Something Momentous

Well readers, it appears as though barring any monumental academic collapse or significant legal misadventure, I am headed to the mountains of Virginia and Washington & Lee University next year. I look eagerly forward to four more years spent in an idyllic setting among fellow intellectuals, learning, playing, relaxing, and "becoming my best self," as Big Freddy Nietzsche would say. That said, I am still apprehensive about a few things.

- LEAVING THE NEST: I tend to grow homesick after being apart from my family for a period of time. I suppose everyone does, but mixed in with the blissful hours I will spend among new friends and colleagues, there will be periods of loneliness mixed in. Such is college, and such is life.
- KEEPING UP: I have always had outside motivation for doing my work diligently and to the best of my abilities. I won't have many eyes looking over my shoulder, making sure I'm on task and on time. I would like to think that I will be able to grasp the reins of responsibility and use them effectively, but I am somewhat uncertain. It will be an interesting experience.
- LIVING IN HARMONY: I am fairly confident that for better or worse, the people with whom I will be living next year have never encountered someone quite like me. I will go to them (and they to me) with a clean slate. What sort of reputation will my initial actions create? Will I be able to control myself so that I don't irk people. These are questions with a range of answers--which will turn out to be correct?
- WOOING AND COOING: Will I finally have a breakthrough when it comes to girls/women, or will my shyness hinder me as profoundly as it has throughout my high school years? Will I meet someone who is compatible with me? Will I be seen as compatible? Desirable? Time will tell, I suppose.

Before tonight's lyrical selection, I would like to thank you "Phoebe," for your kind comment on my last post. If you see fit at any time to reveal yourself, I would be pleased to know who you are. But at the same time, I fully understand your desire to conceal your identity. Regardless, I extend my sincerest gratitude to you.

Tonight's selection: "Visions of Johanna," by Bob Dylan
"Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn.

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man?"
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain."

In a Rut

Some melancholy musings:

Do not be alarmed by the negative tone of the following. On the average, I'm positively giddy with life, but everyone has their ups and downs, and I'm feeling a bit of a down tonight.

Dear Readers, Friends, and Casual Acquaintances--

- I'm just beginning to realize just how much of a nuisance I really am. When talking to people, I always have positive intentions, but I always come off sounding preachy and just plain annoying. If I am trying to give advice (which probably is bad advice anyway), I tend to unwittingly adopt a scolding tone. I try to help it, but cannot.

- I apologize for my incessant talking; I always try to have a point, but oddly enough, I rarely do.

- I am probably the biggest wuss I know. I take almost no meaningful risks in my life. Therefore, I get left in the dust, so to speak. And when you're neither cool nor charismatic, it's hard to catch up.

- It's kind of pathetic to be such an easy target. Eccentric, annoying, (seemingly) dull: I seem to hit the trifecta in the eyes of many people.

- I was called "The Walking Encyclopedia" in the 2nd grade, and ever since, I feel as though people treat me as such--an inanimate object that people go to when they need an answer, whose purpose is served after the answer is given. What am I? A book or a person?

- Do you ever feel like you're destined to ultimately fall short of your objectives, be they personal, social, or intellectual? If not, I salute you.

Sorry for the rant. I don't mean this to be a lashing-out against everybody with whom I am acquainted. Please understand that I only feel this way very occasionally, and about a very few people. In general, I love humankind endlessly. But I find myself frustrated from time to time.

Tonight's lyrical selection is spot-on for my general mood: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, by The Rolling Stones:

"I can't get no satisfaction, I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm drivin' in my car, and the man come on the radio
He's tellin' me more and more about some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination

I can't get no. Oh, no, no, no. Hey, hey, hey
That's what I say
I can't get no satisfaction, I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm watchin' my TV and a man comes on and tell me
How white my shirts can be
But, he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarettes as me

I can't get no. Oh, no, no, no. Hey, hey, hey
That's what I say
I can't get no satisfaction, I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm ridin' round the world, and I'm doin' this and I'm signin' that
And I'm tryin' to make some girl, who tells me
Baby, better come back maybe next week
'Cause you see I'm on a losing streak
I can't get no. Oh, no, no, no. Hey, hey, hey
That's what I say. I can't get no, I can't get no
I can't get no satisfaction, no satisfaction
No satisfaction, no satisfaction"

Sunday Evening Musings

I have a little Dashboard Widget (Apple-talk for a small computer window in the Tiger operating system) that gives me the "Fact of the Day." I was particularly amused by today's offering:

"An old folk custom for selecting a husband from several suitors involved taking onions and writing each suitor's name individually on each. Then all the onions were put in a cool dark storeroom. The first onion to grow sprouts would determine which man the undecided maiden should marry."

