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Brendan: |
I need a journal entry for tonight so I don’t have a blank spot in my calendar. Give me an idea. |
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Maria |
Um… I don’t know? This is why I don’t have a journal. |
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Brendan: |
But you should! |
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M: |
If I had a journal it would be made up of random snippets of conversation. Out of context. |
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B: |
You’d have a quote log! |
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M: |
I think quote logs are supposed to be funny. |
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B: |
I just got an email from Mindy. I was hoping it was from my friend Mindy, but no. |
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M: |
No? |
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B: |
No, this is more “Girls In Heat Playing With Horse Studs.” |
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M: |
Maybe Mindy is trying to give you a message. |
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B: |
I’m so putting that in my journal. |
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M: |
No! Don’t! |
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B: |
*click* |
Category: Maria Barnes
It’s DONE: I have successfully categorized (frequently up to five times) every single blasted entry in the history of NFD. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Besides going through one month at a time and filing them all, this also included a second sweep through the entire thing to fill an important slot I didn’t think of until I was almost done (landmarks).
With that done, I’m going to my apartment* with Maria to take measurements, then we’re both heading to Richmond so that a) Maria can see my ancestral** home before Mom sells it and b) I can help Mom empty the house of objects so that she can sell it. I’m not actually very worked up about this. I moved out emotionally and mentally at the end of my junior year of high school; that summer I lived at GSP, and the summer after I lived in Brazil, and in between I lived in Erika’s car. Mostly I’m glad Mom found a good family for it. I hope they appreciate the trees.
So yeah, I’ll be home all weekend hawking the remnants of my childhood at The Yard Sale. Expect posts to drop precipitately, but not entirely. I’m pretty sure Mom isn’t selling the phones.
* Did I ever talk about our apartment hunt? Sufficient: It was long, it was hot, nobody in Louisville thinks having two bathrooms is important and we ended up with the first place we looked at. Which is great, but not cheap.
** Not actually “ancestral.” More like “built in 1989.”
Did you know you can make nachos in a pie pan?
Last night, DC and I were fortunate enough to host an exCentriate dinner party, and I was an adventurous cook! I made fajitas in the absolute minimum possible time: dinner plans were made at 1500 hours, and we ate at 2030. That included biking to the store, buying everything, making the marinade and pico de gallo from scratch, allowing said marinade and pico to refrigerate, setting up the table with the extra leaf and Foreman-grilling the steaks. I can’t claim to have done it alone, as DC helped with shopping and Alison actually fried the vegetables, but I’m still really proud. I mixed and matched ingredients from different recipes, and I even added ideas of my own (strawberries in the pico and Crazy Salt in the marinade).
And the amazing thing is it all turned out really good. We all ate until we couldn’t move; the only things left over were tortillas and pico, because the recipe I used made WAY too much (but now I get to eat fresh salsa on my nachos for a week). Afterwards we sat and talked about Centre people forever, the way Centre people always do, and Alison told stories and we played with Lucy (from The Yellow Dar) and it was really, really good to see them all again.
Jon said last night that it feels like it’s been a very long time since we graduated, and it does feel that way, even though it hasn’t yet been two months. We’ve all changed. For one thing, I’m suddenly this person who loves to cook, even as I’m still stumbling through things like the difference between pan- and stir-frying. Maria and I are making sweet and sour chicken later tonight, and I’m looking forward to it as much as I would to a game of Halo. Am I the same at all?
Well, yes, or I wouldn’t miss them so much again. I lived with Jon and Amanda for almost three years, really, and even though I love my new Louisville life, that’s not something I’ve easily let go.
Yesterday I learned from Maria that if you fall asleep at a boring meeting, lecture, movie, ancetera, it means you haven’t been getting enough sleep, even if you think you have. If you really actually don’t have “sleep debt”–if you’ve been getting your statistical eight hours a night–you can’t and won’t fall asleep during the day.
Since that means I’ve been constantly in debt for a good six years now, that’s a little worrisome, but it’s also good to know. Hanging out with Maria is a process of continually finding out new things about biology and discovering that half the things I thought I knew were wrong. I guess that should be embarrassing, but really it’s pretty cool. My brain is getting bigger! (Inner Maria: No it’s not!)
Last week I baked a turkey, which we are still eating. Yes. I made a turkey (well, a turkey breast), and I made it all by myself, and it’s really good! It’s just like Mom used to make, because I used Mom’s secret recipe.*
I love turkey sandwiches beyond all reason, so the discovery that I can get this much delicious turkey meat for less than ten bucks is astounding. It fills me with a kind of joyous freedom, akin to the feeling (I imagine) of learning to drive.
Also, this weekend Maria and I made burritos almost from scratch, and nobody died and they were good too. The novelty of cooking for myself doesn’t look like it’s going to wear off any time soon, so expect a lot more stupid food entries. Food is the new frisbee!
* Basically, “turn it upside down.”
There are a number of lyrical, rhythmic and tonal cheap tricks employed in pop music for which I am an absolute sucker. I started a list of those earlier this year, and eventually I’ll write an entry on it too. One of the most specific and fun to talk about, though, is hip-hop songs that define their own terms. They’re great! They’re extremely helpful to geeky white people like myself–you’re given a new cool slang term, and immediately know its usage and basic etymology–and moreover, they’re completely happy and unself-conscious about it. I think Radiohead would have a lot more fun if they took a few pages from the same book.
I first noticed the phenomenon quite some time ago, but I was holding off on writing about it until I had three examples I could remember all at the same time. Last night, Maria inadvertently provided the third, and they are as follows:
- Nelly’s “Pimp Juice:” “She likes my pimp juice! Pimp juice is anything attract the opposite sex.”
