Sunday 19 May
I haven't had much to say. This deep thought Thursday thing is turning out to be a disaster, because in all reality, my life happens on the weekend, which is pretty sad to be honest.
Quite frankly, I didn't really leave my house all week. AND IT'S KILLING ME. I have watched 115 episodes of How I Met Your Mother, eaten virtually all of the food in my house (including some slightly expired cheese, but fuck it YOLO), gone on precisely one eight mile hike, unpacked everything I brought home, set up my summer job, saw Josh on Monday (and I missed that kid so much and catching up with him was absolutely wonderful) and even helped some younguns study for the APUSH exam on Wednesday. And you know what? IT'S NOT LEGENDARY. Basically the best thing about it was that I didn't put on pants for like four days straight.
This is why I hate Arvada. Nothing ever happens here. Basically the most exciting thing that happened here occurred over 100 years ago, when in 1904, we were declared the Celery Capital of the WORLD. Yeah. CELERY. What now, New York City?
On Friday night, I decided to stop living like a fucking hermit and I called up my best friend Crissie and told her we were seeing The Great Gatsby. And so, she got off work, picked me up, and off we went into the night. We grabbed pizza beforehand and it was pretty awesome because we missed it. She talked about her job and how most of the time, it's awful, but there are some moments that make it worth it, and I guess that's true of a lot of things anymore. Actually, it basically describes my damn life. She sounded a bit like me when I get stressed as well, which was pretty sad sounding and I just wanted to give her a hug. It's sad anymore.
But anyway then we went to Gatsby and HOLY BALLS IT WAS SO WELL DONE AND I COULDN'T HAVE ASKED FOR MORE. Carey Mulligan was fabulous as Daisy (at least, heaps better than Mia Farrow, who I wanted to punch in the throat in the 70's version), Tobey Maguire made a surprisingly awesome Nick, and Leo DiCaprio was absolutely perfect as Gatsby. The sets were lavish and over the top and blew my goddamn mind (I WILL own a Gatsby house someday, mark my words—look up Oheka Castle if you want a taste of that kind of luxury, because HOLY POOP IT'S AWESOME).
The soundtrack provided precisely the wonderful juxtaposition Baz Luhrmann is famous for and I've downloaded SO many tracks and it's beautiful. I like to cruise in the Batmobile (my dad's Mazda) and blast "Bang Bang" and "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody"and pretend I'm a badass. And I kind of hate Lana del Ray with a passion reserved for seagulls and series calculus, but "Young and Beautiful" isn't half bad. "Kill and Run" is awesome, as is "Over the Love," and "Crazy in Love" was really well done. Anyway. Gatsby Soundtrack. Download it now.
Long story short, SEE GATSBY AND THEN HOST A FREAKING RAGER IN HIS HONOR AND INVITE ME. BECAUSE AMERICAN DREAM FUCK YEAH.
Yeah. So that was fun and I needed it. A lot.
Then I came home and slept, and the next morning I woke up late and hopped in the car to head off to the first event of the annual Free-Food-and-Drink-A-Thon, AKA Graduation Parties. I saw a lot of graduates and a few kids from my own class. Everyone seemed really well and full of hope for the future, and that was refreshing to see. I caught up with my friend Alyssa and she seems well doing Geological Engineering at Mines.
And yet, she brought up the point that coming back kind of negates the whole college experience. You're both here and there, caught in the middle. She had a point—we're in the limbo between a lot of things, between terms and identities and grade levels and majors and basically everything. It's hard to relate to anyone other than the people in limbo with you and even then it's hard. You're not quite an adult anymore (because let's be real, I'd probably shock most adults in my life if I was completely honest about the college experience), but you aren't even really a teenager grounded in this place (because let's be real, I'd probably shock most high schoolers in my life if I was completely honest about the college experience). You're both within and without, as Nick Carraway so aptly puts it in the film. I still don't know how this begins to work. It's both a blessing and a curse having the reputation I did back here in Arvada any longer. And I don't know how to fit who I am right now into the image of who I used to be, which is basically what everyone seems like they want me to—my friends, my parents, my former peers, my former teachers. And that terrifies me.
Anyway. After THAT existential crisis, I ate dinner, fucked around on the internet, and then got ready to go clubbing with a couple of friends from high school. I got lost on the way to Tayler's house, rallied with the group, and hopped in the car to Beta Nightclub in Downtown Denver.
If I'm going to be entirely honest, clubbing is Not My Scene. Like, definitively. I enjoy house music in small, concentrated doses, like if we're listening to it on the way to a trailhead, or on the way to a party. Not like all night. For a former ballerina, I am an atrocious dancer in the club. I also got hit on a lot, which at first was flattering and then it turned creepy.
Attention men of the world, just because I catch your eye or politely answer and ask a few questions does NOT mean I want to fuck. I'm getting a theoretical minor in "Being Awkward in Public Spaces," so please don't take anything I do and/or say as suggestive. Cool Beans. As fun as getting hit on by random blokes in the club is, I'll probably be meeting a future significant other and/or spouse in the university library, thank you very much.
Honestly, the only thing that prevented the entire experience from being a total bust was that I was there with people I had a wonderful time catching up with and hanging out with. I also convinced them to go to Denny's. And I reiterate: shitty breakfast food at two in the morning is the greatest bonding experience of any lifetime. Score one for Maggie.
When we went outside to cool off from the incubator that is a club, Tayler said that "people mate in such strange ways anymore." And that's also really true. They get drunk, flirt with strangers in a neutral place that encourages bad behavior, and ultimately end up looking for something true and pure in a place that really doesn't inspire that. I don't understand it anymore. I really don't. Maybe that's part of this modern malaise—we really have no idea how to be a human being anymore. We don't know what we're looking for or how to go about finding it.
Yeah. And today I wasn't planning on leaving my house but ended up invited to bowling, which really ended in getting Starbucks with Dani and Davis as their irregular canoe and then watching Star Trek on Flock's couch with Kevin and Caroline joining us, just like and yet fundamentally different from old times. So yeah. That may have been a little awkward, but I don't know if it's cognitive dissonance on my part or if I'm actually, literally batshit insane. It could be both.
So yeah. This is me, now. Caught up in limbo, trying to figure it all out. Like usual. This summer should be really interesting to say the very least.
I promise these will get better once I start reading quality literature and socializing more.
So thanks for reading for now :)
No comments:
Post a Comment