Spring Broke

I got back from spring break at around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, and I’m still reeling. Going to Georgia turned out to be neither a huge mistake nor a great relief, but I don’t have any idea what would have happened if I’d stayed at HFC or went home or whatever, so I guess the fact that I had a few laughs and got some reading done colors the week somewhat nicely. Still, I’m glad to be back; a week of pure aimless revelry is really tiring in a way.

The trip down was pretty painless, save for the three hours where we had to wait around in the middle of the night due to this weird new rule of the college board that says, I guess, their insurance doesn’t cover driving between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. We timed it so we pulled into D.C. around 2, and we managed to kill a couple of hours wandering around the monuments. It might have been fun except I thought it would be great to get high beforehand, and my initial mood of casual silliness quickly devolved into a deep and draining paranoia. We spent the final hour just sitting in silence in the dark, in the van, and—when I wasn’t completely mesmerized by my friend’s screensaver—I literally thought my life was coming to an end. Don’t do drugs (in the dark, early morning in a strange and dangerous city), kids.

I spent most of the week tired and drunk, played some Frisbee pretty poorly, played a fuck-ton of videogames and went into the ocean naked once. Maybe I’m getting old and boring, but it all just felt kind of routine, enjoyable enough but predictable in its various developments. It’s like the way I once read Roger Ebert describe the plot in some movie, maybe A Few Good Men or something—they tell you what they’re going to do, and then they go do it. Sure, it’s satisfying on some level, but where’s the twist, where’s the spark of interest? I thought I would go drink and run around for a bit, and I did.

And now I’m back, and I’m already tired of doing work (or, I’ll be honest, considering doing work, which is really what it is most of the time). I feel like a Hollywood producer; I need that goddamn twist, baby. Preferably not like a trauma or anything tragic, but something cool, like I win some sweet internship or I get invited to join a sex cult. Hit me.

Tuesday's Gone

I don't know what happened today. I felt really shitty in the morning, waking up after like 5-6 hours of sleep, and then I dozed my way through a couple classes, came back to the house, read some Philip Roth, then drank the remainder of our booze and went to play frisbee. I guess it was as good a Tuesday as any. Whatever. I'm feeling better about things and stuff, so no worries, I'm not gonna take the shortcut to Hades anytime soon, Fun Fans. I think I just need some Me Time. Hopefully being crammed in a house with 25 other people for a week will be able to accommodate my needs next week, otherwise, it's back to Crazy Canyon for yours truly. Contemplating life and personal destiny and shit... how narcissistic can a motherfucker get? Reading Philip Roth really makes me want to be a better person, at least in comparison.

Rats

I'm so pissed off right now I can't even think. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore; I feel completely lost. Part of me thinks I should skip spring break to stay and work on my research paper, but then I realize that it wouldn't work, I would just get frustrated anyway, and not get anything done or get something done but it would be so terrible that I might as well have just gone to Georgia anyway. But then I realize that Georgia would be equally unproductive, and I don't mean in an academic sense but in the sens that I would go, have some okay times, get drunk and run around like an idiot, funfunfun, but then I would just come back having gained nothing from the experience, back to my middling life and my old anxieties, and with the added stress of not having worked on my paper. Okay, so maybe I finish my work in time. Maybe I do. Maybe I get by. But even if I get the credit, it isn't worth anything if it isn't worth anything, you know? Progress without quality is not progress, it's all superficial and a waste of time. I'm just very angry at everyone, mostly myself but also my parents, and my old teachers, and everyone who told me lies about the way that life was going to be when I grow up. Nothing good has happened in my youth, and the prospects of future glory only start to crest as I begin my decline into a stagnant adulthood.

We've cheekily nick-named the wireless network for our house "Miss Maplethorpe's House of Regret." Fuckin' A.

Let Me Ride

Sometimes I wonder whether I have the patience and the stamina to get all the way through college in one piece. I find that anytime I set out to do something big I lose interest or get lazy after a little while, and the rest of it is a pained, forced slog through my own indifference for the sake of school credit. The end product is usually sub-par.

