Wednesday 31 July
This blog is not really going to have a coherent theme. If this was an essay submitted on the AP Language and Composition exam, I'd get like a 1 tops.
First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY POTTER! Basically that series changed my life and I still spend my time scanning the skies for an owl with my stupid Hogwarts letter. I went from an awkward history nerd that read a lot of books to an awkward fantasy nerd who read a lot more books. And then I started writing, which is either the best or the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I'm awesome at essays but super introverted, which means that socializing is always just really exhausting. But I wouldn't really change it. It's broadened my mind and it keeps you dreaming. Anything supernatural—wizards, magic, alternate universes, fairies, superheroes—is going to reveal our inherent humanity, and I really think that's an important thing to keep examining, especially in the ridiculous world we live in today.
Plus it's kinda nice to get to a party and have the conversation steered to Harry Potter one way or another and basically have a nerdgasm with people you've never met. It's the greatest feeling of camaraderie. Maybe it is a granfallon (still on the Vonnegut binge), but I don't mind it.
Anyway. Moving on.
Secondly, when I heard that Kate Middleton gave birth to a son I did a happy dance at work. Ironic, since I was reading a novel on Thomas Cromwell who helped Henry VIII marry Anne Boleyn, who failed to provide a male heir. When asked what I was celebrating, I said, "THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE WON'T LOSE HER HEAD YAY!" and then had a great conversation about British succession.
Yeah I know I'm an Anglophilic nerd. I do what I want.
Thirdly, I'm not sure how the hell I'm supposed to stop binging on Netflix when I go back to school. In the last month, I've finished:
1. The Tudors—really freaking great, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers was brilliant and I'd recommend it to mature audiences that enjoy politics
2. Freaks and Geeks—I actually got my sister addicted to this late 90's cult classic and we both cried when it was over because it's SO GOOD, and also it's weird seeing young James Franco and Seth Rogen.
3. Season 3 of White Collar—because Matt Bomer. I love that show and I can't wait until Season 4 comes on Xfinity.
4. Camelot—meh. I can see why it was cancelled and a placeholder for Game of Thrones. Also, if any of you know where I can get Season 1 of Game of Thrones, let me know.
5. Sherlock on BBC—DELIGHTFUL. THIS SHOW IS PERFECT. I CRIED FOR TWENTY MINUTES WHEN SHERLOCK DIED BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH I KNEW HE CAME BACK (because it's Sherlock Holmes, duh) IT WAS JUST SO FULL OF EMOTION. And it was a brilliant modern interpretation of the classic stories—"A Study in Pink" was a fucking awesome adaptation of A Study in Scarlet, and "The Hound of Baskerville" was a great adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles—which, of course I've read both of those novels and thirty short stories because this is me. WATCH IT NOW.
6. Plus, I'm keeping up with the current seasons of Suits (really awesome legal drama on USA), Pretty Little Liars (my guilty pleasure show that I really shouldn't enjoy as much as I do), and Drunk History (because I like drunk people and also history).
I'm about to start either House of Cards from Netflix or Breaking Bad and hopefully finish one if not both of those series before school starts, because then I'm DONE until Thanksgiving Break (and that's not a binding contract, because if I have a bad week I'm just going to sit down and marathon Arrested Development to cheer me up).
Fourthly, I read this article as a followup to the mediocre Time piece on Millennials that my grandma sent me (since I'm too poor to afford Time).
I'm a millennial. I hate my job, but I'm so bored when I'm not working. And I hate that about myself.
When I read the Time piece, I first started thinking that I hated everyone in my generation, including myself. And then I started to write a blog about it and fully process the article and the comic, and I realized I don't actually hate everyone in my generation.
I just hate everyone in the most general sense of the word.
I realize this makes me a nihilist, and I don't give a shit. I hate Generation X for not taking responsibility for the mess we're in and instead are trying to patch things up. I hate the Baby Boomers for conforming to the capitalist bullshit that's warping our culture and destroying all sense of purpose, save for the consuming need for MORE SHIT that we don't require. I hate the Silent Generation for the Cold War and getting too comfortable with America being on the top. I hate the GI Generation because of their failure to do something about the blatant disregard for civil equality in the country until it was too late and people had to die. I hate the Lost Generation for sinking into apathy about the moral wasteland that is America and not doing anything. I hate our inaction and that we are basically just intent to destroy ourselves.
