Sunday 16 June
Well hello. It’s been quite awhile. I go through periods of my life where I kind of go off like a cat or whatever, and isolate myself from social media and my friends and family and think about stuff and read a lot of books. My life is ridiculously banal in the summer and there isn’t much to report on—one of the signs you’re a gigantic nerd.
Mostly, I watch Arrested Development, read a shitload of books, and kind of cope with the fact that almost everyone I love isn’t within 3,000 feet of me.
I’ve established a sort of routine, which is really quite wonderful because I need structure or I go crazy. I wake up in the morning, take care of some business and read for awhile, then I head up to Boulder rocking out to the playlist I’ve made called “For the Metric Fuckton of Driving I’ll Be Doing.” It’s wonderful. I love to drive, and I think most people think I’m crazy, but whatever, you know?
And then I arrive in Boulder Colorado, and I can’t be happier. Coming to CU was one of the few good decisions I’ve made this year, and I’m so freaking thrilled.
However, orientation is happening on campus. Those kids are like, “Oh, hey, it’s a CU Student in its natural habitat! She must be so ambitious and full of dreams!” and I’m all like, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE GETTING INTO. DO YOU SEE ME? I WENT A WEEK WITHOUT SLEEP THIS YEAR. A WEEK. CAN YOU HANDLE THAT ON TOP OF YOUR DREAMS GETTING CRUSHED OVER AND OVER?”
This is why I don’t volunteer for orientation.
Anyway. Then I go to Quantitative Research Methods, which is Stats for Politicians, which is about as fun as it sounds. I mean, it’s kind of awesome since I kind of like the fusion of math and politics, but seriously, kids. It’s STATISTICS. My instructor was like, “I know this is a really complex math course, so don’t feel bad if you get a bad grade,” and I’m like, “Do not EVEN talk to me about COMPLEX MATH COURSES. Have YOU taken Calc III? NOPE, DIDN’T THINK SO. Come back when you completely lose it and pretend you’re the z-axis, and THEN we can have a chat about complex math. Kbye.”
So after an agonizing hour and a half, I eat lunch with my good friends Davis and Graham on Norlin Quad, and that’s always really fun. They usually forget their spoons for their sack lunches, which is always interesting, and we talk about how much we hated statistics and how physics is pretty cool and Harry Potter and how we’d be kicked out of Hogwarts because we’re inappropriate Americans. It’s a good time.
Yup. Then I hop BACK in the car, jam out, and end up at my job at what I’ll refer to as “Bushwood” (aaaaand now that I’ve typed that out it just seems awkward. Fucking innuendo in Caddyshack). And there are worse ways to earn $8.25 an hour. Mostly, I read books and talk to members (one is a former senator in the state legislator and I sounded like an idiot because I’m bad at thinking on my feet when it comes to politics) and sweep pinecones.
I’ve gone through my entire reading list already, and it’s been three weeks. I’m. Fucked. I’ve read a few Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose novels rather bored me but I still love his short stories. Kurt Vonnegut is the fucking man (Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five fucking blew my mind—everything is beautiful and nothing hurts when you read him), and I really kind of enjoyed a book I read on immigrants in WWI. Because I’m a history Buff (haha get it?).
I’ve also decided that this is the summer of printed dresses and Swedish pop-culture. The former because I like wearing sundresses a lot in the summer (they’re the (literally) cooler, slightly classier version of leggings—you don’t have to give a shit if you wear them), and all of the ones at Target/in my closet are printed.
The Swedish Pop-Culture started when I heard Icona Pop’s single “I Love It” on the radio (you know, the “I crashed my car into the bridge, I don’t care, I love it!” jam—if you don’t I’m ashamed), and discovered I kind of love Icona Pop. Like wow. Look them up and jam.
AND THEN I READ THE GREATEST CRIME THRILLER EVER, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO BY STIEG LARSSON. OH MY FREAKING GOD. AWESOME. I couldn’t put the trilogy down. I missed several members at work because I was too engrossed.
