The_Raging_Conformist's Xanga

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:51:46 GMT

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/friend_somehow_bad_at_hanging_out

So allll those times I've thrown my hands up in disgust and wondered what the flying f was wrong with me, perhaps it is that I "lack the innate human ability to be an enjoyable person to spend time with."

(I wish this was a real condition. Maybe then they could like medicate, or something.)

I hate this feeling. I hate how it never ever ever goes away for long. I hate how I could at least try to make it better, but don't, because I am afraid of being awkward and un-fun. I hate how there is so little to do around here I find it worthless to even try to invite people over, because they'll have more fun at home with the cable instead of trying to make conversation with boring boring boring slow unfunny me--I mean come on, we don't even have a fucking movie collection. I hate artificially structuring my day so I will feel better that I didn't have anyone to do anything with. I HATE days like this, when it doesn't work, and I'm left spending the night alone on the couch staring at a computer screen because even the rest of my hermit-like family has managed to get out of the house and have lives and I can't figure out anyone to go have a life with. I hate how dependent I am on "living" through Facebook when other people actually do real things and have real friends, out in the real world.

This research thing is scaring me. I know I'm supposed to be doing more than I am doing, but I don't know what, exactly, so I'm not doing it. Coming in more? Asking more questions? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE QUESTIONING? Also I'm super bad at the method because it's supposed to be "random" and I'm having a really hard time finding fibers I can actually keep track of to follow so by the time I know I CAN follow it to an end, I'm at the end, and I don't know where I started and I have to go back and arbitrarily pick a point which means taking time agonizing over where is "random" enough and also means that it won't be REALLY random at all, and I can't tell the difference between a true end and a cut one even though she's explained it to me and they're probably just going to have to junk all my data OR it's going to screw up their results.

And the other project, who the flip even knows. I get the gist of what I'm supposed to do, but I don't even know where I'm supposed to start looking for freaking pictures of animal skulls. Which ones do I need? Where do I find them? Was all this already relayed, or should be common sense, and I'm going to look like a giant oblivious idiot if I ask?

Basically, I'm not an independent mind at all. Independence freaks me out, because there's too much chance I'll screw it up. Give me orders I can follow to the letter and I'll work all day on them, but give me some fuzzy out-there half-objective and I can't even figure out where to start.

I do not, repeat, DO NOT want to work in retail; I would almost rather work at McDonald's if that wasn't practically a symbol for the ultimate in no-skill, debasing summer jobs. Making idle pleasantries with strangers and pacifying them whenever there's a problem? Small talk and conflict management are possibly the two things in the entire universe I hate doing most. Just passing the test on the application so JCPenney would consider hiring me required flat-out lies. So IF I survive the interview on Wednesday (UGH UGH UGH), I have myself employment I will dread every stinking minute of. But what other options do I have that let me keep any sort of dignity? I milked the only connection I have for...this here JCPenney spot, so: abject poverty. Ain't no dignity in that.

Ain't no skydiving in that, either. Skydiving=first thing I've been legitimately excited for in a long while.

AUGH, I need to figure out where I want to RA for my school-year job. This is very important; this could end up deciding once and for all what I major in. Plus it could actually be a connection with a professor that counts.

And I've been so ashamed about not doing any community service things all year, I need to figure out which service-y type organization to join next year. Probably it should be EPATT or one of the other tutoring ones, so I can get tutoring experience so I could maybe actually get hired to be a Psych tutor.

...I don't want to move...

I know I am spoiled, living at Grandma's. I get better food (super expensive bread, real butter, lots more fresh produce that's basically what I ask for, homemade salad dressing) and laundry done for me and toiletries (and other stuff) bought for me and the paper to read every morning. And I super-selfishly don't want to give that up.

Plus, I know Nestle stays there. I will miss my cat.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:13:49 GMT

Watching my brother turn down a laser tag outing with one of the 2 guys I've ever known him to hang out with because he has unbreakable plans to lie on the couch with Katrina whispering sweet whatevers and evidently attempting to meld themselves into a single organism does something unpleasant to the pit of my stomach. Danger, Will Robinson! This is territory I know waaaay too well.

But of course, he's probably going to be able to pull off the throw-away-your-life-for-your-relationship maneuver, the bastard. The summer before starting college is all about letting go of all the unimportant crap that doesn't matter; he's just letting go a little too enthusiastically. What happens if things with Katrina go to pieces? He still has the chance to build himself a whole new life.

