saturday, january 20

•••    there was a bright magenta light floating in the sky outside my window, and I know I did not imagine it. it drifted down and right, surrounded by its own lens flare, but no one else saw it. it was like the overbright remnant of a recently-exploded fireworks finale, the bit that falls as if the air were made of antigravity, twinkling just for the people who care enough to watch beyond the end of the echoes. except it was all alone, with no preceding explosion and no ensuing applause.

I could be condemned to hell for every sin but littering.
5:57 PM +

•••    I didn't watch a bit of the inauguration, and I can't say I'm sorry, even though I have friends who are there as bandmembers and protesters and sundry other things. instead I accidentally bought groceries and chattered with my roommate and listened to jazz.

and, because I like to play with markers and computers, I updated my school webspace. I must be losing it, because for the first time in my life I willingly and happily made something with frames. now I finally have somewhere to put my random impulses, and it is a very good thing.

what is the opposite of hyper without being sad or tired? I feel that way. quiet, but something more. one day of break left and so much to do.
5:43 PM +

•••    it took me three tries, but I remembered my mailbox combination. I have a feeling all the paper inside would have found its own way to burst out even if I hadn't; as soon as I opened the door it all cascaded onto the tops of my sneakers.

I went back and reread my finals week posts, and I was surprised at how much they didn't convey the absurd amount of work I did, or rather how much effort I expended trying to do it. it scares me that all that work, and all the work that came before it, can be distilled into a single letter. it scares me more that four years of work will be distilled into a single number sometime in the future, when I calculate my gpa for grad school applications, although I suppose it's a concept I should be used to by now.

anyway. I am not going to tell you my grades, because that's considered bad form here and besides, I want you to keep taking me seriously. ;) but I noticed that my math and science grades are consistent in one respect: my semester grade is lower than my final exam grade. there are two ways to look at that, I suppose. on the one hand, I am capable of going back and learning the things I didn't get the first few times. on the other hand, I'm not working hard enough the first time around. please remind me of that if I seem unmotivated in the next few weeks.

so far I've earned twenty credits, which means I could technically graduate in just three more semesters rather than five. I'd have to major in english or something though, so don't count on that happening. besides, the whole purpose of going to college is to avoid the real world for as long as possible.
12:53 PM +

•••    it is grey and dreary outside. everything is a muted shade of brown or green or brick, and the sky is just blank, with no color variation to indicate which way the clouds are drifting. somehow, though, when I opened my eyes this morning it was the nicest thing I've seen in months, because it's here outside my window.
9:19 AM +

friday, january 19

•••    you may remember (though you probably don't; after all I only mentioned it once) that I read this over break. I haven't figured it all out yet, and in fact I am not quite sure who the narrator was even, but there is one thing that keeps sticking in my head, so I will put it here for everyone to see: language is the transmission of hints.

I suppose everything is the transmission of hints, given that we cannot as yet get inside each other's minds, but language is most easily mistaken for something else because it is so ubiquitous. if I were not more resistant to changing my tagline, this page might be wockerjabby: the transmission of hints. but I am still jumping at the stars. hint me this, hint me that.
6:42 PM +

•••    it is frightening how unfamiliar the web looks at 600x800. this is my computer, dammit. it is supposed to be comforting.

so it is raining all over the east. it was just beginning to drizzle as we boarded the train at south station, and it was a sloggy soppy mess that I walked through after detraining for the third and final time today to get from the swarthmore station to my room. which, happily, is still in one piece, and even has some living plants left in it.

in the amtrak magazine, which is even more pathetic than those airline magazines, there is an article about cambridge, complete with a picture of the pedestrian bridge in front of harvard where I stop in the middle of my running circuit. it was strange to be leaving that part of my life and have it come back and photo-smack me in the face so soon. anyway the basic message of the piece was "if you're in boston, come to cambridge. it has lots of culture too." today it also had a bomb scare and a lot of hullabaloo about the speed of light, which just goes to show that harvard really is the center of the universe.

my grades from last semester and my schedule for this semester are waiting in my mailbox on campus, and soon I will be digging into my bank account for the next wave of textbooks and lab books, and after that I will be back in class. but for now it is nice to be here in my room, my home, with no obligations save for a slightly damp bag of clothes waiting to be unpacked.

