after love
I want to be able to write a great love poem without being cliche. I also know it will be impossible, utterly impossible, and I also know why it will be impossible.
See, in those tiresome hours when I'm trying to get a poem ready for workshop, I allow myself to care about everything in the world, or as much as I know about it. I allow the most unthinkable thoughts and the most disassociative images, then filter them down. Sometimes it's so overwhelming that I huddle scared in front of my computer because the filter isn't working as well, and my thoughts exceed my emotional capacity.
I don't like opening the door to love because it's just asking for trouble. Because love isn't the last stop to the ride, I would have to allow myself to feel all of the inner rage and angst and sorrows that also come with being in a relationship. And it gets ugly. And sometimes I don't know how to stop it, and my boyfriend's wondering why the hell I'm so psycho all of a sudden. At that point, I don't really know how to explain myself. Wouldn't it be nice to write a nice little sonnet proclaiming pure love and nothing but?
To me, that's just a form of dishonesty. To boil everything down to a single-word emotion is like whittling a redwood down to a redneck's toothpick. And especially when things I'd be boiling down are things like...the way I sweep away the clumps of hair and dust after he leaves, or how he smells like grapefruit, the number of tampons I have left at his place, the unwashed spoons at mine, the Skittles that I was sure were going to fall out of the freezer, how tired I get of just wondering if I'm doing something wrong, how tired he gets at asserting me it's nothing, the way we get so mad at each other, and then getting upset for us getting mad at each other...
It's just such a pain that I usually don't bother. And I also don't believe in a relationship "getting better" or "getting worse," because shit can always happen, but so can great surprises. I think a relationship is less an image of Sisyphus rolling a boulder uphill, but two people keeping a beach ball aloft.
I think the biggest thing that scares me about writing about love is how I allow myself to love the things and people that I don't normally allow myself to. And sometimes I think about how great it would be if for a day, I could just freely love. Not in a physical way, of course. But just to remove those emotional bounderies that could be tricky. Even thinking about this possibility makes me feel guilty, and that's exactly the thing I'm talking about.
But I can't help but love him, and it's the most tiring thing. So sometimes I pull up a new document on Word and sit there willing myself to write a love poem, like as if I had something to prove. And he's so good and so stable, and I'm so not. I don't know how he deals with me, especially when I get really sad for no reason and start lashing out at him so I wouldn't seem weak. It's pathetic, I'm aware. And I work so hard to be good, I really do--but sometimes it feels like I'm sabotaging my own efforts by questioning and prodding and bitching. I really can't help it, and I wish I could, you know?
And it's just so easy to sabotage your own relationship. It really is. Especially when it's so great that you don't even have a basis for comparison, because then how do you know when something is right or wrong? What's "normal" for a relationship? A lot of the time, we teeter at the edge of a break-up because things aren't going so well and we want to "preserve what we have." And that's just a silly idea. I think on some level, because we love each other, we have the obligation to make things work. I think it would be unfair to our future partners, having someone who's "preserving" a love with someone else, because preservation equal potential return, yes?
I'm getting completely off-topic, but at the time I'm just really happy to have the time to blog and be silly and abstract. And to be honest, I'm glad that my relationship has flaws; otherwise, I'd just be deathly suspicious of it. All women would be, because that's just the way we were trained. If a designer bag is too cheap, it's probably fake. If things are going too well, something's bad's going to happen right around the corner.
ch-ch changes
I really don't mean to leave this in a state of unbloggedness, but this is honestly the first time in a long time that I either have not been a.) sick, b.) home, c.) working.
Nothing's really new, except that I can actually see the layer of dust accumulating on my dresser and feel the grit underneath my feet. Last semester, I dusted and Swiffer-ed every week, but now I'm lucky if I get to it at all.
But really, it's tiring to stay on top of things. So far, I've succeeded in not being behind in a single class (though I think it's slowly giving me an ulcer). I'm such a nerd, and I have no reason to be cuz I don't like academia that much.
Anyway, Karl got me the Nini swallow doll! You know, the 2008 Olympics mascot? Well, one of the five mascots. She's so adorable, though there's this weird embroidered mole on her head that we still can't figure out.
