Commercials

This week, Ashley and I story boarded our commercials about each other. Story boarding makes me really nervous because I worry that the actual shot won't look the way I anticipated it to. I guess that's okay, because nothing can look the way I imagine it in my head. With that attitude, I aim for practicality, and I guess it may limit my openness to ideas. I'm afraid to fail at them!
I'm also having a really hard time visualizing what the commercials are going to look like when I story board.. what's going to work and what won't. I guess I just don't have all that much experience with it. The unpredictable part really bothers me. I guess the best thing to do is to just go for it. The more mistakes I make now, the less mistakes I have to make later.

Titleworthy? Eh

I'm about to do one of those free write things that I've never been good at because it was a short week and there were only three days and I don't want to talk about the feast and what's really on my mind lately is that I can't write as well as I used to and I'm thinking that I know how and I just don't have time to do it like I want to and because I always write them in the same place on my bed at the same time right before I go to sleep and I used to write them on my roof in the summer but it's too cold outside now even though I did try the other night but it's not any warmer on the roof than it is on the ground but I've blogged a lot about not writing well lately so I don't want to talk about that anymore so I'll talk about how my brother was home this weekend and I realized that he's a really good person and also that even when I don't like him I have to love him and then I wonder if maybe everyone was my brother I could find away to forgive everyone and why should I forgive him if I can't forgive someone else.. just because he's my brother? That wasn't even in his control.. then again I guess everyone else can just be forgiven by their sisters but it's always harder for me not to forgive people anyway so I figure that if I could forgive someone if he was my family, I can forgive him even though he's not, and maybe I shouldn't forgive people all the time, but if I'm going to anyway (while I will) it's nice to have some justification and I don't know if this will come to anyone else as as much of a revelation as it did to me but it never really does for different people, especially not at the same time and I know I kind of broke all the grammar rules by making this one huge sentence but I thought it in one huge sentence so there it is.

Hopefully a Turning Point

I know that I could have done better this quarter. I didn't come out of it with anything I'm really proud of, so I must be doing something wrong. I think that the effort was mostly there, though, for everything except the portfolio. What angers me is that once I actually got to doing it, I had all these ideas but no time to sort them out or to do them justice. It was just the worst possible week for me. I still don't have an excuse considering we had more than a week, so I feel pretty much like a failure.
HOWEVER, coming out of this painfully long week feeling like utter crap, I was motivated to be super productive this weekend. That means not only homework and STAC stuff, but little things like my laundry and going for a decent run got done. I finally feel somewhat caught up with all of the stuff I've been putting off. If my closet is a mess, everything I do while my closet is a mess will have less quality than it would had my closet not been a mess. But my closet is clean, my laundry is done and put away, I posted about 40 poems yesterday and I still have 32 to go. I finally bought a new journal and transferred all the ones that I've been writing on scraps of paper for about a month into it because for a month I've just been too lazy to go buy a new journal. All of these things were just making me feel terrible. So here's me congratulating myself for being back on track, and here's me setting a goal to have this attitude as often as possible.

Maybe If I Write About Writer's Block It'll Go Away

So I'm still writing my daily poem. As soon as I'm not super busy with work, I'll post them. But I've been finding it increasingly difficult. At first I thought it's just because I do it so often, it's getting old. Or I'm running out of ideas. But today was a weird day. I cleaned out my closet and my grandparents mailed us some old home videos so I watched them and when I walked my dog I didn't see anyone on the street and the atmosphere felt like there was some perfect combination of the trees and the color of the sky and the time of day that it felt like it only happened once a year and somehow it looked like it had just rained and I didn't see anybody and no cars went by and the one thing that's been on my mind for months kind of went away so when I came home I wrote the first good poem I've written in a while. It's this one stupid little thing that I can't stop thinking about and it's the only thing I can write about and it sucks but I keep saying I have to write about what's on my mind because it's the only thing I'll be able to write about well. Now I'm thinking I just have to put my mind somewhere else. And I'm thinking of what I'll have to do in order to do that. I should be able to write no matter what time of day it is and no matter how the trees look against the sky. I just need more control over my thoughts. Or less. They mean pretty much the same thing to me. I need a change of atmosphere or a new notebook or to remove a person from my life or add another. I feel like my days used to always be like today. But I can't remember them all that well. I usually remember things as better than they actually were.

Being the World

Things are a little shaky for me right now. I'm home sick, and I want to talk about poetry. Or art in general, and what it does. Patrick McGoohan used the Prisoner to comment on the world. I guess I use poetry as more of a way to solidify the world. There are things I can't fix and things I can't understand. What I try to do when I write is to express what I'm writing about exactly as it is. My best poems, I think, are the ones where I make things more of what they are than they are, if that makes sense. There are things I can't understand, but it's enough for me to be able to.. see them? To have them on paper? It's hard to explain. I guess that if I can't fix something, at least I can control it, to some extent.

