Heh, I thought I could honestly post that I don't feel strange anymore, having stumbled through my first week somehow and spent a ridiculous amount of time with Seth yesterday. I felt sleepy and dizzy at the end of it, reeling from happiness and collapsed stress. I also intended to post that I've been trying much harder to talk to people I don't know well, even when I feel uncomfortable. I thought of it as an achievement, something to make Hank proud (Hank, Eric, and assorted other gregarious friends have historically told me I'd be happier if I wasn't so shy).


Because of the comment I got, I feel like I should back-track and explain about the social awkwardness. I was a social little kid, kind of chatty and take-charge (read: bossy). I started getting teased in early sixth grade; I was overwhelmed by middle school anyway, and I just sort of took it, more and more quietly each time. When it stopped in eighth grade, I felt there were still obvious distinctions between me and other people. If I had to talk to one of the others, a bitter voice would tell me, "Don't be too eager to please, or they'll think you're pathetic. They don't really want to talk to you; they think you're a dork." So I started responding to any perceived tension, or lack of interest on the other person's part, with silence or strained half-attempt.


One group of unapproachable people remains, now: the people I went to middle school with, and their friends. I know that Seth is friendly with a number of them, and somehow that helps me. In TOK yesterday, I found myself in a group of them (Sandy pulled me in), and I decided to make a real effort - I cracked jokes, making Gavin do his endearing, ridiculous guffaw twice. Ben E. and I have been bandying insults, and even the rest of them (who I've had less contact with) listened to me with polite interest, as I did them, when we discussed our assigned topic of math, music, and language. I didn't get any she's-a-dork vibes. I'm still not comfortable with that group - maybe I'll never be - but I am trying.


(sigh) All right, I suppose I should address the anonymous comment I got. I am afraid, fundamentally, that I do come off as elitist. I know I'm a judgmental person privately; my chosen alternative to doing mean things is to think mean thoughts (Ben in TOK: "Sharon never gets angry, she's so mild-mannered" Me: "Mild-mannered? Hm, I should be a superhero by night"). Some people, by their actions, define themselves as not worth getting to know, but I certainly don't feel that way about a lot of people. My hope is that the comment was written by someone who doesn't know me at all, who's just an asshole surfing strangers' blogs and leaving mean notes. I reread my posts, though, and didn't think they came off as particularly elitist, which makes me fear that it is someone who knows me, but not very well.


The preppiness comment about Lauren and Carolyn, maybe.... I really do like and respect them. I just feel that I can't completely be myself with them (Carolyn, particularly, since she isn't exposed to drama people), but that might well be my biases and misperceptions more than anything else. I'd certainly like to get to know them better and be more comfortable with them. I shouldn't have made the comment at all; I didn't mean anything by it (mostly I meant that I was uncomfortable at the apparent ease with which they accomplish everything), but it was an inappropriate comment all the same, and I'm sorry.


Now I don't know what to say and don't particularly feel like blogging anymore.

I still feel bleary and empty and a lot of other strange things tonight. I suppose change will do that to you (grin). My course schedule is almost ideal, though, and I see many of my favorite people during the day. Parenthetically (but without the parentheses), I was noticing this morning at the Senior Breakfast how ill at ease I felt to be surrounded by members of my own class; I've gotten to know so few of them, and I'm comfortable with even fewer. Oh, my social woes, moan moan.


I'm just so antsy, filled with the awareness that I only get one more year at this, and then... what, who knows? Even this year itself feels like a question mark, with all that Tide strangeness (budget concerns may keep them from publishing an official student newspaper - I know, wtf?) and the Mock Trial stress/competitiveness starting already. My teachers seem fantastic, though, which is a good start. And one of them called me "Victorian, or pre-Raphaelite" today, which added to the oddness but made me feel comforted as well. English teachers always like me, until I'm always absent.


And I'm full of resolutions: No afternoon naps, more outings with friends, fewer absences, brilliant college aps.

