One of the houses on campus consists of five round buildings with eight apartments in each of them. Most call them "donuts," some call them "spaceships" for no reason. The communal centers have different things in them; three have downstairs/upstairs while the other two have laundry rooms in the basements and giant, empty chambers on the main floor.
Two years ago I lived in the donut with the Spiritual Life Center upstairs, which I thought would prompt me to go to Jewish services more often, but then they started holding them in a different building near the dorms. We couldn't even go up there to hang out because the door was usually locked. It was kind of a shame. The next year, some friends of mine lived in the donut below the Queer Community Alliance. This was set up much like the SLC, but it was better: it actually had a bathroom, a fridge and plenty of free condoms. (Also, pamphlets with titles like "I Think I'm Gay. What Now?" I don't know, probably blow somebody?) It also never seemed to be locked. When I got drunk over there on the weekends we would invariably wander up there to score mixers from the fridge, play drinking games on the folding table, climb the rafters and any other shenanigans we could think of. On somebody's birthday we even had a pinata (I can't quite remember, but it may have been filled with condoms). The other bi-level donut has an overstuffed, informal library on the bottom (from which we stole a chair for our living room) and an empty space on top called the Centrum Gallery that's used for concerts and readings and stuff. Getting drunk up there during final project showcases is kind of dangerous; the lack of ventilation and abundance of natural light make it sweltering in the late Spring.
I always thought the giant chambers above the laundry rooms were wasted; people leave bikes and boxes and junk around the edges, and we house visiting ultimate teams there during our tournaments, but they're so big and accomodating, it feels wrong not to have events there. When I lived there I had vague designs on talking to the other apartments about a building-wide party. I don't know how much of an issue it would have been to convince them; we were cool with the next-door neighbors, and I knew the kosher house kids across the way, but there was also a group of Asian women who didn't seem to speak much English. In any event, I brushed off the thought as a pipe dream and we contented ourselves with our wild, vodka-soaked living room brawls.
Last weekend, some kids pulled it off. Somehow they managed to convince their entire donut that a dance party in the middle of the building was a good idea and had a double birthday themed as a Hollywood gala event (they actually had a red carpet leading into the center). I was already pretty drunk when I got there but it seemed like a lot of work had gone into it. The lighting was perfect, dark and ambient, and the DJ booth loomed authoritatively along one wall. The space really was perfect for this sort of thing--there were a ton of people there but it was so big that you had plenty of space to navigate anywhere and dance without hindrance. At one point my friend, echoing earlier exploits in the QCA, shimmied up the wooden pole in the middle and sat in the rafters a full story above us; I wish he'd had confetti to throw over the crowd.
I don't know if it was the drinks mixed with the medication I've started taking or the heightened atmosphere of the whole scene, but I kind of went crazy that night. I'm used to getting blitzed and jumping around like an idiot, but for some reason this time I felt I had to be more insistent. I think I kept grabbing one of my friends and directing her to some moral imperative, but I can't really remember the gist of it. Anyway, I ended the night having a smoke on the porch with a sophomore and grilling him way too intently on his love life. Sometimes I confuse not giving a fuck with just being a nuisance.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
So That Happened
Today there was a talk by an Israeli soldier in the school's main lecture hall. When I first heard about this it seemed obvious that the arena was going to get, in the words of Nicki Minaj, "hotter than a Middle Eastern climate." Around here motherfuckers get their knickers in all kinds of knots about Israel/Palestine, and it has really come to a head while I've been here. During my first or second year the school was the first to "divest" itself from companies in bed with the Israeli military (or something, I didn't do the research) and so the "Students for Justice in Palestine" group has really walked around with their dick swinging for a while now. They're the main political protest gang of the land, pretty much. In December an e-mail went out from the acting college President (who replaced the reviled former guy, and is pretty well-liked as far as I could tell) denouncing reports of inappropriate anti-Zionist aggression (which, for the record, I've not heard about before or since). The other day I found an open letter lying around in the library from SJP, following a general blanket denunciation of anti-Semitism with a clarification of the distinction between prejudice and social protest, and concluding with a sharp criticism of the school for hosting such an event as this talk; the idea, I guess, is that they saw it as an allowance of pro-oppression propaganda, rather than an attempt to balance the scale on the discourse around here (which, as far as I could tell was the only rationale for the school to get this guy to come).
I hurried over there after work and walked into the packed lobby, unsure of how to divide the mob into factions. Someone handed me an SJP pamphlet with some stats on the subjugative measures of the occupation, and folded out to become a sign reading "STOP THE SHOW!" Other pamphlets had different messages on them; we were meant, I guess, to hold them up as forcefully as possible during the talk. Shortly before we were allowed to filter into the lecture hall (guarded by cops at the front and rear) a group of cute chicks with Israeli flag stickers on their cheeks unfurled a large blue Star of David on the balcony to the left, perpendicular to the signs with "Stop Oppression Now," "Palestine Is Rad," "People Shouldn't Die," or whatever, held by some fierce, frumpy middle-aged women. On the right, this Neil Young acid-casualty looking guy flew the Green and Red Arrow (whatever they call that flag). According cheers were shouted by the whole enmeshed throng, but it was too early to tell if shit would get really heated.
Once we got in there, the various groups settled pretty solidly into little seating blocks, although I seemed to be in the middle of a mixture of different types. I didn't recognize most of the pro-Israel people, nor did I know who the two professors who introduced the talk were (they were both science guys). A super-cute young Jew wearing a Tzahal (Israeli Defence Force) shirt who introduced herself as an extremely recent grad finally brought the guy out.
Whatever your feelings on the nature of the event, or the socio-political culture that contextualizes it, you are a born liar if you say this guy can't fucking talk like nobody's business. He's not an Israeli native; he grew up in Britain, and the mingling of the two accents produced one of the most commanding timbres I've ever heard, soft but full and never wavering, which is amazing considering all the shit that went down in the next couple hours. One of the first things he did, after fiddling with the microphone for a second, was to simply lay it on the ground by the podium (it stayed there for the duration except for when one of the science profs needed to do crowd control) and proceed to talk without amplification, as clearly as a radio announcer. I wouldn't be surprised if he never blinked once while he stood there. He had a shaved head and an angular, TV-ready face that only got more appealing when he let off a slight smile once or twice. He looked like Billy Zane, but more watchable.
I can't quite remember the distinct details but essentially, people yelled a lot and nobody learned anything. The best way to summarize what happened is to note two things: one, that it went longer than they intended (expected); two, that he never really gave the talk he meant to (not so expected). It shortly became clear that his spiel--the story he wanted to tell and has, according to him, related without a hitch at several prestigious colleges during his recent career--about his experiences as a young soldier fighting for Israel wasn't going to fly with this crowd. After not one but two interruptions wherein different young men stood up, blowing a whistle, and initiated some kind of shrill chant about the duplicitousness of the whole operation, and the room erupted into loud dispute yet again, those in charge decided it would be best for him to quickly wrap up and then get into the Q&A. (During which, by the way, he spoke with not an iota less clarity or eloquence than during the scripted portion.) Even so, the young SJP contingent, antsy to yell their clipped slogans and voice their disapproval with a chorus of hissing (not joking) held him up as much as they could, although he handled their disruption of his excellent pacing and building of dramatic tension pretty masterfully. The most honest part of his talk was his musing that, after facing bullets and rockets on a daily basis for several years, a bunch of agitated hipsters with signs about dead children didn't faze him too much.
