amazing. Snow had quietly fallen the night before, and I regressed into my sixteen-year-old self and surreptitiously ate little shavings of ice on my balcony. The landscape was stratified into layers of fresh snow, mulch, and glorious green pine. I live in Princeton, certainly not the least tree-laden environment, but there’s nothing quite like admiring your own backyard.
Anyway, I can’t stand thanksgiving shopping. After ten hours I had a new coat, shoes, sweaters, and...tragedy...a pair of trousers. My sister muscled me into the store and bought them, so there was no chance to put up a fight. Brawn and cash: an unbeatable combination.
Being home reminded me of how much I loved winter break last year when I was back here, slowly burying myself in Austen studies. Before leaving this morning, I looked through all my books – in my room, my parents’ bedroom, my sister’s bedroom, the basement, etc, and saw all of them collected together like old, brave comrades. Maybe I miss academia and should head back soon. I definitely felt tinges of warmth and nostalgia for all those weird winter days when I drank tea and ate piles of clementines, getting more and more absorbed in my thesis. You can't hibernate in the real world, it would seem.
Thanksgiving was pretty decent this year; it started wonderfully and ended with me being quite pleased to come back to P-town. So all around: a smashing time.
On Wednesday night I bolted from work and caught 6 different trains in 4 hours to make it home by 9:30, whereupon my mother materialized like a ghost in her nightgown, pointed to a fabulous dinner on the table, said goodnight, and retired back to bed. Nuts, the family is nuts.
But I truly felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. When my dad drove my sister and I home from our tiny train station, I saw all the old trees, the postboxes, the wonderful big Connecticut homes lit with candle clusters, and felt very very glad. In a totally unexpected way. I’m usually very opposed to returning to the parental abode, but I genuinely felt like the pines along the driveway, my books (!), and even my rose-patterned bedroom were chorusing a welcome. I sifted through my poetry books, re-read my favorite sections of Possession, and slept like a child. When I woke, I heard my family loudly debating downstairs about everything from estate planning to Turkish carpets and the next election. It was amazing. Snow had quietly fallen the night before, and I regressed into my sixteen-year-old self and surreptitiously ate little shavings of ice on my balcony. The landscape was stratified into layers of fresh snow, mulch, and glorious green pine. I live in Princeton, certainly not the least tree-laden environment, but there’s nothing quite like admiring your own backyard.
Anyway, I can’t stand thanksgiving shopping. After ten hours I had a new coat, shoes, sweaters, and...tragedy...a pair of trousers. My sister muscled me into the store and bought them, so there was no chance to put up a fight. Brawn and cash: an unbeatable combination.
Being home reminded me of how much I loved winter break last year when I was back here, slowly burying myself in Austen studies. Before leaving this morning, I looked through all my books – in my room, my parents’ bedroom, my sister’s bedroom, the basement, etc, and saw all of them collected together like old, brave comrades. Maybe I miss academia and should head back soon. I definitely felt tinges of warmth and nostalgia for all those weird winter days when I drank tea and ate piles of clementines, getting more and more absorbed in my thesis. You can't hibernate in the real world, it would seem.
11.22.2005
Piggy & Me
I’ve been languishing over a guy who’s about as useless as they come. I’ve run the gamut of DABDA, and am back on “anger” – although I think I bypassed “bargaining” the first time round and never quite reached “acceptance.” I’m invariably the queen of having crushes. At certain rare periods in my life, I’m interested in nothing but work and my own routine. I fly solo, enjoy independence (or at least the idea of it) and walk around with my eyes trained on the ground, totally engrossed in my own existence. At other periods, such as the current one, I run through lovesick dreams about one man after another, erecting them on pedestals and attributing sickly love songs to each. The current object of my affection has ruined Belle & Sebastian for me. I sing along to their songs and fantasize about him in the vein of Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. The disappointing reality is the fact that my romantic tactics are on par with a 16-year-old: I obsess, languish, and day-dream instead of taking action and getting over myself.
But rage at being the woman scorn’d has its benefits. As I told Katy, it’s a good thing I haven’t heard from this guy since I’d probably take a punch at him and crack his glasses as they did with Piggy in Lord of the Flies. Katy responded by saying that I often cite the Piggy incident in times of stress and woe, a fact that I hadn’t picked up on. I guess it must be because of all our similarities: Piggy and I are indiscreet, lonely, and brutally victimized by society for our sub-par looks. Years from now when I complete my opus, I’ll entitle it “Remember Piggy,” in the hopes that the ominous thrill of those two words will resonate with a generation of homely men and women whose glasses (real and metaphorical) were broken.
What with cheerful messages from Lina, Steph, and Katy, I decided not to take my usual turn around the cemetery tonight and went instead to the gym. Tomorrow I head back to mater and pater for thanksgiving in CT. It promises to be quite the stay: a visit to Costco, purchasing a winter coat (my current number bares a tantalizing 4 inches of wrist), and driving my beloved car around town. Bonbons and bon-mots to ease the ailing heart; I’ll give thanks for those anytime. :)
I’ve been languishing over a guy who’s about as useless as they come. I’ve run the gamut of DABDA, and am back on “anger” – although I think I bypassed “bargaining” the first time round and never quite reached “acceptance.” I’m invariably the queen of having crushes. At certain rare periods in my life, I’m interested in nothing but work and my own routine. I fly solo, enjoy independence (or at least the idea of it) and walk around with my eyes trained on the ground, totally engrossed in my own existence. At other periods, such as the current one, I run through lovesick dreams about one man after another, erecting them on pedestals and attributing sickly love songs to each. The current object of my affection has ruined Belle & Sebastian for me. I sing along to their songs and fantasize about him in the vein of Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. The disappointing reality is the fact that my romantic tactics are on par with a 16-year-old: I obsess, languish, and day-dream instead of taking action and getting over myself.
But rage at being the woman scorn’d has its benefits. As I told Katy, it’s a good thing I haven’t heard from this guy since I’d probably take a punch at him and crack his glasses as they did with Piggy in Lord of the Flies. Katy responded by saying that I often cite the Piggy incident in times of stress and woe, a fact that I hadn’t picked up on. I guess it must be because of all our similarities: Piggy and I are indiscreet, lonely, and brutally victimized by society for our sub-par looks. Years from now when I complete my opus, I’ll entitle it “Remember Piggy,” in the hopes that the ominous thrill of those two words will resonate with a generation of homely men and women whose glasses (real and metaphorical) were broken.
What with cheerful messages from Lina, Steph, and Katy, I decided not to take my usual turn around the cemetery tonight and went instead to the gym. Tomorrow I head back to mater and pater for thanksgiving in CT. It promises to be quite the stay: a visit to Costco, purchasing a winter coat (my current number bares a tantalizing 4 inches of wrist), and driving my beloved car around town. Bonbons and bon-mots to ease the ailing heart; I’ll give thanks for those anytime. :)
11.18.2005
Janus
Today officially marks six months since I graduated college. I wish I could offer some pearls of wisdom about how grand the trajectory has been from where I began (unemployed, Austen-peddling leper) to where I am (...Jersey...), but let's face facts -- you don't want me as your life template. I didn't set this day up on my calendar or anything. I've been panicking about getting cut off from Columbia's email server, and it broke in upon me that not only does November 18th mark the day I told computer services to kiss my ass, it marks the half-year anniversary of one of the most stressful days of my college career.
I never once looked forward to graduation. I didn't have that great, progressive, "screw all this reading! I'm off to wall street to make sure that the rich get richer" mentality that characterized so many classmates. I preferred moping and reading for 4 years and then whining extensively about how unfair it was that I couldn't continue to mope and read in peace. How I remember the details of May 18th! The stress-induced rash on my face, the weird crease in my blue gown where I had set the iron too high the night before, the sudden nausea and hysteria. Our commencement speaker's less-than-praiseworthy speech ("think big, guys" -- thanks dude, I tried), tawdry comments from the guy in the row behind me, the last visit to Philosophy Hall, holding Chris' hand very very tightly. I was conscious of missing my friends already, though they sat clustered around me en force. Most of all, I was mourning myself -- the passing of my own life which suddenly bloomed into all the loveliness of the past four years.
I want to say something meaningful about how everyone (from Jackie & Vanni to Ben & Ling) and everything (Carmen 7 and the hacky-sack to River 2B and thesis angst) changed me into a better person. But I can't. For now it strikes me that six months isn't long enough to have stopped missing any of it, to stop needing the reassurance that post-college, it's all going to be OK. Because the "all" just keeps looming larger, and I'm still definitely poised here, Janus-like, looking forward -- and looking back.
Today officially marks six months since I graduated college. I wish I could offer some pearls of wisdom about how grand the trajectory has been from where I began (unemployed, Austen-peddling leper) to where I am (...Jersey...), but let's face facts -- you don't want me as your life template. I didn't set this day up on my calendar or anything. I've been panicking about getting cut off from Columbia's email server, and it broke in upon me that not only does November 18th mark the day I told computer services to kiss my ass, it marks the half-year anniversary of one of the most stressful days of my college career.
I never once looked forward to graduation. I didn't have that great, progressive, "screw all this reading! I'm off to wall street to make sure that the rich get richer" mentality that characterized so many classmates. I preferred moping and reading for 4 years and then whining extensively about how unfair it was that I couldn't continue to mope and read in peace. How I remember the details of May 18th! The stress-induced rash on my face, the weird crease in my blue gown where I had set the iron too high the night before, the sudden nausea and hysteria. Our commencement speaker's less-than-praiseworthy speech ("think big, guys" -- thanks dude, I tried), tawdry comments from the guy in the row behind me, the last visit to Philosophy Hall, holding Chris' hand very very tightly. I was conscious of missing my friends already, though they sat clustered around me en force. Most of all, I was mourning myself -- the passing of my own life which suddenly bloomed into all the loveliness of the past four years.
I want to say something meaningful about how everyone (from Jackie & Vanni to Ben & Ling) and everything (Carmen 7 and the hacky-sack to River 2B and thesis angst) changed me into a better person. But I can't. For now it strikes me that six months isn't long enough to have stopped missing any of it, to stop needing the reassurance that post-college, it's all going to be OK. Because the "all" just keeps looming larger, and I'm still definitely poised here, Janus-like, looking forward -- and looking back.
11.15.2005
Let Me Hear Your Body Talk
My bones and muscles are aching. Can bones ache? I doubt it, but everything's creaking. Some days I get off the treadmill and my body is in a satisfied and exhausted glow; every bead of sweat, every tiny twinge of pain is a source of triumph. Not so today.
This is my third or fourth week of being a gym rat, and not only has the pain failed to diminish, it's mounting. It's incredibly frustrating to have to pause while running (or very very slowly jogging) because everything hurts too much and you feel like you're on your dying breath. It's also quite humiliating to have this happen while lithe asian men and anorexic women skip at 9 miles an hour next to you. I'm trying, people! Fuck no pain no gain.
Besides all this, the gym is quite the social scene. One of the production editors, whom Clara is busily seducing, comes to do his regular 10 mins on the elliptical and then grunts in a manly way at the weights machine. Shani has started to go too, and even one of the English professors on our editorial board is frequently to be found madly gesticulating at the stair-master. All in all, quite a gathering.
My bones and muscles are aching. Can bones ache? I doubt it, but everything's creaking. Some days I get off the treadmill and my body is in a satisfied and exhausted glow; every bead of sweat, every tiny twinge of pain is a source of triumph. Not so today.
This is my third or fourth week of being a gym rat, and not only has the pain failed to diminish, it's mounting. It's incredibly frustrating to have to pause while running (or very very slowly jogging) because everything hurts too much and you feel like you're on your dying breath. It's also quite humiliating to have this happen while lithe asian men and anorexic women skip at 9 miles an hour next to you. I'm trying, people! Fuck no pain no gain.
Besides all this, the gym is quite the social scene. One of the production editors, whom Clara is busily seducing, comes to do his regular 10 mins on the elliptical and then grunts in a manly way at the weights machine. Shani has started to go too, and even one of the English professors on our editorial board is frequently to be found madly gesticulating at the stair-master. All in all, quite a gathering.
11.13.2005
A Thing that Matters
Last weekend I spoke to Katy on the phone (I heart skype), had an enthralling and disturbing conversation with Mike & Steve about straight men and their internal dialogue, and had Abby come to visit on Sunday. So overall, it was good.
I saw a Persian movie called “The Lizard” with Reza on Wednesday evening. It was actually a neat experience – the movie was a comedy/religious satire about a thief who escapes from prison and goes around town disguised as a Muslim preacher. The main premise, which they ram home repeatedly, is that there are as many paths to God as there are people. An interesting – and succinct – theory. I was wondering how Reza, who was choked on religion during his childhood, and is therefore a practicing atheist, would feel about all this, but he seemed to enjoy the humor and disregarded the morals. An apt way to respond to the world.
I got asked a bunch of times if I too was from Iran (the entire contingent from Princeton turned out for the screening), and for once decided to stick with the truth. It’s too bad really, because I’d love to speak Arabic and I felt a certain air of frigidity when my companions realized that I wasn’t of their tribe. So much for global culture.
On Thursday Karin and I had dinner together in Princeton. She came to learn more about the History of Science dept. here and to inquire into the Ph.D. program. We discussed how engaging we find interdisciplinary work, and why the intersection between the humanities and sciences is actually a very cool field unto itself. I told Ben that the quietest place in the world is the eye of a tornado (apparently this is horrifically wrong), so my scientific knowledge is at an all-time low, but Karin knows what’s what, and I find this comforting. As long as I surround myself by bright and accomplished people, I’ll be about 70% satisfied with myself. And really, who can afford to worry about the remaining percentage?
Vanessa drove me into the city yesterday so that I could hang out with Ben. We pottered around the Angelika and caught a screening of The Squid and the Whale. Let me just say that I love this movie. My favorite character was the little boy Frank who was easily the most screwed up. He kept masturbating, yelling “cock, motherfucker, fuck!, etc” and smearing his semen over various public spaces. Horrifying but hilarious. Or maybe I have a penchant for the perverse.
We then pottered around the city and finally settled on an obscure diner – the silver spurs? – and caught up for a little while. Ben and I seem to have settled into a comfortable dynamic of making one another acutely uncomfortable and pushing each other’s buttons. I don’t really feel up to articulating why this is the case.
Later I had a quick dinner with Ling and took the train home, feeling as I haven’t felt for a while now: tired of the city, tired of sensory overload and crowds, needing self-assurance, disgusted with myself. Ling says it all comes down to being OK with the fact that life can suck sometimes. I’ve never been very good at being alone – forget solitude – and as a result, I tend to make my relationships with other people these forums for self-discovery and self-actualization, when in fact it seems that such epiphanies are supposed to be private experiences. I feel like Clarissa when she learns about Septimus’ death and Woolf writes, “A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved.” I can't top Virginia Woolf, so I'll stop here. Sometimes the words just confuse things even more.
Last weekend I spoke to Katy on the phone (I heart skype), had an enthralling and disturbing conversation with Mike & Steve about straight men and their internal dialogue, and had Abby come to visit on Sunday. So overall, it was good.
