Today was a weirdly quiet day. I awoke from strange dreams, and, while I wasn't a giant cockroach, I did feel groggy and vaguely hung-over (I'm not). I had a number of unsettling conversations, and one realization (no, Nick, nothing to do with you). Partly, I think I'm being affected by the moody, effusive "Death in Venice," which I've been reading lately. It makes me wish I was reading Lolita instead, which is quite similar until he gets the girl - effusive language, dark, pensive undertones. I'm also reading The Crying of Lot 49, which sometimes gives me cool, uneasily communicated thoughts, like I got last summer during As I Lay Dying.


Meanwhile, the others are railing on their blogs about sex and God. I don't feel qualified to talk about God - or sex, either, if I'm honest. But I talk anyway, and I have to say, Nick, I'm impressed that your comment box has generated so much, and such varied, discussion. Weighing a little more heavily on my mind, though, (and I hate to say it) is that today is probably the first day in three months that I haven't seen or spoken to Seth. I suppose that, too, accounts for the eeriness of today (grin). I owe him an e-mail, but I'm at a loss for what to say.

We had Seth over for dinner last night, and, while I still feel inadequate about our cooking compared to his (grilled portabello mushrooms!), I have to say the conversation was excellent. Seth and I both got chewed out a lot by my dad, who was in one of his comically vitriolic moods (ranting about the neighbors, and the University of Chicago, and Monet's garden). Seth meekly pointed something out, and my dad said, "Yes, that is a thought. I think we can all agree, at least, that that is a thought." Seth looked downcast, prompting my sister to say, "Stop it, Dad, you're making Seth cry!"


Hehe... oh, we sound awful in print. I was actually sort of nervous leaving the table after dinner, fearing that Seth would be confused or annoyed or upset - but he turned to me, as soon as we were out of the room, and said, "I love your family!" That is a relief, because I can imagine my father would be a little hard to take, for the uninitiated.


And, by now, Seth is probably leaving or has left. It'll be a rough three weeks, but the near-constant stream of parties and socializing will make it easier to bear (grin).

Yesterday I watched an unnecessary number of movies: first Annie Hall, at Seth's house, which is technically a great movie but also unreasonably depressing. It took me a long time afterwards to figure out why I was so disappointed; it's because the movie is named for its lead female character, and so I was expecting a Hedda Gabler or a Madame Bovary. Annie, on the other hand, is woefully stupid, insecure, malleable - a caricature, I know, like any character in a Woody Allen film, but still not what I was expecting. I am glad I saw it, though; I can objectively appreciate the way it was made, and, plus, I'm trying to get a catalogue of Seth's cultural influences (grin).


Then we were sitting and eating friendship bread (the product of some Amish, chain-letter baking scheme his mom's involved in), when Hank called and invited us to another movie: Goldmember. Sigh. But we went, of course, because why not, and stopped along the way for food at Tara Asia. At about 7:15, we ran into Hank, Lauren, Natalie D., and Gavin outside Regal Cinema. We joked around a little, settled into the movie theater feeling generally upbeat - and were promptly blown away by the movie's suckiness. The new villain is a hodgepodge of the offensive and disgusting: a Dutchman with a funny accent, a golden phallus, a penchant for eating his own skin. Good jokes are few and far between - usually, with a weird sense of desperation, they point themselves out and ruin the effect.


Well, resolved: No more Austin Powers. Maybe some more Woody Allen. Certainly Chasing Amy, because Seth's never seen it, and I think he has to in this crowd.

My college impressions: First Haverford, population 1,200. The place is just adorable, a quirky, hold-your-hand kind of institution - with a strong Quaker background to boot, which is familiar and appealing to me. I certainly wouldn't be unhappy there, and yet I feel like I'm prepared to take on more than "College Lite" (grin - I'm just kidding, Emi and Nick).


Swarthmore is, basically, Haverford's studious older brother. Nick says it's too uptight - I didn't get that impression. All I saw was the dreamworld campus, like a fantasy isle with an arboretum. I know, honestly, it would be all too easy for me to get lost there and forget the realities of cities and politics and people not between the ages of 18 and 22.


