Drove down to Bill's Music House today with Miguel. Saw on their website they had a black, maple fingerboard Music Man Sterling bass; thought I'd go pick it up with my combined savings/windfall money. It didn't exist. Guy told me they could custom order it for me, 5-6 months' wait, no return policy. Fuck that. Walked away with a set of DR Hi-Beam .045-.105s for when I finally do get one. Which will be soon. Probably. Going to order one. Now I have to decide, for the hundredth time, whether to get a maple fretboard or a rosewood; I've been playing maple on my Jazz copy, and it sounds snappy for slap, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect it's almost too crisp for a lot of fingerstyle or picking, especially with the ultra-aggressive Music Man base tone...and whether to get that neck single coil...like this black, rosewood, HS one on--um, this website (you can't take it from me!)--oh, fuck, oh, shit.
Still, shows what I know about music store websites.
Mike Skinner was so eloquent: "Today I have achieved absolutely nought." Actually, not altogether true: started to get my next research project on the launchpad, finally. Goddamn department (my department! Surely you can make concessions for your own undergrads?) won't allow me access to their x-ray crystallography machine. Shame, that; it would've been fantastic bragging rights to put crystallography experience on my grad school application. Instead I'm going to do the supported membrane project. The proteins I'll be using were made by a professor from Tulane; he's coming to give a talk next Monday. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to him at that time and figure out what I'm dealing with. Not that I'll have any clue anyway.
If something doesn't happen soon, I'm going to flip. I get pissed that nobody I know is back. Then I realize I don't really know anybody. Then I realize the people I do know usually don't do things involving me anyway. Then I get really pissed. Serves me right for being so goddamn distant, I suppose. Then again, I'm not really sure how much I want to take up hobbies I don't like and hang out with people I don't find that interesting just to feel not alone. Talk about perspective. Do I really want to take up playing video games and watching Battlestar Galactica with Esteban and that crew just to have something to do and someone to be with? A long time ago I made the resolution to not do things I didn't want to do to begin with, just to get out and be with people; part of my grand plan, back in the day, to break my perceived dependence on people who didn't necessarily make me happier when I spent time with them. A year later, I still can't decide whether it was worth it.
Stopped by the library today and picked up Chris Adrian's Children's Hospital on Maria's recommendation. I remember back in the day when she ordered House of Leaves from Amazon just because I wouldn't stop raving about it (Lord, I owe that girl a lot); three years later, it's time to return the favor. Fitting, I suppose, that she would describe Adrian as "a more comprehensible and likeable Danielewski." Just as she's always been more comprehensible and likeable than me, I suppose. I keep insisting that we are the same in many ways; she keeps denying. All I know is, being friends with her feels a lot like being friends with myself, something which doesn't actually happen all that often in reality.
Follow-up to last night: so--the ex-girl has begun to move on. I must say, I was somewhat holding my breath. Well, not quite. Thought a couple times it might even be nice if she would get together with someone else, just to put a definitive conclusion to this.
But now I have to wonder what it was she learned--if indeed I did make a difference. Quite possible that she's right and, in fact, I did not. Who am I to say? As far as I can tell, only an angel could love her, someone who could give and not ask for anything in return--I used to think I was something like that, but then I realized I was wrong. I wonder if she thinks being with someone else--if that's what she chooses to do--can be different from how it was to be with me. I wonder if she thinks there won't come a point when something has to be given up, some preexisting principle or belief from either side, when ways of life must change, and some sense of identity must be sacrificed.
It's doable, certainly. Some people work that way. I'm not one of them and that doesn't mean anything to me. But if that's how she decides to live--she can do whatever she wants, obviously, but I reject that particular M.O., and if she chooses it, it will likely only deepen my belief in the collective commitment-phobia of my generation. Not that it will be her fault, of course.
On a side note, some days death seems to follow closer than others. I am still right here. The Johnny Cash version, you bastards.
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paragraph 4: you read my mind. i'm still convinced your resolution is the right way. a lonesome way, certainly, but the right one. because it only proves painful when you break it and choose to suffer mediocre company--all in the pursuit of activity (any activity), something to do. to appease some weird delusion that you're missing out, that you're abnormal. then when you cave, you're just left wondering what desperation drove you to suffer such dismal activities or disenchanting company. that's my opinion, at least. though i like to think that maybe there's one or two people out there who might be interested in sharing that same limited co-seclusion/exclusion. you know, just so you don't end up so completely isolated. those dreams (assumptions) have only been thwarted thus far for me so don't put much stock in it. not just yet. but it's nice to think... not so nice to wait, though. and wait. and wait. and wait.
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