I Could Blow Through The Ceiling If I Just Turn And Run

The answer stands in the ink. No, really, the ink explains it all. I've been feeling ridiculously uninteresting the past couple weeks--all beige and washed out and socially camoflagued, but no longer. This morning my investigative skills, keen intellect and burning curiosity (all courtesy of many hours devoted to Indiana Jones) have paid off.

The facts are these: at work when my last pen met its demise--ran out of ink or disappeared into that damn crack in my desk, I can't remember which now--I was in a rush to complete my task and just grabbed the closest one to my desk, a standard blue Bic pen.

This is the root of my drab month. Not only did I continue to use this pen, I used it until it ran out of ink. This is the danger of accepting mediocrity, even for an hour of wire logging: once you temporarily compromise yourself to blandness, you lose the will to assert yourself again (ref. the last two years of my high school career).

I am not a blue Bic pen gal. I'm not much for blue ink ever; I prefer black and red with the occasional green to mix things up. But if it's blue, it had better be smeary and inky and automatically make my messy boy handwriting look more interesting by bleeding everything together into pleasing Rorschach designs. To accept less is to lose the spark, to drop the torch of proclaimed personality in favor of the sputtering penlight of whatever-is-in-front of me. Let that be an inspiration for everyone reading: with enough dedication, neurosis, and sleep deprivation, you too can discover the meaning of life, the universe, and everything by a pen choice. You're so lucky.

Through a couple of mild and honest dissings on my lack of comprehensive knowledge of current bands and the frequent blank looks I have to give my roommate Cassie when she references a top 40 song, I've begun an examination of my music emphasis and the "why" behind it. I demonstrate that I have the patience, interest, and motivation to do a fairly thorough investigation of popular music (with an emphasis on jazz and rock and complete disregard of disco) from 1920-2000, but when the millenium hits I have an inexplicable drop in interest/retained information.

Why is this? I don't hate modern music, Postal Service, The Darkness, Muse, The Killers, Death Cab, The White Stripes, they're all top notch. I just don't have the breadth of overall knowledge or interest that I do in bygone days. Which initially troubled me: am I already one of the old people who just call music today noise? No, that can't be it, I'm the Spirit of Youth personified, how dare I even think such a thing. But I still fretted about the implications until I struck upon an elegant explanation that also works as a description of the motivation for my chosen career/education plan:

I am very interested and intrigued by what is going on currently in music. I really love some specific bands, but there are quite a few trends that I'm equally repulsed by. This can be mirrored in my passion for and Bachelors-in-progress major in International Relations. But in both academics and recreational music, the nature of current events and radio hits is that information is always incomplete. Data is still be collected, subterrainial trends could emerge at any time and upset my whole concept of what I do and do not like about what is going on. Essentially, they lack a clear context by being current.

Now let us turn to music of past decades and my chosen career goal of getting a Ph.D. in Art History. These two are closely linked. I like both music and art on an aesthetic level, but what makes me love them is the understanding of where the artists came from, why and how they chose to change the status quo, how that affected everything around them forever. I need the history to come into play, just a good ten years of perspective, before I get firmly attached and opinionated about what is going on around me. I'm so glad I found an occupation that'll facilitate that over-the-shoulder-longingly look of the world that I have.

I just realized I spent four paragraphs essentially saying that I'm a nostalgic person by nature. Oh well, brevity isn't that great. Also, "All Along the Watchtower" is to Michaelangeo's David in that they're both heavily referenced but worth every moment. Conversely, most songs by the Rolling Stones are to da Vinci's Mona Lisa in that the hype was largely self-perpetuated until the masses were duped into caring.

I think it's cleansing for the soul to at times attempt to be "smooth" and fail utterly. I adopted this philosophical perspective after yesterday's debacle: as I passed my coworker walking in the opposite direction with receipts that belonged to me, I made the motion to snatch them playfully out of her hands without breaking my stride. But I stopped 85% of the way into the action with the concern that maybe that would startle her/we aren't there yet in the playfulness. Unfortunately, she had already correctly read the trajectory of my intended action and tried to hand off said receipts, which I subsequently fumbled in my surprise and then stumbled into a nearby desk.

Like I said, this is all cleansing for the soul--it puts what is important in life at the forefront, like office shoes with just a leeetle traction. It's just too bad that the price for my catharsis was my coworker discovering that I am fundamentally incompetent.

You Want Everything To Be Just Like The Stories That You Read But Never Write

I'm back! I had a very selfish month of obsessive, trivial thought patterns of the circular nature. Don't worry, it's over. But out of loyalty to my loving readers and to avoid later re-reading a post two weeks later and loathing myself (ref posts from 2008), I put a moratorium on blog posts until I had something to say for myself. Essentially, I sent myself to my room to think about what I'd done.