I'm feeling vaguely ill, a combination of nerves and coffee on an empty stomach. I had a stress dream last night about Ms. Martin discussing my unfulfilled academic potential with Ben, all the while hitting on him (I love my dreams). Really, I suppose I'm concerned about starting over again, this time in a position of relative prominence. I'm scared of schoolwork and Mock Trial and the inevitable administrative battle I suppose I'll have to fight to publish my Tide babies. The class above me was a buffer, skilled and confident and mature, between me and responsibility. And now they've up and left (grin).


I have not finished my summer work. I should channel my anxiety in that direction, and stop wasting my time in idle public complaining.

This begins my very optimistic and probably misguided Weekend of EE and No Seth. I know that sounds drastic, but I've had a summer to do the damned thing and instead I've watched countless movies and sampled various restaurants with Seth, so I suppose I'm removing a major source of distraction (grin). The other biggest voluntary time drain was Tara, who occupied the hours between 11 PM and 3 AM (a critical working period in a teenager's life) with semi-insightful/exhausted conversation. She's offline for the next couple of days, setting up her computer at McGill, so I'm out of excuses/distractions and free to work.


(sigh) My screen is blank, my thesis may or may not exist.... All right, some coffee before I begin, and maybe I'll read the newspaper.

Yesterday I attended an event (I'm not sure what to call this) at Strathmore Hall, on Hank's encouragement. From his description, I expected a concert; in reality, it was the warm-up band for the NIH Film Festival (Clandestine, a Texas Celtic group with bagpipes and moody mellifluousness). The music was actually good, and I did get to see North by Northwest afterwards, so it was, all in all, much more successful than Hank's last get-together (the Austin Powers movie, after which Natalie D. turned to him and said with real malice, "We hate you, Hank").


My only real complaint, actually, is that the attendees paired off rather oddly, so I didn't get to talk to anyone (particularly Tara, since she's leaving today) as much as I would have liked. I was stuck on my end of the blanket with Seth, and one does get tired of him (grin). Thank goodness for everyone keeping up their blogs; otherwise, this week-long stretch of college freshmen disappearing would be much more unsettling.

I got in last night from a flight out of Providence. I ended up seeing: Harvard, Yale, Wesleyan, and Brown, and driving around Tufts and Brandeis (too bleeding hot to tour). Harvard Square rules all, but the school itself, and Yale as well, made me oddly uncomfortable. Such concentrated preppiness: the nice-guy student jocks who take on everything with ease and show a depressing lack of idiosyncracy. I suppose I would find my crowd - kids like us must exist everywhere - but I think constant exposure to the world's Lauren S.'s and Carolyns (nice people, but certainly preppy) would strangle my weirdness and make me ill at ease.


There's not much to say about Wesleyan. I saw it because I needed another match school and because it came so highly recommended by Hank, but it was surreal to see such a small, insular place - tiny buildings, cute stories of campus culture - after so many huge and formidable campuses. It was nice; I don't mean to be dismissive. I'm just realizing that what I've liked least about Eastern and RM is the constant, forced exposure to a limited group of people; it makes interpersonal conflicts more pronounced, annoyances more annoying. Wesleyan's a poor fit because my ideal is a school with too many people to know, but with enough of them clearly interesting that I'm bound to end up liking some. And, of course, I'd prefer the resources of a big school; I don't mind the trade-off, which is that there's much less hand-holding from the professors and administration.


Finally, Brown - the only other school besides U of C that I thought, going in, might upset Penn. Tara told me I'd be temporarily overwhelmed, and I suppose that's true. It's a lovely area, urban in the fun, TP way (street musicians, niche clothing stores), as opposed to Penn, which is more like a DC city block. The campus, itself, is beautiful, one of the prettiest I've seen, and trolleys take you across the state for a dollar (hehe, Rhode Island). Moreover, the kids.... This is harder to explain, but I can start by saying my tour guide looked like Seth and talked like my sister. They are clearly smart but also laidback, fun, kooky - one step up from the Chicago kids, but a little less cynical and more wacky. It's not exactly an academically intense place, but I know, without a doubt, that it's somewhere I'd feel comfortable and have fun. Yet Penn is very much on my mind as well.


