collegiate diversion

“I guess I kind of woke up in a funk this morning.”

I woke up and you weren’t there. And I obviously overslept, I knew that I would. Waking up was kind of a nightmare, with the phone screaming with my Mom on the other line with plans for travel.

And then I screamed “Holy shit! Class started 12 minutes ago! I’ve got to go!”

I’m too young to be this old.
I am too old to be acting this juvenile.

Probably agreeing to myself to stay in the library until 2 and then meet up with you when you got out of work was a bad idea.

But you’re very sweet, I know that. I just plainly can’t deal with someone finding me so fascinating.

I can’t even share anything with you, even when you ask. And I can’t deal with you laughing at me, even if it’s in admiration. It bugs me. So much that I have to stop you and say “But why are you laughing?”

I’m pretty thrown when you stop to talk. THAT I am certainly not used to. But society taught me to be more close-mouthed. I really think I’ve gotten much better at THAT.

But let’s do the math. I’ve been here for nineteen years, and you twenty-something? Whatever, I can’t deal with the aging thing.

Should I be much further along then this? Fuck Sex and the City for making me think in all these rhetorical questions.

I always despised that show because I believed the audience (young) mistook Carrie Bradshaw’s sexual problems as a reason for theirs (ever still youthful).

Eight year olds idolizing thirty-somethings emotional wrecks…(shudder)

Now I realize that show is really great, for me. But I’m worried I’m justifying and applying. It’s not just with that show though, it’s everything. Merely an example.

What exactly is intimacy, anyway? I am much more open with my girlfriends then I ever could be with someone I’m sleeping with.

And my reasoning for that is that we just click, we analyze and find the common ground, relate. Maybe that’s not such a good thing…

I probably shouldn’t hang around such fucked-up women.

But I supposed I’m not entirely heartless and turned off to the idea of romance, or, let’s call it CONNECTION.

I didn’t like that I heard the door click behind you in the dark this morning.

So as I knelt over the toilet tonight, puking after one too many coffees and my nerves fried, I looked up and saw something on the dorm bathroom stall: “That’s right, it’s that time of year again.”

Indeed, although I do believe this was referencing some sort of National Recycling exercise, it is that time. Fucking midterms here at Ithaca College.

Forget what they told you was fun about these “best years of your life,” no one could prepare you for this. But then again, they never did prepare you for anything did they?

All those regretful stories of past college students, know grumpy alumni preparing for dinner and homework with the kids, where did those golden years fly off too?

Oh, that’s right, the dysfunctional memory of your brain.

It came up in discussion the other night amongst some other collegiate colleagues, just how many movies can you name about college life? 2, maybe 4? I mean, maybe we were wrong, but there’s more high school films than college, and the rest is just left up to the American imagination.

I used to humor myself in high school, doodling in my Chem notebook about philosophy and religion: just who the fuck needs stochiometry (sp?) anyway? What are all these theories and formulas really for?

“Are we trying to find God?”

That is something I wrote down in a notebook I found during the Xmas clean out back home. Just what is it about all this knowledge and education and learning abilities that is so damn attractive?

ADD is on the rise. I’m not judging, but don’t you think those baby boomers have stressed out the next generation just a little too much? All the psycho degrees say so. Typo there, I meant Psych.

So what is this grade average bullshit, learning bell curve, reconstructive deconstructive creation and propanda-ing race? Are trying to keep up with China?

Maybe we should all reconsider.

This blog is after all called collegiate diversion, just why do so many of us need the diversions?

I wanted to touch you more than ever while we were studying in the library tonight, maybe just to keep sane. I know it’s wrong but I totally convinced you into coming over tonight: “You don’t have to write that do you? You can come over…” make the coffee runs together and such and wake each other up when it’s necessary during the inevitable cram,

Of information.

Perhaps, thanks for saying yes anyway. I guess we’ll see each other later tonight, and I’ll keep you calm.

But look how full of it I am, trying to tell you not to freak out while I procrastinate and write this, wait for you to finish the paper, so I can lie about not getting sick earlier.

Hmph.

you told me that you wrote a song about us, about the break-up.

and I was really interested, and now I’m not too sure why.

and you said it was called BRICK, about how things just got too heavy and our relationship wore you down. told me some of the lyrics, and I got sad, but you said you couldn’t remember the rest of the song, or how it went. you had wrote it so long ago.