I saw a Persian movie called “The Lizard” with Reza on Wednesday evening. It was actually a neat experience – the movie was a comedy/religious satire about a thief who escapes from prison and goes around town disguised as a Muslim preacher. The main premise, which they ram home repeatedly, is that there are as many paths to God as there are people. An interesting – and succinct – theory. I was wondering how Reza, who was choked on religion during his childhood, and is therefore a practicing atheist, would feel about all this, but he seemed to enjoy the humor and disregarded the morals. An apt way to respond to the world.
I got asked a bunch of times if I too was from Iran (the entire contingent from Princeton turned out for the screening), and for once decided to stick with the truth. It’s too bad really, because I’d love to speak Arabic and I felt a certain air of frigidity when my companions realized that I wasn’t of their tribe. So much for global culture.
On Thursday Karin and I had dinner together in Princeton. She came to learn more about the History of Science dept. here and to inquire into the Ph.D. program. We discussed how engaging we find interdisciplinary work, and why the intersection between the humanities and sciences is actually a very cool field unto itself. I told Ben that the quietest place in the world is the eye of a tornado (apparently this is horrifically wrong), so my scientific knowledge is at an all-time low, but Karin knows what’s what, and I find this comforting. As long as I surround myself by bright and accomplished people, I’ll be about 70% satisfied with myself. And really, who can afford to worry about the remaining percentage?
Vanessa drove me into the city yesterday so that I could hang out with Ben. We pottered around the Angelika and caught a screening of The Squid and the Whale. Let me just say that I love this movie. My favorite character was the little boy Frank who was easily the most screwed up. He kept masturbating, yelling “cock, motherfucker, fuck!, etc” and smearing his semen over various public spaces. Horrifying but hilarious. Or maybe I have a penchant for the perverse.
We then pottered around the city and finally settled on an obscure diner – the silver spurs? – and caught up for a little while. Ben and I seem to have settled into a comfortable dynamic of making one another acutely uncomfortable and pushing each other’s buttons. I don’t really feel up to articulating why this is the case.
Later I had a quick dinner with Ling and took the train home, feeling as I haven’t felt for a while now: tired of the city, tired of sensory overload and crowds, needing self-assurance, disgusted with myself. Ling says it all comes down to being OK with the fact that life can suck sometimes. I’ve never been very good at being alone – forget solitude – and as a result, I tend to make my relationships with other people these forums for self-discovery and self-actualization, when in fact it seems that such epiphanies are supposed to be private experiences. I feel like Clarissa when she learns about Septimus’ death and Woolf writes, “A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved.” I can't top Virginia Woolf, so I'll stop here. Sometimes the words just confuse things even more.
11.10.2005
11.05.2005
Narly Times
I’ve been asked to update, and as I hate to disappoint my paltry public (faithful and appreciated though you are), what the heck, I’ll do it. Especially all those stay-at-home mothers who can’t seem to get enough.
I wish I could say that the reason I haven’t posted in a while is that I’ve been out frolicking, being young and giddy. So much for that. Work went into overdrive this past week *I use the phrase “this week” loosely, being that today is Saturday and I just returned home from the office, staggering through campus like a pregnant refugee* as each of the assistants were asked to cover for 4 editors.
As far as Friday went, it made Thursday look like a goddamn dress rehearsal.
So my solution to all of this last night was to
a) watch hours of Laguna Beach. Very intellectual, I know.
b) get trashed at the trashiest bar in town: “The Ivy.” Sure, I love a bar where everyone knows the lyrics to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” but after my third gin & tonic (gone off the gimlets, back to basics these days), as I was peer-pressuring one of my 38-year-old colleagues to do a tequila shot, I suddenly felt that it wasn’t the most mature reaction to an awful work week. Maybe a quiet glass of wine, a glance through the New Yorker, eating a slab of cheddar...but forcing an unassuming colleague to do shots runs counter to my regular philosophy. I also started to talk a bunch of crap around 11, giving off the impression (all false) of being: too hot to handle, a real booze-hound, and several other clichés. By any and every standard, I defied the parameters established by the Modern Girl. By midnight, the male gathering had parted like the red sea and unanimously acknowledged my supremacy in social/sexual (yup, I went there)/alcohol-related activities. I was so high on myself that I almost believed it too. Less so when I flounced home and caught sight of myself looking like Barbara Cartland on crack. This morning I just felt like an idiot.
Other Headlines
1. As you can tell, Maureen Dowd’s article sort of took me by storm last Sunday and punctuated my mind for a large part of the week. Yes she's a raging alarmist, but she shook the oftentimes complacent way I think about feminism and its application, particularly given my present circumstances of living with 3 very masculine and self-claimed progressive men.
2. I took a walk with Mike earlier this week, which was fun, just to admire the leaves changing. Princeton is kind of amazing for its foliage; maybe I just never bothered to notice or appreciate it during my CT high school experience. Everywhere I turn there are crisp yellow leaves spinning in the air. Have you ever seen Hero? There’s this great scene (all yellow) in which they fight in the woods as the leaves are falling. Princeton, though by far less romantic than wherever the hell that movie was shot, comes a close second. It’s just unbelievable. You know how I love words and articulacy, and for once, I don’t know just how to describe what it’s like to watch the sunlight filtering through the leaves.
3. I licked a tree during the walk...a swift, lusty lick. For some reason, though not a big deal at the time, in retrospect I find this rather bizarre. I am happy to elaborate, but only in person.
4. I’m worried about work. And I keep hearing about other job offers and wonder if I’m being inopportunistic and naïve by not responding.
5. Lina came to visit me this week! Which was so much fun! Though she seemed to have mixed feelings on the curried chickpeas I presented at dinner, and I’m already harboring resentment. :)
I’ve been asked to update, and as I hate to disappoint my paltry public (faithful and appreciated though you are), what the heck, I’ll do it. Especially all those stay-at-home mothers who can’t seem to get enough.
I wish I could say that the reason I haven’t posted in a while is that I’ve been out frolicking, being young and giddy. So much for that. Work went into overdrive this past week *I use the phrase “this week” loosely, being that today is Saturday and I just returned home from the office, staggering through campus like a pregnant refugee* as each of the assistants were asked to cover for 4 editors.
As far as Friday went, it made Thursday look like a goddamn dress rehearsal.
So my solution to all of this last night was to
a) watch hours of Laguna Beach. Very intellectual, I know.
b) get trashed at the trashiest bar in town: “The Ivy.” Sure, I love a bar where everyone knows the lyrics to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” but after my third gin & tonic (gone off the gimlets, back to basics these days), as I was peer-pressuring one of my 38-year-old colleagues to do a tequila shot, I suddenly felt that it wasn’t the most mature reaction to an awful work week. Maybe a quiet glass of wine, a glance through the New Yorker, eating a slab of cheddar...but forcing an unassuming colleague to do shots runs counter to my regular philosophy. I also started to talk a bunch of crap around 11, giving off the impression (all false) of being: too hot to handle, a real booze-hound, and several other clichés. By any and every standard, I defied the parameters established by the Modern Girl. By midnight, the male gathering had parted like the red sea and unanimously acknowledged my supremacy in social/sexual (yup, I went there)/alcohol-related activities. I was so high on myself that I almost believed it too. Less so when I flounced home and caught sight of myself looking like Barbara Cartland on crack. This morning I just felt like an idiot.
Other Headlines
1. As you can tell, Maureen Dowd’s article sort of took me by storm last Sunday and punctuated my mind for a large part of the week. Yes she's a raging alarmist, but she shook the oftentimes complacent way I think about feminism and its application, particularly given my present circumstances of living with 3 very masculine and self-claimed progressive men.
2. I took a walk with Mike earlier this week, which was fun, just to admire the leaves changing. Princeton is kind of amazing for its foliage; maybe I just never bothered to notice or appreciate it during my CT high school experience. Everywhere I turn there are crisp yellow leaves spinning in the air. Have you ever seen Hero? There’s this great scene (all yellow) in which they fight in the woods as the leaves are falling. Princeton, though by far less romantic than wherever the hell that movie was shot, comes a close second. It’s just unbelievable. You know how I love words and articulacy, and for once, I don’t know just how to describe what it’s like to watch the sunlight filtering through the leaves.
3. I licked a tree during the walk...a swift, lusty lick. For some reason, though not a big deal at the time, in retrospect I find this rather bizarre. I am happy to elaborate, but only in person.
4. I’m worried about work. And I keep hearing about other job offers and wonder if I’m being inopportunistic and naïve by not responding.
5. Lina came to visit me this week! Which was so much fun! Though she seemed to have mixed feelings on the curried chickpeas I presented at dinner, and I’m already harboring resentment. :)
10.25.2005
Let Me Tell You About the Time I Looked Into the Heart of an Artichoke
Very little to tell. Work is ok -- am wading along, and the house is consumed by constant, tiring drama, and my personal life is pretty lukewarm. So...life in Princeton goes on. The worst thing right now is the weather: it suddenly got freezingly wet and cold, and I'm frightened at what this portends for January. Mostly I'm trying to find a little peace and quiet, which isn't possible in a house of six people. I'm ready for something good to happen.
Very little to tell. Work is ok -- am wading along, and the house is consumed by constant, tiring drama, and my personal life is pretty lukewarm. So...life in Princeton goes on. The worst thing right now is the weather: it suddenly got freezingly wet and cold, and I'm frightened at what this portends for January. Mostly I'm trying to find a little peace and quiet, which isn't possible in a house of six people. I'm ready for something good to happen.
10.22.2005
Censored
I'll try to keep this brief, as brevity appears to be in. Last night I went to see "Good Night and Good Luck" with Vanessa, Mike, and Christoph. We enjoyed ourselves, went to get drinks and dessert, and came home to have kir royales (the champagne I bought for Reza and Yorgo was never consumed). Everything was fine until about 3:30 in the morning. In a four-person dynamic, there's room for a lot of variety in the distribution of conversation. But at some point, two people are going to break off and have their own charged dialogue. Or so you think. I don't even know why I'm blogging about this, because it reflects so poorly on me. But a major point of this is to keep you (my friends, who I hope will laugh rather than pity me) updated on my life, and that includes both the most wonderful and miserable moments, right? Well, this is a bad one.
Anyway, I guess I was pretty tipsy, but Mike and I were talking for what seemed like hours. Only he wasn't talking -- I was chattering and chattering incessantly, getting deeper into my internal dialogue and spewing it all out, imagining that he was interested and engaged. But he wasn't. And he expressly stated that he wasn't. In a nice way. But in a candid way. What do you do when someone tells you that you talk too much? I'm sure there's an elegant way to handle such situations, but I sure didn't execute it. I wasn't drunk - just tipsy - so the whole weight of his words crashed onto me and I suddenly felt paralyzed with shame. The worst part is that I like Mike and knew that his presence was totally necessary to the whole experience; it's not as if I just carry on long conversations with myself. Sometimes alcohol and intimate company stimulate me to such a great extent that I start unloading all my thoughts. Which is cripplingly embarrassing. I just panicked and started scrolling back through all my previous conversations in Princeton, wondering if I've just been boring everyone I meet and imagining that they like me. It's horrible to have to question whether those moments of perceived connection are in fact one-sided, that people are too polite to tell you to shut the fuck up.
I hope this was a good thing, but I don't know. I'm really upset. I rarely get told off by people I don't know straight to my face. What do you do when someone points out the fact that you drone on too much? God forbid you open your mouth again.
The thing is, I'm not angry or upset with Mike. He made a good analogy -- he plays jazz in a trio, and commented that conversation works with similar parameters: you never want one soloist to dominate too long, because the rest of the group will get resentful and you lose all harmony. So I suppose this makes me that extra trumpet sequence that nobody wanted to hear. Vanessa, of course, responded by saying that if you're a really good improviser, you will be able to merge seamlessly into someone else's solo and establish a balance, you won't need a space to make your presence heard or felt. Which is also a good point.
But I wonder if my fear of loneliness here has prompted me to forget the rudiments of good conversation. Have I stopped being a good listener, and have I forgotten what it means to have an audience to whom you're responsible? Have I become totally self-absorbed and self-indulgent, and is this an innate character flaw or can it be remedied? How do you remedy an inability to converse? Because all I want to do is to shrink into a hole somewhere and never emerge, which isn't the right thing to do. But what's the alternative: observing myself during all my exchanges with other people and orchestrating a dialogue that's more evenly balanced? How do you know how to restrain yourself when you're in the moment? If I can't, does it make me socially inept?
Anyway, there isn't anything left to say. To any of you who have felt shortchanged by me, felt that I wasn't interested in hearing your part of the conversation, I'm so sorry. I never meant to make anyone feel anything less than charming and wonderful. Maybe I've grown so sensitive to my own needs and forgotten how to respond to those of others, but I don't know what to do about it. Except that now I'm incredibly self-conscious. But I am sorry. I hate the idea that I've fucked things up, and I seem to do it so often now -- whether at work or personally. Sometime it's best to just be silent.
I'll try to keep this brief, as brevity appears to be in. Last night I went to see "Good Night and Good Luck" with Vanessa, Mike, and Christoph. We enjoyed ourselves, went to get drinks and dessert, and came home to have kir royales (the champagne I bought for Reza and Yorgo was never consumed). Everything was fine until about 3:30 in the morning. In a four-person dynamic, there's room for a lot of variety in the distribution of conversation. But at some point, two people are going to break off and have their own charged dialogue. Or so you think. I don't even know why I'm blogging about this, because it reflects so poorly on me. But a major point of this is to keep you (my friends, who I hope will laugh rather than pity me) updated on my life, and that includes both the most wonderful and miserable moments, right? Well, this is a bad one.
Anyway, I guess I was pretty tipsy, but Mike and I were talking for what seemed like hours. Only he wasn't talking -- I was chattering and chattering incessantly, getting deeper into my internal dialogue and spewing it all out, imagining that he was interested and engaged. But he wasn't. And he expressly stated that he wasn't. In a nice way. But in a candid way. What do you do when someone tells you that you talk too much? I'm sure there's an elegant way to handle such situations, but I sure didn't execute it. I wasn't drunk - just tipsy - so the whole weight of his words crashed onto me and I suddenly felt paralyzed with shame. The worst part is that I like Mike and knew that his presence was totally necessary to the whole experience; it's not as if I just carry on long conversations with myself. Sometimes alcohol and intimate company stimulate me to such a great extent that I start unloading all my thoughts. Which is cripplingly embarrassing. I just panicked and started scrolling back through all my previous conversations in Princeton, wondering if I've just been boring everyone I meet and imagining that they like me. It's horrible to have to question whether those moments of perceived connection are in fact one-sided, that people are too polite to tell you to shut the fuck up.
I hope this was a good thing, but I don't know. I'm really upset. I rarely get told off by people I don't know straight to my face. What do you do when someone points out the fact that you drone on too much? God forbid you open your mouth again.
