same old same old.
I have created a routine for myself. I am almost completely empty. Everything that once made me function are now like cold beads of water on a hot foil bouncing around as they evaporate. It’s not even an issue of fault. If I did this to myself, or the establishment made easy to do or did it for me. Enduring mindless activities to put on the show during daylight that I’m actually doing something, just so I can fall asleep, but the rest of the day I’m not doing very much that is more rewarding than sleeping. Fantasies of art that could be made, the noise that could be moving, remembering kisses and counting the number of nights until New Year’s Eve; I’m thinking, but how thoughtful am I? A loner sure seems full of potential. I’ve become so void, so quickly. Growing a beard doesn’t make growing up any easier. If I keep eating this way, I’m going to die sooner. If I stop eating, it will somehow make my ass fatter. The talkative cock tease from Little Rock said so, she could be right. I’m napping through it all. Not even in the inebriated sense, that’s just not happening. I’m giving nothing and it doesn’t bother me that I’m getting nothing out of it. Just let me know when its 11:00 so I can watch ‘Family Guy’. Shit, brother, I don’t even have nosebleeds any more.
“Absorbing their versions of what life's about. Spoon fed the world through a filter that caters to money and fills us with doubt.... and there's so much more to see than the world through TV. Numb from the boredom you can't feel the whip across your back. Always look through the same window of course you'll have the same view. It's lights camera action take us and tell us what to do. What to see what to think what to wear what to do with our lives. Millions of channels to fashion reigns out of our eyes. To walk back and forth in a box and bind myself with golden chains (is not freedom)” *
I’m caught up grasping to the proverbial DC flag, clenching on to the symbols that make the memories dance; Wilson hallways, paying too much for a farecard but having a souvenir, Dischord records, shiny burrito wrappers, CD/Game Exchange stickers and regulars and freebies, circle pits and wall of death(s) where I know everyone in the crowd. The cold breeze through a sweaty t-shirt, post-concert. That walk home from Tenleytown to house or Columbia Heights to the other house at 2 in the morning. I can’t wait to see Q and Not U again, and so forth. Lets look at archived Fort Reno schedules, who’s playing at the Warehouse Next Door, fuck it, lets do a road trip to Baltimore, Ottobar, lesbian diner and shit. My cell phone that’s used most of the time in the commonwealth of Virginia is a 202 area code and I’d have it no other way. Caught up in all these, diluting the worthlessness of the now, unbutton these plaid sleeves of déjà vu, oh no, oh fuck no. This was so predictable.
“However, because of it I can only hope you have an easier time adjusting in the first months of college than I did. In my case, I found myself grasping onto everything I remembered of the last months and the summer of my senior year. I remembered them fondly for the most part because they were the best times of my life, even the unexpected attendance to that Melt Banana show in July. I did it so much that I felt I couldn't get my head out of the past enough to enjoy myself in the present. Maybe you don't act exactly like this, but if you do, be careful because you can really dig yourself deep into some emotional turmoil.”**
Oh fuck. Its two drummers, but the same beat. Talk about potential for a groove, but no drummers: same beat. The possibilities are exponential, but here I am, two drummers, exact same beat. I thought somehow what Lindsay mentioned ‘round New Year’s last year wouldn’t be my deal, wouldn’t be throw of my dice. But man, was she right? What else is fucking me up like this is? If I wasn’t gripping my experience, if I didn’t compare the rest of America to the kids back home (who for most part aren’t even back home) I’d be there having a good time over in common room of the world watching ‘Wife Swapping’, buying fake vintage shirts for way too much, maybe getting part of hair bleached, not all of it, just a little patch, you know, then I could put some shit in it from a plastic bottle with a really nice text layout, and it’ll make me look like I could care about my looks, even though its very important to me. Sounds promising. It really looks like I’m socially inept. I can’t blend with the masses. They don’t like the way I talk. Sarcasm isn’t an icebreaker. Like, I’m a real loner now. But at least now, I’m a comfortable with the whole loner thing. Once I get my bike down here, I’ll be all over the place. Then I’ll buy one of them $4 pick up trucks. Then I’ll feel my own heart beating out the simple the joy of living and I’ll wonder how I ever was that kind. I don’t want $3,000 rims and a ridiculous bass, Cologne and thinly trimmed, stupid fucking facial hair. When it seems like that’s the shit that counts in this world, I want live in the library or pull a Jane Goodall. I know I need to get “real”, I sure hope “real” something better that this outlook. I’m still taking this nap. ***
* From the 1905 song ‘Control’.
** Lindsay M. gave these words in reference to my winded summary of 2003. Boy, was she right. She’s rad though, so maybe I can be rad, work at a Lebanese restaurant next summer.