I found that song tonight. it is called Brick, and it made me so sad, to think that you felt the same way this popstar did about us.

what’s the most heartbreaking part of this story?

“As weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me son its time
To tell the truth
And she broke down and I broke
Down
cause I was tired of lying
Driving back to her apartment
For the moment we’re alone
She’s alone
And I’m alone
Now I know it…”

it’s not even that much of a shock, you’ve lied before. but this song indicates that you felt you had to lie about so much more.

i’m just wondering which parts.

I’ll write this one about my Mom tonight, or start off with that at least.

She told me about this sexy guy in college she went out with, that all the girls on her floor wanted to be with. He would buy her very expensive gifts, expecting something, and she would hold his hand and on particularly fun nights, kiss him goodnight.

She told me she never regretted getting more involved with him, she just liked his company.

“He looked like Jesus, but with blue eyes and very dark hair.”

But my Mom would say that.

I am always so critical of my mother, for being so critical of me. For her judgements of my supposed oversexed personality (which she could blame on my culture but instead blames on me), for my high risk endeavors(with my 2+ drink intake at parties and occasional light cigarette)… but mostly justfor being anything less than wholesome.

My mother had maybe three serious boyfriends in her life, and the third was my father. She loved him, loves him, and they’ve been together for almost 30 years.

So I should really heed that advice at some point, I mean, her advice on men. I mean, it’s true, we come from very different backgrounds really, and she was brought up like the good catholic school girl, and me, not so much,

BUT

I called her tonight, pretty downtrodden. I started off with my usual bitch and moan, told her about the booty call text I got last night, and then explained to her what that actually meant. It was sweet, explaining how sometimes those nice boys call expecting only one thing – the booty.

Poor Mom, and her underdeveloped urban dictionary jargon.

She’s usually very encouraging about them all, but that’s what I’ve always disliked. Don’t be encouraging Mom, be on my side. Tell me he’s an asshole, not that someday he’ll see the error of his ways and then we’ll get married.

But tonight was surprising.

ME: “Maybe I just have high expectations.” (after another very disappointing call)
Mom: “No, you should have high expectations…”
ME: “Yes but I have very low standards, that way the men I expect such high things from never ever live up to them…”
Mom: “Well then sometimes, you just have to assume that they’ll all be assholes and shrug it off when they are.”

Thanks Mom, really.
It was her idea really, a spring break to Chicago to see the premiere of my uncle’s play at the prestigious Goodman. And then she was like “Remember that guy you really really liked in high school? Call him up! Ask him if you can stay for a couple of days.”

It sounded really nice, and yes, my friend in Chicago and I had somehow recently connected. But when I called him and told him the happy news, it just seemed awkward, I really should have just stuck with my gut: I know no men who I would feel happy spending a few days with in my favorite city.

High expectations.

Clearly, my mom’s expectations of my exceedingly exciting spring break were a little too high. But then again, maybe my standards for singularity are too low. A week alone in Chicago could be magical.

There are spots of it on the ground. I was always so amazed at the ugliness the inevitable defrost caused. How beautiful snow is before but then after how it is just pure grossness, spattered mud on the roadside, dirt, rocks and earrings that fell off. Gray, black and brown. Never white again.

But I suppose there will be more snowfalls and defrosts, this is certainly not the first of to come. I just don’t really know if I should bother myself to be so excited when it does fall again. Why stand in awe for something I have seen so many times before? Why cherish anything that eventually fades to waste?

Bright optimism wouldn’t let the opportunity fall to waste. Enjoy what’s yours, and soak it up for whatever it’s worth.

When is the last time I really enjoyed the snow? When it was autumn and took away the colors on the trees? The last one before spring when I was so disappointed to see it go?

No. I really don’t think that’s right. You all eventually turn to mud. If I’m such a fucking beautiful snowflake, one that is so individualistic, don’t we all just turn to mud? With time, condensed by the changing temperatures, what was once whole and unique, gathers with the others, so they all look alike on the ground. I couldn’t pick you out of a fucking crowd, uniqueness is wasted in the numbers.

But then we all look so beautiful together, don’t we? Blanketing blanket blanket blanks on the floors and frozen grass. I think we do look quite pretty actually, your hand in mine, our crystallized lengths reaching out for each other and lying flat on the snow in the beauty of white. And ice. And simple simple collective being.

But with time, it all goes to waste. Certainly. We knew that. Each snowflake must die. But whoever said it had to be such a grotesque process?