The thing is, I'm not angry or upset with Mike. He made a good analogy -- he plays jazz in a trio, and commented that conversation works with similar parameters: you never want one soloist to dominate too long, because the rest of the group will get resentful and you lose all harmony. So I suppose this makes me that extra trumpet sequence that nobody wanted to hear. Vanessa, of course, responded by saying that if you're a really good improviser, you will be able to merge seamlessly into someone else's solo and establish a balance, you won't need a space to make your presence heard or felt. Which is also a good point.
But I wonder if my fear of loneliness here has prompted me to forget the rudiments of good conversation. Have I stopped being a good listener, and have I forgotten what it means to have an audience to whom you're responsible? Have I become totally self-absorbed and self-indulgent, and is this an innate character flaw or can it be remedied? How do you remedy an inability to converse? Because all I want to do is to shrink into a hole somewhere and never emerge, which isn't the right thing to do. But what's the alternative: observing myself during all my exchanges with other people and orchestrating a dialogue that's more evenly balanced? How do you know how to restrain yourself when you're in the moment? If I can't, does it make me socially inept?
Anyway, there isn't anything left to say. To any of you who have felt shortchanged by me, felt that I wasn't interested in hearing your part of the conversation, I'm so sorry. I never meant to make anyone feel anything less than charming and wonderful. Maybe I've grown so sensitive to my own needs and forgotten how to respond to those of others, but I don't know what to do about it. Except that now I'm incredibly self-conscious. But I am sorry. I hate the idea that I've fucked things up, and I seem to do it so often now -- whether at work or personally. Sometime it's best to just be silent.
10.21.2005
Living the (s)Low Life
So, what’s new in my mundane little world? Not much, really. Just the usual round of house and work failure. I’m really beginning to worry about my work ethic. I never seem to achieve very much during the day and am constantly wasting my time checking email and day-dreaming. They didn’t hire me for this, that’s for sure. I keep waiting for the bomb to drop since I really do have a ton of work. I just never seem to be very motivated for some reason. I don’t know if it’s related to my physical well-being or something, or if there’s anything realistic I can do except periodically shock myself with an electric prodder.
Interesting things that have happened:
Well, Yorgo successfully defended his dissertation on Tuesday. That was kind of amazing. He came home resplendent in a Dolce & Gabbana suit, and a few of us drank to his accomplishment. I say a few, because there are certain members in my house who just don’t seem to be very thrilled about such minor things as becoming a PhD…I don’t know. Even Reza and Yorgo are very lukewarm about it. Mostly I think they’re tired of being in Princeton for so long, bitter about the lack of immediate job prospects, and view their defense as having been nothing so much as a formality. The only ones in the house excited about it are yours truly and Christoph. Vanessa’s kind of into it, but she often spends half her week working in the city, so she’s a little more detached from our daily round of excitement. Still, we all tentatively agreed to gather on Wednesday night to celebrate and have a house meeting (always a bad idea as someone inevitably gets upset -- it’s terribly Real World), and I even bought champagne for the occasion. At 8pm Reza came down and grandly announced that he was going out to dinner with Yorgo and Luis (a friend) and that if, when they got back, the majority of the house was around, we could then celebrate. I rarely feel the urge to murder someone in cold blood, but...
Anyway, I was kind of annoyed by the time they came back and it was clear they didn’t want to be a part of our celebration. So Christoph took me for a drive and a walk around campus, which was really nice. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to given the fact that we’re so different in mindset and approach. He’s very much a guy’s guy, but he’s also incredibly fastidious about things that I could care less about, like having place mats and always eating a salad in accompaniment to any meal. Bizarre. But we had a really nice time – he showed me around some of the buildings and the radio station where he has his own show on Wednesdays. It’s impressive to see someone take so much initiative. It makes me feel highly apathetic despite grumbling about being busy.
Last night I went into the city to Film Forum to see Masculin Féminin for a second screening (I love love love this movie) with Ling. There’s nothing like seeing a movie that bears so much personal meaning. I even forgot how funny it really is; I always remember it as being something of a protracted existential crisis. But it’s hilarious even in its most melancholy moments. It was kind of like the feeling I got on Tuesday when my American fiction professor recited the opening lines of Lolita: every hair on my body was standing on end, shivering in the ecstasy of the moment, hearing those glorious invocations to “Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” With Godard, you have that same sense of self-conscious lyricism. It helps that I’m infatuated with the protagonist, Paul.
As we were exiting, Ling and I ran into 2 kids from Columbia ’05, both of whom I knew, and neither of whom I particularly wanted to see again. One of them was this gibbering weirdo and the other one! Well! He was the kind of pompous ass you frequently find in English departments across the country. Anyway, I definitely extracted my moment of vengeance when I discovered that he too works in publishing -- only he doesn’t enjoy his job at all and is probably heading to grad school as soon as he can. I reduced him to a quivering puddle of insecurity and self-doubt and blithely sailed out, telling Ling that even English majors (brilliant as we are) must have the occasional self-parodying lapse, of which that kid was totally incapable.
Karmic retribution for my bad attitude came at 11:30 when the dinky lost power and stopped for 5 long minutes in the middle of the forest. One minute I was happily humming along to my iPod Humbert, and the next it felt like Heart of Darkness with the rivets were falling out. But the best part was when I finally got off the train at 11:45 and saw Vanessa and Christoph standing at the station platform, smiling and waiting for me. It was totally one of those cheesy moments when I ran over and hugged both of them and we came back home, drank tea, and swapped silly stories until 1:30. It made me so happy to find them waiting for me, scanning the crowd for their rather tired housemate.
Tonight! I think I’m seeing the new George Clooney flick. Tomorrow night I have dinner with some of my high school friends in the city, which I’m really looking forward to. With the exception of my gone-to-seed work ethic, life isn’t dreadful at the present moment. Though I think a storm is brewing on the house-front. My god, it’s practically Elsinore.
So, what’s new in my mundane little world? Not much, really. Just the usual round of house and work failure. I’m really beginning to worry about my work ethic. I never seem to achieve very much during the day and am constantly wasting my time checking email and day-dreaming. They didn’t hire me for this, that’s for sure. I keep waiting for the bomb to drop since I really do have a ton of work. I just never seem to be very motivated for some reason. I don’t know if it’s related to my physical well-being or something, or if there’s anything realistic I can do except periodically shock myself with an electric prodder.
Interesting things that have happened:
Well, Yorgo successfully defended his dissertation on Tuesday. That was kind of amazing. He came home resplendent in a Dolce & Gabbana suit, and a few of us drank to his accomplishment. I say a few, because there are certain members in my house who just don’t seem to be very thrilled about such minor things as becoming a PhD…I don’t know. Even Reza and Yorgo are very lukewarm about it. Mostly I think they’re tired of being in Princeton for so long, bitter about the lack of immediate job prospects, and view their defense as having been nothing so much as a formality. The only ones in the house excited about it are yours truly and Christoph. Vanessa’s kind of into it, but she often spends half her week working in the city, so she’s a little more detached from our daily round of excitement. Still, we all tentatively agreed to gather on Wednesday night to celebrate and have a house meeting (always a bad idea as someone inevitably gets upset -- it’s terribly Real World), and I even bought champagne for the occasion. At 8pm Reza came down and grandly announced that he was going out to dinner with Yorgo and Luis (a friend) and that if, when they got back, the majority of the house was around, we could then celebrate. I rarely feel the urge to murder someone in cold blood, but...
Anyway, I was kind of annoyed by the time they came back and it was clear they didn’t want to be a part of our celebration. So Christoph took me for a drive and a walk around campus, which was really nice. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to given the fact that we’re so different in mindset and approach. He’s very much a guy’s guy, but he’s also incredibly fastidious about things that I could care less about, like having place mats and always eating a salad in accompaniment to any meal. Bizarre. But we had a really nice time – he showed me around some of the buildings and the radio station where he has his own show on Wednesdays. It’s impressive to see someone take so much initiative. It makes me feel highly apathetic despite grumbling about being busy.
Last night I went into the city to Film Forum to see Masculin Féminin for a second screening (I love love love this movie) with Ling. There’s nothing like seeing a movie that bears so much personal meaning. I even forgot how funny it really is; I always remember it as being something of a protracted existential crisis. But it’s hilarious even in its most melancholy moments. It was kind of like the feeling I got on Tuesday when my American fiction professor recited the opening lines of Lolita: every hair on my body was standing on end, shivering in the ecstasy of the moment, hearing those glorious invocations to “Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” With Godard, you have that same sense of self-conscious lyricism. It helps that I’m infatuated with the protagonist, Paul.
As we were exiting, Ling and I ran into 2 kids from Columbia ’05, both of whom I knew, and neither of whom I particularly wanted to see again. One of them was this gibbering weirdo and the other one! Well! He was the kind of pompous ass you frequently find in English departments across the country. Anyway, I definitely extracted my moment of vengeance when I discovered that he too works in publishing -- only he doesn’t enjoy his job at all and is probably heading to grad school as soon as he can. I reduced him to a quivering puddle of insecurity and self-doubt and blithely sailed out, telling Ling that even English majors (brilliant as we are) must have the occasional self-parodying lapse, of which that kid was totally incapable.
Karmic retribution for my bad attitude came at 11:30 when the dinky lost power and stopped for 5 long minutes in the middle of the forest. One minute I was happily humming along to my iPod Humbert, and the next it felt like Heart of Darkness with the rivets were falling out. But the best part was when I finally got off the train at 11:45 and saw Vanessa and Christoph standing at the station platform, smiling and waiting for me. It was totally one of those cheesy moments when I ran over and hugged both of them and we came back home, drank tea, and swapped silly stories until 1:30. It made me so happy to find them waiting for me, scanning the crowd for their rather tired housemate.
Tonight! I think I’m seeing the new George Clooney flick. Tomorrow night I have dinner with some of my high school friends in the city, which I’m really looking forward to. With the exception of my gone-to-seed work ethic, life isn’t dreadful at the present moment. Though I think a storm is brewing on the house-front. My god, it’s practically Elsinore.
10.18.2005
Vibes and Vibrations
It's 5:50 am. What am I doing up? Well, I drank too much wine last night and, of course, rose at an unearthly hour this morning. I'm listening to lounge music and wondering whether or not I can snatch another hour of sleep before getting ready for work. But the past few days have been a little intense, even for my own good, so maybe it's an apt time to post.
Two of the other assistants in my department are leaving to pursue jobs elsewhere, having fulfilled their 2 year quota here. The chief sees this as an opportunity to revamp and reconstruct our department, which is all rather unnerving. Anyway, it came to a head on Friday afternoon when he pulled each of the remaining assistants into his office and broke the news to us: he's only hiring one replacement for the 2 departing assistants, and is redistributing our individual workloads so that we each take on an additional editor. Hmm. My head is spinning. I have enough trouble keeping up with the two amazing but demanding women I work for -- I really don't have the capacity to take on a third. More to the point, the third editor I've been assigned works in a field in which I have an interest tantamount to absolute zero.
Friday night: dinner, drinks, sleepover with Chris. Karin didn't come, which was rather disappointing, but it was a pretty soggy and gloomy evening. Saturday: pottered around Columbia, brunch at Deluxe, bought shoes & jacket, train home to Princeton.
Our house has been planning to have a big, blow-out party for about 6 weeks now. Finally Vanessa and Christoph decided they were going to invite a few of their friends over for a low-key gathering. Such treats as Vanessa's homemade squash soup, Christoph's famous appetizer platter, and Yorgo spinning at the turntables were promised. I wasn't sure if I would be around for any of it, so I sort of backed out until 2 days before the party, when I realized my life isn't as exciting as I originally imagined. So I came back, drooping and tired from the city (cozying up in a twin-bed with someone, no matter how much you adore them, is really inconducive to rest), and sulked around the house while Vanessa whipped up corn and avocado salad, and Yorgo made all of us his "spezziale" gin and tonic. It's pretty much a Gin Fizz.
I don't know how it all came together, because one moment Vanessa was frantically scooping peelings out of the sink, Christoph was out playing tennis, and I was smoking on the porch, but everyone who came to the party had a great time. We had a good mix of people -- Vanessa's earth goddess friends Sascha, David, Alden and Dan, who plucked flowers from our garden and ate them, or danced with scarves ("shadow dancing" is what Sascha called it) while Yorgo and I were at the turntables. I haven't laughed that much in ages. The house was giving off these gorgeous vibes: I played some of my music, and three guys just grabbed some of Christoph's drums and started banging out an accompaniment...down-tempo house music goes tribal. It was amazing to move from an intense conversation with Sascha and Dave about threesomes and "flow" to Yorgo's anecdotes about why it's unacceptable to ask for a kir royale in Iran. All with a pumping 4/4 base in the background.
Christoph's friend Mike, who has visited our house a few times and who seems perfectly amiable, dropped by as well. I don't really know what to say about that part of it. All I know is that we were hanging out for a few hours and then at 4, Christoph popped his head in to say goodnight - everyone else had left - and I freaked out, leaped off the couch, and basically pushed Mike out the door. Why? Oh, because I'm an asshole. I'm kind of confused about it all, which prompted a really unsavory conversation last night with Yorgo and Reza about guys and sex. Just what I always wanted.
Just to backtrack a little -- on Sunday I went to brunch with Vanessa and the goddess crew in Princeton. We hung out chatting until the afternoon, when I walked over to this great public square in Princeton where Christoph, who runs a music non-profit called MIMA , was having an outdoor performance. I ended up hovering at the edge, cheering and clapping as a group of undergrads taught little kids to play on the drums, but then Christoph, awesome as he is, pulled me in and had me join the drum circle. So yours truly, armed with an enormous tabla and the bongos, rocked out with a bunch of grungy youth, hemp-wearing mums, and little boys and girls having the time of their lives. Then I came home and had some leftover squash soup with Vanessa, watched Amelie, and fell asleep.
Balu is scratching at the door, so I have to go pet him for a little while. He's so funny when he purrs -- he sounds like he's percolating! It's adorable. It's nice to give affection to someone who responds so unashamedly to it. Unlike me, of course.
It's 5:50 am. What am I doing up? Well, I drank too much wine last night and, of course, rose at an unearthly hour this morning. I'm listening to lounge music and wondering whether or not I can snatch another hour of sleep before getting ready for work. But the past few days have been a little intense, even for my own good, so maybe it's an apt time to post.
Two of the other assistants in my department are leaving to pursue jobs elsewhere, having fulfilled their 2 year quota here. The chief sees this as an opportunity to revamp and reconstruct our department, which is all rather unnerving. Anyway, it came to a head on Friday afternoon when he pulled each of the remaining assistants into his office and broke the news to us: he's only hiring one replacement for the 2 departing assistants, and is redistributing our individual workloads so that we each take on an additional editor. Hmm. My head is spinning. I have enough trouble keeping up with the two amazing but demanding women I work for -- I really don't have the capacity to take on a third. More to the point, the third editor I've been assigned works in a field in which I have an interest tantamount to absolute zero.
Friday night: dinner, drinks, sleepover with Chris. Karin didn't come, which was rather disappointing, but it was a pretty soggy and gloomy evening. Saturday: pottered around Columbia, brunch at Deluxe, bought shoes & jacket, train home to Princeton.
