6:21 am (pst): josh and i made it to the airport with barely a minute to spare before our flight started boarding. neither of us wanted to leave the warmth of our beds at 4:30 this morning. and it didn’t help that drew drove us to the airport in his car that has no heat. all the employees at the airport were nice to us because we dressed up. there was a man working the security checkpoint who looked like the dad from fresh prince of bel-air. i got scolded for putting my carry-on bag on top of my laptop when I put it through the machine…. there are so many rules, i can never get it right. the flight attendant has informed us that it is -2 degrees in minneapolis. wonderful.
12:35 pm (cst): i slept for half of the flight, despite the fact that i can never find a comfortable position on an airplane and my head is constantly and sleepily bobbing up and down. apparently, someone on our flight was experiencing an undisclosed medical emergency that required the flight crew to ask over the intercom if there were any doctors on the plane. so this woman, who was apparently a doctor, kept going back and forth between her seat and the back of the plane (where the afflicted person was, no doubt) with doctor’s gloves on. once we landed, an emt crew came on the plane and we had to wait for them to do their business before we could leave. hopefully the afflicted person is okay. once we got off the plane, it took us fifteen minutes and a lot of walking to find a reader board with the flight schedules… and then there were two of them like twenty feet away from each other. come on, minneapolis: make it a little easier for us. for an airport in minnesota of all places, there were a lot of ritzy airport stores, and even a minnesota-themed store with a giant wooden moose emerging from the storefront. there was a lot of snow on the ground outside, and everyone was wearing big long coats a la fargo.
4:22 pm (est): the flight from minneapolis to detroit was just barely an hour long. josh and i didn’t have seats next to each other: he sat next to a gorgeous blonde four-year-old, and i sat next to what I assumed was a disgruntled ex-serviceman. he didn’t acknowledge me the entire plane ride; he did, however, listen to incredibly loud metal on his ipod and ordered two jack daniels and a coke when the beverage cart came around. yikes. apparently he was not interested in being conscious. the detroit airport was really nice and they have an elevated monorail that runs inside the airport. we walked around for a long time trying to find food before josh admitted that he wasn’t actually hungry (much to my chagrin), so we just got coffee and waited for the flight to board, whilst listening to two talkative high school kids tell a creepy older man about travelling to europe. i got restless, so I went to the magazine stand, and upon seeing lady gaga on the cover of elle, could not resist a purchase.
8:55 pm (est): our flight got a late start because the pilots decided to wait for people connecting from seattle, whose flight was running late also. i have never heard of a pilot doing that, and i’m certain that no pilot has ever thought of doing that for me when i was in danger of missing my connecting flight. i was happily reading my elle until josh complained that I wasn’t paying attention to him, so I quickly leafed through the mag only to find that he was asleep by the time i was done. figures. then i fell asleep for an hour or so, experiencing extreme neck pain upon waking up due to the head bobbing again. we had a rocky landing, but made it to jacksonville alive. my mom, brother and uncle picked us up and we stopped at chick-fil-a (since josh and i hadn’t eaten all day during our travels) for dinner, and then drove two hours home. and now we are in savannah, and very sleepy but happy, and watching identity on the syfy channel. the end.
finals: done. i am one quarter away from graduating, and the thought of it makes me want to dance for joy while simultaneously sticking my head in a garbage disposal.
i went to my english department’s christmas party last friday, and it was a mixed bag. i tried to get my english major bestie to accompany me as my wingman, but he bailed at the last minute, so i flew solo. it was incredibly depressing in the sense that it made me realize that, even though i’ve made a lot of progress in the past couple years, i still have a long way to go in overcoming my shyness and social anxiety. most of the students i didn’t know really well, and it seemed like everyone came in a group and they all clung together… and there were so many damn people in a small small room that it got so hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. i had to keep escaping to the kitchen for air and it was kind of awkward. i just hung on the side wall and acted as the silent observer (a role i have perfected). eventually i started talking to some of the professors, and stopped hating my life. i had some really good conversations with different professors about new award-winning books, the amanda knox trial, gender roles in vampire narratives, racial tensions in the south, and women in my age group who perceive children as life-ruiners. i love my professors: they are equal parts brilliant and hilarious and profoundly kind. somehow i know how to talk to them without feeling extreme discomfort, just not my peers. i am abnormal. i hate it.
on a completely different note, all upper-middle class homes in seattle look exactly the same… same squeaky hardwood floors, same room setups, same crown molding. just an observation.
this video is what ignited my love for jay-z… the cinematography is fantastically beautiful. and i love that jay-z is just hanging out with rick rubin throughout the video… what an odd couple.