People suck.
And so on.
Fifthly, (connected to Fourthly) I read a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It's more famous for the brilliantly done 1999 film adaptation. It has a bar of soap on the cover.
Fight Club.
Holy crap.
"You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy things they don't really need.
"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives."
And I realize me liking this book and these sentiments is kind of pathetic, because, yeah, I'm middle class and white; and boo-hoo I can actually self-actualize my existential crisis because I'm not worrying about like food and water and shelter and my first couple rows of Maslow's hierarchy is solid.
But that doesn't mean it's not important. Because this is the shit we all ask ourselves when we lay awake at night wondering what it all means and if it's all worth it.
And sometimes I do drive home from my banal (and absolutely pointless) job in this banal town and I wonder if this is what the rest of my life is going to be like. Having a flare of passion and then realizing that it's all just empty and broken and that an idea of something is never going to be anywhere near the real thing. I don't want to be disappointed. I want to get out of this great depression of life.
But when I do hang out with my stupid friends who play Bananagrams and make super shitty soda cake and shout at each other in Pit and sing off-key to "Party in the USA" and like Denny's and look at art; and when I'm able to go to classes and get inspired by new material and then prove I know what I'm doing when I get 105% on the final (yeah, fuck you stats!); and when my family can go an entire meal without getting in a fight, it's a temporary relief from the agony of living. It's a reminder that it's not all so horrible. That there are some halfway decent things to focus on and it's not all shitty. There are a few more things to focus on other than modern malaise. Like I said, it's not perfect, but it never is. That's the point.
And perhaps these are superficial reliefs, but I don't care. Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy, right?
So I don't know what I'd recommend for the Narrator. Everything will fall to pieces, but there's a little time in the interim to find your foma and try to live halfway genuinely. But what works for me may not work for him. I don't know. This is why I'm a scientist. I ask the questions and then try to postulate answers to them.
But what the hell is going on anyway, right?
Sixthly, I went to a small gathering two weeks ago in Boulder and had a great time hanging out with mostly Josh and Robin and Sierra and Christine. I then convinced three others to go to Denny's and SHOREH THE WAITRESS TOTALLY KNOWS WHO I AM. That either means I'm awesome or pathetic because I am literally a regular at that fucking diner. It's a weird life, but it's where I'm at right now.
Seventhly (Is that a word? I don't know), I HONESTLY DO NOT THINK I CAN MAKE IT THROUGH THE EIGHTEEN DAYS UNTIL I MOVE INTO MY NEW APARTMENT.
It's time to get back to Boulder and eat pancakes and arrive places and know there's something happening and have all of my college friends back and get away from this place that's poisoning my spirit (I know that's melodramatic, but I don't think you understand. I literally go for ten hours a day without talking to literally anyone and it's killing me. I may be an introvert, but I'm not antisocial) and be interested in things. I'm wallowing in a stagnating pool of ennui.
Summer is the bane of my existence. Why did I ever think it was a good thing?
(oh, right, because when I was young and innocent I wasn't as much of a cynic and stuff—by the way, this kind of internal monologue sometimes gets externalized, and I end up having an intense conversation with the perfumes in Victoria's Secret. I'm cool. Really.)
Eighthly (definitely not a word haha), I've climbed two fourteeners this summer and although I loathe aimless bodily exertion, I love it. I'm so stoked I live in a state where I can wake up at three in the morning and hit the trail at five and be on top of the world for about ten minutes of absolute bliss. It forces you to challenge the authenticity of your life.
Maybe that's what the Narrator meant. Climbing some mountains is vaguely related to beating someone to a pulp. It's pushing yourself to the limit of your existence and living closer to the edge. It makes everything else seem slightly less ridiculous. And that's what we need.
Lastly, I'd like to thank you for continuing to read this crap that I feel needs to be said. I don't know what it's doing, but then again, why do we do anything anymore? Epistemological crises are fun, and this little outlet is at least a little helpful for me to share the angst I feel. Thanks. You're the best, my space monkeys. :)
18 Days.
See you on the other side of July.
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