But, finally, Penn - grittier, more urban (obviously), and yet quite pretty. Bustling, with a campus that's ivy and beautiful old buildings and city blocks. The contrasts struck me as cool, as did the fact that the students we talked to were intensely intellectual and outward-looking. They utilize the city. That's what I want to do, and so Penn is probably the best fit.


Of course, I have to reserve judgment until I see the other schools on my list, but I'm feeling very positive right now - like I could end up practically anywhere I'm considering and be content, which is a good way to feel going into the grueling and terrifying college application process.

Well, I'm finished with SAT Prep. Tonight's final class was more of a party than anything else - we ate Boston Cream Pie, and our teacher Adam (a rising senior at Georgetown) regaled us with tales of his twenty-six (!!) failed romances. Incidentally, this guy has been dumped twenty-six times. We were pressing him for details about where one particular girl fell in the sequence, when we heard him mutter "Takasamljljj..." under his breath. It turns out he's fitted the first names of these poor two dozen and two girls into an acronym, which he proceeded, at our insistence, to write across the board. Dear God, what blog fodder, I thought, so I took it down, along with much else that was said during the evening.


A personal favorite: Adam paused about twenty-two letters through the acronym and said, by way of introduction, "Now, this one's exciting cuz she didn't speak English," and Denise burst out with some of the confusion and wonder we were all feeling: "Who are you?!!" And we all laughed. Because this guy is an incredible dork, and an acronym for girls he's kissed is mildly appalling (grin). For further quotes, please consult Ranwa's blog, as there's no need to write them twice.


In other news, I'll be away for the next day and a half visiting Pennsylvania colleges. I'll take copious notes and hopefully have adventures to share with you when I return.

Tonight I ate at a shabby little Vietnamese restaurant in Bethesda. It was cute, a sort of family-dinner version of Pho 95. Seth and I were relegated to a side room, where we were left alone, except for every few minutes when a waiter would peek through the kitchen doorway and give us furtive looks, as though he expected us to make off with the plates. From the main room, we could hear intermittent thunderous applause. We meant to investigate after we paid the bill, but I guess we forgot.


Afterwards, we tramped over to the bookstore (I think it was still drizzling) and picked up Seth's As I Lay Dying. Then we zipped over to Blockbusters for Rushmore, one of Seth's favorite movies (though I think he was disenchanted this time, for whatever reason). I like and recommend it. Like Ghost World, it features an endearing male loser. I wonder, do they even make movies about endearing female losers? Is Enid supposed to be endearing? I really couldn't say.

Another date today, except it ended abruptly so that Seth and Hank could share in some sort of private birthday, bonding experience. I guess we get accustomed, in the drama club set, to having our boyfriends leave us for Hank. Even so, I am finding I'm kind of disappointed and bored now, as (perhaps because of the storm?) no one's online but me. So, for the third night in a row, I guess I'll attempt to restart The Sound and the Fury, and likely fail because I'll stay on the phone until moments before I fall asleep.


I think I'm sort of intimidated by the book because of my introduction to it. I bought it during the period right after my partially-successful wisdom tooth removal (I'd had one other removed without much pain or lingering sensitivity, but this one floored me for a week - all I did was eat and sleep and hallucinate from the codeine). I tried The Sound and the Fury during that time of narcotic-influenced dreams and found that thinking as Benjy caused me real pain in my temples. I've since shied away from it out of remembered suffering, but now's the time, I think - I loved As I Lay Dying.


Fortunately or unfortunately, my ridiculous schedule (eat, work, talk on the phone, sleep) ends this weekend. Seth is going away for two and a half weeks, leaving the 30th; I am going away for a week, leaving the day he returns. I'm afraid, realistically, that separation is my only chance of doing anything productive this summer, like reading Faulkner or writing an EE.

But we've run out of things to say and we'll be happy anyway....


I went over to Seth's house in the early afternoon to crash and listen to music. It was very nice and low-key, and it ended with us eating crabs (two left over from a celebration dinner for Seth's successful As You Like It run), which we did with almost ritualistic precision. Gosh, I'm thinking there must be some eating disorder associated with skinny teenagers who enjoy food as much as we do. But I'm not complaining, because, wow, crabs.