i keep having experiences with some form of media that make me want to relocate to a new place.
first, i read the geography of bliss, in which a grumpy npr correspondent globe-trots for a year to visit some of the happiest (and unhappiest) places in the world and try to glean some secrets to leading a happy life. (as a sidenote, i think it’s amazing that there are social scientists who actually study the nature of happiness, which seems to me such an elusive and situational phenomenon. awesome.) he visits iceland, which, apparently, is consistently in the top ten happiest countries each year. for that entire chapter of the book, i was thinking how much it sounded like a place i wanted to live: it’s eclectic and everyone is a recreational artist, if not a professional one; it is small and quaint and everyone knows everyone; most people believe in ghosts/spirits/magic as a matter of fact; people change jobs all the time with fluidity because failure is seen as a great try that didn’t quite work out, and trying is admired; it is in an almost perpetual state of night, even in the afternoon; instead of binge-drinking because they’re miserable, icelanders binge-drink because they’re happy. it just sounds like such a pleasant place to live. i’m hoping to make a trip there during the summer.
and when i first jay-z’s song “empire state of mind,” and heard alicia keys belt out the chorus, i started crying because her voice was so beautiful and what she was singing was so inspiring. new york is the epitome of the american city, and is essentially a microcosm of the u.s. as a whole. all the good stuff that happens, happens in new york. i’ve never been there, but hearing that song made me want to pick up and move there immediately. alicia sings that new york is “what dreams are made of! there’s nothing you can’t do!” and i think to myself, “yeah! i can do anything!” and then she sings “these streets will make you feel brand new! big lights will inspire you!” and i think “yeah! i want to feel renovated! i could go for some inspiration, too!” the song just leaves me with a good feeling, and with the feeling that new york is the place to be. i’m going to apply to a few graduate schools in new york next year, so it could be a reality (maybe/hopefully).
i think i must just be restless. i’ve been in seattle for four years, which isn’t really that long, but i’ve experienced the equivalent of a lifetime here. i’m ready for a change of scenery, with the possibility of return.
last night, i made a terrible mistake: i convinced josh that we should accompany his mom to a doorbuster sale at toys ‘r’ us at midnight, to find a christmas present for his little sister. i just thought it would be a nice thing to do so that his mom didn’t have to endure the madness on her own. my good intentions were repaid with extreme physical discomfort and a good deal of rage. we got there at 12:15am. we got home at 3am.
it took us about a half hour to find the three items we were looking for, solely because the mass amounts of people there made it impossible to maneuver. once we had everything, we entered the line, the end of which began right before the checkout lines and wrapped around the entire perimeter of the store and came back to the checkout lines. we had barely gone fifty feet when we saw that the end of the line had been pushed back even further, so that the people in line next to us who were moving the opposite direction were looping around and up to where we had started. a lady with a cart full of toys tried to go under the rope that separated our line from the checkout because her “friend” was already in line, blocking both lanes in the process. a toys ‘r’ us employee stopped her, and she just stepped in line behind us instead of looping around like she was supposed to; about ten people behind her followed suit until they closed the gap between the two lines, and everything went on as it had before.
we stood in line for two hours. the first hour wasn’t that bad because we were still in decent spirits; we made jokes about the people around us and the dumb slogans on the front of board games, and we pushed buttons to make toys light up and to activate their automated voices. it was when my heels and back and shoulders started cramping up and sleep started making my lids heavy that my good attitude dissipated.
once we had made it into the home stretch and were about one hundred feet from the check out lines, we realized that there was a line of about thirty people that was perpendicular to us, and a toys ‘r’ us employee was letting in one person from that line into our line for every three people in our line. people that were still looking around for toys while we were in line on the other side of the store were let into our line in front of us. that’s when i lost my shit. someone behind us in line yelled at the employee that they had been in line for an hour and gone all the way around the store, and the employee said that he was just trying to do his job and get rid of the line that was perpendicular to us. i, and a group of people around me, jumped in and said that was asinine because our line wasn’t even that long anymore and that it would be that long for them to wait if they went to the end of our line. and when i started to ask the employee how his system was fair or even logical, josh started pulling me back and saying “it’s not worth it, it’s not worth it.” i was so livid. and to make it even worse, we got up to the checkout lanes and realized that our line was only being split between two checkout lanes, and a completely separate third line was being funneled straight into the third lane. it had all gone to hell.
