"You Can't Imagine it Unless You've Been There"
(12-21 April 2000)
21 April 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-I love night-driving. "New Miserable
Experience" was perfect for tonight - it's like the whole album was written
expressly to be appreciated tonight under those circumstances. & the
radio set afterwards was quite something too - I need to figure out what that
new song is.
-Looking out the glass in the back door, everything looked wholly two-dimensional.
Like it was a stage set or old film background - layered & elaborate,
but lacking depth. Welcome to my world.
-Does this qualify as a valid daily update, Lisha? That's what I thought.
-Jessica Riddle. That's the new song "artist". Might have
to check that out.
20 April 2000
-Gris is going back to Albuquerque & thus so am I.
As Fish & I agreed, it's going to be time to have one unbeatable summer.
We're ALL overdue.
-I've reached this state of calm acceptance of the way things are for now. Which
is based largely, if not solely, on the fact that I'm going home today. I'd
probably be panicking if I had to put up with one more day of this God-forsaken
east coast. But knowing that the Sandias & the Frontier & home
are waiting for me is enough to get me through. That's where my focus
belongs right now, & for a good while into the future. College has
yet to work out for me, save for limited pockets of transient contentedness.
If I'm gonna pull through it, I'm going to have to fall back on the things
that work, which right now are far from college. & I have the will
to do it. That will just has to be renewed & revitalized by the West.
19 April 2000
-So that's why I didn't return that on time.
-24 hours... count 'em & weep. I'm that close. Relief, I hope,
is just around the corner...
-It's so hard for a doubting or unsure person to express caring to people. It
gets met with more doubt & more lack of assurance. It'd just be nice
if people realized that the doubt isn't personal, it's universal, considering
given life experiences. & I don't think it makes the caring any less
significant. If anything, it makes it more significant, because despite
everything, it's still there.
-I have to go to this very last class. Then I will call you back, Dad.
I promise!!
-In answer to my own question on this page from exactly a month ago: Not
Much. Clearly.
-Walking up to Rabb to get that paper assignment just now, I passed this crow
on the grass on the Usdan side of the Usdan/Castle road. It was walking
around on the ground, occasionally picking at the dirt & looking up in a
way that struck me as wistful, but maybe I was just reading too much into it.
Anyway, it kept making motions like it was about to fly & then decided
to stay grounded. Obviously, one of its wings was hurt, though it had
no trouble walking & had no really visible signs of damage. After
watching the Watership Down movie AGAIN last night, it was practically ridiculous.
Kehaar meets Counting Crows. THIS is why I don't believe in coincidence
- to take that bird as anything coincidental would be to flip off the universe
(or flip it the bird, if you will - I know, but I couldn't pass that up) in
a defiant signal of ignorance. Instead, I'm prone to just throw my hands
up in wonder. & keep thinking. Which isn't the advice I gave
Russ, but hey, I'm not in August '97 anymore, & he appears to be in his
equivalent. It would be so much easier to save that bird if I were a rabbit.
But crows are well-trained not to trust a human approach. &
I suppose they're not alone.
18 April 2000
-I got nothin'. Why is April always so lousy? I
swear, there's a 2-month phase every year in my life from early April till Mortality
Day that just overwhelms with mild misery. If that makes any sense. Even
2 years ago, the best April-May combo of my life, with senior projects, was
uninspired whenever I wasn't working on my project. Maybe March always
needs a 60-day recovery period. Seems like an awfully big price to pay,
though. All those people who say they like Spring, wanna switch?
-It's a good thing there's no state-run emotional lotteries. Cuz if there
were, all my analysis in the Lottery Case about the poor & the desperate
being most attracted to play despite the odds would apply straight back to me.
I'll just stick to poker.
-Okay, NOW I'm upset. Counting Crows messed up Fish's & my plans for
following their summer tour & seeing friends in the West. They're
touring the northeast in summer & the southwest when school starts up again.
Darnit. NOthing's supposed to work out right now, is it? C'mon,
prove me wrong!
17 April 2000
-Passing a truck that said "FINK means good bread"
may have been about the best thing to happen in the nine hours of van time.
In fact, it may have been one of the funniest catalysts of the semester,
or year, or millennium so far (by default). My lungs & gut still ache
a little from all that hilarity. Nothing like translational humor.
-Russ is awesome! I think Maynes deflected my understanding of this for
too long. Ironic that all this comes on the weekend I related to Maynes
the most. But I seem to be relating to ALL SORTS of people the past couple
weeks. Pain is universal like rarely before. Okay, that's not fair.
As Buddha pointed out, pain is universal & has been for just about
ever. But it seems really exceptionally prevalent the past couple weeks,
all over the place.
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATE!!! Everybody loves you. Trust me on that. &
if they don't, they darn well should!
-My Shawshank baseball poster keeps falling down. I should've taken it
as a sign when my "Learning to Fly" quote fell off the wall too. It's
like I was a transplant to this room that the room's finally rejecting. So
close to being outta here. Rereading the entry from a month ago on this
page, it seems like years. I keep feeling old, but that doesn't help.