And then I took a practice SAT, courtesy of our friends at Capital Educators. For some reason, this particular version of the exam took relatively little conscious effort, and so I spent half an hour idly daydreaming about the future. Lately, I've felt that writing might not be such a lost cause for me, that I might make a living pushing words and phrases and novel theories. I could be one of those superhero academics whose published works are actually known to the public. Or, better, I could be like my grandmother, whom I practically worshipped - she and her husband were both academics, quietly renowned in their respective fields, and they hung out with a very left-wing, intellectual set of artists and writers.


But, for now, I'm seventeen, and I'm not even in college yet. Hopefully I'll be able to think of some schools to apply to, and at least one of them will have me.

Now that I'm aware that my blog is being read by people (or at least a person) I don't know, I feel compelled to explain about the couch orgy thing: as losers, we are required to not actually get any, and to deal with the shame and discontent by making jokes. Except that that's not even accurate, as even the straight-edged teens fall into sin and rock and roll eventually.


All right, back to my life. I got my driving privileges lessened today in exchange for my weekend of mad, semi-legal fun. I'm highly suggestible in crowds; I don't think about consequences and get easily teased into the comfortable mindset that, when I'm with my friends, nothing can touch me. Nothing has really touched me yet, and so I keep riding my idealistic high when they're around - driving in unfamiliar areas at God knows what hours of the night, allowing them to carry on in the back seat and scream and even play techno music (only to humor Emi). But this weekend, I suppose, was a little much. I feel vaguely ashamed, like I've indulged in epicurean excesses, which I somewhat have. And yet this weekend utterly rocked, and I wouldn't have had it any other way, legal transgressions notwithstanding.


Otherwise, I'm in the market for a nice, subtle, complex love song, as the one we've got is unfortunately a breakup song. But what a breakup song it is.

And, er, well, such problems as self-censorship and emotional excess seem like a much bigger deal at 4:30 in the morning. I do know how to draw my own lines.

I meant to be angry when I typed this post, but I find I can't even muster indignation. Oh God, I'm having the roughest time keeping this blog public-friendly; my most significant experiences are all sort of private, and I swore at the start I wouldn't gush or mope too much. Suffice it to say, then, that I had a good conversation that at least temporarily put petty quarrels out of my mind.


But, presented as if I were still angry, my grievances: I drove Nick home from a party tonight and dropped him off not at safe, familiar Rockville Metro but at Glenmont Station (he protested and persuaded, and I gave in, believing his assurances that the station was only minutes out of my way and that there was a simple route back to Rockville Pike and the known world). He did piece together directions home for me, which I admit is very nice, if only they'd worked. However, he would have had me turn right onto a one-way street moving in the opposite direction, and damned if I'm going to make that mistake two days in a row.


However, with the directions rendered useless and myself just as navigationally incompetent as I had assured Nick I was, I was now in a bit of a jam. The jam being that Silver Spring is completely alien to me, and maps are like a foreign language but harder. I pulled into an elementary school parking lot next to a friendly-looking car that, on closer examination, appeared to have been completely gutted by someone. All the windows were missing, as was much of the interior. It was now midnight (the party had ended at 11:00, and I had griped dutifully about having to break the law yet again to escort Nick to the metro). I shivered, thinking that, from this angle, the skeletal car looked awfully like a portent of doom.


Meanwhile, I called my parents and shakily received better directions (believe me, they were not amused). I then shakily wandered out into Silver Spring, balancing the map on my knees as I drove, and gradually converted my nerves into annoyance at Nick for getting me into another mess. My construction of elaborate pleas for mercy ("Please, officer, don't ticket me for breaking provisionals - I'm hopelessly lost and frightened and I was doing it to help a friend!") paralleled my mounting righteous indignation at being forced to navigate an unfamiliar area in the dark, just to save Nick some time on the relatively well-lit and non-scary metro. I also knew, in both cases, I was being irrational.


