Friday Five

okay, so i know it's not exactly friday any longer.  but today was spent teaching, getting a costume together, and then seeing a movie, so i couldn't exactly fit into the proper time frame...

Friday Five:  

Current Top 5 Favorite People

(in no particular order)

1.  Leigh - Leigh and I met in my African American Performing Arts Experience class (yes, that's a real class).  She correctly identified my Matt Nathanson shirt - can you say love at first sight?  She's really one of the most awesome people I've ever met, and I'm going to be really sad when she's abroad in Amsterdam next semester.

2.  Elie - I feel cheesy putting my best friend slash roommate down on this list, but really, it's pretty impossible for Elie not to be one of my current favorite people.  When you live with someone, you either love them or hate them, and I definitely love Elie.  She basically keeps me sane by letting me vent and then amuses me by one of her own tirades - you have not lived life until you've seen Ferocious Pez in action.  

3.  Adam - Perhaps one of the oddest people I've ever met - this boy carries a stack of index cards and calls it his "hipster PDA."  But he's not a hipster in that "I shit gold and wear my sunglasses 24/7" way, he's much cooler than that.  He loves polaroids and actually showed me how to make a picture frame out of an empty polaroid film container.  We tell each other riddles and are ridiculously snarky to one another.  I call him Jew, it's pretty excellent.

4.  Jason - Yes, my brother.  And though he really doesn't deserve to be on this list since he just told me he's playing a gig instead of flying home to celebrate my 21st birthday with me... I had already planned this list out before he told me that, so if I take him off, I'll have to think of someone else to take his place, and that's stupid.  So.  Yes he's on the list, but in the probation kind of way.

5.  Mrs. Rice - Another Rice to make the list!  But seriously.  She buys me my favorite foods, makes me breakfast every Thursday and doesn't mind me living in her house and leaving my shit all over the place.  It's absolutely incredible how selfless she is and how quickly she adopted me into the family.

Why technology will never be enough

We have come so far.

Consider the past hundred years.  Cars, planes, telephones, computers, the Internet.  Think about the past decade alone.  Mp3 players, mobile phones with internet, cameras that take videos and cars that tell you where to drive. 

I'm not that advanced technologically, especially compared to, say, my best friend-slash-roommate.  I don't follow podcasts, I don't read keynotes and I rarely watch tech TV shows or follow the blogs that would keep me toeing the cutting edge of where our society is headed- robots, gas-less cars, teleporting.

But tonight, the limits of technology really have hit me.  I've spent almost an hour in the photo lab trying to get these pictures to print, and the magnitude of difference from what I saw in my eye that night to what appears in my camera, to what goes on the screen and then becomes the physical print... it's insane.  Imagine living in color and then watching a video of yourself in black and white- the difference is shattering.  We pride ourselves on how we've come so far, how this camera's color gamut is extensive and this lens can let in so much light, but compared to the human eye, they still fall so terribly short.

I don't know how anyone can believe we formed out of a monkey, that there wasn't a Being who had all of us and our intricacies, our personalities, our flaws all in mind before pressing the "create" button.  Like, for real?

I may not be able to create a video, give traffic-avoiding directions or give any sort of tangible memory.  But my eyes and my ears can see and hear the most amazing sights and sounds that nothing any man makes will ever be able to recreate in their original glory.

We can keep trying, but we will never be God.

I'm waking up with a new sensation

I love academic advisors. 

Okay, so most of the time that's not true.  I really hate the restrictions they lay down, the courses they pick, all the doors they close because of "prerequisites."  I dislike the University, as it were, and academic advisors are basically the minions of said University.  So we don't always get along.

But all that changed today, my friend.  

So I go in to see Erin.  And we start laying out next semester's plan (can you believe it's already time to think about that?!), and she looks at my record, looks at me, and goes, "You've only got seven Comm courses and one Econ left."

EPIC WORDS.

I flipped my shit.

This means that after five courses in the spring, I only have 3 classes left.  One of those is an internship.  Two are "classes."  One internship, one media studies course, and probably that Econ.

And I'm free.

That brush of glory I was looking for?  It just showed up.

I always turn the car around

I am entirely unsatisfied with life right now.

I realized how boring I have become.  I don't have any glorious tales of college debauchery, depraved make-outs or even innocent mischief to entertain.  All of my time is spent doing homework or working.  Literally.  Save a few episodes of SVU (my newest addiction), I'm 100% schoolified.

