21:32 - Monday, Nov. 24, 2003 like a family
Should be doing aural skills homework, but can't concentrate.
The more I think about it, the more I think I actually will live in the 'community house' with Nick and Ted and Aaron next year. If only to see what I can handle. If only to prove to myself that I won't kill Ted with a hammer within the first week. If only to make sure I can withstand Nick's scrutiny of every single thing that goes on or exists or has crossed his mind at one point. I mean, I'd have a tough time even eating frozen dinners because he'd be in the kitchen, just kind of... lurking. 'Are you sure that's the kind of food you want? Hmm. Hmmmmmm. Well, but I'm making pumpkin bread and vegetable soup. Have some of that instead. Hmm..'
Etc.
I want to see what I can handle. (I think it was Lara who first said, or wrote, that aloud.) Being comfortable isn't changing anything. Being comfortable isn't making me a better or stronger person. When I went to music camp my sixth grade and seventh grade summers, I was miserable in one sense and liberated in another. On one hand, I was crammed into a bunk with exactly one trunkful of space for myself. We used dirty toilets that were always malfunctioning, had to share the (perpetually freezing) showers, were awakened every day at 6:30 by the counselours' blaring alarm clock, and had to be around the flag by seven, hearing morning announcements. We had to eat horrible camp food, and wear itchy knickers, and I had to lug my cello up and down the dusty freezing northern Michigan paths to and from classes and lessons. When I got there, and figured all of this out, I cried.
And when it came time to leave, I cried harder. And the next year, I went back. Because, really, there's no room for hate or indifference or ridicule when you're crammed in like that. Everyone knows they have to live with their cabinmates for four weeks, like them or not, so they know instinctively to do right by everyone else. Nobody has to tell them. It's not a forced thing, forced integration or forced community activities. People do it because they want to make their lives easier and happier. Sitting around the end campfire, hugging everyone, was like leaving family (if I had ever felt a strong attachment to family, I mean.. I imagine that's what it would feel like).
Nick said that in the coffee shop the other day in almost those exact words. He was going off, speaking in generalities, about what 'kind of person' was 'right' for the house and the kind of 'atmosphere' we wanted to create, and (my personal favorite) the 'kind of lifestyle we're advocating' (it sounds like a right wing politician denouncing homosexuals!)... he just got carried away with these labels, and finally I just couldn't take it anymore. 'Nick,' I cut him off, 'just tell me, concretely, how you want this to be. Two sentences or less. Please.'
He stared at me for a second, his eyes darting to Ted, but Ted shrugged. Nick looked down. 'I want it to feel like we're all family,' he finally said, hoarse like he gets sometimes. 'That's the only way I can explain it.'
Thank you. I breathed it in my head, so he didn't hear me, but thank you.
I never thought that would sound so attractive, living in a house with the most pretentious philosophy major I've ever met, some kid I don't know very well, and one of my best friends who just happens to have the capability to send my emotions exploding through the roof... but when I think about it, it does, it really does.
And I'm sure I won't have my own room. I'll have to be quiet after 11 p.m. I won't be able to smoke pot in the house. I'll have to endure 'experiments in living' that will make me cringe. (God only knows what Nick will decide to eat next.) I'm going to have to listen to discussions about the absurdity of time, and have my mind fucked with all the time by stupid philosophical hypotheses.
But it'll be a family.
I'm too swayed by that one sentence. Isn't that how cults get started?
But it'll be a community.
18:55 - Sunday, Nov. 23, 2003 slashes and dots and spaces Slow Down. It's what I keep telling myself; look at this gorgeous white expanse with 26 letters offering their services to fill it.... I wish I could think like this more often.
This book I'm reading that I read awhile ago and dismissed as just okay has 8 million things per paragraph to ponder. I could spend years reading a chapter. Here there are trapeze artists swinging down to give passersby a kiss, funerals at night, boats rowing away (a rich man's boat and a poor woman's boat; the former towing the latter), a whole section describing this woman's hands, but never are the actual words 'hand' or 'hands' used. She never names what she describes, even though everywhere else is labelled clearly: the only way to _____ is _____, no disputes.
I wonder if she meant this?
I could apply it easily enough just staring at the screen right now, as in it feels very strange to me that for nearly three years I've been chronicling my thoughts in this tiny white box. The reason I used to write poetry diagonally backed by images was that I don't like linear art. If I could swing my music staves spiral and exploding, so I would, and I'd make them 3-D... but. The last three years I've been doing it here, square box number 1.
five
. quarters.
. underneath the
. b/r/o/k/e/n/
compact disc case.
everything looks good with /slashes/ and .dots. and spaces .
even the contents of my desk. hope that turns out.
the point was: Slow Down. My handwriting used to Look Like That. If I could spend all my time pondering questions I didn't care about the answers to, I think I could be happy.