Whereas I lost myself Lilly...Lilly who I got an Asian big sib family with, who I discovered frat parties with, a fellow high school nerd looking to remake her image and live it up a bit in a new big place filled with cool people without preconceptions...and Emma...Emma who loves Neil Gaiman and House, who I made a mix CD of the best stuff I could scrounge out of my music collection for, who saved an entire weekend for me early on by taking me to a cocktail party on East Campus one night, then procuring Fight Club the next...and left myself with a big blasted hole in the center of my life which I tried to salvage by clinging to the ragged edges and grafting myself onto the 3B scene a few months too late. Partially my fault for treating them like a damn TV show I never had to take part in, just provide the laugh track at the appropriate moments, and partially theirs for being the clique-iest clique on the face of the planet, the You People never accepted me. So next year I have to start pretty much all over, in a tiny house with people I'm sure will grow on me but none who jumped out as "I want to be this person's friend," and that happens so often with me and Stanford people I'm rather underwhelmed.

I wish the David-Katrina juggernaut had manifested itself last year. I would have been a lot wiser in the life-management department with such a shining example of what not to do dancing around in my skull.

I wish I hadn't freaked out and dropped synchro. Fat lot of good all that free time I was so obsessed with losing did me. Where are the legions of friends I was giving myself time to cultivate? Where is the idea of a direction in life I was getting with the opportunity to take more classes?

(In fact, it seems about all I did with that free time was get fat.)

I wish I knew if this was really the right way to handle things.

I wish I would stop obsessing over it... But enter David-Katrina, or emo music, or any time I am alone which is way too often, or most especially any time I am alone except for David-Katrina, and off goes the old brain like it was jabbed with something large and pointy. The only, I mean THE ONLY, thing still holding me to it is that I told him about it, so going back on myself now would come across even worse. Otherwise...screw my emotional well-being. It's down the tubes anyways what with Attempted Body Meld colonizing the couch on a daily basis; every time even the idea of a scab begins to form, it's ripped away again. He's about as healthy for me as Chernobyl, I am well aware, but I miss him anyway. And I can't quell the fear that I'm losing something irreplacable in this vain quest for distance/closure/moving on/whatever. It's just not going to happen. Some small and ridiculous part of my brain was reawakened by Round 2 and now cannot for the life of me be silenced; it doesn't believe it's over and I can't make it see reason and think otherwise. So why willingly smother one of my oh-so-precious close relationships in an attempt to resolve feelings that can't be resolved?

Or I'm being weak and having no force of will and crumbling in the face of a little bit of pain that will actually turn out better for me in the end, if I let it.

I don't even know.

I wish summer would hurry up and freaking end.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:44:21 GMT

I do desperately wish I could just shut off the jealousy circuit in my brain. Since when is that emotion ever good for anything.

Even if I HAD been on top of my shit and figured out a way to stay at Stanford over the summer, I would have found some way to screw it up and feel lonely and out of the loop anyway. (Or so I hope, for sanity's sake. God they are having so much fun.)

Friday, June 27, 2008

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:01:37 GMT

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html

This made me think, hard, about the type of person I've been and why I'm at Stanford and what I'm really getting out of it. I'd like to think Stanford's a little better at the free-spiritedness than all those stuffy sweater-vest Ivies, but maybe that's just our own brand of Californian arrogance. I recognize many if not most of the people I've met at Stanford in one half of the archetype set out by this article--upper middle class, sense of entitlement to the extreme, easy access to a wealth of opportunities, gravitating toward practical majors that will make them money fast. Not so much the other half--blindly following the system without curiosity, locked in to viewing intelligence only by the test scores, not asking the big questions. Most people at Stanford at least use their unfairly opened doors to do amazing things. In that particular half of Deresiewicz's critique, more, I see myself. I was your classic GPA whore in high school, and I really haven't yet shaken off that "take the classes that get you the grades" (even though that's no longer a guarantee :/) mind-set and really examined what I'm interested in and gone after it hardcore. The description of kids "sleepwalking off to college with no idea what they’re doing there" felt uncomfortably familiar. The article's right, Stanford provides well for those it lets into the club--I've got advising help any- and everywhere I turn, grant money practically floating around in the air for the taking, and world-class faculty to tackle world-class ideas with a bike ride away. But I've just been drifting along without a purpose or plan, watching others take the initiative and enjoy all their advantages. If Stanford force-feeds you opportunity, I've spent the past year being bulimic. Now, I have a summer research position almost entirely thanks to the "stanford.edu" tacked onto the end of my email address. Now, I really have no excuse not to get proactive and start determining my own future instead of arriving there by inertia alone.

But the whole deal with determining one course is that it blocks off all the others. Oh, opportunity cost. You and I have never been the best of pals, awesome TANSTAAFL pseudo-acronym or no.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:47:44 GMT

Okay.

