Tuesday, Nov. 17th

Leonid Meteor Shower



Didn't see any shooting stars, but it was still a very enjoyable night.

Every Tuesday night, one of my classmates surprises me with something sweet. Mint chocolate cookies, caramel apples, little candies--everything vegan and everything delicious. It's taken me a while to finally get a picture of something because I usually devour it during break.



In case you were wondering, it's a coffee and chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and coconut.



Unrelated: My bedsheets and blankets resemble that of an eight year old's.

This is a love story. However, its roots are tangled and involve a good bit of my life, and when I recall my life, my mood turns sour, and I am reminded that no man makes truly proper use of his time. We are blind and small-minded. We are dumb as snails and as frightened, full of vanity and misinformed about the importance of things. I'm an average man, without great deeds except maybe one, and that has been to love my wife.

--From "We Are Nighttime Travelers" by Ethan Canin

Snaked from Andrew.

Slow Hands

I haven’t done a very good job of participating in my classes this semester. That is to say, I haven’t participated at all. I’ve gone full days without making a peep, except to tell the guy at the counter what number my hard drive is. I fidget in my rolling chair as my digital editing professor explains where to save project files for the tenth time. I read emails from my Blackberry and listen to the man-child directly in front of me whine about how terrible Macs are. I doze off in the arctic that is my video distribution class, trying my hardest to block out the jokes the guy to the left of me makes, which, by the way, are always in poor taste.

But on Tuesdays, I stay awake. I sit upright, front and center. I listen intently, nod vigorously, and doodle occasionally. For three hours every Tuesday night, my literature class dissects the pieces we’ve been assigned. We delve into specific characters, consider writing styles, and argue over themes of sexuality, gender, race, class, and what it means to be an American. By we, I mean they. As much as I enjoy the class discussions, my articulation comes from carefully crafted sentences, none of which can be created during an ongoing dialogue. Instead, I listen intently, nod vigorously, and doodle occasionally.

Rather than having my professor discuss every work on the syllabus, she assigned each student one short story or poem to analyze, and then that student would lead a discussion on the work. I conferred with my professor a week before my presentation and left her office confident that I would do swimmingly come the following Tuesday. Presentation Day came, bringing waves of nausea with it. The last time I had an oral presentation, I got so nervous that I dropped all of my index cards. I was so edgy that I would only answer my classmates with one-word responses. Finally, it was my turn to present. I looked up just in time to make eye contact with my professor; my eyes screamed sheer terror and desperation. I could feel myself ready to burst into tears.

“Are you nervous?”

“Yes,” I squeaked.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. I just need to get it over with.”

Several deep breaths later, I braved the podium. My voice wavered as I introduced my poet and gave some cursory background information. Every once in a while, I’d look to my professor for the “nod of approval,” some sign that I was on the right track. I was always greeted with this infectious, “Great Gatsby” smile, both encouraging and gratifying, that acted as an invisible hand to nudge me along. Aside from an especially long, awkward pause where I lost my train of thought, my class discussion went smoothly. Had I not been constantly reassured, I would have stumbled a lot more. It sounds unnecessary and childish to need that kind of steady stream of support. I don’t need to be validated, right?

Wrong! I may not raise my hand to answer every question in class, but I still secretly hope to be noticed for my scholarly efforts. That way of thinking translates into my personal and professional life, too. I stand idly by, letting opportunities pass, hoping people will be able to read my mind and realize how special I am simply by talking to me. I know that’s a load of bullshit. But I continue to live passively, waiting for chance to find me.

Here’s to raising my hand in class.

French Unicorns

The Blake Wright

No Lies, Just Love

Thanks to Filter Magazine and the magic of Twitter, I was able to catch Monsters of Folk last Thursday in Santa Barbara. For those who don’t know, Monsters of Folk is the supergroup consisting of M. Ward (She & Him), Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes; also produced and performed in a lot of Saddle Creek releases).

I was undecided about going at first. I hadn’t given Monsters of Folk a proper listen, and it was free, so would it really matter if I missed it? But I couldn’t pass up a chance to see Jim James. (He was really fucking badass, by the way.) Plus, 16 year old me would have been really upset if I didn’t see ~*Conor*~. With midterms leaving me severely sleep-stricken since Sunday, it was a miracle I stayed awake for the drive. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay awake for much else. It doesn’t matter who I’m there to see; if I’m in a seat, I’ll doze off. It happened with Stars, Cold War Kids, Devendra Banhart, and Radiohead. Monsters of Folk was no exception. Usually, I snap out of it after two or three songs. This time, I wasn’t awake for a full song until about an hour or so into the set. I would be lucid for the beginning; I’d knock out in the middle and wake up about 30 seconds before the applause.

It wasn’t until Conor Oberst started playing “Hit the Switch” that I slipped out of my slumber. As soon as I heard that shaky voice, all these wistful feelings came rushing back. Bright Eyes was a defining band for me. The immediacy in his words spoke to my innermost teenage angst. His music appealed to me the way Elliott Smith’s sad strumming does when I’m feeling down. I was a tortured soul with a broken heart without ever being in a relationship. I quoted him in my writing. I doodled his lyrics in my notebooks. Seeing him tear away at his guitar made me giddy. Suddenly, I had this schoolgirl crush on him, and I’d, like, totally die if he carried my books.

Since Thursday, I’ve been shamelessly listening to Bright Eyes—more for nostalgia than heartache though.

As I hide behind these books I read, while scribbling my poetry, like art could save a wretch like me, with some ideal ideology that no one can hope to achieve.

And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me.

Restart

I started this blog hoping I would begin writing again, but somewhere along the way, writing became less of an outlet and more of a job and a set of expectations. Ideas mulled in my head until they molded. School, work and sleep took up more time than I had anticipated. I realized I don’t want to just give my reader(s) [Hi Liz!] some cursory log of my day. I want to be able to look back and appreciate everything I’ve written. I’m not saying I’m going to start writing bleak short stories and take up chain smoking, but I’d like my posts to be coherent and polished, even if I’m only complaining about the douche bag who sits in front of me in my editing class.(That’s for another day.)

So here it is—my official internet promise to start writing at least weekly.

Starting…NOW!

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.

--Synecdoche, New York

Here's the link just in case the video doesn't load.

Words are not enough.

It kills me that people can't master basic punctuation.

San Francisco, I love you

Pictures taken all over Union Square, Conservatory of Flowers, California Academy of Sciences, Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, SF Museum of Modern Art, Aquarium of the Bay, Golden Gate Park & Bridge. More can be found on my Flickr.