I think this weekend may be one of the firsts in which I'm actually going to be on campus the entire time. I may even go to an event, who knows? But really, who am I kidding? On Saturday, even Karl went to a Princeton show while I stayed in and read Vanity Fair. The book, not the magazine.
Oh my god, this post is so boring. Am I getting boring? This is really bad. I can't even think of one witty thing to say.
alternative to liposuction, or not
First, look up "corset piercings" under Google or Yahoo images.
Then, stare and be amazed at how incredibly awesome they are.
No, really. They're just that cool, though I don't know if I would get them myself. Though if you think about it, piercings on your back will hurt a lot less than other areas considering how few nerves are back there.
For instance, try the finger test (we learned this in psych). Close your eyes and make a friend either put one or two fingertips on your palm. Guess how many. Then, keep your eyes closed and have your friend put one or two fingertips on your back. You'll get a lot more wrong this time.
My mother's probably flipping out right now, thinking I'm going to go off and get 20 piercings done at a time. No worries, I'm too indecisive for that.
donde esta mi..umm..braino?
It's strange how I actually find not having time to do anything kinda...refreshing. I don't think there's been a single night in which I've actually gotten my work done before 8 (which was pretty characteristic of last semester). And even so, it's given me a sense of purpose. But who am I kidding? I went home Thursday night so I could go on a date Friday and go snowboarding today. Work hard, play harder.
The Frog and the Peach was amazing. The hostess took us into a private room with only a few tables--very intimate, very quiet. There was candlelight and everything, but the most important part was that Karl and I could actually talk without having to raise our voices above the chatter. The food and service was also excellent. I highly recommend the chocolate tasting for dessert.
Snowboarding today was really disappointing. We thought there would be a lot of people there because it's President's Day weekend, but apparently we forgot to check the weather. When we got there, the snowmakers were at full blast, it was impossible to see, and the slopes were so icy that I would've been better off on skates. So we got to the bottom and tried to see if they'd turn the snowmakers off. Before we knew it, the snow started coming down by the shovelfuls, so we got our asses out of there and back to Pway, where there was barely any snow at all.
There's apparently some kind of cold/flu going around, and I definitely have it, so I won't be offended if you make obvious attempts to stay the hell away from me. My voice is gone and husky like a phone sex operator's, and whenever I get sick, my voice is always the first to go. I'm really glad I go to school in NJ, because it's always nice to have parents who care about you and make sure you have everything you could possibly need. I'm drinking the soup that my mom made for me, and it's still surprisingly hot. Almost scalding, which means the thermos is actually working better than I'd expected.
Is it bad that the class I'm working hardest for is PDF? Am I really that bad at history? It's actually kinda pathetic how many times I have to read the same passage just to get a basic idea of what's going on. It's always so-and-so did such-and-such on such-and-such date. I can finish Canterbury in no time, but one chapter of Japanese turmoil takes me forever.
I have money again =D......to pay off what I'd already spent =(
B-Z B, C?
Did you know that's the only book in English that can't be translated to another language? It's not actually called "B-Z B, C?" but it contains a lot of things like that. I forget the name of the book, but once I remember it, I'll post it, and you guys can go check it out.
But yes, I've been very very B-Z. The stomach virus has been kicking me around like a total S-O, but it's finally stopped. Maybe it wasn't really a stomach virus, but just my body thinking that the antibiotics were the N-M-E. It made me too C-P to do any real work, and I'm actually behind on my first week of readings.
I really want to watch "Clueless" now that I've finished Emma. It actually started speeding up considerably towards the last third of the book.
There's a lot of snow outside. I wish I could eat it. But that would make me sick.
I also wish I had more juice. To drink my juice, I have to add half a can of soda. So, instead of the cheap Asian way of diluting it with water, I use the fat American way of adding more sugar.
I also shouldn't be updating now considering exactly how much work I have left to do. But I missed you, you silent and mysterious readers out there.
hangman's toenail
My first day of classes started off pretty bad. I'd woken up with a bit of a headache, and during breakfast, I felt nauseous and felt like puking. I went back to my room and went over the pros and cons of skipping the first day (3 classes total), and finally decided to drag my ass to class anyway.