When I look out my window today, I cannot remember the snow. I don’t remember the unique snowflakes I examined with my magnifying glass as a child, I don’t remember the taste of the freshest flake I grabbed on my tongue between classes at college: I am simply made bitter by the site of such ugly and dismal gray patches by the side of the road.

It all struck me today as being such a waste.

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Here I am, like a rat, in my cage. But not really, that’s overtly metaphorical. I find myself getting truly envious when I read this one person’s blog, if you know me you’d know who. And it does seem silly really, being envious of the famous, but sometimes I think it would be nice, post-college.

Not now though, when it’s 3am and I have a deadline for notes on readings, dense motherfuckckckckkccer rrr readings for the 7am. Damn. I wish I went to bed earlier.Had a very nice and surreal conversation with my superb cousin this evening. And she is very superb, always has been, very much of the ELITE, in a way my parents just couldn’t allow, economically and all.

I mean, do you realize how many women are slowed down by men? It was such a good point. We could build bridges but we burn so many with burning pains of testosterone and evasive phone calls.

Good, I’m glad boys, be evasive. See me not. I won’t. Anymore.

Listening to Devendra Banhart, Cripple Crow is so fantastic. So very 3 am. Exactly, on the dot just now. Wow, look at my procrastination and how it just bought me 8 minutes with the costly effort of pouring my soul into some chunky keys of a board.

Bored, bored, board. Listen bored board, we’re making it pretty fine. I mean, life’s too short to be bored. I am working hard on having less and less of those times in my life. Is it elitist to say I am surprised when people confess “I am board.” Or was it bored?

Play me keys, play me hard and good so I can forget any mattress that ever felt so pour.
“You talk, I’ll pour.” Oh god, I love that man.
Then pour me into a jar, and keep me on the shelf so when the sun comes up, at least on of us will see it.Usually write these blogs with a purpose, this one not so much.

I just always regret not seeing the sun rise when my dorm perfectly faces East.

Consider today another failed attempt.

The last time I spoke to you was right before Christmas. I guess it’s not surprising, the way I get sentimental about us right before Christmas. I wrote you an email, I asked for you to please agree to see me.

Things ended so horribly in July. We were so happy, in sunlight and bloom and your new apartment and my new place as well. We were so wonderful until reality and doctors and families set in.

It all really sunk in very fast, and you asked me not to hang up the phone, but I had to. Your voice is so beautiful in the mornings when we’re lying next to each other, but it’s entirely different when I’m upsetting you on the phone.

But Christmas, yes, you did respond back. And it was so typical. Your hesitancy. Your feeling for ambiguity, your need to break clean of me. I don’t know why we can’t do this cleanly.

“I don’t know about this.”

Why, why, of course we fucking know why. But it means very little around Christmas, or any of the thousands of nights we think for each other, and if just for one moment, we put our addictions aside and we were just honey and chocolate and pillows.

So that night, a series of regretful words and hurtful memories, I did cry. I tore down the pictures around my room, just to be free of the claustrophobia. To feel something other than the stress we have carried around for four years.

That’s my number. You use it against me. I always said it and now you,

“Samantha, it’s been four years, I can’t do this anymore.”

I found our picture, and it was so very sweet. And I was so happy, in the picture at least. We looked so very right next to each other, with arms and teeth and smiles and wisteria, hysteria.

Before I left Ithaca, I made sure I didn’t bring the picture home. Enough sentiment in and of itself, you being two hours down the road. And it being Christmas.

I found the picture that night when I reached for our favorite short story book, to calm down, pictures all violently sprawled on the floor, and your face hardly anywhere in my sight –

That picture fell to the floor in the clutter. All that clutter. Like when he took the knife to his chest, and we cried for hours about the horror of human nature, and the absolute agony of ending a life.

Did he need to do it? Did we have to do the same thing? Clutter on the floor, and pictures of sadly poignant memories.

I cannot find the picture today. I’ve been looking for it, and your smile still isn’t here. Or on the wall. Or anywhere.

You like the clutter too, but I’m not sure if it means the same. Me coming over with a bottle of wine to celebrate the new home and bed, and you having made your own collage on the wall. Pictures of us, and of prom, and notes. I cannot believe all the things you have kept over the years.

Most of mine I threw out. Except that picture.

—And there is so much of this I just wanted to tell you tonight. It just felt good to tell somebody.