Swan Lake

Swan Lake was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Despite the face that I wasn't completely sure of the plot, the end brought me to tears. The plot seemed pretty open for interpretation anyway. The relationships were what were made incredibly clear. In fact, I found that the relationships were all I really needed to understand to get something out of it. Everything else seemed up in the air, and I was okay with it, and maybe even liked it better that way. It had this dreamlike quality where you're unsure what's really happening and what's only happening in the prince's mind.
I realized, when the show started, that I should have done some research on it beforehand because I'd expected it to be like the original version of swan lake except with men as swans. I loved the interpretation of it; it just took me a while to figure out that it wasn't going to be Swan Lake. It was even self referential at the beginning in the funny scene where they're at the ballet. I thought that was really well done because it was hilarious and it also tells you that this isn't going to be what you expected which, if you didn't do your research like me, was the traditional story (minus women plus men).
As someone who's lived with a low level of coordination and little control over her body, I could really appreciate the dancing. The choreography was spectacular. I was watching and thinking that it is actually a miracle that someone could come up with these dances. They went so well with the music and fit the action so well. I've never seen a ballet before this; a lot of times it seemed to verge more on modern dance which was really cool; the whole show was very modern, especially considering it was a rendition of something written over a hundred years ago.
What carried through from what I know about the original Swan Lake is the idea of forbidden love. That was one of my favorite parts of this show. From my understanding of it, nobody had a problem with the love between a man and a man; what was looked down upon was the love between a man and a swan. This was really interesting to me, and before I say anything else about it, I want to talk about it in class and see who else had this interpretation and what everyone thinks about it.

Be Kind Rewind

Be Kind Rewind was really good this year! Last year, I was in a group with all noobies, so naturally none of us had any idea what we were doing which was how it was supposed to be! This year, having already done it once, we still didn't know what we were doing! Which made it fun and interesting. Not to say we didn't improve at all. Last year, I remember my group was most concerned about just getting everything on film. We didn't have many cuts and we couldn't really hear ourselves. This year, I think we were able to focus a little more on the technical stuff, whether or not our execution of it was all that grand.
I'm always amazed at what we can get done when we know we have to get it done. It makes me think, if we were told we had to make 12 movies in 24 hours, we COULD do it, spending an hour on each one, with time to spare. Realistically, no one would ask us to do that, but it makes me wonder how much more product could come out of us if it was out of necessity.
Art that was never made..
It's strange to think about the art that was made and the art that wasn't made. There are a few things that have stopped people in the past from making art, like Hitler and poverty and I guess even laziness because contrary to popular belief, laziness wasn't invented just for generation Y. It says something about the art that was made. Everything is made with a different purpose, and some things suck and some things are wonderful, but it all has something in common: it was made. Whether it was because they were told they had to get something in or because they were trying to express their emotions about the death of their guinea pig, art that is made is made by someone who had to do it. It makes me wonder about all the art that is in people, that they could make, but that they don't because they don't have to.
Just a thought. Which I will now end with these Simon & Garfunkel lyrics!


I held her close, but she faded in the night, like a poem I meant to write.

This was an extremely successful trip. Everything at MoMA was really great, especially the woman photographers. And La Caga Aux Folles was ridiculously good and entertaining. Still, the highlight of the trip had to be getting to observe the reactions after we chased Dan Lane down the street trying to get his autograph and a picture.
There were foreign people taking pictures, the guy who followed us, the guys who stopped Elisa and Viviana to ask who he was, the lady who stopped dead in her tracks just to stare at us. I think what was so exciting about it was getting people in such a fast moving city to pay attention to you. Usually, when walking around New York, you try not to make eye contact with people, you look away from funny looking or funny dressed people, and you ignore anyone doing weird things. It's nearly impossible to get anyone's attention. So when you do, it's really cool! You can turn a face you see onto a street into a personality by getting them to talk to you or react to you. We see a million faces every day and hardly remember any. One of the most powerful motivations (if not the most powerful) for doing art is the reaction from others. It's also empowering to trick people! Knowing that you know something that they don't automatically puts you above them on the hierarchy we subconsciously create.

For my psychogeography project this week, I took liminal spaces very literally. I shot spaces in between two pieces of furniture or in between furniture and the wall. These spaces are interesting to me because no one intended on putting things there. What ends up there is an accumulation of things that don't have a place.

