2005/05/22

Punch-drunk

Please remove all references to that Adam Sandler movie from your mind. Thank you. The first thing to say is....

The second thing to say is, "[this comment deleted because it was so cliche as to be embarassing. --f.]."

Enough being clever. Fuck it. I woke up at something like 7:09 today. I was up until about quarter-to-4 last night. What does that tell you? Well, I'm at least discombobulated. (Ob. Seinfeld 'bobulated' ref.) So a friend mentions a party basically a few blocks from my house that was driven by last week but no one was there; therefore the party has to be this week, right? Library sciences, a charming bunch, and fortunately not the sorts whose research pursuits philosophers have anything to say about. Having big mouths, we tend to really do a number on psychologists, sociologists, writers, etc., and act like nincompoops when confronted with physicists, chemists, and so forth. Basically historians, technical disciplines, and actually now I'm out of other fields that we have nothing to feel touchy and arrogant toward. But so library sciences: we like books, they know where they are. (NB: that last line was a lot funnier with a bunch of liquor in my stomach early last night, and it seems to have shriveled in the light of day; so, now, we say "Fuck you, funny man, that sucks" and hear our own words...) Genuinely interesting, funny, etc. people I met there, though one can never tell how soon that rubs off.

Extra-self-referential note to self: what the fuck is up with my grammar today? I think I may have accidentally woken up drunk after apprx. 4 hrs. sleep.

The hostess (is that word still allowed? or is it like 'actress') was amazing. I mean, I had the...what's that term...I don't even know. Just a sort of like radar homing device of some sort that unexpectedly came on in my head. This radar is situated directly between the fore and aft sections of the brain, just north of the Hypothalamus, so I guess it's directly between the memory cortext areas. So for like two hours I was sort of meeting and greeting. Got into a philosophy conversation which, fortunately, Dan and Todd didn't let me hijack (I was being more obtuse than usual anyway, due to the loud beeping in my brain). For some reason it seemed like a good idea to volunteer to drink a 40oz malt beverage under the brand name "Colt .45"--I don't know if you've ever heard of this product, but anyway I was definitely not feeling any pain except in the usual everyday sense (yada yada complain whine obsess complain).

There followed a sort of strange conversation, carried out in the midst of what were, to be honest, somewhat frustrating circumstances. (This is probably a good thing.) She sort of reminded me of someone and I was sure I'd met her before. I didn't know where. She seemed to take my complements as either (a) insincere, or (b) misguided due to my ignorance of her, her life, etc. and so forth etc. etc. It's certainly true enough that I don't. A very, as someone said, "meta" conversation about a variety of things which aren't worth repeating since the context to make sense of what was said can't be reproduced. But so anyway I ended up getting both her phone digits and her blog. This is new to me--not the number, the blog addy. Is this the new dating etiquette? Use an external storage device to create a sort of persona and a set of memories and experiences and thoughts and set them loose upon the earth to wreak their havok and then to send people to view them in order to get to know you...

And I was just thinking about the word 'smitten'. Does anyone still use that word regularly? I'm smitten. Try saying that. ... Yeah, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Smitten. I was walking home, late, a guy asked me how far it was to the next municipality (about three quarters of a mile), I realized my feet were barely touching the concrete of the sidewalk and cobblestone streets. This is new for me, I mean, really unexpected. Who'd have thought that shit happens to actual people and not just ones filmed on celluloid sixty years ago. I feel like a fool writing this; what's worse (I mean, if I still have a handle on objectivity at all) I don't care. The meta conversation just mentioned really opened my eyes to the weirdness of interaction between people in a media-saturated age. I mean, the sort of corny things you say--all true, but still--when you're kissing someone sound leaden to even your own ears. You think "Oh my god, did I really just say that? Who wrote this crap? What's the next line? *beat, beat, dialogue* No, no no. Fire the script editor!" It's self-conscious. Because we all know the story even before we're in it. Life becomes a series of scripted exchanges with little real feeling behind them, and the real feeling becomes distorted by the running critical commentary one has that tracks along with everything you do and tells you it's unoriginal to the point of hackneyed matinee-level eyeball-rolling worthlessness.

But really now, who in the world does everything in a manner so different from eveyone else as to be entirely original? I don't even think it's possible to be that "authentic". (Don't get me started. Some of my friends have been hashing out "authenticity" for a month without getting a good meal from it.) You suddenly and cruelly wish the person you were talking to didn't also know perfectly well what the scene setup was or, how it was going to play out. Then at least someone would get a bit of a rewarding experience. Immediately after that thought crosses into the brain, you sag under the weight of your own self-loathing and hopelessness, because surely no one else really views these things in the sort of jaundiced Cynic-Vision you do. Finally, there's a ray of hope. You just keep repeating and repeating and repeating, and suddenly you're not just saying things that are true anymore: you believe them, without the stupid self-doubt, without the fear, without the questions and little lies you use to paper over the things you wish you didn't notice, without the meta. Just pure being-with, enjoyment of the Other as familiar, exotic and simultaneously comforting, a puzzle-piece matched to another.

Like a drug really. Still floating. Will the crash come? Well, the last thing one wants to think is "yes", and then as you avoid thinking it the thought becomes the reality, because it's all mental and the avoiding is really not-avoiding, because you can't remember the old trick of forgetting what you don't want to think about, because you're trying so hard to forget. But why not keep it going--leave the rather terrible reality of the last six months or so of your life and move into a new (real) universe where people can give a shit about you in a more than totally selfish way (ob. Ex. ref. sorry but I get more and more bitter as I get further and further away). It could be nice, and it'll surely be different for what that's worth. Ramble ramble. [edits.]

A summary, you say? Fine, here we go. Met a woman. She's great. Now I have to do the dating thing. Thing? Yes, thing. (apologies, too much Seinfeld recently) I hate hate hate dating. But my desires (and not, thank you very much, the baser ones that we all acknowledge must be there as well, lurking) will push me to make the attempt. Damn but I hate "dating." But then, she's worth it. Will she ever read this? That could be embarassing... or, ha ha, charming. I don't know or care. Maybe I can institute a policy of blunt honesty from the beginning this time. One rock in the road: her name is the same as my sister's. Is that creepy? There were like three of them at that party. Well, I'm not going to make an issue of it (worry worry).

I think I need music to drown out my brain now. *wistful sighing, remembering* Oh, and she likes NIN. I'm in heaven. Oh and I remembered where I met her before. That's another story, I think.

1 Comments:

Blogger january girl said...

"HA HA HA HA!
HO HO HO!
SUCKER!
SUCKER!
OHHHHHHH SUCKER!

I LIKE IT!
IT FEELS GOOD."

-henry rollins

23/5/05 20:35  

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