Wouldn't that make things a lot easier? Combine this with the prohibition of divorce and I believe we'd solve overpopulations in underdeveloped countries in the course of a generation!

But seriously, allow me to opine on the mystery of the Heart (capital "H," rather than the physicall lower-case "h" heart). I believe that one reason for all the heartbreak out there is that people tend to use the word "love" far too liberally. In essence it has lost its meaning. People falsely say "I love you" to each other all the time. I occasionally hear "I love you Tim" as a response to one of my quirkily charming antics, but often feel bad in being hesitant to return the exclamation in kind, because I feel it is a betrayal of the serious meaning of the word.

I hope the above does not make me seem like an emotionless blob of hair, skin (the occasional zit), blood, and water (among other substances), because nothing could be further from the truth. I fancy myself--to steal a phrase from my Philosophy teacher--a "sensitive male for the 21st century." I feel infatuations toward girls (though my cautiousness in interactions with the 'Fairer Sex' calls this into question from the perspective of some insensitive peers, but that's a subject for another post), but I do not throw around the word "love" when it is not warranted.

Tonight's selection: "Mr. Blue Sky," by Electric Light Orchestra

"Sun is shinin' in the sky
There ain't a cloud in sight
It's stopped rainin' ev'rybody's in a play
And don't you know
It's a beautiful new day hey,hey

Runnin' down the avenue
See how the sun shines brightly in the city
On the streets where once was pity
Mister blue sky is living here today hey, hey

Mister blue sky please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey you with the pretty face
Welcome to the human race
A celebration, mister blue sky's up there waitin'
And today is the day we've waited for

Hey there mister blue
We're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Ev'rybody smiles at you

Mister blue sky, mister blue sky
Mister blue sky

Mister blue, you did it right
But soon comes mister night creepin' over
Now his hand is on your shoulder
Never mind I'll remember you this
I'll remember you this way

Mister blue sky please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey there mister blue
We're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Ev'rybody smiles at you..."

Yet Another Example of Man's Idiocy

So I'm at the supermarket with my mother the other day (it probably seems pathetic that I visit the supermarket with my mother at the age of 17, but I am what I am, and if that's a dork, then a dork I am) and the manned chackout lines are crowded. Not wanting to wait and eager to explore a suburban novelty, we head for the "automatic checkout station," a scan-it-yourself-bag-it-yourself area that is yet another way for businesses to stroke their greedy egos by eliminating jobs and salaries and replacing competent people with cold machinery.

After 15 minutes of struggling to scan items "just-so," and a request for assistance from a store worker (it is most ironic that we needed a person in order to help us use the machine properly), I was nearly ready to plant my foot in the screen, despite the slightly seductive (though nonetheless robotic) female voice within the apparatus. A little fair warning to those who know me: I may well have a psychotic break if I hear the phrase, "Two dollars and sixty-nine cents" chanted out of rhythm within the next week. Having to hear it a dozen times in excruciatingly fast succession is a punishment seemingly fit only for the most dastardly criminals.

Anyway, the moral of this story, dear readers, is that automated grocery checkout methods are to be avoided like the plague. That is, unless you don't mind frightening your fellow shoppers by screaming at the computer, "You stupid woman! I didn't remove any item from the bagging area! I will kill your children the next time you talk back to me!" I don't recommend it, but hey, we're all different, right?

Tomight's lyrics: "Lazy Flies," by Beck (yes, even the Teenage Old Fart himself listens to a little modern music now and again):
"Lazy flies all hovering above
The magistrate, he puts on his gloves
And he looks to the clouds
All pink and disheveled
There must be some blueprints,
Some creed of the devil
Inscribed in our minds.

A hideous game
Vanishes in thin air
The vanity of slaves
Who wants to be there?
To sweep the debris
To harness dead-horses
To ride in the sun
A life of confessions
Written in the dust.

Out in the mangroves
The mynah birds cry
In the shadows of sulfur
The trawlers drift by
They're chewing dried meat
in a House of disrepute
The dust of opiates
And syphilis patients
On brochure vacations

Fear has a glare that
Traps you like searchlights
The puritans stare
Their souls are fluorescent
The skin of a robot
Vibrates with pleasure
Matrons and gigolos
Carouse in the parlor
Their hand-grenade eyes
Impotent and blind.

A hideous stain
Vanishes in thin air
The vanity of slaves
Who wants to be there
To sweep the debris?
To harness dead-horses
To ride in the sun
A life of confessions
Written in the dust."