During one of the flare-ups between the two factions in the hall (the most annoying and inarticulate of which was unfortunately to my immediate right), apparently some backward-hatted Five College bro let the F-bomb fly. He was immediately beset upon by a sad-eyed hipster (he's in my class but I can't recall his name) who screamed, "DID YOU SAY 'FAGGOT'? I'M A FAGGOT! I'M A FAGGOT!" It was soothing to be momentarily removed from the partisan madness of the evening by a nice, clear-cut bit of hate; the guy was summarily shouted out of the hall, and after one of the Palestine Pups shrieked "ARE YOU PROUD THAT SOMEBODY LIKE THAT SUPPORTS YOU?" we were on our way.
Another genuinely affecting moment occurred when an Arab hipster who had been anguishedly yelling from the front row ahead of me was granted the first question. He related his own tale of walking through the rubble in Lebanon or somewhere and wondered what the guy might think about the flattened skyscrapers and dead families (it wasn't clear if he was talking about his own family or his countrymen) caused by his army's defense efforts. The soldier kind of brushed off his question (though at extreme length and ever so eloquently, as he did all night) but he expressed respect for the student's authenticity.
I had to resist the strong urge all evening to join the outbursts with some bit of goofy nonsense: when some dudes around me jumped up shouting "end the occupation!" or whatever and flapping their flyers I held tightly on to my seat rest so as not to pop up going "I am DMX!" Another awesome thing I could have done would be to follow a series of chants and counter-shouting by going "It's just like the 60s!" Backwoods Neil Young would have liked that, I think, although he ducked out pretty early. If there had been less people waiting at the mikes for the Q&A I might've asked the sargeant whether he thought The Social Network had a chance against The King's Speech for Best Picture. Ah, missed opportunities.
When I walked into the lobby I was handed a flyer for a march for Egypt in town (presumably the corrective to tonight's proceedings) and, flanked by objectors holding banners alongside the exit, a large circle of hand-holders stood over a message taped on the floor (I forget what it said) and began singing some kind of reconfigured slave spiritual. Everyone was smoking outside; I went home and started drinking.
Update: I was waiting for the bus in town today; I wondered why it was late until I noticed a small procession marching down the road. This was the foretold Egypt rally. I walked up to the main street to watch next to the handful of photographers, but I needn't have, as they just turned and walked into the town college drive, past the bus stop. I walked back alongside and a pretty young woman turned and smiled, encouraging me to join in the chant of "[blah blah blah] the Middle East, [blah blah blah] justice, peace!" I just bobbed my head and kept walking along--if anybody had been listening I might have said that I'm not political, I just like parades.
I hurried over there after work and walked into the packed lobby, unsure of how to divide the mob into factions. Someone handed me an SJP pamphlet with some stats on the subjugative measures of the occupation, and folded out to become a sign reading "STOP THE SHOW!" Other pamphlets had different messages on them; we were meant, I guess, to hold them up as forcefully as possible during the talk. Shortly before we were allowed to filter into the lecture hall (guarded by cops at the front and rear) a group of cute chicks with Israeli flag stickers on their cheeks unfurled a large blue Star of David on the balcony to the left, perpendicular to the signs with "Stop Oppression Now," "Palestine Is Rad," "People Shouldn't Die," or whatever, held by some fierce, frumpy middle-aged women. On the right, this Neil Young acid-casualty looking guy flew the Green and Red Arrow (whatever they call that flag). According cheers were shouted by the whole enmeshed throng, but it was too early to tell if shit would get really heated.
Once we got in there, the various groups settled pretty solidly into little seating blocks, although I seemed to be in the middle of a mixture of different types. I didn't recognize most of the pro-Israel people, nor did I know who the two professors who introduced the talk were (they were both science guys). A super-cute young Jew wearing a Tzahal (Israeli Defence Force) shirt who introduced herself as an extremely recent grad finally brought the guy out.
Whatever your feelings on the nature of the event, or the socio-political culture that contextualizes it, you are a born liar if you say this guy can't fucking talk like nobody's business. He's not an Israeli native; he grew up in Britain, and the mingling of the two accents produced one of the most commanding timbres I've ever heard, soft but full and never wavering, which is amazing considering all the shit that went down in the next couple hours. One of the first things he did, after fiddling with the microphone for a second, was to simply lay it on the ground by the podium (it stayed there for the duration except for when one of the science profs needed to do crowd control) and proceed to talk without amplification, as clearly as a radio announcer. I wouldn't be surprised if he never blinked once while he stood there. He had a shaved head and an angular, TV-ready face that only got more appealing when he let off a slight smile once or twice. He looked like Billy Zane, but more watchable.
I can't quite remember the distinct details but essentially, people yelled a lot and nobody learned anything. The best way to summarize what happened is to note two things: one, that it went longer than they intended (expected); two, that he never really gave the talk he meant to (not so expected). It shortly became clear that his spiel--the story he wanted to tell and has, according to him, related without a hitch at several prestigious colleges during his recent career--about his experiences as a young soldier fighting for Israel wasn't going to fly with this crowd. After not one but two interruptions wherein different young men stood up, blowing a whistle, and initiated some kind of shrill chant about the duplicitousness of the whole operation, and the room erupted into loud dispute yet again, those in charge decided it would be best for him to quickly wrap up and then get into the Q&A. (During which, by the way, he spoke with not an iota less clarity or eloquence than during the scripted portion.) Even so, the young SJP contingent, antsy to yell their clipped slogans and voice their disapproval with a chorus of hissing (not joking) held him up as much as they could, although he handled their disruption of his excellent pacing and building of dramatic tension pretty masterfully. The most honest part of his talk was his musing that, after facing bullets and rockets on a daily basis for several years, a bunch of agitated hipsters with signs about dead children didn't faze him too much.
During one of the flare-ups between the two factions in the hall (the most annoying and inarticulate of which was unfortunately to my immediate right), apparently some backward-hatted Five College bro let the F-bomb fly. He was immediately beset upon by a sad-eyed hipster (he's in my class but I can't recall his name) who screamed, "DID YOU SAY 'FAGGOT'? I'M A FAGGOT! I'M A FAGGOT!" It was soothing to be momentarily removed from the partisan madness of the evening by a nice, clear-cut bit of hate; the guy was summarily shouted out of the hall, and after one of the Palestine Pups shrieked "ARE YOU PROUD THAT SOMEBODY LIKE THAT SUPPORTS YOU?" we were on our way.
Another genuinely affecting moment occurred when an Arab hipster who had been anguishedly yelling from the front row ahead of me was granted the first question. He related his own tale of walking through the rubble in Lebanon or somewhere and wondered what the guy might think about the flattened skyscrapers and dead families (it wasn't clear if he was talking about his own family or his countrymen) caused by his army's defense efforts. The soldier kind of brushed off his question (though at extreme length and ever so eloquently, as he did all night) but he expressed respect for the student's authenticity.
I had to resist the strong urge all evening to join the outbursts with some bit of goofy nonsense: when some dudes around me jumped up shouting "end the occupation!" or whatever and flapping their flyers I held tightly on to my seat rest so as not to pop up going "I am DMX!" Another awesome thing I could have done would be to follow a series of chants and counter-shouting by going "It's just like the 60s!" Backwoods Neil Young would have liked that, I think, although he ducked out pretty early. If there had been less people waiting at the mikes for the Q&A I might've asked the sargeant whether he thought The Social Network had a chance against The King's Speech for Best Picture. Ah, missed opportunities.