So I am being a jerk and a half, because it sounds like Katrina's crying or something in the other room, and I refuse to be a considerate person and go...well, it's not like I have somewhere to go besides one of the bathrooms because people are sleeping in 2 of the rooms and the other one is David's, so I can't be EXCESSIVELY blamed...into a room with a closable door and give them some privacy. Also, I probably wasn't expected to take up the offer of watching Blade in the first place, and then I definitely should have taken the hint when Katrina said she didn't like the movie, let them stop it, and run along like a good enabling only-worth-my-absence older sister.

But you know what? Like it or not, y'all have a lonely, bitter college student awkwardly stuck back where she doesn't quite fit any longer for the next 3 months, and she is already sick of getting her face rubbed in all your cutesy PDA all over everything oh-so-happy-happy-happiness on a daily basis. I'm back with my family. That loves me. That is supposed to be an ESCAPE from feeling so goddamn alone and unwanted all the time. I'm all too eager to remind myself of things I'm supposed to be forgetting, and having one giant "look what you haven't had for months" production constantly parading in front of my face is just about the pinnacle of unhelpful. Because to tame the jealousy (yyeeeahhh, I'm a selfish slimeball, what's new) to where I can be a tolerable person to be around, I COULD just try to be a decent human being and be happy for their happiness, but I'd rather go running down my favorite rut in Memory Lane and comfort myself with the time someone felt that way about me. Which always brings up the hope that I can have that back. Which is an insane, retarded hope I HAVE to kill this summer.

So David-Katrina = massive impediment to a healing process that's already taken me way too long to get serious about = loss of one of the few people I've ever really connected with into the role of giggly, googly-eyed girlfriend whenever I see her in person = bringing out the worst side of me in full force.

(God I'm disgusting. Bitching about people for being happy and not paying attention to me me me and my stupid screwed-up life.)

Monday, June 02, 2008

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:19:52 GMT

I think I've already lost you
I think you're already gone
I think I'm finally scared now
You think I'm weak - but I think you're wrong
I think you're already leaving
Feels like your hand is on the door
I thought this place was an empire
But now I'm relaxed - I can't be sure

I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
I think I'm just scared - I think too much
I know this is wrong it's a problem I'm dealing

If you're gone - maybe it's time to go home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone - baby you need to come home
Cuz there's a little bit of something me
In everything in you

I bet you're hard to get over
I bet the room just won't shine
I bet my hands I can stay here
I bet you need - more than you mind

I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
I think I'm just scared - that I know too much
I can't relate and that's a problem I'm feeling

If you're gone - maybe it's time to go home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone - baby you need to come home
Cuz there's a little bit of something me
In everything in you

I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
I think I'm just scared - do I talk too much
I know this is wrong it's a problem I'm dealing

If you're gone - maybe it's time to go home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone - baby you need to come home
Cuz there's a little bit of something me
In everything in you

***

I need distraction. That does not come in the form of an essay.

I need to get the fuck away from him and...re...get over him. But until that is what I want, I will do nothing of the sort.

Well, until a week from now, I guess.

Plan: Institute an "I don't call you, you call me" rule, unspoken or not, whatever. DELETE HIS NUMBER FROM MY PHONE to hold myself to that.

...Now if only there was like a selective Facebook filter, I'd be golden.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Fri, 30 May 2008 23:53:52 GMT

So let's file that away under 2-week-clusterfucks-I-TOTALLY-didn't-need-while-end-of-the-year-work-is-eating-my-soul and try to move on with life? Yeeeugh. Now I KNOW he's not over me, but he changed his mind and doesn't want to act on it, which is severely frustrating. If he's aiming at letting it die over the summer, well, HOW much closer was I to attaining that goal previous to a certain jaunt by Lake Lag 2 Saturdays ago? I'll have to go through the same shit all over again, with the knowledge that I wouldn't have to if he wasn't such a wimp about being attached over the summer, thank you very much Jared Brewer. But I'm not even definitely sorted out on that; last word from Mr. Bane of my Existence was that "we can let next year be what it will or won't be then." What I have tried and tried to explain, and what is clearly not sinking in, is that leaving things open like that by definition leaves something hanging over my head all summer, whether or not he's cleared himself to go frolicking about the fields of Boulder (which I have legit opportunities to visit AT LEAST twice) footloose and fancy-free. I will be obsessing about how much contact is necessary so he doesn't forget everything about me, and how much makes it look like I'm trying too hard and being pursuant and having undue expectations...you know, the usual...and that's just a fact of life. Telling me to chill out, relax, and let things happen as they happen is noble, but quite useless: things happen as you make them happen. So my view is, as long as that's what my next 3 months look like, why the heck not enjoy the last couple weeks in which we know we like each other? But of course, I utterly failed in getting this across during the last Big Serious Discussion (I was embarrassed because it felt skeezily close to proposing a friends-with-benefits type of situation, which I've always thought was massively dumb) and now it's case closed, discussion over.