Improvin'

When we did improv at the community center this week, I actually had a lot of fun. Compared to last year, I felt so much more willing to really get into it, and I noticed it's actually a lot less embarrassing to just let yourself go and be stupid than to awkwardly hold back. It's also a lot more fun.
Last year, we had a talk about our artistic jealousies. I'm incredibly jealous of people who can really lose themselves in art. When we were asked which of us surprised ourselves while we were using our bodies and which of us stopped thinking so much about what we were doing and just did it, I couldn't say it was me. I've never been able to get out of my own head. This goes for both viewing art and making my own. I've never lost myself in a really good song I'm hearing or a really good movie I'm watching. I could never relate to people who tell me something "blew their mind" because something has to kind of engulf you before it can really affect you, and as much as I wish I could, I just can't get engulfed in things. The same goes for my writing. Never have I reached a state of mind where I could let thoughts "flow" onto a page and go back and find things I didn't remember writing or thinking. I'm always in my head.

Psychogeography: Things People Fixed

This weekend, I took pictures of things after people fixed them. This was a good project for me because I can learn something about people without having to actually take pictures of them. I'm far more interested in people than objects, but I knew how much of a challenge it would be to take pictures of people, so this was a good way to compensate. A rule I set for myself was that I couldn't take any pictures of things that I fix, only things that other people fix. I don't like to interfere.
Luckily, I was at several events this weekend that people had to either clean up for or clean up after, so I had a few opportunities. One was at temple after the babysitting program in the basement. Another was my house when my mom was setting up for dinner (we had people over). Another was my brother's room which hasn't been touched since he last cleaned it before leaving for college. Another was somebody's house I was at for a little cross country party.

The Prisoner

What hit me first and hardest about The Prisoner was the theme of trust. Everyone in the Village is aware of the fact that they can't trust anyone, but at the same time, everyone is aware that no one trusts them. This creates layers in the characters, the relationships, and the community.
It was DEVASTATING at the end of the second episode to learn that the Russian girl was working against Number 6. But then there's the fact that he may have never trusted her in the first place, and on top of that is the layer that she may have known that he never trusted her in the first place. Then there are the layers in the relationship they establish which also comes from the absence of trust in the community. He doesn't trust her, she doesn't trust him, but it doesn't really matter, and it doesn't mean that her flirting in the box wasn't genuine. Trust here has no scale to be measured on, and it can't be taken into account when considering relationships between characters.
This holds true in the larger spectrum of the community. Everyone knows that they don't want to live in the Village. Everyone knows that they are not alone in this. There is a seed of secret resentment in every member of the Village's brains, but no one will speak of it. I picture it as a giant orb floating over the whole village. Everyone knows it's there, but no one will look up. So is it there then? If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it...
What's been created is a quaint, idealistic society that has been designed to allow everyone to ignore what goes on right in front of them (the Rover attacks, for example) and what's going on in each other's heads. And is this unique to communist-esque societies? So often a table full of people will opt not to tell someone about the smear of butter next to their lip. A family will all carry their own burden of knowing that someone they all love is sick instead of sharing it by telling each other. A whole school will watch a child get bullied and never say a word. The whole world holds the burden of knowing how little we know, while each individual will only discuss it once in a blue moon when prompted, and will only think about it for a minute every once in a while. Is our world not a circle too?

WORKSHOP

I finished stitching the signatures together, and, despite stabbing myself a million times, I think I got a lot faster at it since last time. I can see myself having a million hand made books when I'm older, just throwing them together every time I have something to put in them. Even though I have put a lot of time into planning out this book and have come up with a clear idea of what I'm doing, I've been pretty useless and annoying having not come up with all the materials that I need to do it. I'm going to get them this weekend, though, and then I'll be well on my way.

Workshop #5

I have a fairly clear view of how I want my book to turn out. I suspect it won't come out exactly the way I plan because things never do. I started to stitch the pages together on Friday, stabbing myself with the needle a few times in the process, but I'm on my way.

Rob's Workshop

I really like Post Secret. I haven't liked anything as much as I like Post Secret in a long time. I just spent two hours looking at the whole website. So this is what people are like.
I have a lot of secrets, I'm realizing. I wrote down a bunch. I want to send them all. It was surprisingly easy for me to choose one today in the workshop though.
I wonder what the world what be like if people said everything they felt. If I were God, I would make that the first commandment. Maybe not. If everyone told everyone their secrets, there would be no Post Secret, and I really like Post Secret.

Books- Day 4

I didn't do much in the workshop yesterday. I think I went into it half knowing that I wasn't going to get anything done. Firedrill Fridays are always pretty lazy. I did enjoy sitting around and talking, though. It's true; it did take me three quarters to get completely comfortable in Stac, but now it's so sad to think that it's going to be over. I guess I can't fully appreciate this group of people since it was my first year, and I have nothing to compare it to, but even without comparison, I know that this year was pretty awesome.