When I walked into the lobby I was handed a flyer for a march for Egypt in town (presumably the corrective to tonight's proceedings) and, flanked by objectors holding banners alongside the exit, a large circle of hand-holders stood over a message taped on the floor (I forget what it said) and began singing some kind of reconfigured slave spiritual. Everyone was smoking outside; I went home and started drinking.
Update: I was waiting for the bus in town today; I wondered why it was late until I noticed a small procession marching down the road. This was the foretold Egypt rally. I walked up to the main street to watch next to the handful of photographers, but I needn't have, as they just turned and walked into the town college drive, past the bus stop. I walked back alongside and a pretty young woman turned and smiled, encouraging me to join in the chant of "[blah blah blah] the Middle East, [blah blah blah] justice, peace!" I just bobbed my head and kept walking along--if anybody had been listening I might have said that I'm not political, I just like parades.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Facebook, Hooray
Update: the director's cut
---------
Today a woman I don't know sent me a friend request on Facebook. I saw that we had a mutual friend who later told me she lives in a different state. I accepted her request. Shortly thereafter she sent me a private message. The following conversation is unedited:
HER: hey, how do you know me?
ME: i don't. you friend-quested me.
HER: oh?
ME: did you not?
HER: you should claim repsonsibility for your actions. an acceptance bears more weight than a request. I know what I did what have you done?!
ME: I'd have to say I disagree that "an acceptance bears more weight than a request," because that's stupid. Initiation is more significant than compliance. See: Nazism.
HER: 'because that's stupid' - clever, in depth analysis
Was it more significant that the Nazis asked the French to submit to their terrors, or that some accepted, and others refused? See: La Résistance.
But I'm not a nazi (though Jews tend to like to bomb me because I look a little aryan and have a german last name, though fuck you, I have native american blood, and I have to live around and look like the same ignorant imperialists that wiped out my naive ancestors), and I'm not necessarily your friend, though you apparently accepted me as such. I think [our mutual friend] generally has pretty good taste in guys, plus it looks like you have good hair. I like my guys dull and pretty, same as I like my mood lighting.
ME: The substance of the Nazis is more central to its own historical narrative, as it is experienced in collective memory, than are the fringes of its influential effect on cultural/national psyches. Those are the details, not the chapter headings. My analogy was meant to point out the absurdity of what you were saying, not start a socio-philosophical dialogue. I'll agree that there is a significant moral component to compliance, but your argument is that it outweighs the intellectual aims and ramifications of the initial extension of connection, which is wrong.
I accept whoever wants to be my friend. It's your affair if you're confused about the nature of your actions as they relate to your own feelings.
Thank you for calling me pretty, although I'm not. I am extremely dull though.
HER: That's like saying the concept 'cubism' is more important than the individual 'cubist' painters, their projects, and the brilliant specificity of their work(s) [a painting like the demoiselles d'avignon sends me into a supersensual overload; I get so excited and stimulated I have to dance around powerful pieces of art like that]. It's like saying that the general summary of the events of the Holocaust, as 'history' remember it, is more important than the terrors individuals and families experienced, or communities, or ghettos, or nations. I guess I am often much more interested in details than abstractions. I recently developed this concept: the infinity of the shared human condition (I also think of Henri Bergson and his conception of experiences and heterogeneous multiplicities). I could go into more detail if you would like, but if you are already dull, I would simply hate to bore you. "I'll agree that there is a significant moral component to compliance, but your argument is that it outweighs the intellectual aims and ramifications of the initial extension of connection, which is wrong." So are you saying that environment and circumstance are more important than individual agency? Recently I was sorta in a depression and just felt very trapped about everything, but I am a big fan of the important figures in history who broke the continuity so to speak, who went against the social, environmental pressures that would normally decide their actions. The Resistance Movement against the Nazis, as mentioned before, is one example. Emile Zola during the Dreyfus affair (the word 'intellectual' was actually coined to describe him, meaning politically engaged writer). Ghandi. Martin Luther King, Jr. My favorites are individuals such as Olympe de Gouges, Louise Michel, Simone de Beauvoir, Rimbaud, Tolstoy, and Marguerite Yourcenar. I think a request is a rather unilateral action, wheras the action which answers it is completely bilateral. Sorry to place the terrible weight of free will on you, bra.
Well, I'm pretty pretty, maybe enough for both of us.
ME: you're obfuscating the issue with your own obsessions. the conversation began with you asking ME how I knew you. why would I know you? i think it's clear that we're only connected through our mutual acquaintance, so if you're initiating the connection the rationale behind it lies with you. logically, there doesn't have to be a reason behind my acceptance other than that it's an option cleanly presented to me and I don't believe it could hurt me. you asked me what i had "done"--you know what I did, I pressed a button that you made appear on my interface. that's it. what else do you think i was thinking? your entire formula is backwards.
a request is an entreaty, an affirmation is just a reply. the onus is on you to give substance to it, if you want. if you had never made that request we'd never have spoken, so how could I have something to say to you?
HER: Oh yes, all thoughts are obsessions. Do you know what irony is?
Sorry I'm all up in your interface. I don't know if coherence can move in reverse. Maybe if my arguments read as some elaborately constructed palindrome.
I'm truly sorry if you're so dull you have nothing to say to me, though quite the contrary seems true!
It's possible I just like pushing buttons: nothing more, nothing less/
ME: do you contact random strangers and then barrage them with bizarre nonsense all the time, or am i special?
HER: we are all strangers, others cascading at random. no, you are quite unusual---shall we say...er...unique? in fact, more special than you know, or could ever conceive.
didn't anyone ever tell you not to talk to strangers, even if they offer you sexual favors?
ME: This has been neat, but for analytical purposes can you tell me if you are actually crazy or just screwing with me
HER: Stop flattering me! I hate when guys give me flowers:(
----------
That was effectively the end of the civil convo, after which communication broke down.
---------
Today a woman I don't know sent me a friend request on Facebook. I saw that we had a mutual friend who later told me she lives in a different state. I accepted her request. Shortly thereafter she sent me a private message. The following conversation is unedited:
HER: hey, how do you know me?
ME: i don't. you friend-quested me.
HER: oh?
ME: did you not?
HER: you should claim repsonsibility for your actions. an acceptance bears more weight than a request. I know what I did what have you done?!
ME: I'd have to say I disagree that "an acceptance bears more weight than a request," because that's stupid. Initiation is more significant than compliance. See: Nazism.
HER: 'because that's stupid' - clever, in depth analysis
Was it more significant that the Nazis asked the French to submit to their terrors, or that some accepted, and others refused? See: La Résistance.
But I'm not a nazi (though Jews tend to like to bomb me because I look a little aryan and have a german last name, though fuck you, I have native american blood, and I have to live around and look like the same ignorant imperialists that wiped out my naive ancestors), and I'm not necessarily your friend, though you apparently accepted me as such. I think [our mutual friend] generally has pretty good taste in guys, plus it looks like you have good hair. I like my guys dull and pretty, same as I like my mood lighting.
ME: The substance of the Nazis is more central to its own historical narrative, as it is experienced in collective memory, than are the fringes of its influential effect on cultural/national psyches. Those are the details, not the chapter headings. My analogy was meant to point out the absurdity of what you were saying, not start a socio-philosophical dialogue. I'll agree that there is a significant moral component to compliance, but your argument is that it outweighs the intellectual aims and ramifications of the initial extension of connection, which is wrong.
I accept whoever wants to be my friend. It's your affair if you're confused about the nature of your actions as they relate to your own feelings.
Thank you for calling me pretty, although I'm not. I am extremely dull though.
