Couldn't Bear to Shout It Out

Though I did not know it at the time--"time" being either when Tobin Sprout wrote these words, or 2003-2004, when they would've applied to me--but these lyrics from "Ester's Day" (Guided by Voices, Bee Thousand) describe my last year or so of high school fairly well:

"Brought up on the road/A sparkle-shiny diner/Is the home for wayward minor/In a flying car that seems/To whisper in an ear/Let's just go get out of here..."

Didn't really anticipate this bit of high school nostalgia. I even remember being in high school and wishing I were in college already. I got that wish, obviously. I was talking to Maria about the nature of nostalgia just now; it's not so much a matter of wishing to regain the times, places, events, or even people, at least for me. Because those things are very obviously not coming back. More my own state of mind I miss, which is something far more personal, subjective, and as such isolated. Maybe something was lost during the process of moving from the past into the present. [Or as Granger eloquently stated: "Will Chang in high school was like, 'I have feelings. I'm depressed.'" As opposed to now.]

Asked Maria if there was a cure for loss of sentimentality; she said that there was no hope, other than convincing oneself one was a tree. Such are the conversations that we have when one of us is drunk at 4AM. It would've been even better if I'd also been drunk, and it had been 4AM here as well.

I've not much to say about the past more recent than 2004 or 2005. Say what you will, but I miss feeling like the facts and incidences of my life were significant on some transcendental level. I grew up, it's true, but the truth is, it kind of sucks. Granted, it has its perks. I've just gotten somewhat bored with them by now.

[Later.]

You know you can't live at your parents' house anymore when your mom doesn't think it's okay for a 21 year old guy who's made 3 years in Baltimore without incident to take a walk with headphones in a park in residential Taipei at 9PM. Or for the same guy to go to bed after midnight. Staying in peak possible health isn't the only thing in the world that matters--other things include stumbling across a middle-school couple in a darkened corner off of the courtyard, remembering when you were their age, and things mattered; wandering in circles for an hour listening to Four Tet, passing by the 15-year-old looking kid sitting hunched under a tree with his head in his hands as "And They All Looked Broken Hearted" plays; having a meaningful conversation with one of the only people who can tell you "I understand" and you'll believe it, though she's on the other side of the world; and writing these words. I have nothing to say to anyone who cannot understand that fact. Though it's probably only true when you're 21, and even then, paradoxical for one who's lost two family members to sickness.

One week at a time, I think, will henceforth be the limit.

PS: Maria: i think if you wrote fiction i would want to read it