I figured out the problem early on: The kids at Brown are more like my friends, while the kids at Penn are more like me. I'm certainly attracted to weirdness, but I've never tried it in high doses. I'm wishing now that I'd seen the schools in a different order, preferably Brown right before Penn. (sigh) I'm in for a tough choice; I guess I'll spend a couple days kvetching and moaning, and reach some consensus.


Otherwise, the vacation was traditional vacation stuff: the eruption of interpersonal tensions, awkward moments, unpleasant trips in confined spaces. Ha ha, I kid. But I do genuinely believe that my family works so well because we have space, so why close us up in planes and cars? When I grow up, no vacations for my family, or home-cooked meals or affection.

I forgot something: Today my father decided to buy a hat. He found a hat kiosk, and meanwhile my sister and I wandered off to look at cheap jewelry. About five minutes later, he emerged wearing a bright red baseball cap with "USA" emblazened on the front, and American flags on the sides. "God, Dad," I said, "you look like an extremely reactionary tourist."

The Extremely Reactionary Tourist

A band - or a 1kbwc card. Your choice, those of you with index cards.

Oh bloody hell, it's hot up here and I'm chronically thirsty (grin). One hundred and three degrees in the city. I went into Harvard Square last night with the 'rents and relatives; it's unbearably cool, with college kids lounging everywhere, and competent busking, and balloon animals and niche music (my favorite was the Native American man and the blond twenty-something chick; he played an arcane wind instrument, she the violin). Harvard itself is of course gorgeous and perfect, but we're trying to forget our bitterness and enjoy the sights.


My family, itself, is very cool - particulary my cousin Michael, who I hadn't seen since his early adolescence. He's nineteen now, and has thankfully outgrown the D&D obsession, settling into a more mature and comfortable weirdness (TMBG, RHPS, all that jazz). I remember when he and I used to fight at family reunions, and that we shared a devoted interest in my now anachronistic original Nintendo set. It's so strange to see that he's become... a person, an adult practically. And with a girlfriend of two years. It's very sweet.


My only complaint is the heat, and my separation from the college-bound people that I love. I really do love them; Tara and I were talking about this. And I will miss them greatly, and dream of reunion and New Year's.

Not much to say, a quick post from the attic of my uncle's house in Cambridge. I'm moping a little because my uncle, presented with my thirteen-year-old sister and myself, said, "Ah, great, which one's which?" Alas, I'll never look like a grownup, until I'm entering senescence. (This morning, I was shaken awake at 5:30 and stumbled around the airport thinking bleary thoughts about adolescence, essence, etc. Anything that ended with that sound.) Another thing: I've been listening to Barenaked Ladies, and I have to say I have renewed appreciation for "Alcohol" and "In The Car." Those are quality lyrics, but what else should I expect from the guys who brought us "What a Good Boy"?

I don't have the energy for much, but I feel like I owe the world a goodbye post. I'm leaving tomorrow morning - visiting my uncle and doing the New England college circuit. I may be able to post occasionally, but I can't count on it.


I'm tired but happy, I suppose, because I did a lot of driving today (haircut, senior photo retakes, two trips to Chevy Chase and back). I spent the evening with Seth; it was our one chance between his trip and mine. There was a lot of music, some friendship bread, tree sap, and myriad other diversions. I said probably the least profound thing ever: "You're a good person, Seth. Maybe it's because you're young, or maybe it's because you're good." It was certainly nice to see him again.


And now to bed, to wake again in five hours.

And now for something that doesn't have anything to do with boys: I went to my sister's camp production of The Wizard of Oz tonight. She was the wicked witch. I braced myself for over-the-top cackling (I always brace myself before I go to these things, because God knows what my strange friends are going to do onstage). Lauren did not disappoint and was, in fact, fantastic. I did a lot of shuddering and giggling - and wishing that some friend could be there with me, to share in the experience. It was certainly the cutest middle school musical I've ever seen (and I've seen my share), with wonderful excesses like dancing trees and crows and Kansans.


One boy-related note: I saw my sister's dating prospect tonight. He was skinny and gregarious, with oversize ears. It was touching somehow - a reminder that Lauren and her friends are relatively young.