And then, thankfully, I passed Seth's house, and, from then on, I knew exactly what to do. I arrived home at 12:41 and suffered a few minutes' lecture from my parents. I then talked for almost three hours on the phone and am, ridiculously, still awake. Yes, I do realize this business with Nick is partially my fault. It was a dangerous mix of brash overconfidence in direction-giving (Nick's) and stunning weakness in navigation sense (mine). No, I am not actually angry. No, I don't actually have grievances.


As for the other stuff, I do find it troubling to be so emotionally honest with my friends and like a robot on the blog. But I'm doing my best to avoid the more natural extreme. What else can I do?

I should get this all down before I lose it. Last night... started with Ben and me hopelessly trying to commandeer a car to Seth's play. We threw out the directions we'd been given and took the riskier approach of staying on River Road until we magically ended up in the AU area, at which point we drove on probably all the streets in that part of D.C. until, by process of elimination, we found the right place. We still had difficulties finding the theater itself, but we were aided by two smirky, smoking frat boys, who didn't know where the theater was but offered Ben their used copy of USA Today. Naturally, he took it, and lost it at some point during the evening.


At 7:58 (the play started at 8:00), at a run, we met Tara and Nick, who had been late but not nearly as late as us, collected our tickets, and forced some harried-looking ushers to squeeze another row of seats into the tiny theater. I can't communicate how tiny this place was; getting to our seats involved walking all over the stage, and the entryway also served as backstage (as we discovered later, to our general chagrin). But I'm getting ahead of myself. We watched the first half of the play without any more hilarious misadventures (those are coming). Seth was great, as was the play in general.


At intermission, however, we snuck into a nearby building on the AU campus, searching for food and beverages. We wasted a lot of time at the soda machines, unaware that they only took exact change. We wasted a lot more time when Ben and Nick discovered an unattended shopping cart and began pushing eachother around into walls, people, etc. Naturally we missed the start of the second half. Ben was optimistic, though. He believed he'd seen a secret passage to the back of the theater, where our last-minute seats were, so we hovered in the entryway, scoping out the room - when who should appear but Seth, in full Groucho Marx attire. He gave us a look that was at once horrified and disgusted - a sort of silent, "Oh, shit" - and quickly backed away.


We backed away as well, outside, where we wandered around listlessly and I made occasional moans of shame (Seth's family had been in attendance and would certainly be aware, in that tiny theater, that I had missed the second half). The others alternately mocked me and tried to cheer me up. I alternately bemoaned my fate and verbally attacked Nick and Ben for somehow getting me into this mess. At least some good conversation/revelry was had.


We did successfully meet up with Seth at the end of the play. He was completely nonplussed, and then indignant when he realized we'd missed his performance over a shopping cart. Naturally, however, he wanted to ride in the shopping cart. The shopping cart/confusing soda building was locked, though, and, rather than let the evening end on such a disappointing note, we decided to seek out the local Starbucks - and so I found myself, as I am on all the best nights of my life, driving a car of loud, funny, and dangerously distracting teenagers on an unfamiliar route in the dark.


The highpoint of that adventure came when Seth instructed me to turn right on a one-way, busy street, filled with oncoming traffic. "What the fuck!" I screamed and swerved abruptly, and no one died, and my life didn't flash before my eyes. The Starbucks was closed, so we thought, what the hell, let's get coffee at Tara's. In Takoma Park. While we were then in D.C. At 11:00 at night, with no hope of beating provisionals. Ah, such stupidity - but it was that kind of night.


We reached Tara's uneventfully, where we did not drink coffee, but we did make a lot of noise and spill things and fight periodically. At 12:30, we reached the general consensus that we should sleep over at Tara's house, whether she wanted us or not, rather than flagrantly break driving laws (Ben's car was still at my house, so he wouldn't get home until maybe 1:30). So, in general high spirits, we had a couch orgy, watched some neurotic Canadian comedy, and tried and failed to get real conversation going. After the others drifted off, Seth and I did manage to talk, and that was quite nice, as I hadn't seen him for awhile (late-night play rehearsals and such).


He and I were the last awake, falling asleep at about 5:40. We woke up at 9:40 and the four of us remaining for breakfast (Nick immediately went home, probably fearing parental reprisal) slurred dumb jokes and, remarkably, didn't spill anything else. I drove the boys home and should have gone to sleep but didn't. I'm all hopped up now.