Our house has been planning to have a big, blow-out party for about 6 weeks now. Finally Vanessa and Christoph decided they were going to invite a few of their friends over for a low-key gathering. Such treats as Vanessa's homemade squash soup, Christoph's famous appetizer platter, and Yorgo spinning at the turntables were promised. I wasn't sure if I would be around for any of it, so I sort of backed out until 2 days before the party, when I realized my life isn't as exciting as I originally imagined. So I came back, drooping and tired from the city (cozying up in a twin-bed with someone, no matter how much you adore them, is really inconducive to rest), and sulked around the house while Vanessa whipped up corn and avocado salad, and Yorgo made all of us his "spezziale" gin and tonic. It's pretty much a Gin Fizz.
I don't know how it all came together, because one moment Vanessa was frantically scooping peelings out of the sink, Christoph was out playing tennis, and I was smoking on the porch, but everyone who came to the party had a great time. We had a good mix of people -- Vanessa's earth goddess friends Sascha, David, Alden and Dan, who plucked flowers from our garden and ate them, or danced with scarves ("shadow dancing" is what Sascha called it) while Yorgo and I were at the turntables. I haven't laughed that much in ages. The house was giving off these gorgeous vibes: I played some of my music, and three guys just grabbed some of Christoph's drums and started banging out an accompaniment...down-tempo house music goes tribal. It was amazing to move from an intense conversation with Sascha and Dave about threesomes and "flow" to Yorgo's anecdotes about why it's unacceptable to ask for a kir royale in Iran. All with a pumping 4/4 base in the background.
Christoph's friend Mike, who has visited our house a few times and who seems perfectly amiable, dropped by as well. I don't really know what to say about that part of it. All I know is that we were hanging out for a few hours and then at 4, Christoph popped his head in to say goodnight - everyone else had left - and I freaked out, leaped off the couch, and basically pushed Mike out the door. Why? Oh, because I'm an asshole. I'm kind of confused about it all, which prompted a really unsavory conversation last night with Yorgo and Reza about guys and sex. Just what I always wanted.
Just to backtrack a little -- on Sunday I went to brunch with Vanessa and the goddess crew in Princeton. We hung out chatting until the afternoon, when I walked over to this great public square in Princeton where Christoph, who runs a music non-profit called MIMA , was having an outdoor performance. I ended up hovering at the edge, cheering and clapping as a group of undergrads taught little kids to play on the drums, but then Christoph, awesome as he is, pulled me in and had me join the drum circle. So yours truly, armed with an enormous tabla and the bongos, rocked out with a bunch of grungy youth, hemp-wearing mums, and little boys and girls having the time of their lives. Then I came home and had some leftover squash soup with Vanessa, watched Amelie, and fell asleep.
Balu is scratching at the door, so I have to go pet him for a little while. He's so funny when he purrs -- he sounds like he's percolating! It's adorable. It's nice to give affection to someone who responds so unashamedly to it. Unlike me, of course.
10.14.2005
10.11.2005
Brevity is the Soul of Lingerie
Fall has come, and it's gorgeous. The leaves are gold and auburn, and soon there will be clusters of red burning bright against the skies. I just love it. Do you know that feeling of total and utter comfort you feel in the autumn? When you're warm in a cuddly sweater, the air is cool and bringing out roses in your cheeks, and everything you do feels crisp and energetic...these are rare moments for me, particularly as I'm incredibly clumsy and tend to trip over my own feet. But I am starting to find that great smell of well-worn sweatshirts and fresh-cut grass, which, in combination, are rather intoxicating. I don't know what it is. I love the speed and electricity of a student rushing past me on a bike, or of seeing some girl's hair loosen itself from her face and fly in the wind. Sometimes everything feels charged with a bright and beautiful charm of its own. I have my moment of peace...and then I stumble over a stray twig and get hit by a jogger and go home in shame. :)
My room here feels a bit nicer since I put up an enormous Indian tapestry. It isn't all that extraordinary, but I love it; it consumes an entire wall and has an intricate flower and leaf pattern that interweaves infinitely across a cream ground. Then there are these little blue elephants trundling along in a circle, and more geometric figures. I've always been a sucker for symmetry -- and in certain cases, a carefully orchestrated asymmetry. The elephants remind me of that scene in The Jungle Book when you meet Colonel Hathi and his herd. I so wanted to be the baby elephant with his frantically high-pitched voice. I think I've always cherished this desire to be everything I'm not: petite and graceful. Not that one could say an elephant is epitome of grace, but, well, he was terribly terribly cute. As the tallest in my class for a long time, I never felt like anyone was interested in pinching my cheeks. And though I don't actually like having my cheeks pinched, it would have been nice to be a cherubic child. Plus I never had a squeaky voice, just my usual alto drone.
I went to another symposium on Sunday, hosted by the Princeton University Art Museum. It was pretty good, though some of the speakers prosed on for way too long. There was one old grandpa who yawned his way through what felt like the entire trajectory of 19th century art. I often talk too much, but really! At least I've never held over 60 people captive in a room.
I did feel a bit low on Sunday evening. I missed college and my friends, and felt afresh all the dislocation of being in a new place with limited acquaintances. I don't want to push new friendships too far just because I dislike solitude. And I made a lot of mistakes over the past few weeks in that regard. It's difficult to figure out new relationships. How do they play out and how do they change with every interaction? I feel like I've forgotten the logistics of moving beyond initial rapports. These days I vacillate between loving and despising my own presence. It's funny how you manage to confuse yourself while trying to make the right choices.
Fall has come, and it's gorgeous. The leaves are gold and auburn, and soon there will be clusters of red burning bright against the skies. I just love it. Do you know that feeling of total and utter comfort you feel in the autumn? When you're warm in a cuddly sweater, the air is cool and bringing out roses in your cheeks, and everything you do feels crisp and energetic...these are rare moments for me, particularly as I'm incredibly clumsy and tend to trip over my own feet. But I am starting to find that great smell of well-worn sweatshirts and fresh-cut grass, which, in combination, are rather intoxicating. I don't know what it is. I love the speed and electricity of a student rushing past me on a bike, or of seeing some girl's hair loosen itself from her face and fly in the wind. Sometimes everything feels charged with a bright and beautiful charm of its own. I have my moment of peace...and then I stumble over a stray twig and get hit by a jogger and go home in shame. :)
My room here feels a bit nicer since I put up an enormous Indian tapestry. It isn't all that extraordinary, but I love it; it consumes an entire wall and has an intricate flower and leaf pattern that interweaves infinitely across a cream ground. Then there are these little blue elephants trundling along in a circle, and more geometric figures. I've always been a sucker for symmetry -- and in certain cases, a carefully orchestrated asymmetry. The elephants remind me of that scene in The Jungle Book when you meet Colonel Hathi and his herd. I so wanted to be the baby elephant with his frantically high-pitched voice. I think I've always cherished this desire to be everything I'm not: petite and graceful. Not that one could say an elephant is epitome of grace, but, well, he was terribly terribly cute. As the tallest in my class for a long time, I never felt like anyone was interested in pinching my cheeks. And though I don't actually like having my cheeks pinched, it would have been nice to be a cherubic child. Plus I never had a squeaky voice, just my usual alto drone.
I went to another symposium on Sunday, hosted by the Princeton University Art Museum. It was pretty good, though some of the speakers prosed on for way too long. There was one old grandpa who yawned his way through what felt like the entire trajectory of 19th century art. I often talk too much, but really! At least I've never held over 60 people captive in a room.
I did feel a bit low on Sunday evening. I missed college and my friends, and felt afresh all the dislocation of being in a new place with limited acquaintances. I don't want to push new friendships too far just because I dislike solitude. And I made a lot of mistakes over the past few weeks in that regard. It's difficult to figure out new relationships. How do they play out and how do they change with every interaction? I feel like I've forgotten the logistics of moving beyond initial rapports. These days I vacillate between loving and despising my own presence. It's funny how you manage to confuse yourself while trying to make the right choices.
10.08.2005
I'd like to volunteer for being totally unnecessary
Not much goin' on around here. This is the first full weekend I'm spending in Princeton, and it's already been a bit weird. The weather was crazy yesterday and today. Can it actually rain this much? Is this what Seattle is like? I feel like I need those weird thigh-high fisherman boots. Everything's a bit damp and moldy. My shoes squelched by the time I got home. Yuck.
I went to a symposium hosted by the art history department here. The topic at hand was "Dark Rooms: Photography and Invisibility," and they had a great line-up. Too bad I missed most of it, but I heard about 3 papers delivered and a floor discussion. Oh, to see the pomposity congregated in one room -- lots of people laughing uproariously at weak sallies, and one prize-winning moment when about six members of the audience rushed to help translate a french word into its English counterpart. My favorite point was when one of the professors kept saying "interpretate" in a very earnest manner. Don't you just love the French?
I've been watching a lot of movies of late: Chinatown, The Women (again), and tonight The Life Aquatic. Good stuff. I don't know what's on the agenda for tomorrow. There's a new exhibition opening at the Princeton Art Museum on Homeric legends, so maybe I'll potter over to that. I've recently been poking my head into all the stuff going on in the area, and it suddenly struck me that there really is so much in which I could be interested. Hooray for living near a well-endowed university with money to fling into art programs!
I've decided to retire from people for a little while. I spent most of today wandering the streets in the rain, and it felt great to be out there in the fresh air on my own. The good thing about rain is that people suddenly become extremely self-contained and anonymous on the roads; they're coccooned by umbrellas or hoods and they walk fast with their eyes trained on the ground. It makes it so much easier for amblers like me to potter about without having to worry about smiling at strangers. Not that I was sullen or anything. I just liked that I could do whatever I wanted and not have to consider other people's presences.
Christoph and I had a long long conversation last night about everything ranging from Indian ragas to babysitting in Spain and traveling in mainland China. He's a cool kid, but a little strange. I still don't know how I feel about living right next to him. He runs his own non-profit and is surprisingly idealistic. I also don't know how I feel about this. Isn't a good dose of cynicism healthy? He's into house music as well, though, so much is forgiven. Christoph thinks I should try to get my blog published. That's flattering, but who the hell would pay to read this?
Not much goin' on around here. This is the first full weekend I'm spending in Princeton, and it's already been a bit weird. The weather was crazy yesterday and today. Can it actually rain this much? Is this what Seattle is like? I feel like I need those weird thigh-high fisherman boots. Everything's a bit damp and moldy. My shoes squelched by the time I got home. Yuck.
I went to a symposium hosted by the art history department here. The topic at hand was "Dark Rooms: Photography and Invisibility," and they had a great line-up. Too bad I missed most of it, but I heard about 3 papers delivered and a floor discussion. Oh, to see the pomposity congregated in one room -- lots of people laughing uproariously at weak sallies, and one prize-winning moment when about six members of the audience rushed to help translate a french word into its English counterpart. My favorite point was when one of the professors kept saying "interpretate" in a very earnest manner. Don't you just love the French?
I've been watching a lot of movies of late: Chinatown, The Women (again), and tonight The Life Aquatic. Good stuff. I don't know what's on the agenda for tomorrow. There's a new exhibition opening at the Princeton Art Museum on Homeric legends, so maybe I'll potter over to that. I've recently been poking my head into all the stuff going on in the area, and it suddenly struck me that there really is so much in which I could be interested. Hooray for living near a well-endowed university with money to fling into art programs!
I've decided to retire from people for a little while. I spent most of today wandering the streets in the rain, and it felt great to be out there in the fresh air on my own. The good thing about rain is that people suddenly become extremely self-contained and anonymous on the roads; they're coccooned by umbrellas or hoods and they walk fast with their eyes trained on the ground. It makes it so much easier for amblers like me to potter about without having to worry about smiling at strangers. Not that I was sullen or anything. I just liked that I could do whatever I wanted and not have to consider other people's presences.
Christoph and I had a long long conversation last night about everything ranging from Indian ragas to babysitting in Spain and traveling in mainland China. He's a cool kid, but a little strange. I still don't know how I feel about living right next to him. He runs his own non-profit and is surprisingly idealistic. I also don't know how I feel about this. Isn't a good dose of cynicism healthy? He's into house music as well, though, so much is forgiven. Christoph thinks I should try to get my blog published. That's flattering, but who the hell would pay to read this?
10.05.2005
Revisiting Paris
Do you ever feel like you’re not quite getting a grip on things in your life? I’ve been pretty oversubscribed for the past few weeks, both work-wise and personally. It’s a little difficult to make decisions about what’s going to be best for me – whether that entails sleeping decently or going out and getting trashed with constructions workers at The Ivy and waking up with raccoon eyes. Of late I’ve been opting to sleep and catch up on things I like – movies, cooking real meals, reading, talking to my housemates, the late night glass of port. Maybe this is something that all recent grads go through, or maybe it’s of a lengthier duration. Maybe you don’t figure it all out until you’re 27 and have a clearer idea of what you want to make of yourself. I keep telling myself that I should get used to my life here in Princeton before anticipating the next step, but have I ever been good at that? At best I’m myopic about things that require a detached perspective, and anxious about things that shouldn’t matter in the here and now. Still, it’s the reality of me.
I’ve felt a little lonely of late. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends here, both at work and at home. There are things to do – movies in town or on campus, lectures, conferences, etc. They’re great, and it’s nice to feel that even though I’m not in the city, I’m not in some culturally lackluster environment. But still, I occasionally miss the comfort of silence with friends, a silence that doesn’t give rise to concern or loneliness. Does that make sense? I think it also has a fair amount to do with discovering that in a new place, you’re often coerced into pursuing friendships that aren’t necessarily the right ones for you. I don’t like the idea that I won’t find the right crowd for myself. Or it could just be that I myself am in such a bizarre stage in my life right now that the people around me won’t matter – I’ll just shepherd my own awkwardness around with me. As I told Clara today, I only say things like “I’m embracing my unease” when I feel socially and personally capable.
I’ve also developed this weird complex about being dull and boring. Maybe this is because everyone I’ve met here is way more proactive about getting out there on a regular basis than I’ve ever been. They actually think it’s bizarre that I’d like to come home and yawn my way into bed before midnight. Heath seems to take it as a personal affront. I’m a little confused, I guess. I like my friends here, but I’m still sorting how I feel about myself when I’m around them. I don’t know what my role or character here is. At points it’s exciting. But sometimes I wonder what’s really going on under the veneer of partying and gadding about. It’s nice to feel part of a young and outgoing culture, but so foreign as well. I wasn’t in that jello-shot crowd at Columbia, and I haven’t done them here, but with the exception of Clara, I’m definitely one of the few interested in the intellectual climate at Princeton, interested in auditing classes and attending the symposia. Everyone else is either off having casual sex (lots of sex, also another novelty), drinking beer, or discussing sex and beer.
I’m listening to this great cd of American/French music from about 1920-1940. I just love it, it’s full of stuff by Django Reinhardt and Luis Mariano. It’s soothing and uplifting and makes me think of sunny days and lying in hammocks eating apples.