Seth called today, and we wasted his second phone card discussing our various strange dreams. His are probably stranger, since they include literary and cultural celebrities like Tom Wolfe and Morrissey. Mine involve guilty, compulsive watch-removing (I was swimming and found I'd left my watch on, rusting and stopping it - so I pulled it off, only to find two more! And endlessly more after that, while my father looked on in annoyance).


He told me he didn't know how he'd occupy his time when I left for college. He mentioned taking up the accordian; I grimaced. Flustered, I explained, "It's just... that you're so weird already, you're toeing this thin line... and I feel like it's my job to keep you from falling over."

And he laughed and said, "Oh, that's so cute! And so misguided!" And I laughed as well.

Now, of course I don't mind if he plays the accordian. But, gosh, for one brief, shining moment, I was dating a guy who played the guitar. Granted, he played songs that he composed on the spot, using lyrics from our textbooks. But still. The guitar.


Otherwise, I've been trying valiantly to accomplish some summer work. I have no attention span lately. This is terrible. Perhaps I need the fueling desperation of the last minute.

I don't usually do this, but it's cute and not too mushy, so I'll make an exception:

SaffyCat: i'm suspicious
SaffyCat: maybe fate is setting us up for something
GMSlippy: oh god, don't say it
GMSlippy: maybe fate is dooming us to fall in love
GMSlippy: so we have to suffer through separation
GMSlippy: is it fair?
GMSlippy: i don't think so
SaffyCat: maybe it's an undeserved windfall
SaffyCat: we beat the house :-)

Seth and I have been communicating from Europe. I send him e-mails that he picks up in internet cafes; he calls and we squander his family phone card. It always makes me unreasonably happy to hear from him (yes, yes, I'm suitably ashamed of our silliness). The rest of my mood-padding occurs at home, listening to music and dreamily finishing "Death in Venice." Apparently, Seth and I have independently been enjoying the song "Take On Me," which I now have in beautiful Rockapella form.

Say it after me
It's no better to be safe than sorry

Yesterday, I took one of those three-hour walks that's more about the talking than the walking, down at Great Falls with Ben. I think he was just humoring me by maintaining serious conversation; he prefers joking around, or play-hitting. It's different now, though, that he's leaving for college in less than two weeks. Intensity of conversation is expected. Ben was my first older friend since childhood, and my introduction to the insular but always exciting Bivalves. It's frustrating, now, to be left behind by people who've come to mean so much to me, but I would never have chosen to spend the last two years without them.

Through a series of misunderstandings, I didn't get to go camping yesterday and today. Instead, I finished Madame Bovary, which is probably better for me in the long run. Some combination of finishing the book, listening to my ever-expanding illegal music collection, and having a number of interesting conversations limited my disappointment over missing the trip.


I've had this overarching good mood for months and months now, with only brief interruptions. I don't know how to talk about it, or communicate its effect on me - so strange and unexpected, suspicious but comforting. I can say that I'm not used to it, and I'm filled with wonder that I could live so many years without it (all of my adolescence, honestly, but especially last year when my sister was sick.... my diary got to be such a sad and guilty place). Well, I'm grateful to whatever confluence of events produced it. And, if it seems on my blog sometimes that I'm relishing too much in my happiness over the minutia of my day, I suppose this is why.

Back from the venerable U of C. It was definitely an experience - very Takoma Park in feel, but with more apartments than TP and, of course, a huge university dominating the landscape. It's also unsettlingly gorgeous, with ponds and limestone and ivy everywhere. I say "unsettlingly," because I certainly didn't want to fall in love with a school so far away. But, in the end, I don't think I did anyway.


I thought Chicago was going to beat out Penn at first, because of the loveliness and because U of C consciously espouses all my ideals for an institution of higher learning (that's how it attracts bright kids away from the Ivies in the first place, which I did know going in). Because it was a special admissions event we were attending, the Dean of Admissions spoke to us and was lovably (and affectedly) elitist, saying such things as, "People like to think kids at Chicago have no fun, because they're threatened by the idea of intelligent people also having a social life." He spoiled it a little later by saying "nucular," but I don't want to make too big a deal of that....