Wow, what a night. And what a story - probably the best this blog will see for a good long time.

I just had a difficult but necessary conversation, part one of two. And the phone died before our conversation had naturally wound down, which unsettled me greatly - an intolerable sense of incompletion. I have an urge now to send out declarations I would have or should have made, posting them publicly to give them weight. But I'll show self-control (grin).


Thankfully I'm seeing Seth's play tomorrow, along with Tara, Nick, and any other (heh) loyal readers who contact me expressing interest. It will be my second play in as many days, as today I saw my sister in a BAPA production of The Music Man. Good stuff - sixth-grader Harold was endearingly scrawny. More on this later, when I'm not worried and half-asleep.

Argh, how could I not remember that the phrase "sad bastard music" comes from High Fidelity, used by Jack Black (of course) to slam Belle and Sebastian? My dad laughed when he saw the CD and immediately reminded me. Now, of course, my loyalties are torn. But what a movie. :-)

I have an urge tonight to play prom night back like a reel of film - watch us having our piggyback races and philosophizing in the street at 4 AM. Such an easy night to idealize.... It's becoming like England in my mind (discrete but hazy snapshots, getting lost in York, pillow fights, singing in the streets). But prom is better in some ways, because it was just one night - no dilution, sharper memories. I'm not sure why I thought of it tonight, except that it came up somehow in conversation with Seth. And I didn't do anything particularly productive today, so I had time to think and remember.


And then there's the next few days to look forward to: two plays and a party. My kind of summer.

I should stop having so many online conversations at once. It always makes me feel strung-out, like I'm in everybody's head but mine.

I've been listening to what Seth calls "sad bastard music" (currently Belle and Sebastian) as part of his campaign of musical evangelicalism. I'm still not really into the concept of it - turning out the lights, lying in bed, and soaking up the thoughtful moodiness. I don't need to use music to get moody; that happens by itself, at least in my family. But I am impressed with the quality of this CD.


Otherwise, I slept through today and dreamt I was working. What a waste of a legal hallucination.

How to condense the last thirty-six or so hours into some easily digestible form.... Hm, well, I am compelled to say that I feel really, really good right now, as is the custom nowadays. I had been feeling emotionally frustrated, with all this pent-up desire to socialize, but I've fit a lot of jokes, gossip, and erstwhile friendship renewal (or something) into the past day and a half. I still waste huge social events, in that I don't talk enough to anyone and spend a lot of emotional energy feeling out of place, but... small groups, wow, that's just right.


And I should also point out that I fell asleep at 5:30 AM yesterday, having actually discussed the threat of the Disney military/industrial complex with Dyanne and Tara. What losers. I like us. I drove home eventually, took a brief nap, left home again, and stumbled through a meet-the-parents dinner at Seth's house. I'm still not quite thinking straight. I can't believe I didn't do anything stupid, like collapse.

Okay, today was practically perfect until I got home - at 11:59, thank you very much, Mr. Police Officer who tails me in my paranoid fantasies. And it wasn't terribly bad then, just a confused gossip triangle of Deb, Nick, and myself that collapsed quickly and relatively painlessly with hugs all around (grin).


Many things were good about today: Men in Black II, cool night flying/driving, feel-good music, and connecting with other human beings. And, more specifically, there was Seth, and even that was better than usual - and it's usually pretty good.


I'm grinning foolishly. That means it's time for me to sleep it off.

All right, for clarity's sake: I was thinking about googles today, trying to hold that many zeroes in my head (it was a slow day), and suddenly I wondered what would happen if I Googled "google." Sadly, the results are pretty mundane, mostly having to do (of course) with the search engine Google. Which is pretty narcissistic, for a search engine.


Then that got old (fast), so I started thinking about why I was so bored in the first place. It's because at work I don't have access to AIM or MSN Messenger - and oddly, and not for the first time, that was starting to make me feel like I didn't have vocal cords anymore. Technological muteness, I thought. So I googled that too. I wish I was kidding.

Bored.


Thinking about: Large numbers, technological muteness


Gosh, I feel so irrelevant at work.

