1555: Encouragement is the loveliest thing.
The committee approves.
THREE--
1401: Liking people makes life a lot easier and more fun.
2128: I went grocery shopping today. Since the refrigerator at the
apartment is temporarily dysfunctional, that restricted my options for purchase
a little. But I think the supermarket is lots of fun. Probably dangerous. I
bought a bottle of coconut soda because it sounded werid. But I think that was
the only extravagant thing.
FOUR--
1629: Commencement week is too unstructured. The school routine is over, the summer routine
hasn't started yet, and people lack creativity and motivation. So to get anything fun or productive
done, you have to do it by yourself. In the end, no one will save you from your boredom or whatever but
yourself.
2027: This room feels less lonely the fewer people are here.
FIVE--
1630: Joe Walsh sang, "Everybody's so different, I haven't changed." But I honestly feel the
opposite way these days. I feel like I've changed so much over time, but everyone else sort of plods on
in their usual way... maybe I'm just not giving enough credit where credit is due. It makes me wonder
what the point is of trying to improve and change if the world around you resists helping or being
helped. What the fuck is the point? Maybe it's just a waste of time. Maybe I'm in the wrong place.
SIX--
0056: I went and saw Road Trip tonight with a bunch of people. It was
hysterical. It was nice to convince so many people to go... get the Band out of
that damn hovel. The people who stayed behind made themselves amusingly
retarded for our return. I left pretty early, in case I actually do get up for
Beach Day tomorrow. Part of me wanted to stay... but these days most of me
knows there's just no point. That's the final lesson: if you wait for other
people, you'll never survive. But it was a lovely evening, so I'll leave it at
that.
1657: My alarm went off at 7:45. I got up and looked out the window and
thought, "So, yeah, back to that sleep thing...." Everyone else decided that
today would not be a fun day for the beach. I don't need to say anything more
about the weather out here than I have already.
1926: I don't understand why people plod on doing what they hate
out of imaginary obligation. Yargh!
EIGHT--
0142: I was going to write something coherent here, but the mental confusion in trying to figure
out what day it was killed any thought I had... I should go to sleep.
NINE--
0306: Our kind survive because they are forced to be strong, to handle things for themselves... because in the
end you know whom you can rely upon surely, and whom you can rely upon when their own interests do not interfere, and
whom you can never rely upon.
1442: I should never write anything after 3am.
ELEVEN--
2124: Maybe it's just post-commencement letdown. Maybe summer hasn't gotten into full swing
enough to be interesting... or distracting. On my way into town today, I surveyed the current state of
affairs in my mind, and it occurred to me the possibility that everyone would be living more or less the
same life regardless of my presence here at Harvard. Some of the details and timing might be altered,
but
nothing would be fundamentally different. The actions of some have widespread ramifications; those of
others have dissipated effects. It's possible that I'm in the latter category. And then what's the
point?
TWELVE--
1249: I'm working forever today. It's not so bad, I suppose. I
have a lot of things I can get done... although the first thing I was
working on took me surprisingly little time. Kind of sad, actually. But
I think it's kind of nice to have a place to go every day and stuff to
do. Maybe everything will feel less disjointed. More
jointed. Whatever.
1353: It's a nice day to be inside working for 11 hours... Cambridge is a place where
winter never ends.
2138: During the school year, working at the help desk for two hours is okay, for three it's mildly painful, and for
four it's pure torture. I've worked for nearly 11 hours today, and it hasn't been so bad at all. I got a ton of work
done. I suppose it wasn't that hectic. But it strikes me that when I have not much better to do, work ain't so bad.
THIRTEEN--
1545: It's really freakin' cold down here today. Yesterday it was
cold outside, so I didn't really notice that I was working in a
refrigerator, but today it's rather nice outdoors, and so I'm noticing
that my fingers are about to fall off. This isn't very pleasant.
FOURTEEN--
2029: Prolly prolly prolly trolly prolly prolly prolly prolly
prolly
prolly. YOU WILL DROP THE B, STOREY!
2141: There's this place between being in synch and being at
odds... a netherland that makes friends feel like acquaintances or people
who haven't seen each other in a while and have forgotten why they were
ever so close. I call that netherland 'ickiness', which isn't such a
powerfully descriptive way of putting it, but describes how it makes me
feel. Part of it is emptiness. Some of it is usually resentment and a
sense of abandonment, a guilt about abandoning, disappointment,
disillusion when idealism falls to realism. Icky. Icky icky.
2150: My roommate is now a really bad sports drink: Jdoxtade!