Classes are pretty good in general, although I’ve been ridiculously behind on my reading. Doesn’t that sound silly now that we’re not actually enrolled as students anymore? I love saying it; it gives me this sense of having one foot in the door (guilt) and one foot outside (carefree). The two classes I’m currently auditing are American Fiction 1930-Present (very neat reading list) and Soviet Literature (a little bizarre, this one has about 5 other surly Slavic studies students and an old doddering professor who probably knew everyone we’re reading on a handshaking basis). Clara audits American fiction with me. We skulk in the back row and take furious notes without the faintest idea of what’s going on.
Weekends have been decent – brief excursions into the city, all usually thrown together at the last minute. I went to dinner at "Nam" with my mum and sister on Saturday. I liked it all a lot, but was more interested in the conversation than the food. Although my housemate’s eyes nearly fell out when I told him I was going there – apparently it is a very highly rated Vietnamese restaurant. Brunch was at a Swedish place called Smorgas Café on Stone Street, all the way downtown. It’s my new favorite street in New York – tiny, with cobblestones and old-fashioned streetlamps and tons of small European street cafes with friendly owners. It’s just divine. Of course that's where all the bankers go, but you can't have everything. I'm just glad for a place that isn't dominated by hipsters.
Anyway, this is about it. I’ve been feeling guilty (on top of everything else) for not blogging enough. Things are just a bit complicated right now. Everyone I meet seems to expect me to issue some great ‘big-picture’ statement about my life, but to be honest, I don’t know what the hell I do with my time. Before I know it, the weekend goes by and another week passes, and the only signs of change are the weather and reddening leaves. And I don’t feel like I’ve achieved very much.
It often feels like Paris: I drink too much, make random friendships, worrying about fitting in, struggle to manage work and fun without having one hugely suffer, and feel tired all the time. The nice thing is that this is much more negotiable for me: I already know the guys at the local falafel stand, have located excellent French pastries, and regularly wander over to the public library. It’s just that sometimes I would really like to have that ‘big-picture’ understanding, you know? I’d like to understand why I feel a certain way, or at what point I am in my life right now. It’s both a luxury and a little frightening to live in my head so constantly. But for now there’s this lyrical and tender song called “Paris, tu n’as pas change.” Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe underneath all this there’s some stable undercurrent that I can access.
I read some Whitman today, so I’ll toss it in here for fun; it was so full of joy:
“I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease..."
Do you ever feel like you’re not quite getting a grip on things in your life? I’ve been pretty oversubscribed for the past few weeks, both work-wise and personally. It’s a little difficult to make decisions about what’s going to be best for me – whether that entails sleeping decently or going out and getting trashed with constructions workers at The Ivy and waking up with raccoon eyes. Of late I’ve been opting to sleep and catch up on things I like – movies, cooking real meals, reading, talking to my housemates, the late night glass of port. Maybe this is something that all recent grads go through, or maybe it’s of a lengthier duration. Maybe you don’t figure it all out until you’re 27 and have a clearer idea of what you want to make of yourself. I keep telling myself that I should get used to my life here in Princeton before anticipating the next step, but have I ever been good at that? At best I’m myopic about things that require a detached perspective, and anxious about things that shouldn’t matter in the here and now. Still, it’s the reality of me.
I’ve felt a little lonely of late. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends here, both at work and at home. There are things to do – movies in town or on campus, lectures, conferences, etc. They’re great, and it’s nice to feel that even though I’m not in the city, I’m not in some culturally lackluster environment. But still, I occasionally miss the comfort of silence with friends, a silence that doesn’t give rise to concern or loneliness. Does that make sense? I think it also has a fair amount to do with discovering that in a new place, you’re often coerced into pursuing friendships that aren’t necessarily the right ones for you. I don’t like the idea that I won’t find the right crowd for myself. Or it could just be that I myself am in such a bizarre stage in my life right now that the people around me won’t matter – I’ll just shepherd my own awkwardness around with me. As I told Clara today, I only say things like “I’m embracing my unease” when I feel socially and personally capable.
I’ve also developed this weird complex about being dull and boring. Maybe this is because everyone I’ve met here is way more proactive about getting out there on a regular basis than I’ve ever been. They actually think it’s bizarre that I’d like to come home and yawn my way into bed before midnight. Heath seems to take it as a personal affront. I’m a little confused, I guess. I like my friends here, but I’m still sorting how I feel about myself when I’m around them. I don’t know what my role or character here is. At points it’s exciting. But sometimes I wonder what’s really going on under the veneer of partying and gadding about. It’s nice to feel part of a young and outgoing culture, but so foreign as well. I wasn’t in that jello-shot crowd at Columbia, and I haven’t done them here, but with the exception of Clara, I’m definitely one of the few interested in the intellectual climate at Princeton, interested in auditing classes and attending the symposia. Everyone else is either off having casual sex (lots of sex, also another novelty), drinking beer, or discussing sex and beer.
I’m listening to this great cd of American/French music from about 1920-1940. I just love it, it’s full of stuff by Django Reinhardt and Luis Mariano. It’s soothing and uplifting and makes me think of sunny days and lying in hammocks eating apples.
Classes are pretty good in general, although I’ve been ridiculously behind on my reading. Doesn’t that sound silly now that we’re not actually enrolled as students anymore? I love saying it; it gives me this sense of having one foot in the door (guilt) and one foot outside (carefree). The two classes I’m currently auditing are American Fiction 1930-Present (very neat reading list) and Soviet Literature (a little bizarre, this one has about 5 other surly Slavic studies students and an old doddering professor who probably knew everyone we’re reading on a handshaking basis). Clara audits American fiction with me. We skulk in the back row and take furious notes without the faintest idea of what’s going on.
Weekends have been decent – brief excursions into the city, all usually thrown together at the last minute. I went to dinner at "Nam" with my mum and sister on Saturday. I liked it all a lot, but was more interested in the conversation than the food. Although my housemate’s eyes nearly fell out when I told him I was going there – apparently it is a very highly rated Vietnamese restaurant. Brunch was at a Swedish place called Smorgas Café on Stone Street, all the way downtown. It’s my new favorite street in New York – tiny, with cobblestones and old-fashioned streetlamps and tons of small European street cafes with friendly owners. It’s just divine. Of course that's where all the bankers go, but you can't have everything. I'm just glad for a place that isn't dominated by hipsters.
Anyway, this is about it. I’ve been feeling guilty (on top of everything else) for not blogging enough. Things are just a bit complicated right now. Everyone I meet seems to expect me to issue some great ‘big-picture’ statement about my life, but to be honest, I don’t know what the hell I do with my time. Before I know it, the weekend goes by and another week passes, and the only signs of change are the weather and reddening leaves. And I don’t feel like I’ve achieved very much.
It often feels like Paris: I drink too much, make random friendships, worrying about fitting in, struggle to manage work and fun without having one hugely suffer, and feel tired all the time. The nice thing is that this is much more negotiable for me: I already know the guys at the local falafel stand, have located excellent French pastries, and regularly wander over to the public library. It’s just that sometimes I would really like to have that ‘big-picture’ understanding, you know? I’d like to understand why I feel a certain way, or at what point I am in my life right now. It’s both a luxury and a little frightening to live in my head so constantly. But for now there’s this lyrical and tender song called “Paris, tu n’as pas change.” Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe underneath all this there’s some stable undercurrent that I can access.
I read some Whitman today, so I’ll toss it in here for fun; it was so full of joy:
“I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease..."
9.28.2005
What Have You Done For Me Lately?
So, here it goes. I can't be bothered to sit and wail over everything that's happened, so here's a quick run down:
1. Friday, long long day. Tired, mopey. Came home, went to bed early. Slept well.
2. Saturday, shopping in Princeton. Unexpectedly cold. Women should wear bras more often, really. Befriended woman working in the local lingerie shop. Should a white bra really cost $130? So much for that La Perla fantasy. Get massive headache, feel like an ailing old woman, go home and weep silently (ok, not that last part, but really, I did feel very low).
3. Get up at 10. Call Clara, wander over to Abel the carpenter's shindig. Meet Ryan the architecture student. Dance. Meet former housemate Mark, very cool, likes to spin house music. Yorgo spins, Clara dances with weird barista man called Orlando from Chile. Talk to Carrie (housemate), go back to Clara's, talk, drink beer until 4:30 (what am I doing drinking beer? gross). home.
4. Up to the city, meet Ben, talk to very kind woman whose son assists the poetry editors at the New Yorker, see The Third Man (who doesn't love Joseph Cotten?!), hear David Denby lecture. Very cool.
5. Dinner/wine with Ben. Interesting conversation. We both get a little tipsy, embrace and cultivate our mutual awkwardness. So much fun! Train home.
6. Monday, then Tuesday. Row at home with housemates about fridge situation. Crapness.
7. The Corpse Bride + greasy food with Heath. General fear over work situation.
That's all, folks!
So, here it goes. I can't be bothered to sit and wail over everything that's happened, so here's a quick run down:
1. Friday, long long day. Tired, mopey. Came home, went to bed early. Slept well.
2. Saturday, shopping in Princeton. Unexpectedly cold. Women should wear bras more often, really. Befriended woman working in the local lingerie shop. Should a white bra really cost $130? So much for that La Perla fantasy. Get massive headache, feel like an ailing old woman, go home and weep silently (ok, not that last part, but really, I did feel very low).
3. Get up at 10. Call Clara, wander over to Abel the carpenter's shindig. Meet Ryan the architecture student. Dance. Meet former housemate Mark, very cool, likes to spin house music. Yorgo spins, Clara dances with weird barista man called Orlando from Chile. Talk to Carrie (housemate), go back to Clara's, talk, drink beer until 4:30 (what am I doing drinking beer? gross). home.
4. Up to the city, meet Ben, talk to very kind woman whose son assists the poetry editors at the New Yorker, see The Third Man (who doesn't love Joseph Cotten?!), hear David Denby lecture. Very cool.
5. Dinner/wine with Ben. Interesting conversation. We both get a little tipsy, embrace and cultivate our mutual awkwardness. So much fun! Train home.
6. Monday, then Tuesday. Row at home with housemates about fridge situation. Crapness.
7. The Corpse Bride + greasy food with Heath. General fear over work situation.
That's all, folks!
9.23.2005
The Wallflower
I adore Heath. Although he leads way too exciting a life for me and makes me feel like a major dullard. We went out to lunch yesterday with another co-worker, and it was a wonderful exercise in restraint. Some favorites were the moment when Heath said, "honey, he woke me up with a welcome surprise, and I don't mean the coffee or donut," or when she said "yeah, I think that's why my ex-boyfriend was so confident you know, because he was huge. I couldn't even let him enter the first few times." What was I doing? Being silent, mostly.
Last night I went over to watch the Shakespeare tea towel with Clara and Heath (this is our code for watching the OC -- Clara covers her tv during the day with a tea towel with WS's face plastered over it). It was so much fun; we drank wine and smoked all kinds of weird things. Then Heath walked me home and we talked and talked and talked. I keep worrying about that moment when I'll become boring, you know? And then our friendship won't be fresh anymore and I'll worry about what I'm saying and our future conversations. Beginnings are so much easier to cope with.
Anyway, he told me about coming out to his parents and it just made me feel so terrible. He's 23 and cute and so comfortable in his own skin, but periodically, like when he told me about how he's estranged from his family, his expression suddenly made him seem so young. Really really young. And yet, it doesn't seem fair that only one of us gets the attention of a local dance professor. He's been here a week and is already overhauling the local blue-collar dive. Whereas I'm in bed by 9pm on the dotted swiss.
I don't have much else to say. Socially, things aren't so bad, but they could be better. Work-wise, things aren't great. I think it all comes back to the same evil: lack of self-confidence. I'm also really tired. Too much work and too much drinking with the result that I'm not currently enjoying either. Would you believe though that all these awkward and frustrating and self-destructive moments of doubt and questioning are probably good for me in the long run? I keep trying to tell myself that being in a difficult position and being forced to participate in conversations on just about EVERYTHING are exactly what I need to break down a little reserve. Then again, I feel kind of lost without a chip on my shoulder.
I adore Heath. Although he leads way too exciting a life for me and makes me feel like a major dullard. We went out to lunch yesterday with another co-worker, and it was a wonderful exercise in restraint. Some favorites were the moment when Heath said, "honey, he woke me up with a welcome surprise, and I don't mean the coffee or donut," or when she said "yeah, I think that's why my ex-boyfriend was so confident you know, because he was huge. I couldn't even let him enter the first few times." What was I doing? Being silent, mostly.
Last night I went over to watch the Shakespeare tea towel with Clara and Heath (this is our code for watching the OC -- Clara covers her tv during the day with a tea towel with WS's face plastered over it). It was so much fun; we drank wine and smoked all kinds of weird things. Then Heath walked me home and we talked and talked and talked. I keep worrying about that moment when I'll become boring, you know? And then our friendship won't be fresh anymore and I'll worry about what I'm saying and our future conversations. Beginnings are so much easier to cope with.
Anyway, he told me about coming out to his parents and it just made me feel so terrible. He's 23 and cute and so comfortable in his own skin, but periodically, like when he told me about how he's estranged from his family, his expression suddenly made him seem so young. Really really young. And yet, it doesn't seem fair that only one of us gets the attention of a local dance professor. He's been here a week and is already overhauling the local blue-collar dive. Whereas I'm in bed by 9pm on the dotted swiss.
I don't have much else to say. Socially, things aren't so bad, but they could be better. Work-wise, things aren't great. I think it all comes back to the same evil: lack of self-confidence. I'm also really tired. Too much work and too much drinking with the result that I'm not currently enjoying either. Would you believe though that all these awkward and frustrating and self-destructive moments of doubt and questioning are probably good for me in the long run? I keep trying to tell myself that being in a difficult position and being forced to participate in conversations on just about EVERYTHING are exactly what I need to break down a little reserve. Then again, I feel kind of lost without a chip on my shoulder.
9.21.2005
Babysitting is tiring stuff. Tonight I hung out with a 9-year-old girl for about 3 hours and felt like fading for almost every second of the experience. It began when one of the editors at work asked if I would be interested in babysitting his daughters: Lottie, 12, and Martine, 9. Logic was pre-empted by vanity, which responded by saying "yes, of course, Fred, I would be delighted." Have I ever babysat? Nope. Do I have the patience to hang out with energetic (albeit very sweet) little girls for hours? Nope. The main reason I went through with it was just for the hell of it.
I mean, my entire existence here in Princeton is pretty much one adventure to another, and I feel like saying no to something here would be stupid. It's all about exploring the options out there, peering into the lives that other people lead and figuring out how you respond and how your behavior reflects on you. Like this weekend when I was overcome with nostalgia for Columbia. I went to the bookstore and bought a t-shirt and shot glass emblazoned with logos. Only later when I exhibited my purchases to Vanessa did I realize that it was probably a reflex on my part to convert emotional intensity into an act of physical ownership. I don't own much Columbia merchandise, and now all of a sudden I'm wearing the shirt and squeezing the glass in amongst the Berkeley, Princeton and NYU paraphernalia around the house.
Oops, I have to go. I'll write more later.