HER: That's like saying the concept 'cubism' is more important than the individual 'cubist' painters, their projects, and the brilliant specificity of their work(s) [a painting like the demoiselles d'avignon sends me into a supersensual overload; I get so excited and stimulated I have to dance around powerful pieces of art like that]. It's like saying that the general summary of the events of the Holocaust, as 'history' remember it, is more important than the terrors individuals and families experienced, or communities, or ghettos, or nations. I guess I am often much more interested in details than abstractions. I recently developed this concept: the infinity of the shared human condition (I also think of Henri Bergson and his conception of experiences and heterogeneous multiplicities). I could go into more detail if you would like, but if you are already dull, I would simply hate to bore you. "I'll agree that there is a significant moral component to compliance, but your argument is that it outweighs the intellectual aims and ramifications of the initial extension of connection, which is wrong." So are you saying that environment and circumstance are more important than individual agency? Recently I was sorta in a depression and just felt very trapped about everything, but I am a big fan of the important figures in history who broke the continuity so to speak, who went against the social, environmental pressures that would normally decide their actions. The Resistance Movement against the Nazis, as mentioned before, is one example. Emile Zola during the Dreyfus affair (the word 'intellectual' was actually coined to describe him, meaning politically engaged writer). Ghandi. Martin Luther King, Jr. My favorites are individuals such as Olympe de Gouges, Louise Michel, Simone de Beauvoir, Rimbaud, Tolstoy, and Marguerite Yourcenar. I think a request is a rather unilateral action, wheras the action which answers it is completely bilateral. Sorry to place the terrible weight of free will on you, bra.
Well, I'm pretty pretty, maybe enough for both of us.
ME: you're obfuscating the issue with your own obsessions. the conversation began with you asking ME how I knew you. why would I know you? i think it's clear that we're only connected through our mutual acquaintance, so if you're initiating the connection the rationale behind it lies with you. logically, there doesn't have to be a reason behind my acceptance other than that it's an option cleanly presented to me and I don't believe it could hurt me. you asked me what i had "done"--you know what I did, I pressed a button that you made appear on my interface. that's it. what else do you think i was thinking? your entire formula is backwards.
a request is an entreaty, an affirmation is just a reply. the onus is on you to give substance to it, if you want. if you had never made that request we'd never have spoken, so how could I have something to say to you?
HER: Oh yes, all thoughts are obsessions. Do you know what irony is?
Sorry I'm all up in your interface. I don't know if coherence can move in reverse. Maybe if my arguments read as some elaborately constructed palindrome.
I'm truly sorry if you're so dull you have nothing to say to me, though quite the contrary seems true!
It's possible I just like pushing buttons: nothing more, nothing less/
ME: do you contact random strangers and then barrage them with bizarre nonsense all the time, or am i special?
HER: we are all strangers, others cascading at random. no, you are quite unusual---shall we say...er...unique? in fact, more special than you know, or could ever conceive.
didn't anyone ever tell you not to talk to strangers, even if they offer you sexual favors?
ME: This has been neat, but for analytical purposes can you tell me if you are actually crazy or just screwing with me
HER: Stop flattering me! I hate when guys give me flowers:(
----------
That was effectively the end of the civil convo, after which communication broke down.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
NYC
Last week I went to New York to feel anonymous, but mostly I just felt like cattle. On Sunday I took the 7 a.m. train into Penn Station, where I proceeded to wander in circles for two hours before figuring out which direction I needed to go. Basically the first thing I did upon arriving in the most famous city in the world was to walk up to the movie theater on Broadway (which has a better IMAX than the mid-town theater near the train station) and see TRON: Legacy in 3D. I hadn't slept at all the night before, since I'd routinely been staying up until the hour at which I had to leave for the train, and so it took some effort to stay awake even during such a sense-enveloping film experience. TRON is a weird movie to watch while tired; I would nod off during some bit of exposition and be quickly jarred awake by some strobe-y bit of CGI or a squelch of the Daft Punk score.
After the film I took a long route, via Central Park, back downtown and met up with my old friend A., who works at a bike shop. We met up with some of his friends for burgers and beers and then caught the subway over to Brooklyn. We drank some more and hung out at his place, and then went out. I was pretty fucked up at that point, but I remember meeting his girlfriend S. at a place called Alligator Lounge, where they serve you a personal pan pizza with every beer you order. I ate two! Next we hit the hipster hot-spot bar/arcade known as Barcade, where I vaguely remember playing a series of classic arcade games thirty seconds at a time (Centipede is hard when you're seeing triple). Eventually we stumbled back to S.'s apartment and passed out.
The next day we had an amazing brunch of lox bagels and mimosas (and I played some Nintendo 64; it's weird how many N64s I encounter when I'm in the city) then went back to A.'s to drink more champagne and hang out. My friend D. had arrived in the city a little before noon and immediately set about seeing movies all day. We tried to connect and meet up for a flick, but it took me awhile to get my shit together. Eventually I parted ways with A. and S. and went back to Manhattan, but I was unable to get to where D. was seeing his second film, so I told him to call me whenever it got out. I decided to go over to Rockefeller Center. The previous day, I'd stashed my suitcase at a storage place for a few hours, but now I was lugging around my bag along with my regular backpack, so I basically occupied the space of a very fat or pregnant person. Trying to move through one of the most crowded blocks in the city four days before Christmas was, as friends would later tell me, a foolish decision. Even so, I was undeterred.
I wandered into one of the buildings in the plaza, looking for a restroom, and proceeded to accidentally set off an alarm. I was embarrassed, to say the least, although the guard who hassled me was cryptic in his reprobation, repeatedly asking, "Why'd you do that?" I don't know, buddy, I was experimenting with social spaces. In his defense, he was probably tired of dealing with dumb tourists who aren't naturally attuned to the rhythms of the city; in any case, he directed me downstairs toward the "concourse," which is a fancy word for "underground mall." After another bout of circling I found a place that piqued my interest: Nintendo World. The current celebration of some arbitrary Mario anniversary has left the store bedecked in even more self-indulgent regalia than I expect is normal; I ate up the themed decor as they'd intended every nerd to, I suppose (spotting yet another N64 in the outside display). They have genuinely cool stuff there that I would have bought had I not insisted on being so thrifty during the trip (only buying booze, subway passes and the occasional meal, I spent a good two hundred bucks over three and a half days), but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The mini-museum they got in there is pretty cool, there are vintage Nintendo playing cards (or at least replicas) from their 19th century origins, a few hand-made sketches by the properly hero-worshiped Shigeru Miyamoto, and, in a bit of unexpected patriotic poignancy, a charred, blackened Game Boy from the Gulf War, triumphantly running Tetris at full speed. I played a bit of the new Donkey Kong (awesome) and talked for a bit with an employee about the Super Mario Bros. film. (I saw the legendary flop once, when I was about six, with my brother. The guy said that Nintendo not only disowned the film; nobody owns the rights anymore. My housemate recently got a copy in a holiday gift swap; I’m pretty excited to watch it soon.) After that I went over to the Lego store, which was amusing for about three minutes.