FIFTEEN--
1229: Speaking of my roommate, I had an odd and continuous
dream this morning (she has a lot of these, but that's not why I bring her
up... you'll see). It started out with some sort of pool game... the dad
from Frasier was there trying to teach someone to shoot this wacky shot,
but he kept bumping the other balls so that the shot would be easier. At
any rate, there was this one impossible shot that had to bounce off a
whole bunch of stuff and then go in... and then there was this Japanese
band visiting us, and one of the kids bet Aaron (I think it was
Aaron... it's the only sensible thing) that he couldn't do it in 75 tries,
and if he didn't, Aaron would have to give him $75 (I don't know what
Aaron would get if he won), but just before Aaron agreed to the bet, the
dude slipped in that he would also get to spend an evening with Jenn if he
won, but Aaron didn't hear him and agreed to the bet. Some of us heard,
though, and we were enraged, like, really really pissed. I had to explain
to Jenn what was going on because she hadn't heard the end either. But
the bet was made, even if the guy had been dishonourable in inserting that
last disgusting bit, and so Aaron had to win. There was some sort of
break... people left the building (which resembled some sort of
thrift store... almost like Savers, but small). During the break, we
started getting evern madder about the whole bet, and so we tried to find
the guy so we could beat the crap out of him. But he had left for
break. His girlfriend was there, though, and somehow the whole thing was
partly her fault, like it had been her idea or something, so we shouted at
her and called her nasty things, and I smacked her across the face and
threw a cup of water I had in her face. Then the band started playing
Shaft, and I had a little jenky keyboard and was playing along random
notes that worked, since I didn't know the whole keyboard part (Morgan
did, but he was playing something else). Some guys who were presumably on
our side, but we didn't really know them wanted to beat up on this other
guy because he was a jerk and they had missed the whole bet thing, o we
had to fill them in on who was the appropriate beat-up target. And then
everyone convened at a table for a meal, and the bet guy was getting ready
to sit across from me, and I tried to lunge across the table and attack,
but he saw me coming... I think I prolly woke up some at this point, but
the next thing I knew, I was trying to enter this house that was being
constructed, and the guy was in one of the bedrooms there with some of our
people and some of his, and so I was going to beat him up then... but he
was all beat up from the fight (the pool game had transformed into a
fight), and so I stepped off and shook his hand and we talked about how
good the fight had been even though he had eventually lost. And we
pondered whether the day would bring future animosity or togetherness
between the bands, although at the moment, it seemed like
togetherness. And we won, so that was good. Especially for
Jenn. ;-)
NINETEEN--
1321: Pardon me for ignoring the world awhile. Not working makes life more salient for writing
purposes.
1545: I'm sure work would go much faster today if I were at all motivated to be productive. I
don't feel like doing anything but putzing around, but I've read all the newsgroups, and I don't have
email, and no one likes me so I don't get new email so I can putz around. Bleh.
TWENTY-ONE--
1516: This page is now written using vim. Scary.
TWENTY-FIVE--
1513: So I'm on the phones, finally, and have caught up with all
my newsgroups and such... it's been a pretty crazy time with summer school
starting. People have the amazing capacity not to read anything you hand
them. Big fat signs on the wall too. But the phones are pretty quiet.
Some of the high school kids are pretty high strung, though. This one
girl just called, and she just missed the UA who was coming to her room,
so she had to reschedule, and I thought she was going to cry. Dude,
chill.
Everything about that day is difficult. Every element is
either painfully ironic or painfully fitting. All of it is terrifying.
I don't know what's worse,
catastrophe or ennui. Seems like at least catastrophe gives you a good hormone
rush.
Everything is going to rule.
This party was all about contradictions, beginnings and endings, new
life amongst the death of things... that don't make much sense... but then again I was never much for book learnin'
anyway...
I think framing yesterday in terms of contradictions may have been too
simple. I also saw it as being about decisions. Change is always coming, and you have to decide whether to wait it
out to get what you want, change what you want so the exterior changes aid you, or give up getting what you want. I
suppose all three choices are valid under different circumstances.
I think summer will be fun... but working on the manual today I'm getting
really excited about football season. :-)
It's funny that when I
have made a concerted effort not to care or expect anything good, some of
the best times of my life have followed. Although if I thought about it,
prolly some of the worst have followed too.
There's something about
the second day of work... I worked a whole lot yesterday, and I
accomplished a lot, and I felt energized and jazzed... and today I just
don't want to do anything productive. The novelty is gone. That and I'm
on the Mac. Maybe that's the problem. I just can't work on a
Mac. Although I did manage to update some UA manual pages on this
computer... nope, I blame the Mac. This keyboard is really slow, in that
it requires far too much pressure to push the keys. I don't come to work
to give my fingers exercise, I come to type meaningless tripe!
The above was very
childish, but amused me greatly.
While I'm at it, Happy
Birthday, Pops. (I don't actually called Daddy "Pops", but I thought it
sounded funny.)
Today we switch to roaming
ethernet connectivity at three... I hope the world doesn't blow up.
I'm irritated. This is
the longest time I've gone on irritated about this thing without a real
reversal. No, irritated is an understatement. I'm pained. I'm
sickened. I want to just throw it all away so I can start living
productively. But I know I won't be able to because I've never been able
to. Fleeting good makes it impossible. Maybe someday I'll study
non-substance-induced addictions... and how to destroy them.
David Buss wrote an article for the January 2000 American
Psychologist about how some human adaptations make happiness more difficult. For example, negative
emotions would have originally served the purpose of acting as different warning signals in response to
perceived threats. Problem is that these days humans have almost as much of an inner world as an outer
world, so we have negative emotions not only to real exterior threats, but also to perceived threats which
may or may not be as bad as we think. You can try to use reason to get around it, but let's face it,
emotion is a feisty beast, and reason can look more like delusion in that light. I was thinking about this
just now because I was pondering how silly it is that I can really like and respect someone, and that very
likeability and respectability also makes me wish very much that they would accidentally get hit by a
bus. As it were. There are some situations in which I can more easily tolerate someone I don't
particularly respect.
I decided today that what I really need is a random
date. Even a bad date would be worthwhile right now. It's all a matter of meeting new people, any
new people. I was reading Glamour (damn Neck 'n' Ass and her trash magazine!) the other day out of
boredom... I found it to be this mix of
surprising messages of empowerment and typical pandering to societal ideas of how a woman should be
concerned primarily with looking pretty and catching a man. But it had some decent thoughts about how
you should first be happy about being single, and second stop being passive just because you're female when
it comes to meeting people. Which I thought was sound advice. Stop being lazy. That's always good
advice.
If you wanna see a badass movie, go see Shaft. Oh God, it
ruled.
So, after I whined about not getting email, lots of people emailed me. This was very nice of them. :-)
I'm tired.
We saw Chicken Run the
other night. It was really cute.