I Still Remember

Hit a new low today: Overdraft fees for overdraft fees. I completely fail at the economic system. And people wonder why I like socialism. People should just deposit checks right when I write them out to them. Not a month and a half later. I don't like keeping a lot of money in my checking account. Makes me paranoid as to what will happen if someone steals my ATM card. Of course, once again, it's shown that one should be just as paranoid of the authorities as the ones who try to sneak their way past it.

Or something. I need to start writing down every last damn transaction going through my checking account. Probably should've done that years ago. Real life? Approaching it in all the least convenient ways. An inconvenient reality, perhaps.

Long week. This semester is shaping up to be more homework than I've ever dealt with, in my life. Biological Physics is one problem set each week. So is ProbStats. These each take about an evening to complete. X-ray Crystallography is one problem set every two weeks. Advanced Poetry is one poem each week. Advanced Biophysics Seminar is approximately 200 pages of virology reading per week. If I can survive all of this, I might just have to start feeling pleased with myself.

Been sick. Virus and its symptoms nearly knocked me out on Monday. Benadryl nearly knocked me out on Tuesday. At some points on Tuesday, I actually felt like the nerve cells at the ends of my limbs were already going tingly, then numb, then falling asleep while my brain still kept up the good fight for consciousness. Been better for a couple of days. It's strange to be reminded that I have a body. That aspects of me exist outside of these rather disembodied thought processes. That made me sound like more of an ascetic than I actually am, I think. I hope.

Sitting in Williamson's Advanced Poetry on Wednesday, I was suddenly slammed by the overwhelming panic of "what the hell am I doing here?" Maybe it was the combination of coffee and little sleep. Maybe it was the realization that I was one of only two science students, and the only non-white person in a 15-person room. Most likely it was because I glanced at Mitch's poem (we'd passed them out) and, despite not actually reading it, saw that he'd begun it by referencing Shakespeare for an entire stanza. I've never read much Shakespeare--only what they made us read in high school English--and I've never referenced him in a poem (well, one, only obliquely and poorly, and I can't even remember what it was), and I probably never will. This entire concept of "literary tradition" flew right over my head a long time ago; and not just the traditions involved in writing, the tradition involved in the subculture of writing and writers, or whatever the fuck that is--I've known too many of them to not observe trends emerging.

No, I will never reference Shakespeare. No, I will never read a new hot-off-the-press novel every week. No, I will never be a taster of wines. No, I will never be able to hang out at bars late on weeknights because my first class the next day isn't until 1PM. No, I will probably never study in Europe (though I plan to visit, eventually). No, I will never do, or be any of these things that seem to make one "cultured." All these things that, for one fatigued moment, seemed to roll up into one giant freight train that slammed me right in the middle of the forehead.

I make it sound like more of a revelation than it was; still, what the hell have I been thinking, that writing and creating were things tangentially resulting from a "normal" human existence? That's how it was in high school when this entire thing began: I started writing because I felt like basic human life would drive me crazy if I didn't. It's kept me going so far, but to think that there's not an entire...tired, can't find the word for it right now, want to say "club," but possibly more appropriately "cult," except that's a little too sinister--maybe a cult where everybody fanatically believed in the healing powers of the hokey pokey dance, or something--built up around the culture, being a law unto itself, is way too naive. Towers and fantastic castles built on cake frosting and gold foil. Why the hell is playing it by the common human condition so damn hard? Probably because it's not very interesting. Still.

Maybe that's why I'm drawn to the weird and new-school. I've always had the unconscious knowledge that I'd never cut it in any sort of existing tradition or regime, so possibly the best option is to ally myself with the ones who would recklessly burn it all and start again.

Or, you know, the scientists. Wait, I did that already. So fuck you all. My B.A. is going to be a middle finger to the literary institution.

This week's poetry assignment is to reappropriate the poetic mainstay of birds. Actually, I already did that last week, but what the hell. Anyway, we read a bunch of poems, from Milton through Keats and Yeats to Frost and William Carlos Williams, using birds as various different natures of imagery. Needless to say, I liked the new-school poets better, but the consensus seemed to be that birds tend to be symbols for poets, or poetry, or poetic inspiration. Nightingales. Skylarks, and such. Lines started coming to my head as soon as I left the classroom Wednesday afternoon. I think mine's going to be vultures.

Gig tomorrow. Quite seriously nervous we won't draw anyone. The last time I played to an empty room was in high school, and I'm not sure I could stand to do it again. I've pretty much blocked Lock Stock 2 from my memory. We've been rehearsing a lot. I've been trying to practice moving around, as I tend to do onstage, during rehearsal, just so I'll be ready to react to my own spastic stage moves during the show. It's always fun when I'm doing it, but afterwards it leaves me a bit exhausted, and seems rather pointless--no snide and/or lewd comments, please--and sometimes I just wish we had some slower, quieter songs. We're about as subtle as Muse meets Mogwai. I'm getting too old for this rocking out nonsense. Or maybe just bored with it.

It's February again. It was February two years ago. Today I listened to Guided by Voices' "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" for the first time in a long while. I turned it up loud. I don't listen to Guided by Voices a whole lot anymore, because they're too intimately associated with freshman year, and all the best memories I have of it--we all know what they are--memories that the person I used to be took with him when he left forever.

That song in particular was one I was particularly obsessed with in February 2005. It could be dangerous to listen to it. But still. I indulged myself this time. Closed my eyes for the two minutes' duration of the song, and imagined I was once again that person I will never be again, and that I believed the things he did that I will never believe again--was that the way it happened, or did I just make everything up?--can't say what it was I felt for those two minutes, but I realized I miss it. I don't know if I'm hopelessly old, or, as the Chinese proverb goes, the mountain will someday seem like a mountain again.

Questions for another day.