Really, it seemed affected to me more because, in the end, I got the feeling that the "intellectual community" mantra was more for creating an impression than for describing an actual environment. The kids I talked to at Penn were brighter, more intense and interesting, and, well, more intellectual. This makes sense; Penn is harder to get into. However, in defense of the Chicago kids, they are "goofier" (my dad's word, but he meant it negatively).

"Dad," I said, "that would be a good thing to me. I'm goofy. My friends are all goofy."

"Well... that Ben is goofy," he conceded, "but I don't know about the rest."

So I had to give him a brief synopsis of my high school life, pausing for emphasis at www.sharon.death and our recent irresponsibility with the shopping cart. The former was a birthday present last year from the very cheap Amy, Ben, Joe, and GPaul. It was a video detailing my friend Dena's descent into vampirism and my subsequent death at the hands of ViolenceBot (Joe in a hazmat suit). Ben played me, wearing a hideous jumper.


In any case (and of more practical concern), I buckled down and read more than half of Madame Bovary last night after we finished touring. I find it tremendously dissatisfying, because I don't think I'm really learning anything from it. All my insights seem suspiciously like post-feministic drivel (hehe). One positive thing about it, though, is that the everyman character is female (as I said that to my father, and he laughed) - and that actually is refreshing. I am impressed that Flaubert treats Emma with more respect than he treats many of his male characters; she and Charles seem equally judged and flawed.


One more note before I close: Seth's grandfather lives and teaches at U of C, and I had a strange irrational desire to run into him somewhere in Hyde Park (how would I have known who he was? would I have said hello? of course not), but, alas, it was not to be. I didn't see any professors at all, or even people who could be professors. I did, however, see innumerable college students with beards, renewing my wonder at the future facial hair of (I'm guessing) at least several Bivalve males.

My sister seemed down, so I took her driving - we blared Belle and Sebastian (her choice), which created an amusing contrast in mood and volume. She demanded to hear "Seeing Other People" twice in a row, prompting me to complain, "Oh, you just like it because it's about gay guys." And she grinned guiltily and said, "Well, you didn't have to say that...." We always have a good time, the two of us. Moreover, I got some EE-related library books and plenty of Starbucks coffee out of it, so no complaints at all.


Then I went home and downloaded a slew of beautiful, relatively obscure songs (the low-traffic songs are the only ones I have to patience to download) - I found much B&S, some Smiths I remembered as being good, and my treasured "What A Good Boy" (the Duke's Men version!).

So I gave myself to God, there was a pregnant pause before he said ok

And last night I dreampt I'd read all of Madame Bovary - my mind constructed a plot using only the first few pages and the introduction. I think it was complex and interesting, and I remember thinking in the dream that Emma was in surprisingly little of it. And then I woke up and realized that, in reality, I had still not been productive, and was more in trouble than ever.


Oh well. University of Chicago tomorrow, and then camping on Saturday. And after that, who can say?

I read over my skeletal Extended Essay today, and was relieved to find it wasn't so airy and pretentious as I had feared. As to whether it has a thesis, though, I'm not sure. It's kind of a mess, having been written at the last minute, more than a week after it was actually due (it also cuts off in the middle, as if I tried to explain my overly complicated central idea and gave up). Well, I hope it's salvageable. All my anxiety about being so sedentary and, well, distracted this summer is starting to come out, as I had a dream last night that I'd been too ashamed to ask any teachers to write recommendations and ended up missing the deadlines. Oops.


And yet, would I have changed a thing? (More scarily) could I have? (grin) I've never been one for time management anyway, and now at least I have a relatively satisfying excuse. Or, in a pinch, a scapegoat.

I realize I haven't written much of anything about my job all summer. Perhaps it's just the guilt of blogging at work, about work. Partly it's my irrational shame at the arcane-ness, and apparent boringness, of what I do (research/policy analysis for the county government, in the areas of land use and rezoning). However, I am, in fact, for the most part working productively, and amassing cute stories about my day. I have a cubicle that reminds me of the comfortable crawlspaces of my youth. I met a young man who encouraged me to "smell his office" and tell him what I thought (it smelled like flowers). Another man told me I was a pretty girl and tried half-heartedly to set me up with his twin nineteen-year-old grandsons (I looked helplessly at my father, who grinned and said, "So, Sharon, do you like twins?").