I missed you.
4:51 PM +

•••    improvisational dinner at fire and ice: good.
crouching tiger at kendall square: good.
siblings' night out sans parents: good.
not being packed with five hours until wakeup time: not so good.

so never fear, soon all you will have to hear about are philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs. that other home of mine. and school, lots of school. did you know I am four months away from being halfway through college? I know it, but I can't deal with it.
12:38 AM +

thursday, january 18

•••    I went downtown to go skating at the frog pond, and much excitement ensued. they were just zamming the ice as we got there, so everyone was clustered around the benches by the side of the rink. a group of them, mostly teenagers, were wearing matching blue fleece jackets with the words "chevrolet novice national team 2006" embroidered on the fronts. I couldn't quite figure what that was about, 2006 being five years away still, until we got stuck in the middle of a conversation between the guy in the ticket booth and some nosy tourists. it turned out the matching blue fleece people were in boston for the national figure skating championships, and as they had all finished competing earlier in the week, they decided to go have some fun skating outdoors. (but they're not really that good, are they? the nosy tourist wanted to know. they really are that good, ticket booth man said, in fact some of them came in as high as third or fourth place.) 2006, being the year of the second-to-next winter olympics, is presumably the point of their training focus.

so we skated for a while surrounded by people doing toe loops and axels and various other spinny things. one of the pairs skated together and the boy lifted his partner right over his head. it was very impressive, and for some reason seeing them doing it in street clothes with genuine, relaxed smiles on their faces was much more enjoyable than any sequinned musical production I've ever seen on television. after they left, the rink was left nearly empty, and I was inspired by the memory of their grace to be even more reckless than usual. so I jumped and spun and slid and fell all over the ice, and it was just lovely. it was also twenty five degrees in the air and colder on the ice, so I still have that residual tingle that comes from the return of circulation to your non-vital organs. mm, winter.
4:35 PM +

•••    I have a story, since some of you seem to be not so good at the whole window surveillance thing.

I was walking home on the cambridge side of the charles, just before sunset. it's lined with hotels and mit frats and biotech companies, so you wouldn't think there would be much to see. but for some reason I stopped next to the pfizer building and looked up. one level is all lab benches and purple flourescent lighting, probably with immaculate pipettes hung on immaculate racks and regulation biohazardous waste bins on every corner. all I could see was the light and the piping for gas and water.

above that is a floor full of offices. one of them had some sort of transparent writing surface applied directly to the window, and it was covered in notes and drawings as if it were some sort of backwards blackboard. another had plants tumbling all over each other. the one next to it had a dart board hanging on the wall. all of them had glowing computer moniters.

a man walked up behind me and stopped to see what I was staring at. he was pretty dirty and he seemed to be growing strange appendages in the shape of lumpy plastic bags, which only just outnumbered the gaps in his mouth from missing teeth. normally I am not outgoing enough to initiate conversation with any strangers, even though I try to at least smile at the ones who don't frighten me too badly. he gave me this inquisitive look, though, and the next thing I knew I was right next to him, lining up my hand so that he could follow my pointing finger to the office window I had been examining. "look at that," I said. "all that prozac and viagra, and they still need dart boards for dealing with those rough spots in life."

he laughed and laughed and laughed. I think he was probably drunk. but then I started to laugh too, because it was me and a homeless man on the sidewalk having a better time of it than the guy with the high-power job and the high-paying salary and the riverfront office with the darts stuck into the wall across from the computer.
1:39 AM +

wednesday, january 17

•••    in continuing with the aesthetics of musical instruments topic, I went to the mfa today to see the guitars. I thought nothing would top the one that seemed to have been constructed as a shrine to napoleon (number five in the preview), but then there was a brilliant red electric guitar with a dragon design done in mother of pearl and precious stones inlay, and I wanted to take it home.

after the guitars, I wandered out of the museum by way of the comtemporary american masters gallery and the local photography hall. there is one wall, or actually several bits of wall if you count the way the corner fits into it, that has a painting done directly on it. it is blue acrylic, a picture of a dog wearing glasses, catching fish and birds or something. sort of disturbing but very cool, and I'm sure very symbolic of something or other.

I think I hit nearly every corner of boston proper (that means not counting jp or roxbury or any of those places you need wheels to get to, okay people?) in the rest of my travels. from the museum I walked through the theater district, skirting symphony hall and southie on my way to the financial district. after I picked up my train ticket at south station, which is as big a constructified mess as ever, I walked along the waterfront, through back bay, and finally past kenmore square and fenway on my way back to cambridge. of course there were trains involved, but I did walk most of it, so I could watch the neighborhoods dissolving into one another at the edges. while I was standing in the subway station at park street, a couple came up to me and asked if I was a native bostonian. I very nearly said no, out of instinct, but then it occurred to me that they were probably more interested in getting directions somewhere than in my life history. so I said yes. it felt very, very strange.
8:52 PM +

•••    I tuned a violin. just now, sitting here. maybe it doesn't quite count because the d string is thoroughly unfunctional, so I ended up taking it off instead of tuning it, but I feel like I accomplished something nonetheless. I don't have perfect pitch, but I guess I have a good enough memory that I know what an e string sounds like. and now, sitting here with it lying across my lap, I can see how people fall in love with this instrument. I think I could have, under the right circumstances. it's curvy and scrolly and smooth, and it fits under your chin the way a baby fits between your arm and your hip. I do love my clarinet, but there is something infinitely more romantic about bowstrings sliding across rosin than grease rubbing into cork. I also love sitting down at the piano and just playing whatever comes to my fingers, but a piano can't sing. the violin is beautiful, and when people play it, even the little suzuki people on their little eighth-size violins, there is something intrinsically fluid and graceful about their movements. and their faces.