Having had my fill of comically oversized Christmas decorations, I made my way to Times Square, where a man randomly complimented my Afro. The M&M store caught my eye and I killed a good fifteen minutes exploring its entire three stories of sugar-worship. I’m as big a fan as anybody of mercenary cultural idolatry, but M&fuckingM’s? I’d prefer if the distinction of what is being celebrated weren’t entirely pretend. I’m sure it’s very exciting that you can go there and fill up bags with the little candies in any color of the rainbow (a funnily less-appropriate set-up can be glimpsed at the Lego store; choking hazard, guys) but Jesus, people. They all taste the same. I glimpsed the Disney store down the street but I’d had my fill of cynical commercialism for the evening. Mercifully, D. texted me shortly directing me back toward Brooklyn, a mere one stop away from where I’d set out earlier that day. I hustled out east, my increasing mastery of the metro re-inflating the confidence balloon that had earlier been punctured by the Rockefeller incident. I found D. and Other D. at a little Chinese place. Other D., who lives in the Lower East Side with his folks, met up with D. (out from PA, where he lives with his parents—ah, post-grad) to check out an apartment but the realtor apparently stood them up. We ate and chatted; I tried to take stock of the situation at Other D.’s place. Apparently D. was meant to stay with him but Other was having a tiff with his parents and was unsure of the wisdom of inviting friends to stay the night. My nervousness increased; with Other D.’s place unavailable I officially had no place to stay. We went back to the building, which was pretty nice, but the guy never showed.
We went to Williamsburg to meet up with C., and then went over to P.’s apartment. P. was the next-best bet for available floor-space, so I began trying to modestly turn on the charm. We hit a bar for some drinks (and I grabbed a fish taco from some famed Brooklyn truck), parted ways with C. and grabbed a train back to Manhattan. We were headed toward the apartment of a friend of a friend of Other D., where some show was taking place. We caught the last few songs (it was an interesting kind of electro-pop thing with an appealingly deep-voiced female vocalist) and then I tried my best to mingle. In addition to the beers we’d grabbed at a shop prior, they’d left a bottle of Ketel 1 on a windowsill, which we took full advantage of. I like sipping straight vodka, and that’s a fine brand. The problem was that, since arriving and walking around in the freezing wind for hours over two days I’d forgotten to properly apply lip balm, and the outside of my mouth had become awfully chapped, so every sip included liquor painfully seeping into the cracks in my skin. It was incentive to drink faster, I suppose. After chatting with my friends for a while (I received an unexpected/distressing first-hand explanation from D., of all people, for my failure to maintain romantic involvement with a recent female interest) I met the woman in whose bedroom the show was being held. She was cute and good-humored and I couldn’t quite place her charming accent (later explained to be Australian by way of London and somewhere on the East Coast). She listened intently as I rambled at length about my bullshit studies, and we took off before I could embarrass myself in any significant way. We found a nice little lounge and hunkered down to relax before heading home. Blessedly, P. consented to let D. and I stay at her place, and we proceeded to get more concertedly drunk. I got a Tecate and the bartender showed me something called a “dirty ashtray”—you fill the rim with lime juice and then season with salt and pepper. When you crack the beer it all foams up and the first gulp is exotic and intense. D. somehow offended the guy in a way neither of them could explain; he ended up tipping the guy ten dollars without being sure why. At around 2, we all (us, the barkeep, and the enthusiastic tattooed woman who was the only other customer) went out into the street to watch the lunar eclipse. It took a few minutes for us to realize that none of us were sure what we were seeing.
The next morning we got what P. claimed was the cheapest decent breakfast in town; even though D. was paying for me (I covered the cab the previous night) I somehow spent like seven dollars just on tip. Fucking New York, man. We took off from P.’s and headed to Bushwick (I think) to meet a realtor. After a few minutes of waiting in the cold, cold wind we finally found the proposed building, a wildly extravagant sort of constructed artists’ colony in the midst of an otherwise run-down neighborhood. The realtor was a mildly shifty Hasid, J., who pitched the building pretty craftily, although I could see D.’s proverbial mouth watering already. (I think he was sold when he saw the private screening room right across from the gym, even before checking out an apartment.) As J. chatted hurriedly in Yiddish with his associate, the building manager, we looked at three separate places but eventually D. realized he couldn’t make it work financially, and J. took us over to a more modest place. I looked out the back window and was almost sure I could spot the same depressing junkyard (literally, a trash heap in someone’s yard) that I’d seen from the opposite angle at A.’s place the other day. After looking at a similar place next door and some contract-finagling (Other D. couldn’t get out of work for this extremely important bit of future-planning) D. managed to put some money down on the place and we parted with J. We went to a weird Mexican corner restaurant where I seemed to face a communication barrier with the servers even beyond the language thing. D. hypothesized it was a front for some kind of operation. But I got a fish sandwich!
He realized he was late to meet with another realtor and so we took the train back to where we’d just been before J. drove us to the bank, got some directions from a passerby that we found to be incorrect after walking about six blocks, during which D. insisted on stopping in every other shop to try and buy a “loosie”—a single cigarette—despite the wind being too heavy to even light one, and finally gave up and headed to Manhattan to meet up with our respective cousins. We got some coffee and drinks and parted ways; I found my cousin’s place and headed up. Cousin was in the midst of working on finals, but the beers I’d brought put him in a feisty mood. He kept insisting we should go to some club where they don’t let you in, I guess, unless you’re wearing the correct clothes. I tried to explain that that wasn’t really my speed and that we should just hit a dive bar and then see a movie, but it was rendered moot when his neighbor came over and said he had three women at his place and to please come over to help entertain. I was pretty gone at that point but basically we went and drank beer and Jäger and chatted with cute Asian-American chicks while watching music videos on the guy’s giant television; all in all, not a bad night. I awoke the next morning having no memory of going to sleep the previous night; it was early so I watched Saved By the Bell and VH1 until I felt it was appropriate to wake my cousin and say goodbye. I had intended to leave the following evening but I had kind of run out of cheap things to do and was bleeding money, so I resolved to change my ticket. After waiting in a long line at Penn Station I went out to see if I could grab a movie before my train but there was nothing interesting playing in the next hour, so I got some pizza and decided to check out Macy’s. I’ve never been in that store before, but two days before Christmas Eve is not really the prime time to do so. When I referred to myself as “cattle” at the beginning of this piece I was mainly thinking of that experience. Since there was nothing in there I was actually interested in, I just killed some more time at Border’s and then headed back to the station. On my way to check the departure board I was accosted by a horribly pitiful woman who pleaded with me for some money; she was short for a ticket and insisted she was “licked” if she missed it. I offered her half of the twenty she needed but accidentally revealed I also had a full twenty in my pocket. I’m not the most obstinate donation-refuser; annoy me enough and I’ll give just so someone will shut the fuck up. Her horrible, piercing cries of “Oh, pleeeeaaase” were enough to sway my hand to fill her ticket price, although I insisted she give back the ten I’d given; I don’t care if you’re hungry, ma’am, I’m hungry. We’re all hungry. Whatever, I’d probably have spent it on booze, anyway.
The train was delayed almost an hour (I found out later there was some kind of medical emergency en-route) and so I went into literally every news stand and book shop in the place, trying not to stick out. (And I hated being among those crowds that eerily stare up at the departure board, hypnotized.) Finally, I made it onto the Amtrak and was on my way home, tired but satisfied.
After the film I took a long route, via Central Park, back downtown and met up with my old friend A., who works at a bike shop. We met up with some of his friends for burgers and beers and then caught the subway over to Brooklyn. We drank some more and hung out at his place, and then went out. I was pretty fucked up at that point, but I remember meeting his girlfriend S. at a place called Alligator Lounge, where they serve you a personal pan pizza with every beer you order. I ate two! Next we hit the hipster hot-spot bar/arcade known as Barcade, where I vaguely remember playing a series of classic arcade games thirty seconds at a time (Centipede is hard when you're seeing triple). Eventually we stumbled back to S.'s apartment and passed out.