- Alicia Keys’s “Girlfriend:” “I think I’m jealous of your girlfriend, although she’s just a girl that is your friend.”
- and the granddaddy, TLC’s “No Scrubs:” “I don’t want no scrubs. A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me–hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride, trying to holler at me.”
When I told Jon about this, months ago, he immediately suggested that we start putting our own terms into general parlance via Rhythm Method songs, then created the first one on the spot: “She like mah mantelpiece! The mantelpiece is the bulge in the front of your pants.”
If anybody knows more of these, drop them off. With a little thought we could have our very own Rap Dictionary.
A friend of mine has been questioning me with regard to the inner struggle in which I am pretty consistently engaged. I said I think it’s the way I’m trying to train myself into maturity. She asked why. This is my answer.
Katie’s passed out on our futon in the front room; I put out a trash can and a bottle of water even though I don’t think she’ll need them. Her friends say she’s been like this since around 6 pm. It’s pretty clear none of them made an effort to stop her.
I don’t mind that Kim and Danielle and Will left her here. I’d rather she be passed out in our apartment, which is at least a safe environment, than at fucking McNally’s house. I don’t mind taking on the responsibility of taking care of her tonight. It’s something for which I’ve made myself available, and something I’m willing to accept.
I will defend the letter of the law in that it allows adults to ingest drugs like alcohol if they want to abuse themselves. It’s a right. We have rights for a reason. I’ll defend that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hate it.
People think alcohol makes them more interesting because it is essentially a self-centering device. All drugs are. And all drugs make you less interesting to everyone but yourself.
I will not deny that fucking yourself up is a valid choice to make with your life. I will not agree that it’s ever a good choice. There’s a difference. I want to scream this at people, but I’m incapable of that even if I thought it would do any good.
The things I actually hate in life are deliberate blindness and stupidity. They never accomplish anything worthwhile. They never make anyone happy in the long run. And living in Kentucky (or college, or America, or the world), I’ve seen so much of it that sometimes it makes me want to throw up.
I never want any part of that to be a part of me. My definition of maturity is not complete open- and empty-mindedness, but the unflinching refusal to be blind or stupid. It’s considering the needs of others before your own, and choosing to act in a way that takes into account the consequences of your actions.
I’m not there yet: thus the struggle. It’s me finding the parts of myself that won’t listen and trying to dig them out with whatever tools I have, and it’s my choice to never turn to chemicals to let me out of the job.
I feel like I lived two lives tonight: one where I went with excited people to see a really entertaining movie and stayed happy about it for an hour afterwards, and another where I sat in here being bitter and hating alcohol while a helpless, silly person sleeps on my roommate’s couch.
I keep believing that if I can find the anger and precision to hammer out every word of what I feel correctly, it’ll have to reach someone who’ll listen. That’s why I choose to articulate instead of screaming. Then again, of course, we all know that nothing ever changes.
Back from a whole, whole lot of driving (or, technically, riding). I’ve played cards and doodled and finally bought the third Sandman book and now am trying to think of things to amuse a sinus-infected Audrey. This is not to say that the sinusly infected aren’t easily amused–she’s currently zoning out at the fake wood grain on my desk–but rather that thinking of things to amuse her helps make me feel useful in the face of illness. I hate it when people are sick.
And speaking of that, I should really quit talking about “somebody” and talk about Maria, who was the person about whom I was worried and who turned out fine after all. She goes to Brown and she’s one of my best friends in the world, and now you, true believer, will have a reference for when I mention her.
I can’t do what I’d like to do, of course, and mention her name with a link to her blog, because she doesn’t have a blog. Why do so few of my friends have convenient blogs? Get a blog, Maria!
For the perceived length of this spring break, I really don’t have much other news, except this: dream school Carnegie Mellon said yes to me but no to any kind of financial support, which essentially means saying no to me, as I don’t think I’m legally permitted to Stafford-borrow as much as it would cost to go there. Still, it feels good to know that I could be there, in another life. Maybe there’s another Brendan in potentiality who software engineered himself right through Pittsburgh and into Blizzard after all.
And maybe he got smashed by a pig truck. You know, it really doesn’t do any good to speculate.
There are two reasons I usually need to go running. One, the need for exercise and endorphins and exuberance, has been with me for most of spring term. It’s a good thing, and it’s something I know enough not to indulge when I’ve only had four hours of sleep (as I did for most of this past week).
Earlier tonight I felt the other need, the bad old kind, the fall term kind. It’s not as nice and it’s not rewarding. It is, as it took me a while to realize, a form of self-punishment.
My friends are hurting right now and I don’t know how to fix them. I want to be able to fix anything, but these are human problems with unknown quantities and there’s no easy solution. I know that. But.
This weekend I won one argument: I managed to convince someone that what happened fall term, what made me need to go running, wasn’t her fault. I’m glad of that. I lost another argument: I wanted to visit someone who wouldn’t see me, not because she doesn’t want to, but because she needs time for herself. I don’t mind losing in itself, but I still wish I could talk to her.
I can’t make the cause for the second person’s time alone go away; I can’t fix what’s making the first person want to blame herself; I can’t fix people who are sick and tired, I can’t fix people with misplaced affections, I can’t do much of anything except give of my time.
One of the most important things I learned during my internship, though, is that time isn’t free. My time isn’t free. There’s only so much of it, and I’m more conscious than ever of the fact that I can’t run on four-hour nights indefinitely.
This entry isn’t a question, and it’s not a cry for help. It’s just a monologue. I know people will read this and try to think of ways to help, and that’s beautiful: I hope you know I appreciate it. But I don’t need help yet. I just need to figure out a way to proportion the time I give–to figure out how much is mine to give, and how much is already bought.
That’s one problem I will figure out, I believe. I believe.