it is too late to really play anything, because I am afraid a singing violin would be a loud violin at any volume when it is two in the morning. but I have it braced against my shoulder anyway, and I am playing things pizzicato with three strings under my left fingers and my right thumb. for some reason the things that keep occurring to me are all christmas carols. it's funny how the littlest sounds can fill up the biggest silences. tidings of comfort and joy.
2:31 AM +

tuesday, january 16

•••    okay dad, here's something to talk about at lunch: apparently some doctors have come up with a blood test for diagnosing schizophrenia.

I'm no schizophrenia expert, in spite of how much I hear about it (we have to talk about something on those seven hour car rides between cambridge and swarthmore, don't we?), but I know slippery science when I see it. now, whether or not there is some way that blood might indicate schizophrenia I have no idea. however, if there is, the way to find it is not by comparing healthy (normal? whatever) people to hospitalized patients. people in the hospital are generally on drugs, and drugs generally have a significant impact on a person's biology. especially drugs that affect the brain. so you scan the brain of a non-drugged person, and you scan the brain of a drugged (or worse, dead) person, and you see -- surprise surprise! -- the drugged person has a different sort of brain behavior! so it must be the disease causing the difference, right? right. pleh.

logic should be a required premed course, I think. jeez.
12:00 PM +

•••    I forget what I was going to say. that happens sometimes, when there isn't a melody. I need to spend more time reading and less time singing. there is a white snake living on top of my left shoulderblade. you know about the white snake, don't you?

I miss your glow as I unsettle.
1:42 AM +

monday, january 15

•••    happy mlk jr day. did you know that in some states it was called civil rights day until just two years ago? I'm not sure what's so wrong with calling it civil rights day, but I guess people respond better to dead people than they do to ideas. or maybe it just makes it easier to forget that we're supposed to do more than just remember him. go do something. there's plenty of work left.
12:03 PM +

•••    I don't want to be awake, but even if I were lying in my dark room curled under blankets listening to debussy I wouldn't be asleep, so I suppose it doesn't make any difference. I feel like I am trying to drink 1784 chateau lafite rothschild through my ears and wondering why it tastes like air. my hands are too cold for anything to be taken into them, let alone matters or whatever other word you want to use to describe life condensed to the point of implosion. the little painted girl herding the painted ducks through their grassless field in front of their steelgrey sky looks so somber I want to take her by the shoulders and make faces at her until she laughs. I hate how the things that make people feel lonely and sad and whatever other emotions you can fit into palette of blue and purple are different enough, or unmentioned enough, that they (we) think that just because we can't understand each other's lives means we can't understand each other's emotions. we are so full of elitist emotional walls to keep our pedastalled selves hidden from the eyes of the commoners. or maybe that is just me. the witching hour sweeps across the world like a shadow and in the end it's always just exactly where it started.

(darling, you're asking all the wrong questions.)
4:03 AM +

•••    you know that truck commercial where the truck hauls things?

some trucks haul dirt. some trucks haul bricks. some trucks haul gluteus maximus.

who ever thought that would be a good way to sell a truck? I know (or at least I hope) it's supposed to be saying the truck hauls ass, but it sounds like it's equating your ass with dirt and bricks. at least it sounds that way to me, and it's not a flattering comparison. plus it's an ugly commercial.

I just don't like cars.
12:28 AM +

sunday, january 14

•••    from this month's harper's index:

number of articles published since 1998 containing the words "george w. bush" and "aura of inevitability": 350.

does aura of inevitablity sound vaguely similar to manifest destiny to anyone else? bah.
3:12 PM +

•••    I had an extremely disturbing dream last night, but what's more upsetting about it is that I didn't realize how disturbing it was until I woke up. while my rational mind is on faraway holiday during dreams, my emotional mind is usually there and acting like quite its normal self. my dreams generally fall into two categories: completely random with no real-world significance, or somehow upsetting or frightening. thus my emotional reaction, which is usually the same whether I'm asleep or awake, is either apathy or distress. I don't have good dreams anymore. but that's okay, because I am perfectly capable of happy daydreams (some, those who have more experience with my attention span, would say too capable).

but. last night I just sort of drifted through this dream, in which I did all sorts of horrifying things with unpleasant people, and the only thing I remember feeling was a slight bit of disconcerted self-consciousness. then I woke up, and I wanted to wash my subconscious out with soap and very hot water.
1:08 PM +