And this weekend, the let's-go-out-with-a-bang, last big partying weekend of the year, upon which I had designs, is now back to being bleh. I am watching YouTube music videos instead of doing a close reading in prep for my IHUM paper, and later, I will probably go have awkward times at a party or two with the ragtag assortment of kinda-friends who aren't at DKE initiation or being Asian and studious. Or forbidding themselves to party with me because their drunk selves don't follow their own rules.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Sun, 25 May 2008 16:14:23 GMT

Yay DTRing...I think we *finally* might be on the same page?

Shopping and movie and dinner now, and I won't have to obsessively keep checking my phone and then being disappointed, yay!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Sun, 25 May 2008 01:18:26 GMT

*exhales*

That didn't take long.

It might be all in my head, because I don't have anything concrete except his silence. Last actual interaction, he actually came over to talk when he noticed me sitting by the fountain around lunch on Friday. Then I got a 1-word answer to my "where are you living?" text...very legit, draw results had just come out (I'm in 717 baby yeah!!!!!!!!). Then based on what he'd been saying Thursday night, I kinda thought we'd be hanging out, but I didn't hear anything, didn't hear anything, so at around 10 I (noooooo, not this again...) threw away the ball and texted "what's up with you tonight?"...yes, it was failing to keep my cool and wait for his move, but I still legitimately didn't know if he was at a Mendicants gig, because he'd mentioned he had two of them this weekend, or what. Anyways I didn't get a response. And then I made the *brilliant* move of talking to my roommate, who mentioned the very good point I hadn't even considered in all my giddiness (which I still haven't clarified for sure, although Janice was at least doubtful) that I could just be a rebound, that I'm just serving as a convenient self-confidence boost because he knows I'm still into him. (If that's the case, I'm going to fucking KILL him.) So I flipped out massively and went to ask Janice... Janice is very good at telling you things you probably need to hear but definitely don't want to. (Along with some stuff that just pisses me off although I can't do anything about it without betraying her trust like whoa: apparently Jared decided, or is trying to pass himself off as a better person by saying, that I initiated things last Saturday. Sooo that'll be what all his friends think, when 100% absolutely no way would I ever, ever try anything against the possibility of being rejected and looking foolish. And apparently he thought the party was really awkward because I was there. #1, I didn't think it was awkward, I thought it was fun, although I was pretty self-consciously aware of how not awkward I was feeling. #2, if after 3.5 months me being around still made him feel awkward, that says really depressing things about our prospects of being just friends, however this shitshow turns out.) Jared is worried that our dynamic is only of the drunken-hookup variety. Jared doesn't really know what he wants, and is only doing this because he thinks I really want something.

So all of a sudden the carpet is yanked out from under my happy hormonal floating along--here I was thinking Thurs night was patching things up when actually it just proved how irrevocably screwed up all this is--and I'm suddenly convinced it's all crashing down around me and and he's having massive doubts and doesn't want to talk to me about them until *bam*, a la February, and it's 3 am and I'm not thinking rationally, so why not go jab at that ball some more with a 10-foot pole???? Didn't the fucking Ben situation teach me that 3-am desperation texts NEVER make things better???? I've gotten completely stonewalled thus far today, and Jen said he was singing at the wedding and gone today BUT I just ran into Joe the other Mendicant on my hall who said the wedding wasn't until tomorrow...which raises the possibility that she's covering for him. Yes I am that paranoid right now.

And literally NOTHING'S HAPPENED since I was fricking skipping down the halls in love with life.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Fri, 23 May 2008 06:19:01 GMT

Casual.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

First of all one of his friends got killed in a hit-and-run, so literally the first time I'd seen him since Massive DTR Discussion in which I was more than once warned that "it's not like we're picking up right where we left off," I was catapulted right back into the role of heavy-duty emotional support. And tonight showed, surprise of the century, that we are way too into each other to keep things casual on the physical side. So uh, I wasn't aware I'd been sucked into a wormhole...how did it suddenly become late January again?

This is doing awful, indescribable, heinous things to my mental state. If I haven't been literally transported through time, my life must have crossed wires with the plot of some movie. This doesn't HAPPEN in real life. You don't get a second chance. You don't get to stop punishing yourself for thinking the old thoughts and feeling the old feelings. Your ex doesn't suddenly start wanting you again.

It's like it's too good to be true; I'm just holding my breath for the letdown. One is inevitably coming--either this auspicious beginning peters out at some point, or starting 3 weeks from now I have to spend 3 whole months missing him.

Aiya.

...What the FUCK, Jared Brewer. What the fuck.