The Turn of the Tide?

Class was cancelled today, so I get an hour to doof around. I thought I should spend it on here. I have not been fair, my dear friend. We have grown apart, and I fear it's my fault.

Things have been good. Spanish is manageable. The key to college is figuring out what you can ignore. In my case, there are two classes I can virtually ignore: American Cultures 201 and English 124. I still go to them-skipping has always seemed too intoxicating to try- but I put virtually no effort into them. By sticking my head in the sand once in awhile, I've been able to free up a lot of time for myself, time to watch viral videos and read magazines. Today, I watched four face plants in succession and read about the fog forests of Chile. It was cool: as I read about the fog forests, my pages started to get soggy (the humidity is over 100% today. This asshole needs an umbrella). It seemed staged almost.

As the campus warms up, all the hibernating hippies start to bloom. One has to edge around the drum circles to resist the pull of peace. I've seen some other stuff, too. I watched a scrawny little dude climb an oak, all while his friends pelted him with Frisbees. I saw a massive Nerf gun war. Man have Nerf guns changed. They have loadable clips now. You should have seen the murderous smirk on this one kid's face when he popped out his clip like some kind of action hero. Before he could launch a Nerf grenade or grunt a one-liner ("I'm sending you foam" would have done nicely), his friend began batting him with an open umbrella, Nerf dart shrapnel ricocheting in every direction. Freaks, I tell you. In addition to the freaks, there has been a huge explosion in food vendors. This is a good thing. There's a tamale lady on my way to class. Once I make it to the ATM, she's going to need a separate cart just for me. Spring is doing a lot for us, melting our icy exteriors, clearing the haze, even if we are getting a little congested from the new allergens floating around. It's doing wonders for me, at the very least. Two days ago, the sun was dipping over a really pretty arch I walk under, and I was listening to some song. I think it was "Idioteque" by Radiohead. Awesome. Moments like that keep me around. Should I be inured by a constant, pleasant climate, I think I'd miss times like that. You need the bad to appreciate the good sometimes. I'll be down to my standard T-shirt and cargo shorts soon, and I'll settle into what I am yet again. I do change quite a bit after the school year is over. But I'll save a later post for an ode to summer. There are other things to discuss.

I am falling in love. Is it ever expected? Don't we all think it will never happen? Should we nourish it? Do we let it grow on its own? Isn't that the only way to prove it's real? How do I know I'm there in the first place? Susan has slid into my life like an arm into a sleeve after dropping into it like a meteor. It was almost like I didn't have time to be wary or uncomfortable around her. It was like fate said,"It's going to happen, so why not just skip all the pointless awkwardness?" But now that she's here, she's like a natural, organic part. She's the only person I can't seem to get sick of. I've mentioned it before: I get really weary of company, everyone, my best friends and family. I kept waiting for her to touch a nerve, get too close, hang around too long, but it never happened. I take her with me everywhere- the gym, the library, the cafeteria, the town, the laundry rooms, the computer labs. She's omnipresent. She's an enhancement, like music or food; she just makes everything better, every setting. EVERYONE loves her, in fact, including ex-boyfriends. One sent her a three-page, handwritten letter, another calls her up regularly and tells her they're going to get married. It's like a personality cult or something. I couldn't be happier about her.

But I'm not fixed, far from it. And it's heartbreaking to admit because I thought the problem was a problem of a "someone" that wasn't there. While I've told Susan that she keeps me connected to the world, a sort of liaison between myself and the stuff I all to easily drift away from, there's still something keeping me from being happy. John Muir once said, "I was on the the world, but was I in it?" I think about that quote almost every day. I don't know enough about him to call him my personal hero, but the more I learn the more I think I might start. We're both avid wilderness trekkers, and it seems like he and I have a mutual problem. Sometimes, when I'm really, really, bone crushingly, rocking back and forth sad, I say to myself, "There's nothing here for me." What if that's true? What if this store just doesn't have what I need in stock? Ever look at those giant lists of occupations or hobbies? Ever take the bull by the horns and just systematically build your life? I do it all the time, and my hand hurts from all the slashes I've made. And when I've scratched off nearly every profession, I'm left with the same dismal prospects: writer, historian, classicist, journalist, columnist, conservationist, environmental lawyer, professor. I haven't lived enough to really know, but nothing on this list really grabs me. These decisions are supposed to be so magical, so powerful, almost like you're getting claimed, like it's not even you that's making the decision (Think Sorting Hat or Excalibur). And yet, here I sit, making pros and cons tables, looking at salary charts, markets, brass tacks, bare facts, nuts and bolts, practical, pragmatic, rational BULL SHIT. Nothing in me leaps when I think about the future. Nothing lights up. God, what I wouldn't give to just know something for once, deep down in my gut, with intuition and certainty. My decision needs to come soon. There's no more excuses. I'm not new here anymore, and I'm certainly not young, not really. And then there's the question of whether or not this is even that important. Is a job just a job? Well, I guess it is for some people. Maybe I'm going at this the wrong way? Maybe I should find something safe, secure, and lucrative so I can enjoy my life in the spaces between.

This library is freaking raucous as hell. There's a black dude with a tie-dye knit cap singing and dancing at his work station like he's from an iPod commercial. There's frenetic, hysterical freshmen wringing each other out for forgetting their part of the project, saying things like, "We're fucked, man. WE'RE FUCKED." I see people on facebook, espn.com, yahoo, and wikipedia. There's mugs, thermoses, cups, and bowls. I need to leave, probably. I can't focus.

All in all, though, there's pretty much no drama in my life. That would be a good thing if it didn't mean there's also a dearth of stories. Those are my favorite things to write about. Hmmm, well there are some, but don't know how I could put them here... Maybe I should have kept this private...Well, if they get better, I'll consider taking this underground. I could devote this whole thing to stories.

Oh, I interviewed for a Wolverine summer camp job last weekend. I kicked ass, I think. It's a great job: Free room and board, decent weekly stipend, easy and fun work. I showed up in a T-shirt with a nominal collar and some jeans. The fuckers on my right and left looked like they were about to complain about the 90% tax on their bonuses. The women were sharp, too. Skirts and blouses.

I've been listening to different music this year. January was Radiohead month. February was kind of different. I tried listening to some blues, like the Black Keys, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Ry Cooder. March has been REALLY scrambled. I went to a Wynton Marsalis concert with Franz, which made me delve into my jazz stuff for a week. I have a lot of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane on here, as far as bebop goes, but I also have a bunch of other saxophonists that I'm just now remembering. After that, I found this album from Britain by a group called Grammatics (their album is self-titled). It's fucking awesome, every track. Try to steal it. Yesterday, new albums from The Decemberists and Mastodon came out. I've listened to the former, and I can't get my hands on the latter yet. More stuff is on the way, though.

Things are getting better, but I don't know for how long or for what reason, actually. I'm nervous, but I don't think I'm going to think about all this anymore. There's enough here for me to enjoy right now, and I'm going to do just that.