I wonder if it’s just that I’m doing the wrong things. I really like the stuff I study, for the most part, but maybe I haven’t found my academic niche yet, or my forte or something (which is maybe finicky BS, but whatever). Maybe it’s all a kind of “the grass is always greener” sort of thing, where I assume my drive is directly proportional to the excitement of the task, but in fact it’s just in my nature to be unmotivated toward whatever is on my plate at the moment. Certainly, in high school, I looked forward with a sort of reverent anticipation to the college days ahead, where I would throw myself into study with wild abandon, finally having my intelligence met by the material, being challenged in a way that was impossible in the controlled monotony of the public school system. It’s only when I look back on those dark days past that I feel fully satisfied by my current position. I don’t know if this is a common condition or if there’s something terribly wrong with me. Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting time and money, and I should just drop out, go home and get a job before I’ve thrown away the entirety of my youth in search of something that won’t ever come. But there’s that suspicion that resides always in the back of my mind, poking its head out now and again to remind me that I’m capable of greatness—that great things will come if I just persevere and push myself ahead. This feeling fills me with an even greater anxiety; I don’t know if it’s intuition or blind arrogance, or some mutant combination of the two.

At the tail end of last night’s festivities, after everyone else had left, as per my usual habit I ended up in a drunken convo with the host and we were talking about this kind of thing, our respective collegiate callings and whatnot. I wondered, aloud, whether the truth was that I was too talented (as I sometimes suspect) to be doing what I'm doing, or if I wasn't talented enough (as I often suspect) to be doing what I think I should. "It’s a very fine line," he replied.

Don't Do This To Yourself

B

I waited longer than most, or many, Hampshire students to take a Five Colleges course, and the pitfall of waiting so long is the widening of the gap between high school and the "normal" college course, the eternal months spent in the dark valley of experimental higher education making the return to normative conventions of academic evaluation a shattering reunion.

That is: I got my first grade. I like to think that the jarring cognitive reaction this has triggered is a product of my success with/True Devotion to the Hampshire ideal: less strained objectivity; extensive verbal evaluation; no institutional randomness. But I have to say, there always was a certain carnal thrill in the gamble of submitting work for alphanumeric evaluation. The losses, when they come, can be crushing; the triumphs exhilarate like nothing else in this world. Despite my confidence that the "system," as it were, is essentially "broken" (man) I freely admit that I missed, in my heart of hearts, those big sparkly letters, assigned from on high like divine judgment.

But I'd also forgotten what an existential mindfuck it can be. I received a "B," which sounds about right: I guess I didn't use enough specific textual evidence to back up my claims. Also, my sentences are apparently too "hump-backed." (?) But the fact that this is the first letter grade I've received in so long meant that when first I laid eyes on that solitary figure of judgment, I couldn't help but feel as though my very human worth had been evaluated. This is especially accented in the heightened hyper-reality of college, where the academic, social and self-estimating fragments of normal teenage life are merged forcibly into one. All I ever do, these days, is read and write... so if my writing isn't up to snuff, then what the fuck am I even doing?

This is not to say that my previous college work has all been unequivocally brilliant, but... I thought this was a pretty good essay. Damn. I guess when I write my next thing, I'll really have to bring the thunder.

A Belgium Election Gila Monster in the Motherfucking System

Yes, and I want...
And I want...
And I want THIS
I want THIS
I want a tractor and I know what I want
And it is this
Fuck the Grape Soda that stands on the corner with a
Goddamn Pie
And if we are to make anything of this it will be
A new shoe
With
Apple Pie
And
Fine wine
With
The Same Man
Who came onto Alexander the Great's face
With a new shoe
And if
We are to
Believe
Then
There is another
That will seek
The one
The one time
That is to say
What fresh hell
Are we to expect
In the crimson place?