The next day we had an amazing brunch of lox bagels and mimosas (and I played some Nintendo 64; it's weird how many N64s I encounter when I'm in the city) then went back to A.'s to drink more champagne and hang out. My friend D. had arrived in the city a little before noon and immediately set about seeing movies all day. We tried to connect and meet up for a flick, but it took me awhile to get my shit together. Eventually I parted ways with A. and S. and went back to Manhattan, but I was unable to get to where D. was seeing his second film, so I told him to call me whenever it got out. I decided to go over to Rockefeller Center. The previous day, I'd stashed my suitcase at a storage place for a few hours, but now I was lugging around my bag along with my regular backpack, so I basically occupied the space of a very fat or pregnant person. Trying to move through one of the most crowded blocks in the city four days before Christmas was, as friends would later tell me, a foolish decision. Even so, I was undeterred.
I wandered into one of the buildings in the plaza, looking for a restroom, and proceeded to accidentally set off an alarm. I was embarrassed, to say the least, although the guard who hassled me was cryptic in his reprobation, repeatedly asking, "Why'd you do that?" I don't know, buddy, I was experimenting with social spaces. In his defense, he was probably tired of dealing with dumb tourists who aren't naturally attuned to the rhythms of the city; in any case, he directed me downstairs toward the "concourse," which is a fancy word for "underground mall." After another bout of circling I found a place that piqued my interest: Nintendo World. The current celebration of some arbitrary Mario anniversary has left the store bedecked in even more self-indulgent regalia than I expect is normal; I ate up the themed decor as they'd intended every nerd to, I suppose (spotting yet another N64 in the outside display). They have genuinely cool stuff there that I would have bought had I not insisted on being so thrifty during the trip (only buying booze, subway passes and the occasional meal, I spent a good two hundred bucks over three and a half days), but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The mini-museum they got in there is pretty cool, there are vintage Nintendo playing cards (or at least replicas) from their 19th century origins, a few hand-made sketches by the properly hero-worshiped Shigeru Miyamoto, and, in a bit of unexpected patriotic poignancy, a charred, blackened Game Boy from the Gulf War, triumphantly running Tetris at full speed. I played a bit of the new Donkey Kong (awesome) and talked for a bit with an employee about the Super Mario Bros. film. (I saw the legendary flop once, when I was about six, with my brother. The guy said that Nintendo not only disowned the film; nobody owns the rights anymore. My housemate recently got a copy in a holiday gift swap; I’m pretty excited to watch it soon.) After that I went over to the Lego store, which was amusing for about three minutes.
Having had my fill of comically oversized Christmas decorations, I made my way to Times Square, where a man randomly complimented my Afro. The M&M store caught my eye and I killed a good fifteen minutes exploring its entire three stories of sugar-worship. I’m as big a fan as anybody of mercenary cultural idolatry, but M&fuckingM’s? I’d prefer if the distinction of what is being celebrated weren’t entirely pretend. I’m sure it’s very exciting that you can go there and fill up bags with the little candies in any color of the rainbow (a funnily less-appropriate set-up can be glimpsed at the Lego store; choking hazard, guys) but Jesus, people. They all taste the same. I glimpsed the Disney store down the street but I’d had my fill of cynical commercialism for the evening. Mercifully, D. texted me shortly directing me back toward Brooklyn, a mere one stop away from where I’d set out earlier that day. I hustled out east, my increasing mastery of the metro re-inflating the confidence balloon that had earlier been punctured by the Rockefeller incident. I found D. and Other D. at a little Chinese place. Other D., who lives in the Lower East Side with his folks, met up with D. (out from PA, where he lives with his parents—ah, post-grad) to check out an apartment but the realtor apparently stood them up. We ate and chatted; I tried to take stock of the situation at Other D.’s place. Apparently D. was meant to stay with him but Other was having a tiff with his parents and was unsure of the wisdom of inviting friends to stay the night. My nervousness increased; with Other D.’s place unavailable I officially had no place to stay. We went back to the building, which was pretty nice, but the guy never showed.
We went to Williamsburg to meet up with C., and then went over to P.’s apartment. P. was the next-best bet for available floor-space, so I began trying to modestly turn on the charm. We hit a bar for some drinks (and I grabbed a fish taco from some famed Brooklyn truck), parted ways with C. and grabbed a train back to Manhattan. We were headed toward the apartment of a friend of a friend of Other D., where some show was taking place. We caught the last few songs (it was an interesting kind of electro-pop thing with an appealingly deep-voiced female vocalist) and then I tried my best to mingle. In addition to the beers we’d grabbed at a shop prior, they’d left a bottle of Ketel 1 on a windowsill, which we took full advantage of. I like sipping straight vodka, and that’s a fine brand. The problem was that, since arriving and walking around in the freezing wind for hours over two days I’d forgotten to properly apply lip balm, and the outside of my mouth had become awfully chapped, so every sip included liquor painfully seeping into the cracks in my skin. It was incentive to drink faster, I suppose. After chatting with my friends for a while (I received an unexpected/distressing first-hand explanation from D., of all people, for my failure to maintain romantic involvement with a recent female interest) I met the woman in whose bedroom the show was being held. She was cute and good-humored and I couldn’t quite place her charming accent (later explained to be Australian by way of London and somewhere on the East Coast). She listened intently as I rambled at length about my bullshit studies, and we took off before I could embarrass myself in any significant way. We found a nice little lounge and hunkered down to relax before heading home. Blessedly, P. consented to let D. and I stay at her place, and we proceeded to get more concertedly drunk. I got a Tecate and the bartender showed me something called a “dirty ashtray”—you fill the rim with lime juice and then season with salt and pepper. When you crack the beer it all foams up and the first gulp is exotic and intense. D. somehow offended the guy in a way neither of them could explain; he ended up tipping the guy ten dollars without being sure why. At around 2, we all (us, the barkeep, and the enthusiastic tattooed woman who was the only other customer) went out into the street to watch the lunar eclipse. It took a few minutes for us to realize that none of us were sure what we were seeing.
The next morning we got what P. claimed was the cheapest decent breakfast in town; even though D. was paying for me (I covered the cab the previous night) I somehow spent like seven dollars just on tip. Fucking New York, man. We took off from P.’s and headed to Bushwick (I think) to meet a realtor. After a few minutes of waiting in the cold, cold wind we finally found the proposed building, a wildly extravagant sort of constructed artists’ colony in the midst of an otherwise run-down neighborhood. The realtor was a mildly shifty Hasid, J., who pitched the building pretty craftily, although I could see D.’s proverbial mouth watering already. (I think he was sold when he saw the private screening room right across from the gym, even before checking out an apartment.) As J. chatted hurriedly in Yiddish with his associate, the building manager, we looked at three separate places but eventually D. realized he couldn’t make it work financially, and J. took us over to a more modest place. I looked out the back window and was almost sure I could spot the same depressing junkyard (literally, a trash heap in someone’s yard) that I’d seen from the opposite angle at A.’s place the other day. After looking at a similar place next door and some contract-finagling (Other D. couldn’t get out of work for this extremely important bit of future-planning) D. managed to put some money down on the place and we parted with J. We went to a weird Mexican corner restaurant where I seemed to face a communication barrier with the servers even beyond the language thing. D. hypothesized it was a front for some kind of operation. But I got a fish sandwich!