*** While it would be easy to believe that a lot this is some drug-induced, almost strung out banter, I assure it totally isn’t. I haven't cracked in to that at all, although it seems like a readily available option, I haven’t resorted to any drugs or binge drinking that seems to socialize the “other side”. While I would indeed love to be some type Hunter S. Thompson-esque dirge where talking to myself in quick paranoid sentences better fits the mold, I figure it would only make things a lot harder. Despite my fantasies indulge in some hopeless romantic bender to end all benders where I find myself (much to my own surprise) flunking out of my courses and working at a Record and Tape Exchange in Camden (sound familiar?) that I do indeed to need to finish college, what with the soft job market and all.
Did you know that loner rhymes with boner, and that if you went to a third grade class and said "Like, I'm a real boner now" it would be the funniest thing they ever heard? Because I knew that.
But there's some honor in being a loner sometimes, I'd like to think. Not a full-time loner, but a person who does things alone. It shows you don't need other people. Which is true. Other people make things better quite often, but aren't always necessary. Better a loner than someone scared to be seen alone.
Posted by: DHI at October 5, 2004 07:11 PMdhi speaks the truth
Posted by: fgadfda at October 5, 2004 08:21 PMThat's the second time you've pulled some crucial wisdom with the Yoda-esque backwards approach.
Posted by: JRuss at October 5, 2004 08:32 PMYou can label Discoe's comment as WISDOM, but I assure you it is no Wachovia motto. Everyone is a loner, in a sense. Hegel's alienation theory suggests that if we are the central figure in our minds and memories, how is it that anyone can truly understand another human being, when they are trying to understand that person through their own actions. So Discoe, you are right to laud the ability to create time for yourself and your thought, but at same time, remember that we are all inherently loners, that is until we can truly step out of the self and into the other.
Posted by: GRB at October 6, 2004 01:10 AMapply to the shitbath of college, Gabe.
Posted by: JRuss at October 6, 2004 01:29 AMpeople are not naturally loners. if you leave a baby in a forest it will starve to death. period. shit, you could leave a 5 year old in a parking lot and the fucker would still starve. you put a 5 year old grizzly bear in a parking lot and he would be building tools for himself or some shit.
but once we grow enough to figure out who we are, there's no shame in walking the streets alone if you don't like what's going on around you.
no shame in coolin with the great apes, either.
where do you get archived fort reno schedules?
ahahaha college stfu
Posted by: fdsfafd at October 6, 2004 10:04 AMThe only point I was trying to make was that we are all different. And because we are all different, that makes it natural for us to believe sometimes that WE are the only ones who can understand our problems. But thank you for the grizzly bear example, it cleared up many things for me. JRuss whatyo phone number nig?
Posted by: GRB at October 6, 2004 11:25 AMDude, that sheep and its mother weren't different. But then the sheep died young.
Posted by: DHI at October 6, 2004 01:48 PMwait. is the black guy curtis morales?
Posted by: confused at October 6, 2004 07:13 PMI wouldn't be worried about being a loner man. It is only a matter of time until you meet someone who you can call a friend or at least someone you can buy records and go to local shows with. It is not going to be the same as back in DC. I am still coping with that here by comparing everything to DC and how it just sucks or isn't up to its level. But you know what? The thought just makes me love DC even more. I'd have to say that I've probably mentioned DC at least once each day since I've been here. Things are getting much better, and I'm not saying that because I can't see myself conforming to what's around me, but I think that if one is left to his or her own devices within a new environment, things will only get better if one allows them to.
Posted by: Alo at October 7, 2004 05:40 PMJ-Russ, thanks for the acknowledgement, it made me really happy.
Firstly, Jane Goodall came to my school and spoke. She's very eloquent and very funny. Read her new book "Reasons for Hope".
I was feeling really lonely and homesick just now until I read your blog. I know exactly how you feel. Exactly. Last year I wanted to transfer to GW and live at home. This place was nothing compared to DC. Everyone seemed so shallow and dumb compared to all the awesome people at home. I think for all of us it's really hard right now. When you graduate Wilson and spend your whole summer with your friends in the city you love...I don't think any of us will find anything like it.
But we will move on. I mean, I still hold DC in this high regard, but I've learned to appreciate what I have here. I've come out of this sort of culture shock in the somewhat-rural Ohio and the only way I did that and only way that prevented me from transferring was joining the frisbee team. Seriously. My other teammates have affirmed this as well. I joined last spring and went to tournaments and had a great time and worked out and the coolest people who remind me the most of my friends back home are those on the team. I mean you don't have to play frisbee of course but you have to do something. You need people to say hi to when you walk by them, people to sit with when you're just standing there awkwardly holding your heavy tray of food, people who will be down with the same things you are. I know this feeling. It still finds its way towards me sometimes.
The world is not ending however. A bunch of us are coming home for fall break in a week and then there's Thanksgiving and then winter break, spring break, and like 4 months of summer again. Alo is totally right, being here makes me love DC sooo much more. And when you come home, everyone is pumped again. Each time you go back to school it gets better. And better, really. You aren't alone. My campus is small and I thought I had exhausted my search for cool people. But they show up. After you get involved with something on campus they make their cameo.