Oops, I have to go. I'll write more later.
9.19.2005
Coming (out) Roses
The weekend was amazing. That's what I've decided. I could barely focus at work today because I kept thinking over conversations, people, faces, dancing, music, sunlight, driving....everyone at work thought I was on crack because I was so happy, really giddy with happiness. On a Monday no less. You know that feeling when you think everything really is coming up roses?
Lina was coming up to visit this weekend, and I finally determined to see her and the rest of the Paris gang: Danielle, Chris, Natalie, etc. We ended up going to some friends' house in Brooklyn, and drinking and talking the night away on their gorgeous rooftop. There was a beautiful nightscape of the city, I had drinks and engaging conversation: it was perfect, a wonderful evening. Natalie decided to introduce a bizarre element by kissing me (and some others) on the lips. But everything felt fluid, comprehensible, I was reaching some kind of insight into my current existence. I was also thinking rather intensely over an earlier occurrence during the day...
Clara (and Heath and Blaine) gave me a ride into the city that afternoon. I'm beginning to like all three of them more and more, although I almost died of shock when I discovered that Blaine is straight. Here's my defense. Blaine:
1. Is very very good-looking
2. Dresses well
3. Dances amazingly
4. Held me around the waist for a substantial portion of Friday night and, well, we generally petted one another.
5. Carried on a conversation at the club wherein we were practically making out (proximity was needed, the music was loud => I thought he was gay and harmless).
6. Was first introduced to me along with Heath, who is uber-gay. I mean, I thought they were going out until Heath told me he doesn't have a boyfriend.
7. Refreshed my drink (correctly) without asking and spoke to me like a real person
8. Seemed interested in getting to know me
9. Didn't bring up sports (really, most guys seem to talk inordinately about sports)
****I realize a huge chunk of these won't make any sense to you. But I'm not kidding, these were real signs, and I don't have wretched gaydar. Even Clara later said, "yeah, it is initially confusing. I think he's a metro."****
The whole car ride into the city, I had been merrily carrying on the most absurd dialogue with him in the backseat, telling him how I think the word "ass" should be inserted at unexpected moments in conversation (who says that?!), how I'm innately clumsy, blah blah. Basically making a fool of myself as I would only with someone I felt I could confide stupid things in. And then! Pow! Heath was telling me about how they were planning on going to all these outrageous gay bars in the city, and Blaine piped up saying "don't forget, guys, one of us isn't gay." My stomach lurched in horror. What had I been saying to this fantastic, sweet, charming, sexy, NOT-GAY man? I felt like I had been stabbed somewhere around my navel, and it sucked, because from that moment on, I felt self-conscious about my body and everything I said. I couldn't even look at him without suddenly evaluating the motion.
It still surprises me that in one stomach-jerking moment, I went from thinking of him as a really nice friend who would hopefully come back to visit, to someone I had to be wary around, someone with whom sexual energy (and there was some kind of sexual dynamic, but it seemed totally acceptable at the time) isn't necessarily safe or innocently meant. And then I felt like an idiot because in that one flash I realized why I get along so much better with women and gay men: because my reserves go up with straight men unless I'm absolutely not attracted to them. I never bumble, I never really talk to them without working my conversation into witty and polished little pockets of speech. It's weird to learn these things about yourself.
Anyway, the second miserable bomb was that he and Clara used to go out years ago. Apparently they were together for 2 months but he was stupid and went back to some crazy girl he previously dated. Now, I know Clara. She's totally invested in sexual energy and experimentation, in serious, mentally challenging relationships. Plus Clara's my friend, a confidante, a shoulder to lean on at work and outside work. Even if I were to think about Blaine in any kind of dating context, this would be a huge barrier.
This is already was too involved and embarrassing a post. Still, here’s the point. I thought about all of this throughout the weekend. I convinced myself that it was all pretty meaningless stuff, that he was a good-looking, nice guy I wouldn’t be seeing much of. But today at work both Heath and Clara told me that he was really into me, that he has a crush on me. How bizarre! A guy I thought was gay and was therefore perfectly nice to, is attracted to me. For fear of launching into an embarrassing burst of utter glee, I’m going to stop soon.
I know nothing is going to happen, and I’ll probably have a dull next weekend to make up for it. But still, I realize now that it has taken a lot of serendipity and mischance to even get to this point, that none of this would have happened if I had gone back to living in New York and to a pre-established circle of friends. I’ve met my housemates, my work colleagues, guys my own age (well, Blaine is 26) who expect me to talk to them instead of shrinking into a protective crowd of women. I feel like I’m going to fuck up constantly, and just for today, it felt amazing to be me, to fuck-up as only I can.
The weekend was amazing. That's what I've decided. I could barely focus at work today because I kept thinking over conversations, people, faces, dancing, music, sunlight, driving....everyone at work thought I was on crack because I was so happy, really giddy with happiness. On a Monday no less. You know that feeling when you think everything really is coming up roses?
Lina was coming up to visit this weekend, and I finally determined to see her and the rest of the Paris gang: Danielle, Chris, Natalie, etc. We ended up going to some friends' house in Brooklyn, and drinking and talking the night away on their gorgeous rooftop. There was a beautiful nightscape of the city, I had drinks and engaging conversation: it was perfect, a wonderful evening. Natalie decided to introduce a bizarre element by kissing me (and some others) on the lips. But everything felt fluid, comprehensible, I was reaching some kind of insight into my current existence. I was also thinking rather intensely over an earlier occurrence during the day...
Clara (and Heath and Blaine) gave me a ride into the city that afternoon. I'm beginning to like all three of them more and more, although I almost died of shock when I discovered that Blaine is straight. Here's my defense. Blaine:
1. Is very very good-looking
2. Dresses well
3. Dances amazingly
4. Held me around the waist for a substantial portion of Friday night and, well, we generally petted one another.
5. Carried on a conversation at the club wherein we were practically making out (proximity was needed, the music was loud => I thought he was gay and harmless).
6. Was first introduced to me along with Heath, who is uber-gay. I mean, I thought they were going out until Heath told me he doesn't have a boyfriend.
7. Refreshed my drink (correctly) without asking and spoke to me like a real person
8. Seemed interested in getting to know me
9. Didn't bring up sports (really, most guys seem to talk inordinately about sports)
****I realize a huge chunk of these won't make any sense to you. But I'm not kidding, these were real signs, and I don't have wretched gaydar. Even Clara later said, "yeah, it is initially confusing. I think he's a metro."****
The whole car ride into the city, I had been merrily carrying on the most absurd dialogue with him in the backseat, telling him how I think the word "ass" should be inserted at unexpected moments in conversation (who says that?!), how I'm innately clumsy, blah blah. Basically making a fool of myself as I would only with someone I felt I could confide stupid things in. And then! Pow! Heath was telling me about how they were planning on going to all these outrageous gay bars in the city, and Blaine piped up saying "don't forget, guys, one of us isn't gay." My stomach lurched in horror. What had I been saying to this fantastic, sweet, charming, sexy, NOT-GAY man? I felt like I had been stabbed somewhere around my navel, and it sucked, because from that moment on, I felt self-conscious about my body and everything I said. I couldn't even look at him without suddenly evaluating the motion.
It still surprises me that in one stomach-jerking moment, I went from thinking of him as a really nice friend who would hopefully come back to visit, to someone I had to be wary around, someone with whom sexual energy (and there was some kind of sexual dynamic, but it seemed totally acceptable at the time) isn't necessarily safe or innocently meant. And then I felt like an idiot because in that one flash I realized why I get along so much better with women and gay men: because my reserves go up with straight men unless I'm absolutely not attracted to them. I never bumble, I never really talk to them without working my conversation into witty and polished little pockets of speech. It's weird to learn these things about yourself.
Anyway, the second miserable bomb was that he and Clara used to go out years ago. Apparently they were together for 2 months but he was stupid and went back to some crazy girl he previously dated. Now, I know Clara. She's totally invested in sexual energy and experimentation, in serious, mentally challenging relationships. Plus Clara's my friend, a confidante, a shoulder to lean on at work and outside work. Even if I were to think about Blaine in any kind of dating context, this would be a huge barrier.
This is already was too involved and embarrassing a post. Still, here’s the point. I thought about all of this throughout the weekend. I convinced myself that it was all pretty meaningless stuff, that he was a good-looking, nice guy I wouldn’t be seeing much of. But today at work both Heath and Clara told me that he was really into me, that he has a crush on me. How bizarre! A guy I thought was gay and was therefore perfectly nice to, is attracted to me. For fear of launching into an embarrassing burst of utter glee, I’m going to stop soon.
I know nothing is going to happen, and I’ll probably have a dull next weekend to make up for it. But still, I realize now that it has taken a lot of serendipity and mischance to even get to this point, that none of this would have happened if I had gone back to living in New York and to a pre-established circle of friends. I’ve met my housemates, my work colleagues, guys my own age (well, Blaine is 26) who expect me to talk to them instead of shrinking into a protective crowd of women. I feel like I’m going to fuck up constantly, and just for today, it felt amazing to be me, to fuck-up as only I can.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s possible that all those changes you imagine you’ll go through in college can sometimes only happen after you graduate, when you’re really on your own, cultivating and curiously probing a new life.
9.17.2005
Dancing Queen
I got drafted into going on this tour of the PUP warehouse. Let me just say, never again, man. This mean little gay man took us on a laborious tour of the facilities, regaling us with one anecdote after another. Did I ask to be told about the multiple prisoners from Texas who call with requests for scholarly books? I don’t even know what to make of that. Do we actually live in a social utopia without knowing it? Is inmate #A8997462215 better versed in Coleridge than I am?
When I got home, Clara and her friends were over and waiting for me before heading out to the DBar. All three of them went to college in Athens, Georgia. Heath and Blaine are visiting her this weekend – although Heath begins work at the Press this upcoming week. I felt a little awkward since he later told me that he had applied for the position I’m in. What do you say to that? I always wondered about the people who got jobs I applied for (half-resentfully, half-miserably), and even in this instance, I did pause to wonder what the other candidates were like. To meet one in a personal context really is an invitation for awkwardness.
This isn’t to say that Heath and I don’t get along. In fact, we get along so well that he unbuttoned my blouse, bought me a drink, grabbed my ass, and kissed me and told me how beautiful I am as only a rockin’ gay male friend can. He’s a sweetie, although he also has a very determined personality, and I have a feeling he can alter from a chill and charming guy into a catty little cow. Let’s see. People have never as yet failed me by being totally disinteresting.
Blaine seemed like a totally nice guy too. He’s stuck in Alabama – poor thing! – working as a reporter for a local newspaper, and is desperately trying to get out. I think he ideally wants to come up here and join the Princeton commune, as led by Clara. They’re kind of a hilarious trio – very fun, very inviting, a little intimidating.
Anyway, we had a great time. I love dancing to disco music. Vanessa and I found our own spot on the dance stage and twirled our arms and hips for hours and hours. I really admire her -- she’s such a self-contained person. Even on the dance floor. I usually need to be pretty intoxicated to move as unabashedly as she does. Still, dancing, well there’s nothing quite like it, especially when a guy in an afro wig and an unbuttoned silk shirt with polka dots is doing John Travolta (from that scene in Saturday Night Fever) right next to you. It just makes me want to boogie oogie oogie until the sun comes up.
I got drafted into going on this tour of the PUP warehouse. Let me just say, never again, man. This mean little gay man took us on a laborious tour of the facilities, regaling us with one anecdote after another. Did I ask to be told about the multiple prisoners from Texas who call with requests for scholarly books? I don’t even know what to make of that. Do we actually live in a social utopia without knowing it? Is inmate #A8997462215 better versed in Coleridge than I am?
When I got home, Clara and her friends were over and waiting for me before heading out to the DBar. All three of them went to college in Athens, Georgia. Heath and Blaine are visiting her this weekend – although Heath begins work at the Press this upcoming week. I felt a little awkward since he later told me that he had applied for the position I’m in. What do you say to that? I always wondered about the people who got jobs I applied for (half-resentfully, half-miserably), and even in this instance, I did pause to wonder what the other candidates were like. To meet one in a personal context really is an invitation for awkwardness.
This isn’t to say that Heath and I don’t get along. In fact, we get along so well that he unbuttoned my blouse, bought me a drink, grabbed my ass, and kissed me and told me how beautiful I am as only a rockin’ gay male friend can. He’s a sweetie, although he also has a very determined personality, and I have a feeling he can alter from a chill and charming guy into a catty little cow. Let’s see. People have never as yet failed me by being totally disinteresting.
Blaine seemed like a totally nice guy too. He’s stuck in Alabama – poor thing! – working as a reporter for a local newspaper, and is desperately trying to get out. I think he ideally wants to come up here and join the Princeton commune, as led by Clara. They’re kind of a hilarious trio – very fun, very inviting, a little intimidating.
Anyway, we had a great time. I love dancing to disco music. Vanessa and I found our own spot on the dance stage and twirled our arms and hips for hours and hours. I really admire her -- she’s such a self-contained person. Even on the dance floor. I usually need to be pretty intoxicated to move as unabashedly as she does. Still, dancing, well there’s nothing quite like it, especially when a guy in an afro wig and an unbuttoned silk shirt with polka dots is doing John Travolta (from that scene in Saturday Night Fever) right next to you. It just makes me want to boogie oogie oogie until the sun comes up.
9.15.2005
One must Imagine Sisyphus Happy
So I know it's been a while since I updated. This is mostly due to the fact that my work is silently and ploddingly killing me. I get in early, stay late, rinse and repeat. It's exhausting. I actually felt this huge surge of resentment towards my bosses and the company yesterday, which is awful. I adore the editors I work for! They're young and friendly (and bask in the glory of their attractive assistant) and they really are human at the end of the day, which is what I need to keep reminding myself. Sometimes I feel like I'm ready to make myself the victim and to picture the two of them as the aggressors, the bullies, shoveling piles of work onto my desk and filling my inbox with miserable requests. Which they do. But they're also understanding, they care about my well-being, and they laugh at bawdy jokes, which is all I can expect of anyone. Nonetheless, I'm distinctly beginning to suffer from a Sisyphus complex. Every time I think I'm getting a handle on all the work, I take a massive landslide and find myself trudging up the same path. It's too bad, because only yesterday my boss came in and said, "you know, I just wanted to tell you, today when I came in I felt so thankful that I have such a capable assistant here who can cope when I'm away." By the end of the day I felt the need to apologize for my crabby behavior. But it was an exceptionally shit day, which she herself acknowledged. I don't know. I'm trying to stifle a huge sigh of self-pity and failing pretty badly. It's just that everyone says it takes 3-4 months to get used to this job and to feel like you're capable of managing your workload. I know I'm only about a month in, but my insecurities have kicked in and all I wonder is, am I really capable? Is the reason I'm so tired and frustrated because this job isn't right for me? This is basic work. Am I incapable of doing any job? Should I get a rich husband?" Advice is welcome; I'm a little desperate at the moment.