This has been a frustratingly long week of post attempts. I open the page every day, jot down a couple keywords for incandescently brilliant discourses that are already half-formed in my head, and then . . . I get onto xkcd.com and spend five hours clicking the "random" button. This is the final proof: it's out there, innocently lurking on a random server, enticing me with guarantees to delight me again and again. My digital kryptonite has been discovered. For someone as low-tech as I generally am, I didn't believe there was a temptation on the webbytubes strong enough to distract me from something so enthralling as this site that is solely commited to continuous minute examinations and sideways praise for myself. But by the sheer volume of links I have shared from that website in the past week, I've had to face the facts. I, too, am a vulnerable, easily impressionable, obsessive compulsive mortal who has an ever growing appetite for little nuggets of wildly nerdy and sarcastic observances.

Sometimes I pity my future children for the influences their parent has been under in her youth, and how that is going to inevitably damage them. Sometimes. Mostly I just think about the ridiculous names I'm going to stick them with just to make sure they're required to develop a personality to pull it off.

So, Canada Day was last Thursday. And I love me some Canadians--my dad's one, many of my favorite relatives hail from there, visiting there has been some of the best times I've had. Alberta could take Quebec any day of the week, by the way. But with that all said and done--and while you'll frequently hear me say that I'm half Canadian in an effort to obtain some distinctiveness--I'm now going to have to trash them.

Not to say that they aren't a nice little country. But when you put Canada up against US for sheer balls-awesome history, US takes them in a single 20 year period. Because the story of the revolt of the colonies under British rule and subsequent successful establishment of themselves as an independent nation? Freakin sweet. I've read an embarrassing number of biographies and historical accounts about the founding; nothing gets me as riled up as North America in the late 18th century. And that's all before you factor in the musical 1776, which aids by adding a snazzy soundtrack to the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

And Canada? Not a catchy tune to be found about their gradual and respectful steps towards autonomy from their benevolent and still revered ruler. There just isn't anything very stirring about a series of treaties that released the United Kingdom from the obligation of keeping Canada financially solvent and permitted Canada to take control of it's destiny after it ever so politely and docilely requested it. So, yeah, love western Canada, but USA all the way!

And if any of you humble readers take from this the opportunity to post a snarky, condescending and/or sardonic comment about the founding fathers/US history at large/the despicable naivete of those who get so excited about such a failed nation, I swear I may go Cujo on you. I was speaking in a deliberately histrionic display of my real patriotic feelings because as a political science major I can never ever get away from those who validate their puny, grasping existence by making cutting and belittling remarks about events of the past. I'm not saying that as a citizen you shouldn't be informed of the real history of any time period, quite the opposite, but I do say that I find nothing wrong with taking positive lessons from my history and choosing to emulate admirable moments of imperfect lives. Ok, that's all for the venomous lashout at all past classmates that equated intellectual superiority with how little idealism they personally hold on to.

Do you know what I love? Really fantastic science fiction writers. Like our comrade Isaac Asimov. The singular quality about great sci-fi writers and great sci-fi shows (shout out to Star Trek, word to your mother) is that they take the world, throw it lightyears into the future, and bust the restraints of human potential right open. In the future, nothing is outside of humanity's grasp. Former ethical, social, medical, and technological shortcomings have been tweaked, twiddled with, and resolved into neat little packages. It's such a refreshing outlook on the ever-present-but-forever-in-the-future "what comes next." My friend Grant reminded me of this love of mine by having me read Asimov's essay "The Last Question," and my mind has been cycling around my admiration for the strength of his optimism ever since. I also maintain that it's only the true storytellers, like Asimov, who choose to give ultimate power to Thought instead of a more mundane tactile force.

On Friday I was reminded of yet another long-lost love of mine. It was an incredibly high-stress day at work: everything that could go wrong did, and even though I had my own specific task relatively in hand I was feeling the pressure of every coworker's stressed-to-the-limit auras. Laugh all you want, but put that many panicking individuals in cubicles and try telling me that there isn't an almost visual presence of their collective freak out. So anyways, I'm buckling under the pressure, blood is pumping far too fast and vessels in my eye sockets are bursting under the strain, when I was inspired to add an opera channel to my Pandora station.

Wow, what a moment of clarity. It's an even better match than listening to hard rock when you're in a rage or country when you have a fit of unbearable melodramatic cheesiness. Not only do the vocal expressions in opera emote on a scale no tiny individual could ever achieve alone, the orchestral arrangements sweep whatever messy emotions you've been unsuccessfully dealing with right out of your system. Crisis averted, I typed up my little wires in a bubble of serenity while lovers were betrayed, fathers perished, and villains triumphantly travailed in my headphones.

I'm going to close with this beautiful parody of Forrest Gump. Not because I agree with the sentiment--my world view has far too much bounceability to be so exquisitely cynical--but because it's a quality bit of writing by my close personal friends of the X-files 'verse:

"Life... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So, you're stuck with this indefinable whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast, the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits, filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, and if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box, filled with useless brown paper wrappers."