standing in line wasn’t upsetting to me, because we were doing it to get josh’s sister a present that she would love, and that made it worth it. what was so infuriating was how machiavellian the entire scenario was, how the people who did the right thing and followed the rules got screwed by the people who deviated from the system and happily took on mild social chastisement in exchange for their own personal benefit, and really did not care that they were screwing anyone else over. while we were in line, josh and i were talking about how black friday sales would be the perfect setting for sociological observation, and what a disturbing documentary it would make. black friday is aptly named, i think, because it shows the blackest, basest, most vile characteristics of humanity in a neat, ostensibly moral consumerist package. i hate it.
heart of darkness by joseph conrad to siberia by per petterson teaching a stone to talk by annie dillard 1984 by george orwell ’tis by frank mccourt bird by bird: some instructions on writing and life by anne lamott
i talk to myself a lot. most of the time it’s inside my own head, but sometimes i speak out loud to myself when no one else is around. ostensibly there’s no purpose for it, because i’m saying things that i already know and there’s no one around to absorb what i’m saying. even within my head, there is a constant monologue happening that i can’t turn off. i guess this is how humans process reality, and because thinking is so inextricably linked with language, there is no way to experience the reality of living without the words to name it.
and yet, there is so much that language can’t name. there have been so many times in my brief life that i’ve failed to accurately express my feelings because i simply didn’t have the words. the feeling is always there, so strongly, but sometimes the language just doesn’t follow. sometimes “angry” is the only word you can use to characterize the amalgamation of your irritation, melancholy, loneliness, disappointment and fear, even if “angry” doesn’t come close enough to describing it.
since i haven’t posted any music videos for a while, i decided to make this monday a double-whammy. and though these two videos are from two different generations, the artists are equally outrageous in their own right: i give you peter gabriel and lady gaga.
i love this video. i love that this video is older than i am and a hundred times more brilliant. seriously, such innovation for an 80’s music video.
and gaga. oh, gaga. this video is beautifully shot and her clothes are to die for, and i love how she satirizes the relationship between media and celebrity. go, girl.
[i feel so lame that i only manage to blog on the weekends, ie. sunday night when i've finished all my shtuff.]
anecdote: during the last ten minutes of work on thursday as i was trying to look busy whilst not actually doing anything, i noticed that one of my co-workers was listening to npr and that they were discussing a blog, so immediately my ears perked. this fellow that runs a blog called my parents were awesome was being interviewed and just talking about why he decided to start this blog. the interviewer asked a really excellent question when she pointed out that the title of the blog implies that these parents are no longer awesome, but the blog man (whose name i didn’t catch) said that nearly every submission he gets has “my parents were and still are awesome” in the subject line.
i really like this blog. there’s always something so magical about seeing your parents as something other than what you know them as. they were once our age, they were once stupid and reckless and adventurous and carefree, and i think that when we acknowledge that, we honor them: as they were and as they are now. because usually they change for us. it’s kind of amazing.
reading romeo and juliet apparently makes some people very defensive. in a class discussion the other day, i piped up for the first time this quarter and said that i didn’t think romeo and juliet were actually in love, because they didn’t exercise any degree of reason in their 3-day love affair and because they were adolescents who had no conception of love beyond what their libidos were telling them. and out came the claws!
it was the general consensus of the class that romeo and juliet’s brand of immediate, uncontrollable, dangerous passionate love was an elevated form of love, that their love was somehow more pure than the long-lasting, mundane love that most people experience. someone even went as far as to quote neil young and say “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” how poetic.
call me square, but i just fail to see the appeal of this kind of love, if you can even call it that. i feel forced to bear my post-romantic teeth at the thought of such awesome recklessness/immaturity/selfishness falling under the category of love. i just try to imagine what their lives would be like if everything didn’t go tragically awry for them: they would have lots of passionate sex for a while, but then romeo would develop a roving eye, juliet would cuckold him, and there would always be that underlying tension of their families hating each other. there is no way they could maintain that intense level of passion for any longer than they did, so i guess there was no choice but for their story to end tragically; maybe that’s why people like it. in my mind, passion is kind of like caffeine: you can only run on it for so long before you get burned out, and either start looking for something else to get you going or allow what was once a high to become a routine. and everyone knows that teenagers are incapable of knowing what love is because a) they’re self-centered (and self-centered is the opposite of love) and b) because they don’t know themselves. you would think that if romeo really loved juliet, he could have restrained himself from killing her kinsman and getting himself banished and generally mucking up all their plans, but no. hrmph. fortune’s fool, indeed.
conclusion: i just can’t bring myself to romanticize their relationship (or any relationship that resembles theirs, for that matter). they were not great lovers, they were idiot kids who lived in the moment and died as a result of their inability to exercise restraint and plan ahead. and as dr. amorose said, this is the last shakespeare play that should ever be taught in high school english classes… it’s too great of an encouragement for moronic teenage lovers to be more reckless and moronic than they already are.