I love your blogs. I feel so much less homesick reading what you have to write. So don't feel sad, just play the part of Johnny High School for a while (except in college) and open up to people. While you do that think about where you are in time--you are right here and now.
I also have to rebut Gabe's assessment that we are all loner's based on the assumption that we all perceive through the prism of our own experience. An egocentric worldview does not correlate to an isolationist one, and Hegel’s alienation theory was not a reference to physical or social isolation from our surroundings (Our very perceptions of our surroundings are by their nature isolated from one another and thus we all exist in a state of perceptual alienation. Applying this to social loners is a gross bastardization). Your application of this theory is very abstract here as well, as it is usually discussed in the context of man in relation to his labor (Marx's adaptation of Hegel). Further, even if we held this assumption to be relevant in the context of Iscoe’s statement, your subsequent corollary that the real aim of raising Hegel was to reinforce the importance of recognizing our unique individuality makes no sense. You’ve just established a constant. This doesn't add to the exclusivity of our personalities. I presume your attempt to link the two is based more in the social conditioning that you, and indeed we were all privy too.
Nietzsche once mused that the social loner was something of a noble barbarian, separated from the heard of humanity through his insistence of some form of self-definition not dependent on those around him. I'm not saying David Iscoe is a noble barbarian, but perhaps he would attain psychic utility in thinking of himself as such.
Posted by: Lukas Manneun at October 8, 2004 12:00 AMhip/hep new header image.
Posted by: farbs at October 8, 2004 01:10 PMdude growing + orthrelm warehouse next door nov 26
Posted by: sdafdafds at October 9, 2004 02:42 AMwhere'd you see that?
Posted by: farbs at October 9, 2004 11:29 AMcollaborative?
Posted by: JRus at October 9, 2004 11:50 AMi saw it on the website for kork agency, they do booking for growing. also, they said they'd play a show here . fuckin sweet
Posted by: safdasd at October 9, 2004 02:17 PMwhat day of the week is that? Thanksgiving break aye?
Posted by: JRuss at October 9, 2004 03:50 PMfriday, and yeah i think so .. . .. . . .
Posted by: fsadfsda at October 9, 2004 04:30 PMWant to see Growing at the Warehouse like last time, or was that too much for you?
Posted by: JRuss at October 9, 2004 08:35 PMHi, it's that wierd girl that directed Skin of Our Teeth, I'm not quite sure how I happened upon your blog, (well other than the fact that I've been temping and spend countless mindnumbing hours surfing) but it's quite excellent. I wish I had wise and happy-making words for you on the whole college adjustment thing, but I don't -- since right now I'm pretty much still struggling through the post-college adjustment thing. Keep ya head up and represent DC.
take care,
Hannah
you should be crying in your picture.
llora, college boy. llora. ahora.
so tell me.
how's your ballad coming?
I don't usually post comments on these things much, or ever at that, but I was really struck by your entry and felt compelled to comment. I will say what almost everyone else on here has said, I miss DC so much its crazy. I am also having a hard time adjusting to my new life here. All the people are weeeeird and friendly and trusting. They don't read books and only watch MTV. They don't know what right-wing or left-wing politics implies (no that was only my roommate I don't know about others). But hell, its so different from DC people.
I have forgotten why I wanted to come here. Its tough for these other places to live up to DC and I know I make it worse for myself by shutting myself off from enjoying Madison, I just compare everything to DC and how much better it was there. The key I have found is to appreciate what you can. It could be a lot worse. And Josh I think you have it down to just be cool with yourself. Being able to eat dinner alone is a feat for many people. Everyone keeps saying we will meet people and I have to hope that they are right. But yeah, enough rambling, I admire your resolve not to give into that American culture crap. No fucking way, all the cliched things these people do make me try to stand out more and say screw their urban outfitters, livestrong-bracelet, mtv cultured selves. They are all just insecure clones of the embodiment of american youth culture.
Posted by: Elizabeth at October 13, 2004 01:04 AMyou guys rule. Thanks for the care.
The next wave is settting in; I am now going days without speaking a full sentence whatsoever. With the exception of the often "pah-don me" and the occasional "No, I don't have a Ukrops card" and sometimes the "under 21, but if you wanna . . well, X me up then" I don't really speak complete sentences. Maybe the kids here don't get the "accent", I just sound like a moron, too much ecstasy has cut a slur in my embouchure or whatever the fuck the voice is made of. I'm a man who enjoys a good rant or pointless record store argument, but now, ain't nobody talking to i. Social fucking reject. The dance of days.
Posted by: JRuss at October 13, 2004 02:33 AMDrac! Spork UAE. Vaht? Nod ion.
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