Tubular.

A Sign That Says: It's Free, And I Hope You Have More Luck With This Than Me.

I had an unusual experience last night—I went to an entertainment event that had roughly 85% women in attendance. Since I don’t enjoy Twilight, listen to David Archuleta, or ever make it to Women’s Conference, this was a pretty unusual occurrence. But I didn’t have a moment’s hesitation on whether or not my sister and I were possibly mistaken in our chosen amusement, because Stars on Ice is the best thing since double-stuffed Oreos.

And while I traditionally disdain any efforts of sisterhood bonding unless it has something to do with a book club study of The Awakening, I had no problem feeling solidarity with everyone else there who was ridiculously excited and solemnly up-to-date on the techniques that go into triple axles, death spirals, double-toe-loops, and Sal chows.

Most of us can’t even skate backwards, but that’s beside the point. We are committed to the marriage of art, athleticism, and sequined men’s trousers that is figure skating. So, for today, I will look fondly on the female gender as a whole in a rosy spangle-influenced air of well-being. Until somebody walks by in sweats rolled down at the waist, raggedy ponytail, and perfectly applied makeup. This just happened. Goodwill officially rescinded.

X-Men has ruined my ability to pronounce the name of my coworker Xavier correctly. I’m pretty sure every time I’ve seen his name on the caller id I’ve answered it addressing him like he’s Patrick Stewart's character. It doesn’t matter how many times he tells me the X has an ‘h’ sound, I inevitably screw up the next time. Mortifying.

I’m starting to get stir crazy to the point where my skin might just rip off my body and head for the hills. Gross image, but it’s what it feels like. It’s gotten to the point that I don’t think a vacation is going to fix it, even if I do still think that my life will be incomplete until I go to Denver for a Rockies game and a viewing of King Tut’s tomb artifacts.

I’m 23, I have a year and a half left of school, and if I’m not out of the state within a month of my graduation date you’ll know that despite my best efforts I died inside before reaching the finish line. Ew, now my skin is gone and I’m dead inside, that just sounds like all kinds of unpleasant cleanup for you guys that are still around, picture sacks of decaying flesh and the stripped flesh of wasted ambition. Yuck. Guess we better hope for the best, then, hope that I get into a grad school in New Orleans or St. Paul or the like so that I can escape before I look like something from the aftermath of a comic book fight.

Let me share with you the best family moment of the decade:

A couple weeks ago I crashed a Sunday dinner my parents were having with another couple in their neighborhood. I was the loose cannon at the dinner: I only lived in that area for two years and have rarely returned in the last five years, so the gentler folk of Sandy suburbia approach me with all the caution I would give a particularly paranoid porcupine with projectile quills.

But, surprisingly, it wasn’t my presence that made the quiet Sabbath gathering go sour—the guests committed unwitting social suicide all on their own. Everything was going more than pleasantly until the visiting wife responded to a reference of Mary Poppins with the comment “Oh, I’ve always hated that movie. She’s a real witch; I can’t see how anyone could like her.”

I swear those words echoed as a hush fell over the room. The temperature plunged into the arctic zone. The air pressure tripled. I tried to catch a look at my parents’ expressions without drawing attention to myself, and my dad—the man who prides himself in his superb hosting skills and even tempered conversation—had a frozen look around his eyes, his brow a mass of creases as he attempted to cope with that faux pas of epic proportions. Their guest’s faces lengthened in tandem with the sustained silence, their mouths opening occasionally in aborted efforts to save themselves, only to snap shut in a dejected manner before a single sound escaped.

Dad’s ears gradually lost the ruddy quality that had abruptly flushed up his face, and he took a few slow breaths, reaching over to enclose my mother’s tightly clenched hands in a reassuring manner. But time was still being pulled along like salt water taffy, my mother’s mouth was still pinched and downturning, there seemed to be no escape hatch in sight. I was having the time of my life.

Eons later my dad finally rallied with a boisterous “And the most aggravating thing about the Japanese people is their complete refusal to believe than anyone not Japanese can have any skill or understanding of their language.” An awkward transition, but no one was criticizing technique at this point. The dinner concluded shortly after, the guests still seemed to scurry within their slow even tread; their faces were still apologetic as the door closed firmly behind them before they could retrieve their tupperware.

It’s possible, just possible, that that event may be highly colored in my mind based on how well I know my parents. But whether or not that vein in my mother’s forehead was really as prominent as I remember, I maintain that having a family that reacts almost violently to any criticism of Disney’s live-action masterpiece is as cool as having a jetpack of my very own. It’s also one of the best demonstrations that despite all other proof and/or skepticism, I do share DNA with the most noble and ancient house of Shurtz.