I keep wanting that... brush of glory, the ridiculous story that provides enough fodder for a good week's of reliving.  A homeless man accosting me.  Getting it on in the dark room.  A food fight in the cafeteria.  Almost being hit by a car.  Seriously, anything to just relieve me of the paranoia tied to my planner.

I never thought this would be me, you know?  I was supposed to be the crazy, independent, music video fantasy, indie girl who would walk barefoot, play the piano and write horrible poetry.  Not the girl burdened by textbooks, a fucking Mac laptop and responsibilities to the corporate University! When did this happen?  How did I come to this?

There's got to be more.  Where are the corners to turn, the doors to open, the windows to crawl through?  Is 21 going to be the prize behind door number two?  Will the party really kick into high gear with presents, fire and the spiked punch?

Or am I pinning hopes on the donkey that are only going to leave me dizzy and totally missing the target?

I'm tired of getting even, let's get odd, odd, odd...

I first found Matt Nathanson when I was seventeen.  His album, Beneath These Fireworks, pretty much rocked my world.  As Elie and I were discussing on the way home from the show last night, his music became so much a part of my identity.  It also became my inspiration- to start writing music, to keep writing music, to keep trying to put these imperfect thoughts into perfect, cohesive words.  (Most of the time, I fail.)

My number one concert of all times was seeing him at Jammin Java for the double show, with my Matt.  Him, guitar, crowd.  It was religious and blasphemous and so fucking fantastic that nothing, nothing could ever touch that night.  God.  I honestly can't even begin to try to describe.

Last night's show was amazing.  I had some of the best people in the world around me, I shot the whole concert, he played Angel and a brand new song, Bottom of the Sea that ripped me up.  The transparency with which he played Falling Apart killed.  He was funny and obscene and everything he always is.

I've always disapproved a bit of those fans that abandon musicians when they achieve what every other person strives for in this world - success.  Success is not bad.  Success is what keeps your musician touring, my elite, music friends.  Your removed bitterness at "your" artist's climb to the top is shallow and meaningless.  I am thrilled for Matt that he is finally getting to show the world how fantastic he is.  The world is realizing real music still exists.  They're about to be inspired.

But.

I love it, I love him... but I'm never going to get another show like Jammin Java.  And yeah.  That makes me bitter.

I would cover myself in you

I love this song.

He said something when I interviewed him that really struck a chord with me.  We were talking about relationships, and while comparing that struggle to the fight with the record industry, he said, "You think that 'when I date someone that's amazing, beautiful and cool, it'll make me beautiful and cool.'  It's going to fill in all these places that aren't full."

I think that is one of the most beautiful sentiments ever crafted.

I think, deep down, I know that I wanted to date Kevin to fix myself.  I wanted to date him because he was so new, so different.  So unlike anything I'd ever seen, let alone had the chance to touch.  To mean something to.  He made me believe I was beautiful, and that's something I still haven't (and perhaps never will) believe.  He made me believe that out of a sea of people, a boy could pick me.

Maybe, in a way, I was looking for validation, but it was more a search for that missing piece of yourself.  The Origin of Love.  You think you recognize a part of yourself in someone else's eyes, you think that maybe if you could just communicate and find that soul-shattering love, it would all be okay.

I suppose that's what he was talking about.  What this song is about.

But I learned that the soul-shattering love isn't all that it's cracked up to be.  It hurts, it strangles and it leaves you so impeccably broken.  I learned there are some people the soul can never forgive.  I learned that even though there are days that I've realized I've made it through without thinking about Kevin, I will never repeat that experience.

I learned that he was right, and I was wrong.

Way to Normal

Today, I went out and bought my first CD in about a year.

It started out because I didn't want to spend money on music. It continued because I didn't have money to spend on music. It continued further because I started getting music from friends and the school for free. But it's finally stopped because I've started feeling guilty and now, though still a poor college student, I've established enough of an income that when I find an album worth purchasing, I'll splurge.

It's actually a delightful feeling, as weird as that sounds. I didn't download because I got a "rush" out of it, I did it because, well, I was lazy. But holding that CD in my hand, trying to rip the damn plastic wrap off with my teeth, opening it the way Tricia showed me... it took me back, I guess, to the old days of each CD being a little adventure. A complete packing of sound, graphics and words that would rock my world for weeks at a time, never leaving my side. Something about the tangibility, the solidness of the CD and the case and the unique smell of printing the CD insert and plastic just brought on this onslaught of absolute adoration for music. I felt 15 again, buying the Gutterflower and Say It Like You Mean It and GOODbye, Moon.

I haven't felt 15 in a long time.