He realized he was late to meet with another realtor and so we took the train back to where we’d just been before J. drove us to the bank, got some directions from a passerby that we found to be incorrect after walking about six blocks, during which D. insisted on stopping in every other shop to try and buy a “loosie”—a single cigarette—despite the wind being too heavy to even light one, and finally gave up and headed to Manhattan to meet up with our respective cousins. We got some coffee and drinks and parted ways; I found my cousin’s place and headed up. Cousin was in the midst of working on finals, but the beers I’d brought put him in a feisty mood. He kept insisting we should go to some club where they don’t let you in, I guess, unless you’re wearing the correct clothes. I tried to explain that that wasn’t really my speed and that we should just hit a dive bar and then see a movie, but it was rendered moot when his neighbor came over and said he had three women at his place and to please come over to help entertain. I was pretty gone at that point but basically we went and drank beer and Jäger and chatted with cute Asian-American chicks while watching music videos on the guy’s giant television; all in all, not a bad night. I awoke the next morning having no memory of going to sleep the previous night; it was early so I watched Saved By the Bell and VH1 until I felt it was appropriate to wake my cousin and say goodbye. I had intended to leave the following evening but I had kind of run out of cheap things to do and was bleeding money, so I resolved to change my ticket. After waiting in a long line at Penn Station I went out to see if I could grab a movie before my train but there was nothing interesting playing in the next hour, so I got some pizza and decided to check out Macy’s. I’ve never been in that store before, but two days before Christmas Eve is not really the prime time to do so. When I referred to myself as “cattle” at the beginning of this piece I was mainly thinking of that experience. Since there was nothing in there I was actually interested in, I just killed some more time at Border’s and then headed back to the station. On my way to check the departure board I was accosted by a horribly pitiful woman who pleaded with me for some money; she was short for a ticket and insisted she was “licked” if she missed it. I offered her half of the twenty she needed but accidentally revealed I also had a full twenty in my pocket. I’m not the most obstinate donation-refuser; annoy me enough and I’ll give just so someone will shut the fuck up. Her horrible, piercing cries of “Oh, pleeeeaaase” were enough to sway my hand to fill her ticket price, although I insisted she give back the ten I’d given; I don’t care if you’re hungry, ma’am, I’m hungry. We’re all hungry. Whatever, I’d probably have spent it on booze, anyway.
The train was delayed almost an hour (I found out later there was some kind of medical emergency en-route) and so I went into literally every news stand and book shop in the place, trying not to stick out. (And I hated being among those crowds that eerily stare up at the departure board, hypnotized.) Finally, I made it onto the Amtrak and was on my way home, tired but satisfied.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
It Is A Thing
Tonight I went to my friends' house over in a different place and had some drinks. I had tequila mixed with lemon juice and then vodka mixed with lemon juice. Then I came home and ordered Dominos. I waited a while, drank a couple Guinnesses and watched Buckaroo Banzai with my modmate; the guy came and guilt-tripped me into kicking the tip up a dollar. He was right, but still. Then I had some gin.
Anyway, tomorrow (today) I have to read some more theory. Then something will happen, I don't know. See you later!
Anyway, tomorrow (today) I have to read some more theory. Then something will happen, I don't know. See you later!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Pennsylvania
Over the weekend I traveled to Bethlehem, PA with my three friends who grew up there. I didn’t really have any business inviting myself along, but I don’t know when I’d get another opportunity to go and I’ve long been curious about this place I’ve heard so much about. They tend to talk of Bethlehem like it’s any other bullshit American town but it’s actually a lovely and interesting area, and I couldn’t help but wish I grew up in such a rich environment. We stopped in Red Hook, NY on the way to pick up W.’s twin brother S., and had some pie his roommate was entering into a contest the next day. (I wonder how he did.) Chelsea Clinton was apparently getting married in nearby Rhinebeck, though we didn’t see any fanfare on our route. We got into Bethlehem late. The boys pointed out the famous local steel mill that had been converted into a casino, with the shimmering Vegas-like sign ostentatiously splayed over a giant defunct crane, as well as another site where a scene from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was filmed. (We had tried to watch the film one night during the last week of school, but I couldn’t get through it even while roaring drunk.)
After we dropped off B. and D. and stopped for a visit at a diner where I awkwardly interacted with their high school friends, I crashed at the twins’ house; S. went to bed while W. and I stayed up watching Cheers and waiting for their older brother who works the late shift at the Crayola factory. W.’s extremely nice suburban house was spacious and incredibly clean, and his large bedroom was spotless, full of hundreds of meticulously organized books. I wasn’t terribly surprised. The next morning I had an ascetic breakfast of coffee and a small piece of homemade coffeecake, then set out on my own. I wandered around for a few hours checking out the charming main drag and the historic district, then I made my way across the bridge to the humbler part of town. Two separate SUVs stopped to ask where they might find the Eagles’ training ground before I made it onto the Lehigh University campus. Lehigh is built quite literally on the side of a mountain, and it’s difficult to traverse. (I wonder if the rich kids who attend the school all have personal golf carts or something.) The first building I wandered into was some kind of campus center and after a minute of snooping around I was faced with a closed door informing me that certain areas were off-limits due to the Philadelphia Eagles’ presence. There was an unattended cooler full of water and Gatorade, and, though I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since that morning and had been walking around in the sun all day, I was too bashful to thieve some cold drinks from a national sports association.
I briefly checked out the (casually majestic) library, then started my way up the mountain. After a few minutes I found myself in the fraternity/sorority sector, an eerie, abandoned uphill neighborhood of small mansions with giant Greek letters adorning their façades. I always thought my school had an odd on-campus residency system, but this was truly bizarre: a lavish, school-sanctioned party ‘hood, seemingly removed from any sort of administrative reserve. I was on my way to some kind of “village” and the summit of the mountain (and, presumably, the foretold Eagles training ground in the athletic area) when B. called. I went back with him to his dad’s house in Nazareth, where we walked to an “Indian tower” by a graveyard overlooking a vast cornfield and then watched part of Love Actually. Eventually his sister showed up, along with a large, aggressive dog, and we drove to a party in some little upper-class hamlet.
I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this part of the day; all the grown-up house parties I’d ever been to were boring affairs full of tiresome, obnoxious Jews, but I was so hungry at that point I didn’t care. Free dinner, right? The food turned out to be great, and so did everything else. I was warmly welcomed by the gregarious older women throwing the party, given hugs and liquor (I took a shot of something warm and syrupy called a Slippery Nipple) and soon I was in high spirits. It grew late and we parted with the sister and dog and drove back to B.’s mom’s house in Bethlehem. We had primo ice cream and sat out on the porch drinking more of his mom’s homemade beer. D., whose parents live a few blocks away, stopped by to say hello. He seemed shaken; he’s been going through some depressing personal shit and has been in a deep funk lately. B. and I took a walk and talked, in a mood of drunken candor, about our demons and reservations about the upcoming year. I unknowingly took a leak on a church on the way back and passed out at 2:00 in the sister’s tiny bedroom.