And then, because I’m a gigantic geek, I’ve discovered that I’m super interested in the Swedish political system, which is discussed in great detail in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, and I am thinking I may or may not write a thesis dealing with a comparative analysis of either antidemocratic factions or constitutional law in various countries. And I totally know people currently researching in both of those fields. Fuck yeah!
So yeah. I’m that kid wandering around the library, jamming out to Swedish techno in a print sundress reading crime dramas and American dystopian tragicomedies while researching antidemocratic factions. It’s a weird life, but it’s where I’m at right now.
It’s a miracle, then, that people still kind of like to hang out with me. I’ve seen Crissie a lot (though we’re both pretty busy) and I saw The Group for the first time in literally fucking ages when we first hot tubbed at Crissie’s (thanks Crissie!) and then saw Man of Steel (which was alright—I liked the action scenes and um, two words: Henry Cavill. Also, really Zack Snyder? Lens flares are a JJ Abrams thing), and then we saw This is the End, and I almost peed my pants laughing, because it’s genuinely funny, I’m really mature, and I saw it with the group of guys that like to talk about dicks around me. Like I said, a weird life, but where I’m at right now.
But yeah. Sometimes I feel like everything is the same as it was last summer when we were young and infinite and so full of life, and then other times everything just seems so radically different because we’re all so damn tired. I just feel like I’m in some weird-ass limbo shit that I am not emotionally capable of dealing with. I don’t know how to reconcile this at all. Like ever. Does that make me crazy? I don’t know. And part of me knows that we’re never going back to what we all used to be and that it’s probably for the best since growth is necessary for survival, but sometimes I just miss how easy it used to be and the times we used to have. Okay. That’s all I have to say about that.
I also have to say I kind of like Superman. (It could very well be the rocking bod. But honestly, I like to think I’m rarely that shallow). He was the first sensational American superhero. He’s literally the quintessence of superheroism. He was first published in 1938, which was in the throes of a worldwide economic shitstorm and international conflict on a scale we’d hoped to avoid at the end of the first world war. He was a symbol of hope and social justice and fighting against tyranny.
And that just makes me wonder: Why do we need Superman today? Why do we keep remaking that particular superhero (I get the Spiderman remakes—Tobey, really? SPIDEY 3 KILLED ME)? What is it about him that makes us revisit him again and again?
Sidebar: His morality kind of reminds me of Lisbeth Salander a little bit—works alone, no compromises, no clear legal alignment, but with a clear sense of right and wrong and the need for bad deeds to be reprimanded (yeah, I really fucking loved those books).
And I guess maybe we come back to Superman because he is the same thing as his father told him he’d be—he’s an ideal to strive toward. This is guesswork. I think it’s fascinating that we need something fictional to strive toward, because obviously the real world just keeps feeding us absolute bullshit to deal with. There isn’t much in this world we can turn to for hope. We’ve tried again and again. But there isn’t much to believe in. Maybe I’m a cynic; but hell, if I’m a political science major and am simply appalled by the political climate, there’s something deeply wrong with the world. Superman is perfect for this because he’s so much more than human. He’s literally out of this world. And yet, his morality and his compassion is the human element that we need so much more of these days. This is why I believe Superman is so iconic and we keep investing billions to make halfway decent (but not absolutely spectacular by any means) movies.
We hold onto this ideal of a man of steel because we still believe in an orgastic future that does recede before us, but we never stop chasing it, reexamining it, ceaselessly searching for that elusive something which we need. We’re hopeful, I believe, by nature. It’s no coincidence everyone we admire is someone beyond ourselves, presents some hope that our existence is not futile, that our banal existence has the potential to be so much more. We don’t stop dreaming. We’ll fight again. We’ll keep going even if we’re knocked down. And if that dream is embodied in a moral, compassionate alien who is literally invincible, then I’ll take it as a good thing.
So yeah. This is my life. Maybe I’ll post more. Maybe I won’t. We never really know anymore. Honestly.
But in the meantime, thanks for reading :)