Today I decided to figure out why it is that I feel - not even like a child among adults, but like a child in some strange, giant fantasyland when I'm at work. Not only is everyone enormous here, but also the doors extend almost to the ceiling, so that my head hits at about the halfway mark. I feel like I'm wading through some hazy near-reality - actually, it's vaguely akin to feeling like I'm three years old. Maybe that's where the surrealism comes from: the fact that, at three, I did assign my observations of the world (the ones I remember) a sort of largeness and strangeness.


(sigh) I'm 5'1'' - that's a respectable height for a girl. I don't deserve this childish self-image.

Ack, so much of my blog is plot summary - and here's some more (grin). I set out Friday evening to forget my troubles through socializing (24+ hours of parties, all of which included Tara). It worked beautifully, and I can now safely say I'm in a good mood.


The evening started out with present shopping in Bethesda, with Nick and Tara. I successfully found good presents for two birthday parties, which has probably never happened to me before (I'm terrible at this kind of thing), so I guess I have them to thank. Nick was tired, but Tara and I went on to Natalie's house, along with Deb. There, the conversation quickly degraded to talk of sex, and I was given a sexual fantasy as a gift. We stayed up talking until 6:30; I felt completely awake and engrossed up until the moment I fell asleep, waking at about 11:30 AM.


Tara and I had a party at noon, but we dawdled, showering and breakfasting, and didn't make it to Glen Echo until maybe 1:30 or 2:00. I suppose we should have been there earlier, because the part we did attend was great fun. I played on a crazy conceptual art playground (it was vaguely spiderlike and done with an eye for the aesthetic, but not for the allowing-kids-to-play-without-hurting-themselves; for example, there was a vertical wall with a pattern of pegs jutting out, itching to be climbed but presenting too small a surface area for hands and feet). I also had a nice long talk with Ben, and got mocked by Joe, touchingly, for the small size of my hands.


Party number two was another success - unusually, for me, I wasn't uncomfortable at either party and enjoyed myself much more because of it. Ben, Tara, and I found a fold-up rocking chair ("Sweet!"), and Ben joked that Hank had stabbed him with a fork 'in the nads." I also learned the card game Pit, which involves a lot of screaming and fighting and gesticulating, and listened to a classic Duke's Men of Yale CD. I'd forgetten the strangeness of "What a Good Boy"; it really does have surreal and scatter-brained lyrics, though I still (like everyone) love the song.


I ended the night by driving home without knowing where I was going. I took every wrong turn I could have (there were three) and still managed to not seriously break my 11:30 curfew. For this and other things I feel charmed.

In the future, I'll pretend the last twenty-four hours didn't exist.

I keep having to relive last year's awfulness in AIM conversations, hopefully with a reasonable degree of respect for the other members of my family - not because it's on my mind much anymore, because it isn't, but because I feel guilty keeping such a large chunk of formative biographical information from my friends. And I choose now to talk about it because I assume (maybe naively) that everybody's out of danger and that senior year can be more about getting into college and getting into vague illegalities with my friends than about unusual personal conflict. It's torture on my mood though.


Which is why it's nice to have friendly, inane conversation as a chaser. It's great to discuss the intricacies of our oh-so-fascinating love lives with Nick, or, as I did today, assert that I don't understand the appeal of Star Trek and then discuss it at great length with Joe. I also got to relive my dorky glory days for him - in eighth grade, in honor of the Episode One premiere, my friends and I went to school dressed as Star Wars characters of our own creation. We attended a showing at the Uptown later that day; I remember, as we disembarked from the Metro at the Uptown stop, we wished our fellow passengers, "May the Force be with you." Hehe... I wonder how many nice, relatively normal young men and women have such unwholesomely dorky pasts - like shell-shocked victims of the various middle school SF hysterias, wondering to themselves, "I used to collect that?"