Is Resonance still out there? Am I still a member? What happened to our glorious(ly arrogant) plans for paid performances and weekly summer rehearsals? I miss singing in a chorus so much - maybe it was hasty not to audition for MCYC, despite the terrible boredom and mixed results (and lack of alto companionship, now that Jess is gone). Sigh.


It isn't that I don't like singing by myself. I don't mind my voice that much when nobody's around to make me nervous or overly cautious. But there's something about singing in a group - contributing to something fuller and better than yourself, doing things that individual voices just can't do.... I still remember tagging along when the Magrigals went caroling my sophomore year (I'd just gotten in for second semester), and listening to "O Holy Night" reverberating through the foreign language hallway. It was almost overwhelming. This year we sung it again, and It wasn't quite as cool (you can't hear the interplay of parts when you're focused on the altos), but the thought that I could be part of something that has that kind of effect on someone else... wow (grin).


IB Music versus Econ? I chose the practical one, and the one that, honestly, I'll probably be better at. But I'm still mildly (and irrationally) jealous of Hank and Dena.

Do we enjoy feeling guilty? Does it make us feel morally superior over ourselves? Heh. I generally feel good tonight, with most of what guilt there is centered around how little I've gotten done lately for my job. I'm getting so little done in general. I wanted to read everything, and learn biology, and (more necessarily) write my EE. But now summer feels half over. Tomorrow, I'll finish these damned Harry Potter books, and then I'll have more energy for intellectualism and ambition and such.


Life should be constant summer - I wouldn't get tired of it, I swear.

All better. My daily dose of positivism works wonders, until I'm actually reminded of the bad stuff and I catch hold of this sort of aimless wistful thoughtfulness. But at this moment I'm happy. Lots of sex jokes, a feeling of teenagerdom, Amy's reassurance that I remain, always and forever, a goody goody.


And I sang along to TMBG on the way home from SAT Prep tonight, before turning off the CD player and randomly starting up the best love song I know of, hands down - always memorable to me for the sincere, blissful "Aww" Deepa gave the last stanza:


I don't care what consequence it brings.
I have been a fool for lesser things.
I want you so bad,
And I think you ought to know that
I intend to hold you for the longest time.


If I knew the words to that Jimmy Eats World song, I'd sing that too, whatever Tara may say - like "For the Longest Time," it's an (remember Natalie's "instant orgasm" song descriptor) instant mood lifter for me, especially when my car is gliding and all the other headlights look like fireflies.

Things I don't understand: sports, morality


But there was a reference to "The Lottery" on The Simpsons, and, as far as I know, Eric missed it. Aww. I will always associate Eric with Shirley Jackson, even though it was Seth who actually got me to read some of her stories.


And, meanwhile, I find academic success (sort of) and inject a lot of vapid happiness into my life (Harry Potter, TMBG) in the hopes of staving off this very specific emotion I got towards the end of last year. It's not sadness. It's - awareness of the potential to lose control. I think everyone gets it eventually... something about the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation. But that's not the case with me at all. I just have a family that is humanly imperfect.


I want to feel everything, anyway.


We're on some kind of mission
We have an obligation
We have to wear toupees....

Success! Now maybe people will comment on the posts they don't yet know exist.

All right, let's try again. Even though it's been a week. Someday I'll be better about this (hums "Maybe someday you'll get it right / Oh, I might").


I always found "Ode to Maybe" much more encouraging than overtly optimistic songs. God knows why. But maybe is a good thing, after all, as I'm starting to figure out. Lately, my life is more about maybes than usual - I feel like I could ride a horse, or teach a course... or maybe I'll try acting. Or something else. Anything else.


And, my life, in a week? I got a pleasant reminder of third wheel-dom when I accompanied Nick and Lizzie to The Importance of Being Earnest. Oh, that takes me back to... most of my life. Well, not exactly, but it feels like that sometimes. But now, finally, Nick and Lizzie are as they should be, and I'm actually friends with a couple my own age! You have no idea how excited this makes me, since, ridiculously, it's unprecedented.


And I continue to work and visit Seth. I like work. I prefer Seth.


Such sentimentality, eh? (grin)