I awoke 6 hours later, having been told of plans to bike to breakfast. Soon we went outside, where I was introduced to my ride: a bizarre adult tricycle that looks like this, except the seat is a more reclined harness and the headrest is just a padded pole:
I got the hang of it in a minute, although I couldn’t quite figure the gearshift. Riding the thing in traffic was alternately fun and terrifying. On a hill it was like a controllable luge, which is still pretty scary; I was leaning back and so close to the ground that I couldn’t be totally aware of my surroundings. Still, I enjoyed gripping the upright handlebars, pretending I was in some kind of futuristic one-man submersible vessel, like Snake Plissken or something. We went to a café called the Blue Sky, which is owned by skydiving enthusiasts, although I was told it had that name before the current owners. Everybody got some fancy pancakes but I just had some coffee and wheat toast—I feel bad when I’m dining on a friend’s parents’ dollar, and in any case I needed something simple to soak up my hangover. I should emphasize that I haven’t been drinking coffee for three months; the caffeine propelled me through the long weekend on little other nourishment. We took a long way home, stopping to observe the modest skate park across the street from the casino, and by the time we made it back I was covered in sweat (with a change of clothes still in my overnight bag in W.’s trunk across town), nauseous, and with my hangover headache worsened by the trike’s non-headrest. I still managed to enjoy the day. B.’s sister came over and we were joined shortly by a family friend with a surprisingly quiet, solemn 8-month-old baby. We were all entertained for a few hours by the baby’s antics and then I spent the rest of the afternoon reading the New Yorker, drinking more coffee and homebrew beer, rifling through B.’s book collection and so on. We watched part of Three Kings and then met up with D., taking a walk to an empty swimming pool and playground. Eventually W. swung by and collected us, and we headed home. I’m glad I went. It’s fun to see how the other three-fourths live.
After we dropped off B. and D. and stopped for a visit at a diner where I awkwardly interacted with their high school friends, I crashed at the twins’ house; S. went to bed while W. and I stayed up watching Cheers and waiting for their older brother who works the late shift at the Crayola factory. W.’s extremely nice suburban house was spacious and incredibly clean, and his large bedroom was spotless, full of hundreds of meticulously organized books. I wasn’t terribly surprised. The next morning I had an ascetic breakfast of coffee and a small piece of homemade coffeecake, then set out on my own. I wandered around for a few hours checking out the charming main drag and the historic district, then I made my way across the bridge to the humbler part of town. Two separate SUVs stopped to ask where they might find the Eagles’ training ground before I made it onto the Lehigh University campus. Lehigh is built quite literally on the side of a mountain, and it’s difficult to traverse. (I wonder if the rich kids who attend the school all have personal golf carts or something.) The first building I wandered into was some kind of campus center and after a minute of snooping around I was faced with a closed door informing me that certain areas were off-limits due to the Philadelphia Eagles’ presence. There was an unattended cooler full of water and Gatorade, and, though I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since that morning and had been walking around in the sun all day, I was too bashful to thieve some cold drinks from a national sports association.
I briefly checked out the (casually majestic) library, then started my way up the mountain. After a few minutes I found myself in the fraternity/sorority sector, an eerie, abandoned uphill neighborhood of small mansions with giant Greek letters adorning their façades. I always thought my school had an odd on-campus residency system, but this was truly bizarre: a lavish, school-sanctioned party ‘hood, seemingly removed from any sort of administrative reserve. I was on my way to some kind of “village” and the summit of the mountain (and, presumably, the foretold Eagles training ground in the athletic area) when B. called. I went back with him to his dad’s house in Nazareth, where we walked to an “Indian tower” by a graveyard overlooking a vast cornfield and then watched part of Love Actually. Eventually his sister showed up, along with a large, aggressive dog, and we drove to a party in some little upper-class hamlet.
I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this part of the day; all the grown-up house parties I’d ever been to were boring affairs full of tiresome, obnoxious Jews, but I was so hungry at that point I didn’t care. Free dinner, right? The food turned out to be great, and so did everything else. I was warmly welcomed by the gregarious older women throwing the party, given hugs and liquor (I took a shot of something warm and syrupy called a Slippery Nipple) and soon I was in high spirits. It grew late and we parted with the sister and dog and drove back to B.’s mom’s house in Bethlehem. We had primo ice cream and sat out on the porch drinking more of his mom’s homemade beer. D., whose parents live a few blocks away, stopped by to say hello. He seemed shaken; he’s been going through some depressing personal shit and has been in a deep funk lately. B. and I took a walk and talked, in a mood of drunken candor, about our demons and reservations about the upcoming year. I unknowingly took a leak on a church on the way back and passed out at 2:00 in the sister’s tiny bedroom.
I awoke 6 hours later, having been told of plans to bike to breakfast. Soon we went outside, where I was introduced to my ride: a bizarre adult tricycle that looks like this, except the seat is a more reclined harness and the headrest is just a padded pole:
I got the hang of it in a minute, although I couldn’t quite figure the gearshift. Riding the thing in traffic was alternately fun and terrifying. On a hill it was like a controllable luge, which is still pretty scary; I was leaning back and so close to the ground that I couldn’t be totally aware of my surroundings. Still, I enjoyed gripping the upright handlebars, pretending I was in some kind of futuristic one-man submersible vessel, like Snake Plissken or something. We went to a café called the Blue Sky, which is owned by skydiving enthusiasts, although I was told it had that name before the current owners. Everybody got some fancy pancakes but I just had some coffee and wheat toast—I feel bad when I’m dining on a friend’s parents’ dollar, and in any case I needed something simple to soak up my hangover. I should emphasize that I haven’t been drinking coffee for three months; the caffeine propelled me through the long weekend on little other nourishment. We took a long way home, stopping to observe the modest skate park across the street from the casino, and by the time we made it back I was covered in sweat (with a change of clothes still in my overnight bag in W.’s trunk across town), nauseous, and with my hangover headache worsened by the trike’s non-headrest. I still managed to enjoy the day. B.’s sister came over and we were joined shortly by a family friend with a surprisingly quiet, solemn 8-month-old baby. We were all entertained for a few hours by the baby’s antics and then I spent the rest of the afternoon reading the New Yorker, drinking more coffee and homebrew beer, rifling through B.’s book collection and so on. We watched part of Three Kings and then met up with D., taking a walk to an empty swimming pool and playground. Eventually W. swung by and collected us, and we headed home. I’m glad I went. It’s fun to see how the other three-fourths live.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Summer
It's July. Yesterday was the 4th; we visited our friend down the street and drank beer and played croquet (I lost). Later we climbed a mountain to look at all the firework shows in the area. It was fucking exhausting.
I still haven't been hired anywhere. It wouldn't be so bad, slowly going broke, if I didn't spend each day listlessly puttering around the house wondering what the hell I should be doing with my days. I add to that the knowledge that I could be spending my time in some local air-conditioned store making $9 an hour and occupying myself with mindless activity that serves some end instead of endlessly replaying the same virtual football scenarios on old videogame consoles, breaking to smoke cheap cigarettes and surfing the web between short bursts of unenthused reading.
I turn 21 in a month, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, 21 WOO GET EFFED UP etc. On the two hand, each of these last few birthdays has its sad side; getting older, slipping further and further from ultimate youth is a disorienting feeling. I guess I'll see how it goes when I get there.
At least there's been some good movie-watchin' going on at my house. Today we watched the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races. I think it's a mite too long, but damn if Harpo and Chico's piano playing scene isn't transcendent.
I still haven't been hired anywhere. It wouldn't be so bad, slowly going broke, if I didn't spend each day listlessly puttering around the house wondering what the hell I should be doing with my days. I add to that the knowledge that I could be spending my time in some local air-conditioned store making $9 an hour and occupying myself with mindless activity that serves some end instead of endlessly replaying the same virtual football scenarios on old videogame consoles, breaking to smoke cheap cigarettes and surfing the web between short bursts of unenthused reading.
I turn 21 in a month, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, 21 WOO GET EFFED UP etc. On the two hand, each of these last few birthdays has its sad side; getting older, slipping further and further from ultimate youth is a disorienting feeling. I guess I'll see how it goes when I get there.
At least there's been some good movie-watchin' going on at my house. Today we watched the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races. I think it's a mite too long, but damn if Harpo and Chico's piano playing scene isn't transcendent.
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