Tabula Rasa

I've now reached a pretty scary place in the history of this blog, and it may or may not bear some parallels to the place I'm at in my life right now. I have nothing to write about. Find the Alex of two weeks ago and he would tell you the exact same stories, fears, updates. College is supposed to be a time of growth, a time when your mind opens like a daylilly for the sun. You're supposed to transform, change, invert, shift, reconsider, and explore your life. Yet here I sit after an entire weekend doing nothing but watching two full seasons of "The Sopranos" and just waiting for Monday. And it's not that I don't try! I get spam from every "let's mix it up!", "get involved!", "build your resume!" group on campus. NOTHING seems worth it, though. Tonight, for instance, the Honors College was hosting a Halloween Movie Night, but I'd seen all the movies they were going to show, and I didn't enjoy them the first time anyways. That's not the point, right? It's just an excuse to be social. However, I haven't met anyone here that's interesting enough to waste 90 minutes with while a shitty movie drones on and on in the backround. Besides, it's all the more difficult to get any real conversation going being a loner and all. I mean, you just can't escape the lapses into inside jokes that marginalize the stranger to the snack table. It's just human nature, nothing blameworthy; people want to talk to their friends about what's familiar to them. So, needless to say, I skipped that shit. Am I overly critical? Or worse, just making excuses to hide my shyness or nervousness? More and more, I'm starting to think not. I speak the truth above. I just don't find anything going on interesting at all. As proof, I DO go to some things. I just don't meet any people there.

Nick has been a real shit lately. I'm starting to think he's pissed at me for something. He only responds to direct questions now and only with yes or no. Even his incessant complaining has ceased (I guess they'll need some winter coats in Hell!). OR, maybe he's just quietly, gradually settling into his true self, a self devoid of superficial talkativeness and perfunctory kindness. Now, we're bystanders to eachother's lives- flies on the wall, transparent ghosts in the room. We stroll around in our boxers, scratch our balls, and pick our noses now. I wouldn't say it's comfort really that's allowing this new level of intimacy but rather a new ability to ignore eachother. It's like we're now stage coach horses with blinders on.

I guess I like poetry. I read a lot tonight for class tomorrow. It was all obscure modern poetry, postively loaded with ambiguity. I am a little jealous of the poet in each case. He, at least, never has to hunt for or debate the meanings of his poems. He doesn't have to sift through the socio-economic, historical, biographical, zeitgeist of his time, and it's almost a little rude for him to make us do so. It's like they sat around all day writing new, pointless languages for everyone to learn, just expecting us to throw immense amounts of time and confusion into their projects so they could smile with a knowing, pitying smile, like a kid witholding the name of their crush from an inquistive friend. Then again, that is part of the fun. It's challenging, subjective, and intense. I just get really fucking angry when the asshole who puts the pieces together before I do thinks he's suddenly Shakespeare.

I bought an 84 dollar razor from the mall on Saturday. Excited, I opened as soon as I got to my dorm and sheared myself. I heard somewhere that "you can tell how depressed someone is by how long their beard is and how much of a douche bag someone is by how thin their goatee is." Haha, right on, eh?

Well, I have to be getting to bed soon. I'm going to start thinking about what to write about a little ahead of time since this blog is sort of becoming stagnant. Updates without insight are just about worthless. Maybe I'll adopt a theme for each one? Or just a huge question?