-Interpersonal relationships should not be about winning & losing. They
should be about care, mutual understanding, an effort to build something that
is greater than the sum of its parts. But I'll admit, they usually end
up being about losing.
16 April 2000
[from Philadelphia]
-Floating in a very hazy surrealistic limbo. I
don't even feel like I'm here. Or anywhere. My rock shattered. Directionless
doesn't quite cover it. I wish I knew why I felt so utterly disconnected.
So tough to see... anything, at this point.
-Maybe that's just how some people live their whole lives. Maybe this
is what they think friendship is, or deep connection, or valuing people. I
find it hard to believe, but the alternatives seem almost equally unlikely.
-Saw that same newspaper today, all torn up & scattered about the pavement.
The precise illustration continues.
15 April 2000
[from Philadelphia]
-Mike Ruggeiro is a frighteningly captivating guy.
& we have eerie similarities, which always makes for good conversation.
Can't figure him out yet though.
-Sorrow. Frustration. They compete. I saw a newspaper left
outside & it was pouring rain - soaked through. I realized that's
exactly how I felt. Upon realizing this, the clock tower bell began ringing.
Exclam.
14 April 2000
-Be careful what you write on webpages; someone just might
read it! Not that that's a bad thing, of course - just brings everything
a little more to the forefront. Which is inconvenient on busy nights,
but so it goes.
-Standing out in the cold with Steve, I realized that it really doesn't matter
what happens at Nats this weekend. We could fall on our faces, collapse,
lose the ability to speak or form coherent sentences, & our partnership,
with all it's gone through this year, would remain the best debate experience
of our careers thus far. & even if we go 0-6, there'll be an award
waiting for us that says we were the #5 team in the country over the course
of the year. That's overwhelming. I still can't fathom how blessed
I feel in this aspect of my life.
-It all comes down to this. Biggest debate tourney of my life so far,
despite the facts above. I've always wondered why people wish others luck
going into debates - if anything's based predominantly on things that AREN'T
luck, it's debate. Maybe it's just the fatalism that's seeming so universally
prevalent in the human spirit to me these days. Regardless of which, I'm
Swarthmore-bound...
[from the road to Philadelphia]
-Tell me another thing I don't know. A "skank"
is an apt description. Could she really do much better? Oh yes,
that's right, I've known she could for 3 years. As much as anything, I
just find it amusing. & she's right, I don't believe that comment.
But if I DID...
-Pre-Emptive Lyric Strike! Zim-Zim & Greg will always deliver.
-"I didn't know I was lost at the time." I bet the Gin Blossoms
knew that Delaware & especially Maryland are south of Philadelphia.
[from Philadelphia]
-Wow - hadn't seen a scale in ages. Can't
believe I've actually been LOSING weight. Sheesh - didn't think it was
possible.
-I love school buses.
13 April 2000
-Making a mix can be so cathartic. That's about
the only thing "High Fidelity" got right. Though the protaganist
in said film seemed particularly immune to catharsis as a concept. Or
healing, or growth, or much of anything. That movie disappointed, except
for the "hidden message" that really wasn't there, but I just made
up. But back to mixes, it's always nice to know that one's never entirely
alone. Somewhere, someone felt something close to this & they wrote
a song about it. Not much comfort, but it's something.
-I like getting along with Zack. It's been relatively rare this year,
at times, but when it's going well, it's very nice. His "Catch-22"
comment cracked me up.
-New Matchbox20! That's gotta excite you - even if the album doesn't come
out till May. I've heard the new single twice already on the radio &
it sounds exactly like where I am. 2(Surprise).
-Debate Nats in (as of now) just 18 short hours. It's the first trip I've
WANTed to go on for a number of weeks, or at least 2. Nothing is going
to get in the way of me having a good time there - nothing. If nothing
else, I owe Steve that much for everything this semester. Hey, we only
have eleven (11) cases!
-I'll take "What Two People Would Storey Rather Not See Walking Through
Usdan Together" for $500, Alex...
12 April 2000 Introspection, My Worst Friend* (Current)
-Well, will you look at that? Not quite a month in
& this is a monstrosity. & most of it seems to be from yesterday
alone! 7 updates a day might be a bit much. I guess times like these
need a bit of sorting out. Hm. Rereading that last sentence, it seems
comparable to "hummingbirds need a bit of wing-flapping to make a full lifetime".
-Signs of oversleep: one's mind starts inventing full-fledged characters
in dreams. Nestled amongst many familiar people & a handful of irrelevant
ones, someone keeps popping up in my dreams who I swear is from neither my past
nor future. She even has a name, as of last night, Elizabeth "Lizzie"
McKeon. If you think I'm going crazy, press one. It's just weird that
she keeps recurring, though recurring dreams always have been my nemisis in many
ways. Usually it's only familiar people who get named in dreams, though.
Lisha, care to share what Siggy has to say about this? I'm not sure
I want to know...
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old Frontiers",
by SWClayton.