I'm taking a class at the university, which is rather exciting. I haven't as yet decided what it will be (Soviet literature? Children's lit? American Fiction?), but I went to my first lecture today. It was so exciting! I wondered why everyone else in the room wasn't as keyed up about being there as I was. Mostly they all seemed to be wearing jeans or miniskirts and polos or rugby shirts. It was like high school all over again. This girl next to me clutched her cellphone in her hand the whole time and yawned like it was going out of style. What's her problem? Modernism? Fiction? Narrative? Politics? It's like a goldmine. And she's yawning. Princeton has bums, I never thought I'd say it.
It's bizarre to see so many students around. I had been enjoying the loveliness of a quiet and barren campus for the past few weeks. And now! Students are flocking around in droves, each one dressed more scantily the next. I don't know what to make of such a foreign student body. At least I could recognize faces at Columbia. The problem here is that I still look like an undergrad. Everyone I meet asks me what I'm majoring in. How nauseating. Hasn't it occurred to them to sense the immense leap towards maturity and professionalism that I've made? Where is the 'sexy young professional' badge I always knew I'd trademark? I could also simplify the matter simply by wearing black clothing and thereby throwing off the wave of nantucket red shorts and navy polos frothing on campus. Still, it's nice to have a change of dynamic.
Yesterday: intense work, over to Clara's for drinks and appetizers. I took hydrangeas (blue, gorgeous, they even brought me out of the doldrums) and wine. We talked and drank Prosecco for 3 hours, whereupon I stumbled home and collapsed in a blind oblivion. I've got to say, a wine-soaked haze? -- it makes everything a little crisper, a little more golden.
Clara is a dear. She's full of eccentricites that deserve comment -- she collects insects and is something of an amateur taxidermist. She claims to have spent her college life alternately living at home with her parents and taking up residence with her lovers. She's very dainty and southern in her mannerisms but she smokes like a chimney and makes the occasional saucy comment just to catch you off guard. She fell in love with a woman for a long time but is now dating a 38-year-old man in NYC. She seems to drink in every moment of her existence and bald-facedly refuses to believe that she can't enforce her own agenda. Plus, she reads (avidly) and makes a mean cucumber sandwich with the crusts neatly rounded.
Tomorrow: work, followed by 70s-themed party at the "D-Bar," the infamous graduate student bar in Princeton. I'm having dinner with my housemates and then we head out to boogie to the bee-gees. The good news is that given the current humidity, I won't have much work to do for that afro I'll need.
Good luck on the GREs, Katy-kat! I'm thinking of you and doing silent cheers at the copy machine.
So I know it's been a while since I updated. This is mostly due to the fact that my work is silently and ploddingly killing me. I get in early, stay late, rinse and repeat. It's exhausting. I actually felt this huge surge of resentment towards my bosses and the company yesterday, which is awful. I adore the editors I work for! They're young and friendly (and bask in the glory of their attractive assistant) and they really are human at the end of the day, which is what I need to keep reminding myself. Sometimes I feel like I'm ready to make myself the victim and to picture the two of them as the aggressors, the bullies, shoveling piles of work onto my desk and filling my inbox with miserable requests. Which they do. But they're also understanding, they care about my well-being, and they laugh at bawdy jokes, which is all I can expect of anyone. Nonetheless, I'm distinctly beginning to suffer from a Sisyphus complex. Every time I think I'm getting a handle on all the work, I take a massive landslide and find myself trudging up the same path. It's too bad, because only yesterday my boss came in and said, "you know, I just wanted to tell you, today when I came in I felt so thankful that I have such a capable assistant here who can cope when I'm away." By the end of the day I felt the need to apologize for my crabby behavior. But it was an exceptionally shit day, which she herself acknowledged. I don't know. I'm trying to stifle a huge sigh of self-pity and failing pretty badly. It's just that everyone says it takes 3-4 months to get used to this job and to feel like you're capable of managing your workload. I know I'm only about a month in, but my insecurities have kicked in and all I wonder is, am I really capable? Is the reason I'm so tired and frustrated because this job isn't right for me? This is basic work. Am I incapable of doing any job? Should I get a rich husband?" Advice is welcome; I'm a little desperate at the moment.
I'm taking a class at the university, which is rather exciting. I haven't as yet decided what it will be (Soviet literature? Children's lit? American Fiction?), but I went to my first lecture today. It was so exciting! I wondered why everyone else in the room wasn't as keyed up about being there as I was. Mostly they all seemed to be wearing jeans or miniskirts and polos or rugby shirts. It was like high school all over again. This girl next to me clutched her cellphone in her hand the whole time and yawned like it was going out of style. What's her problem? Modernism? Fiction? Narrative? Politics? It's like a goldmine. And she's yawning. Princeton has bums, I never thought I'd say it.
It's bizarre to see so many students around. I had been enjoying the loveliness of a quiet and barren campus for the past few weeks. And now! Students are flocking around in droves, each one dressed more scantily the next. I don't know what to make of such a foreign student body. At least I could recognize faces at Columbia. The problem here is that I still look like an undergrad. Everyone I meet asks me what I'm majoring in. How nauseating. Hasn't it occurred to them to sense the immense leap towards maturity and professionalism that I've made? Where is the 'sexy young professional' badge I always knew I'd trademark? I could also simplify the matter simply by wearing black clothing and thereby throwing off the wave of nantucket red shorts and navy polos frothing on campus. Still, it's nice to have a change of dynamic.
Yesterday: intense work, over to Clara's for drinks and appetizers. I took hydrangeas (blue, gorgeous, they even brought me out of the doldrums) and wine. We talked and drank Prosecco for 3 hours, whereupon I stumbled home and collapsed in a blind oblivion. I've got to say, a wine-soaked haze? -- it makes everything a little crisper, a little more golden.
Clara is a dear. She's full of eccentricites that deserve comment -- she collects insects and is something of an amateur taxidermist. She claims to have spent her college life alternately living at home with her parents and taking up residence with her lovers. She's very dainty and southern in her mannerisms but she smokes like a chimney and makes the occasional saucy comment just to catch you off guard. She fell in love with a woman for a long time but is now dating a 38-year-old man in NYC. She seems to drink in every moment of her existence and bald-facedly refuses to believe that she can't enforce her own agenda. Plus, she reads (avidly) and makes a mean cucumber sandwich with the crusts neatly rounded.
Tomorrow: work, followed by 70s-themed party at the "D-Bar," the infamous graduate student bar in Princeton. I'm having dinner with my housemates and then we head out to boogie to the bee-gees. The good news is that given the current humidity, I won't have much work to do for that afro I'll need.
Good luck on the GREs, Katy-kat! I'm thinking of you and doing silent cheers at the copy machine.
9.11.2005
US OPEN Men's Final, a halfwit's commentary
I've always thought that Federer has a fantastic game because he's such an all-round player. He never falters, and although his backhand isn't as masterful as his forehand, he combines an incredible wingspan (the one-armed stroke gives you that, I don't personally favour it, but it's a distinct advantage, you're just tighter when you hit double-handed) with this coy little slice in order to make it a pretty dangerous return. He doesn't allow his serve to get so big that it dominates the game - he mixes it up with great placement, the occasional ace, and a lot of variation. I like creative players. Plus I'm feeling a little sorry for him, since he's totally shaken by Agassi's huge level of play. I haven't seen tennis played at this pitch in forever. Especially not in a final. All the cross-court shots and the speed itself...it's crazy! Roger is just choking, and it's kind of killing me, but I keep telling myself Andre deserves to win -- and not just because he's fought to stay in the game this long, but because he's playing at 300% right now. You can almost see him expanding his game, attaining that amazing pitch of play. Roger, on the other hand, is getting tighter and tighter.
I think the crowd advantage is really revealing itself here. It's awful to play when people are cheering as you double fault, or screaming continuously and vigilantly for your opponent's success. No matter how impassive you might be, no matter how much you choose to dwell inside your head, it gets to you and it gets to your game.
I think in part the crowd is so worked up because in the post-Sampras era, there isn't really an American tennis hero anymore. I grant Roddick is a solid player, but he's young and he needs to build up his presence. James Blake did well, but where was he until this tournament? And now! Agassi is having a huge comeback. Plus he's older, which means that more people have followed his career and know where he's coming from. I don't know if this is a last hurrah, but does it matter? It's amazing to witness someone resurrecting their game and outplaying the world champion. I've never seen Federer make so many faults and play a game that lacks finesse. Not that it makes me think anything lower of him. It's nice to see that even he, at 22, at the pinnacle of tennis, is liable to net balls, hit wide and long, screw up his angles.
I've always thought that Federer has a fantastic game because he's such an all-round player. He never falters, and although his backhand isn't as masterful as his forehand, he combines an incredible wingspan (the one-armed stroke gives you that, I don't personally favour it, but it's a distinct advantage, you're just tighter when you hit double-handed) with this coy little slice in order to make it a pretty dangerous return. He doesn't allow his serve to get so big that it dominates the game - he mixes it up with great placement, the occasional ace, and a lot of variation. I like creative players. Plus I'm feeling a little sorry for him, since he's totally shaken by Agassi's huge level of play. I haven't seen tennis played at this pitch in forever. Especially not in a final. All the cross-court shots and the speed itself...it's crazy! Roger is just choking, and it's kind of killing me, but I keep telling myself Andre deserves to win -- and not just because he's fought to stay in the game this long, but because he's playing at 300% right now. You can almost see him expanding his game, attaining that amazing pitch of play. Roger, on the other hand, is getting tighter and tighter.
I think the crowd advantage is really revealing itself here. It's awful to play when people are cheering as you double fault, or screaming continuously and vigilantly for your opponent's success. No matter how impassive you might be, no matter how much you choose to dwell inside your head, it gets to you and it gets to your game.
I think in part the crowd is so worked up because in the post-Sampras era, there isn't really an American tennis hero anymore. I grant Roddick is a solid player, but he's young and he needs to build up his presence. James Blake did well, but where was he until this tournament? And now! Agassi is having a huge comeback. Plus he's older, which means that more people have followed his career and know where he's coming from. I don't know if this is a last hurrah, but does it matter? It's amazing to witness someone resurrecting their game and outplaying the world champion. I've never seen Federer make so many faults and play a game that lacks finesse. Not that it makes me think anything lower of him. It's nice to see that even he, at 22, at the pinnacle of tennis, is liable to net balls, hit wide and long, screw up his angles.
Musings
I had a good weekend. I don't want to labor over it, so here are the highlights:
Friday evening: Dinner with Meredith and the girls, for Meredith's 22nd birthday at Arte Cafe. I ordered a salad, thinking it would be enough, and promptly scraped Sarita's plate clean. Annie told me my blog is depressing her. I'm stumped for words. Sorry Annie, but credit the source. This is me after all. The moon was melancholy when I was born.
Drinks at 420. Is there anything to say? I enjoyed a weak gimlet, itched to slap about four people, and screamed things like "so, what was your major?" and "mm, doesn't everyone like pine nuts?" in order to make small-talk.
Saturday: Bagel with Abby. Visit to the MET to see Matisse/Textiles exhibition.
Pottered around Lexington, told weird man who owned Moroccan pottery shop that I was married to a Frenchman (despite obvious lack of shiny ring), he congratulated me on my beauty, and said "I hope you two are enjoying each other," in a really sexual way, in French. Bizarre. I suppose I should apply that to myself as well, since it was pretty clear from the get-go (which was when he ended a conversation on the phone regarding the hiring process for bellydancers and said "hello gorgeous, who are you?") that we were both committed and consistent liars. The thing that I've discovered is, in order to really enjoy yourself, you have to appreciate other people's embroidery as much as your own.
I had a good weekend. I don't want to labor over it, so here are the highlights:
Friday evening: Dinner with Meredith and the girls, for Meredith's 22nd birthday at Arte Cafe. I ordered a salad, thinking it would be enough, and promptly scraped Sarita's plate clean. Annie told me my blog is depressing her. I'm stumped for words. Sorry Annie, but credit the source. This is me after all. The moon was melancholy when I was born.
Drinks at 420. Is there anything to say? I enjoyed a weak gimlet, itched to slap about four people, and screamed things like "so, what was your major?" and "mm, doesn't everyone like pine nuts?" in order to make small-talk.
Saturday: Bagel with Abby. Visit to the MET to see Matisse/Textiles exhibition.
Pottered around Lexington, told weird man who owned Moroccan pottery shop that I was married to a Frenchman (despite obvious lack of shiny ring), he congratulated me on my beauty, and said "I hope you two are enjoying each other," in a really sexual way, in French. Bizarre. I suppose I should apply that to myself as well, since it was pretty clear from the get-go (which was when he ended a conversation on the phone regarding the hiring process for bellydancers and said "hello gorgeous, who are you?") that we were both committed and consistent liars. The thing that I've discovered is, in order to really enjoy yourself, you have to appreciate other people's embroidery as much as your own.
9.06.2005
Invisible Listeners
I felt kind of lonely at lunch today, for some reason or the other. I took a small book I got in Paris out with me -- it's actually kind of neat, a compilation of letters written by a bunch of French and American writers to their mothers. It's hilarious to read Henry James drafting a highly punctilious note to his "very dear mother," or to imagine Baudelaire sitting down and saying "I've been thinking about the combination of your imprudence and my violent nature during my childhood and I realize that we can never reconcile such huge past differences." Then there's Proust who opens every letter with the words "to my dear little mother." Lovely!
I felt kind of lonely at lunch today, for some reason or the other. I took a small book I got in Paris out with me -- it's actually kind of neat, a compilation of letters written by a bunch of French and American writers to their mothers. It's hilarious to read Henry James drafting a highly punctilious note to his "very dear mother," or to imagine Baudelaire sitting down and saying "I've been thinking about the combination of your imprudence and my violent nature during my childhood and I realize that we can never reconcile such huge past differences." Then there's Proust who opens every letter with the words "to my dear little mother." Lovely!
Nonetheless, it just wasn't a day to read and eat on my own. I wanted company so badly that I wandered aimlessly for ten whole minutes, retracing my steps over and over until I finally went back to my desk. Pathetic.
I'm reading Hermione Lee's autobiography of Virginia Woolf. I've been meaning to do this since February when Prof. Greenberg brought it up during the Woolf seminar, but so few libraries or even bookstores carried it and I was in an anti-Amazon.com mood. But today! I ran to the public library after work (from one sterile bookish environment to another) and pinched it off the shelves. And let me just say, it is totally worth it. I had goosebumps rising all over my arms with her opening words. I miss reading and studying Woolf, I really do. And I've wanted to read this book for so long, and it's finally here in my lap. Listen to this:
"There are many times, writing this, when I have been afraid of Virginia Woolf. I think I would have been afraid of meeting her. I am afraid of not being intelligent enough for her. Reading and writing her life, I am often afraid (or, in one of the words she used most about her mental states, "apprehensive") for her...All readers of VW's diaries (even those who have decided to dislike her) will feel an extraordinary sense of intimacy with the voice that is talking there. They will want to call her Virginia, and speak proprietorially about her life. She seems extremely near, contemporary, timeless. But she is also evasive and obscure...If you listen to the only surviving recording of her, you hear a voice from another century, which to us sounds posh, antiquated, class-bound, mannered...She is always trying to work out what happens to "myself" -- the "damned egotistical self" -- when it is alone, when it is with other people, when it is contented, excited, anxious, ill, when it is asleep or eating or walking, when it is writing. "Sydney comes & I'm Virginia; when I write I'm merely a sensibility. Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I'm scattered & various & gregarious.""