Music class was refreshing on many levels; on one hand, I've always felt guilty about quitting violin, so the class kinda fools me into believing that I'm back, and on the other, the professor was articulate and funny. I sat towards the front in case I needed to make a mad dash to stick my head in the toilet.
History was pretty boring, but I'm PDFing it so whatever.
But the class I really loved was ENG 331, taught by Nunokawa. He's everything Jenny said he was--funny, flamboyant, and modern. He's basically the opposite of everything we're reading in class (Austen, Bronte, Dickens, etc.).
So after dry heaving the entire afternoon, I finally managed to puke it all up intermittently between 1-10 am. Was it a stomach virus, food poisoning, or reaction to antibiotics? I really had no idea. The most obvious choice would to blame it on the alcohol at Terrace, but I didn't really drink during pickups (minus the champagne that was poured over my head once I opened the door). Luckily, even though I still felt like shit, I managed to carry all my beer-drenched clothing to the washers so that my room didn't have to smell like shit too. That would've just made me feel even more nauseous and shittier.
After not getting much sleep last night, I decided to skip my ENG 205 lecture and sleep in. Because creative writing classes flunk you if you miss more than 2 classes, I figured I might as well go if I felt even the smallest bit better. I really like the professor, but her class seems to require more work than the other workshops. And even though there are only 5 people in the class, I think she's goign to try to fill up the 2 hours anyway. She's really pretty, and her voice matches her face well.
I don't know why I'm taking 5 courses. Even I'm PDFing History, I know I'll still wind up spending just as much time on the readings and whatnot. So now I have to go read Emma, which puts me to sleep after just 2 pages. Which means it'll put me to sleep 226 times.
work of art
I drove Karl to the dentist to have his wisdom teeth removed, and as I sat in the waiting room reading The Kite Runner, I wondered what really made a good book a good book.
In truth, a book like Shopaholic affects me more than Catcher in the Rye. However, it's always hard to admit that you like a fluffy book more than one of the great American classics. No offense to J.D. Salinger, but to me (not the wannabe literati me), Shopaholic is the better book. There, I said it. It just relates to me more, and the other one feels like vicarious living.
And often, when people ask you what your favorite book is, how often do we really choose one that's truly our favorite? How often do we drill the possibilities and wonder what other people would think about our choice? Sometimes, I opt for Salinger or Kerouac when I want to seem less uptight. Sometimes I choose a really obscure book so that the other person wouldn't know what to think. And other times, when I'm lazy, I'll just say 1984, and the other person will nod and say, "good book," and I'm off the hook.
So are we really a reflection of what we read? Or more specificially, what we like reading? See, I don't even like novels in general because I have the attention span of an ADHD 2 yr old on speed. I prefer short stories like What we talk about when we talk about love or books of modern American poetry. I also don't like anything heavy or obviously set out to make a statement (like "Garden State," even though thats a movie).
Whenever I go over to someone's house for a party, I always notice the books kept on the coffee table in the living room. Sometimes I see James Joyce and Dickens; now, I know these busy people don't use for light reading. What I love even more than that are those people who keep self-help and motivational books out for their guests (message: we're sorry your life is crappier than ours, but we'll let you skim through these as long as you don't bend the edges). Other people strive for more casual things: a Vanity Fair, Times magazine, Us Weekly. As I'm flipping through the books or magazines to avoid awkward conversation, I'd catch their eye, and for a second, I feel like I'm 10 and trying to get into the Adults Only section of a movie rental place. Is this two-way judgment? Them fearing what I think about their choice of reading, me fearing what they think about my choice out of their choices?
I know the three things I'll keep on my coffee table:
1. Latest copy of EF magazine: it's not even written in English. The message I want to send out is: "Oooh...look at the pretty pictures. OMG, is that the newest Cartier watch??"
2. Da Vinci Code: a mere distraction to throw people off-scent. I want my guests to think: "Ooh, she's just like the rest of us. We can relax now. But geez, how cliche."
3. Anne Sexton's "Transformations": everyone likes a good fairy tale and some healthy psychosis. Messageto guests: "If you overstay your welcome, I'll have to bake you."
**Oh, and just as an afterthought, Wasim's comment about my high school is actually true. I've been seeing a lot more girls from our high school carrying around their babies in the mall and at ShopRite. I bet they'd make Bush proud.