It's like Hermione Lee is turning a fan, and on one side Virginia Woolf is so clear and close to me, so evident in her mind and manner. On the other side, she's totally riddled with complexity, and it's like looking at someone with a million combatant reflections. The best part about reading this is that I feel like she - VW - exists only so long as the fan is in motion, shifting constantly between the clear vision and the riddle.
There were two conversations that took place tonight - one that actually transpired, and one that didn't. They were both, in their respective chattiness and silence, pretty illuminating. People - Woolf, Proust's little mother, the voice on the other end of the phone - manage to be both captivating and repellent, you know?
Reza just invented an additional $12.90 out of nowhere to tack onto my bill for this month. It's oddly similar to my feelings about dealing with people or even myself -- what's the point of asking why?
I'm reading Hermione Lee's autobiography of Virginia Woolf. I've been meaning to do this since February when Prof. Greenberg brought it up during the Woolf seminar, but so few libraries or even bookstores carried it and I was in an anti-Amazon.com mood. But today! I ran to the public library after work (from one sterile bookish environment to another) and pinched it off the shelves. And let me just say, it is totally worth it. I had goosebumps rising all over my arms with her opening words. I miss reading and studying Woolf, I really do. And I've wanted to read this book for so long, and it's finally here in my lap. Listen to this:
"There are many times, writing this, when I have been afraid of Virginia Woolf. I think I would have been afraid of meeting her. I am afraid of not being intelligent enough for her. Reading and writing her life, I am often afraid (or, in one of the words she used most about her mental states, "apprehensive") for her...All readers of VW's diaries (even those who have decided to dislike her) will feel an extraordinary sense of intimacy with the voice that is talking there. They will want to call her Virginia, and speak proprietorially about her life. She seems extremely near, contemporary, timeless. But she is also evasive and obscure...If you listen to the only surviving recording of her, you hear a voice from another century, which to us sounds posh, antiquated, class-bound, mannered...She is always trying to work out what happens to "myself" -- the "damned egotistical self" -- when it is alone, when it is with other people, when it is contented, excited, anxious, ill, when it is asleep or eating or walking, when it is writing. "Sydney comes & I'm Virginia; when I write I'm merely a sensibility. Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I'm scattered & various & gregarious.""
It's like Hermione Lee is turning a fan, and on one side Virginia Woolf is so clear and close to me, so evident in her mind and manner. On the other side, she's totally riddled with complexity, and it's like looking at someone with a million combatant reflections. The best part about reading this is that I feel like she - VW - exists only so long as the fan is in motion, shifting constantly between the clear vision and the riddle.
There were two conversations that took place tonight - one that actually transpired, and one that didn't. They were both, in their respective chattiness and silence, pretty illuminating. People - Woolf, Proust's little mother, the voice on the other end of the phone - manage to be both captivating and repellent, you know?
Reza just invented an additional $12.90 out of nowhere to tack onto my bill for this month. It's oddly similar to my feelings about dealing with people or even myself -- what's the point of asking why?
9.04.2005
The weekend was good. I had a lot more to say on the subject, but I'm tired and distanced from it all right now. I'm currently sitting in Reza and Yorgo's lab, playing around and admiring all the shiny glassware and stoppered test-tubes and wondering why I know so little about this huge segment of life -- the lab, the science world. Reza and Yorgo are PhDs in Chemical Engineering. They have been harvesting DNA tonight; Carrie (another roommate) and I tagged along to check it out. I won't turn down an invitation to see something this different. Plus I felt like I owed it to them to secure our growing friendship by accompanying them to their principal habitat as of the past 4.5 years.
I went home for the past few days, which turned out surprisingly well, although I left the house in a bad mood. My parents, sister and I hung out over the weekend, eating fabulously and generally enjoying ourselves. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have a house in such a beautiful place; there was something special about this weekend because New Canaan was just constantly bathed in golden, warm sunlight. I know it's late summer sunshine luxuriating everywhere, but to me it just seemed like the entire world had been dipped in honey -- the leaves glowed, the skies were cerulean blue, there were maroon, brown and plum-coloured trees basking in the middle of the fields....it really was some kind of temporary paradise.
I saw The Wedding Crashers (fantastic! hilarious! why are all the women so thin?!).
Ok, I'm almost done with recounting. I came back to Princeton, rearranged my room (I now have floor cushions and a shelf), met a new potential roommate (cristophe of hook-up fame), chatted with Carrie, Yorgo and Reza, and drank some port. I bought it. I couldn't help it. It's just so good. And I have so few vices.
Tomorrow, back to work. Is it wrong to feel unenthused?
I went home for the past few days, which turned out surprisingly well, although I left the house in a bad mood. My parents, sister and I hung out over the weekend, eating fabulously and generally enjoying ourselves. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have a house in such a beautiful place; there was something special about this weekend because New Canaan was just constantly bathed in golden, warm sunlight. I know it's late summer sunshine luxuriating everywhere, but to me it just seemed like the entire world had been dipped in honey -- the leaves glowed, the skies were cerulean blue, there were maroon, brown and plum-coloured trees basking in the middle of the fields....it really was some kind of temporary paradise.
I saw The Wedding Crashers (fantastic! hilarious! why are all the women so thin?!).
Ok, I'm almost done with recounting. I came back to Princeton, rearranged my room (I now have floor cushions and a shelf), met a new potential roommate (cristophe of hook-up fame), chatted with Carrie, Yorgo and Reza, and drank some port. I bought it. I couldn't help it. It's just so good. And I have so few vices.
Tomorrow, back to work. Is it wrong to feel unenthused?
9.01.2005
Hmm. In the past 3 hours, I have seen both Reza and Yorgos in their underwear. Both of them had a wonderful laugh while I tried not to blush and look stupid. I've really got to work on my fake laugh.
But what was Adithi doing?, you might enquire, O inquisitive reader.
Well!
On the first occasion, I was carrying a 500 page classic novel downstairs with my nalgene bottle, wearing a huge hooded sweatshirt, looking tired and droopy. The second time, I was sprawled all over the couch, eating cereal out of the box, watching some tv show that I won't name because it embarrasses me too much. I know Yorgo thinks I'm bizarre (this is the optimistic version of "weird"), but now he thinks I'm dull and pathetic too, I'm sure. It's impossible to explain that 'you're lonely and don't have a community of friends because you just relocated and you suck at your job etc etc so you have to drown your sorrows in bad tv' to a guy who walks around the house half-undressed, with a 70s style poster in his room that says "Fly guy," clearly screaming: "I am male! I am macho! I am a guy who likes to get it on with sexy babes in bikinis!"
I miss college. I miss being able to watch hours of awful tv without it seeming like a pitiful way to pass an evening. I miss the fact that I didn't care whether or not I was caught by some strange guy at 11pm, with cereal stuck on my face. But Reza and Yorgo are 28 and they're men, not just guys. I feel like a complete and utter loser, like nothing I can do is right because I don't have the right personality to occupy this house. I didn't think that I'd have to apologize for being myself after a certain point in life. But when Yorgo came in for his final glass of milk and caught me in the same exact position, I felt like some silent judgment was being issued.
But what was Adithi doing?, you might enquire, O inquisitive reader.
Well!
On the first occasion, I was carrying a 500 page classic novel downstairs with my nalgene bottle, wearing a huge hooded sweatshirt, looking tired and droopy. The second time, I was sprawled all over the couch, eating cereal out of the box, watching some tv show that I won't name because it embarrasses me too much. I know Yorgo thinks I'm bizarre (this is the optimistic version of "weird"), but now he thinks I'm dull and pathetic too, I'm sure. It's impossible to explain that 'you're lonely and don't have a community of friends because you just relocated and you suck at your job etc etc so you have to drown your sorrows in bad tv' to a guy who walks around the house half-undressed, with a 70s style poster in his room that says "Fly guy," clearly screaming: "I am male! I am macho! I am a guy who likes to get it on with sexy babes in bikinis!"
I miss college. I miss being able to watch hours of awful tv without it seeming like a pitiful way to pass an evening. I miss the fact that I didn't care whether or not I was caught by some strange guy at 11pm, with cereal stuck on my face. But Reza and Yorgo are 28 and they're men, not just guys. I feel like a complete and utter loser, like nothing I can do is right because I don't have the right personality to occupy this house. I didn't think that I'd have to apologize for being myself after a certain point in life. But when Yorgo came in for his final glass of milk and caught me in the same exact position, I felt like some silent judgment was being issued.
At least the cat likes me.
Let's Talk About Sex
You know what I realized? I'm totally Mormon Julie from the Real World. Today Reza, Yorgo and I met a guy who might potentially move in, and had a brief but hilarious discussion about our past tenants, most of whom have hooked up with:
a) one another
b) a guy/girl who wants to move in now
It became pretty excitable, with Reza expostulating about how Christian should not have treated Caitlin like this, because after one hook-up, he made out with Rachel (currently trying to move in). And then there's the mysterious Alex, whom Reza describes as being "vulnerable" -- and how dare Christoph (also eager to move in) hook up with her for one night and never call her again...
Meanwhile, Yorgo was sitting back and saying "hey man, you can't say that. What about Alex? What guy ever called Alex before she called him? You can't say Christian behaved badly. What if you hooked up and..."
Man, these guys are serious! I mean, my god, I really am Mormon Julie. I played it off (have you ever seen me try to look cool?) pretty pathetically. Mostly I laughed a lot, because I couldn't help it, it was ludicrous to hear them discuss the "philosophy"of hooking-up. I'm impressed that they're aware of the whole 'women getting screwed emotionally' deal, but also interested to learn that hey, stereotypes are real: guys want to protect female friends but they also want to have sex with no strings attached. I really missed the boat on the male perspective during college. What a waste of 4 years. It's one thing to imagine what they think -- it's totally different to hear them discussing it between themselves.
What on earth have I gotten myself into? A sex motel? Me? Unless I rotate a series of smirking men through our living room, they're going to think I'm the lamest girl ever. Or maybe I'll just make an audio clip of creaky bed-springs and charged laughter. Right. Good plan. Not that that would be pathetic.
You know what I realized? I'm totally Mormon Julie from the Real World. Today Reza, Yorgo and I met a guy who might potentially move in, and had a brief but hilarious discussion about our past tenants, most of whom have hooked up with:
a) one another
b) a guy/girl who wants to move in now
It became pretty excitable, with Reza expostulating about how Christian should not have treated Caitlin like this, because after one hook-up, he made out with Rachel (currently trying to move in). And then there's the mysterious Alex, whom Reza describes as being "vulnerable" -- and how dare Christoph (also eager to move in) hook up with her for one night and never call her again...
Meanwhile, Yorgo was sitting back and saying "hey man, you can't say that. What about Alex? What guy ever called Alex before she called him? You can't say Christian behaved badly. What if you hooked up and..."
Man, these guys are serious! I mean, my god, I really am Mormon Julie. I played it off (have you ever seen me try to look cool?) pretty pathetically. Mostly I laughed a lot, because I couldn't help it, it was ludicrous to hear them discuss the "philosophy"of hooking-up. I'm impressed that they're aware of the whole 'women getting screwed emotionally' deal, but also interested to learn that hey, stereotypes are real: guys want to protect female friends but they also want to have sex with no strings attached. I really missed the boat on the male perspective during college. What a waste of 4 years. It's one thing to imagine what they think -- it's totally different to hear them discussing it between themselves.
What on earth have I gotten myself into? A sex motel? Me? Unless I rotate a series of smirking men through our living room, they're going to think I'm the lamest girl ever. Or maybe I'll just make an audio clip of creaky bed-springs and charged laughter. Right. Good plan. Not that that would be pathetic.
8.31.2005
That's it. It has been a hot and exhausting day, a deranged fly just came into my room and bounced off my forehead, and I've reached the conclusion that some things really are meant to be dropped like a hot potato. Like the ton of shit people in my life. Yup, I'm perfectly happy reducing the list to a mere 4-and-under trustworthy friends. Time to trim the fat, dump the excess baggage.
One potato, two potato, three potato...drop drop drop. As Kristen would say, "later, bitches!"
One potato, two potato, three potato...drop drop drop. As Kristen would say, "later, bitches!"
8.30.2005
Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds
Today a girl in production asked me to join her for lunch. I was touched. Her name is Lucy Day (this is her full first name -- I made the mistake of calling her Lucy, and was immediately reprimanded...it's Lucy Day, and that's that). What a fun name. It's cool to walk into someone's office and say, "Hey, Lucy Day! Aren't you ready to go?" or "I had lunch at the Ivy Garden with Lucy Day." It makes me feel like I've met the leading lady from a Beatles' song.
Lucy Day is married to a grad student called Aquinas (nope, not making this up). I saw a picture of them at their wedding (Aquinas is turning away from the camera -- as Lucy Day noted, he's not terribly photogenic, so a profile shot is the best they can hope for), in which people were blowing bubbles as they exited the church. Lucy Day didn't want rose petals or confetti; they're too conventional. So her mum went to the dollar store and bought everyone individual bottles of bubble soap. I was totally charmed. She also has a canary diamond - it was either this (which does look a little sickly to me) or a "really beautiful white diamond," and Lucy Day knew she'd "have to get the weird ring."
Lucy Day is also extraordinarily gifted...in the art of origami. Her room is covered in paper cranes, boxes, flowers, globes, etc. I'm hoping her generosity will kick in and I'll get a little crane (I'm already thinking of calling it "Solomon") for my cubicle.
Today a girl in production asked me to join her for lunch. I was touched. Her name is Lucy Day (this is her full first name -- I made the mistake of calling her Lucy, and was immediately reprimanded...it's Lucy Day, and that's that). What a fun name. It's cool to walk into someone's office and say, "Hey, Lucy Day! Aren't you ready to go?" or "I had lunch at the Ivy Garden with Lucy Day." It makes me feel like I've met the leading lady from a Beatles' song.
Lucy Day is married to a grad student called Aquinas (nope, not making this up). I saw a picture of them at their wedding (Aquinas is turning away from the camera -- as Lucy Day noted, he's not terribly photogenic, so a profile shot is the best they can hope for), in which people were blowing bubbles as they exited the church. Lucy Day didn't want rose petals or confetti; they're too conventional. So her mum went to the dollar store and bought everyone individual bottles of bubble soap. I was totally charmed. She also has a canary diamond - it was either this (which does look a little sickly to me) or a "really beautiful white diamond," and Lucy Day knew she'd "have to get the weird ring."
Lucy Day is also extraordinarily gifted...in the art of origami. Her room is covered in paper cranes, boxes, flowers, globes, etc. I'm hoping her generosity will kick in and I'll get a little crane (I'm already thinking of calling it "Solomon") for my cubicle.
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