Karl 3

We finished our first books today. It was awesome! They look like real books; I mean they are, but they came out better than I'd expected. Now, we're onto coming up with our own big book projects. I know that I'm going to put my poems in it, but I also want to make my book really fun and be able to go a little crazy with it. My mission is to come up with an idea for a book that is challenging and interesting but doesn't overpower or contradict the actual content. Good news: I think Karl will actually remember my name now that I kind of yelled at him a little, in a nice way. I always see people not remembering my name as a reflection on me and my tendency to be all quiet and shy. Maybe it's just a hard name to remember.

Project

I am going to write a short play, and I want it to be performed at Stac Night. I really want to see something I write performed; I'd love to see what other people can bring to it. I haven't written a play before, but since I saw Stac Night last year, I've wanted to see something I write there. This week, I'm going to start, but not finish, a play or two each day, and at the end of the week, I'll choose the one that I'd like to keep working on.

Workshop 2

I'm getting really excited to put some of my poems in my own book. It would feel like ten times bigger of an accomplishment to put them in something that I make. There's something amazing about having a book I made filled with content that I wrote. I can't wait to finish the first book we're doing for practice and to figure out what I'm going to do for the bigger project.

Books With Karl

I find this workshop to be incredibly useful. I know I'm going to be writing for the rest of my life, and being able to make my own book and organize my work in it as final pieces, even if it's just for me, is so much better than just having loose scraps of paper and messy notebooks laying around. I can see that once I get the hang of it, it's going to be a pretty quick and easy thing to do.

Book Presentation

I was much less nervous about giving the presentation than I thought I would be. I was pretty comfortable talking about it because as I was reading the book, I would usually talk about it after I finished a chapter or two with whoever was around and tell them what I just read and what I thought about it, so I felt like I had kind of done this presentation before. I didn't go up as prepared as I might have wanted to as I didn't have a powerpoint or index cards or anything, but I think that that helped me to focus on the things that I actually wanted to talk about. Had I had more time, I definitely would have spoken about Wittgenstein himself because I found him incredibly engaging just by what the authors wrote about how engaging he was. I know I probably talked about myself more than I talked about the book. Other than that, though, I'm happy with how my presentation went.

Giving up Facebook

Today, my friend told me that her sister gave up facebook for lent. Therefore, I am initiating my own lent; I'm not going to go on facebook for forty days. I know I can do it because I don't have a choice; I had a friend who won't give in to my begging change my password. I figure nothing bad can come out of my not going on facebook anymore. So I'm writing this for two reasons: alternate form of procrastination, and making it official. In forty days, I'll be a new gal.

Webster Hall

I had a very cool day today. I went into the city and met up with my cousins to go to lunch at this little Polish place. My cousin's husband mentioned that we were near Webster Hall, which I hadn't heard of. He told us that his grandfather used to own Webster Hall, so we walked over to see it. There was a guy dressed in black jeans and a black button down shirt smoking on the steps outside. He asked if we had any questions, and my cousin's husband told him about his grandfather. The guy, Gerard, asked us if we wanted to go inside. He ended up giving us a tour around the whole thing, which was really, really cool. We walked in, and there was a band setting up on stage. It was pretty dark in there, and all of the walls and floors were wooden. The walls were old looking and kind of peeling a little, although it looked like it was supposed to be that way. Gerard introduced us to this band, and then he took us upstairs. On the side of the staircase, there was a photo shoot going on of this really tall, gorgeous girl dressed in amazing clothes. He showed us around the other four rooms in the place. They were all really big and beautiful and Gerard seemed to know a lot. He was an interesting guy. He told us that he wants to change his title from manager to curator or creative director. He was telling us about all of the people who performed there. He showed us a stage where Harry Connick Jr. performed two weeks ago. Lady Gaga performed there New Year's Eve.
I looked it up on Wikipedia which says that other bands that have performed there are:
Nine Inch Nails, Tiësto, Bright Eyes, The Roots, Elbow (band), John Mayer, Rhett Miller, Beth Orton, Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney, Pink, The Jesus And Mary Chain, +44, The Bravery, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Mogwai, Spoon, Rollins Band, John Butler Trio, Explosions in the Sky, The Flaming Lips, Dispatch, Linkin Park, Green Day, Infected Mushroom, DeVotchKa, Lady GaGa, Mew, AKB48, Dr. Dog, Modest Mouse, Usher, Evanescence, Joss Stone, Good Charlotte, Linkin Park, Nelly, Duran Duran, Franz Ferdinand, Alicia Keys, Prince, and The Hives.
It also serves as a recording studio. Julie Andrews, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Peter Nero, Perry Como, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra all recorded there.
AND.. it also has art shows. Gerard showed us some paintings from the last person who had their art on display and hadn't came to pick it up yet. According to wikipedia, Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Stella have both been to Webster Hall.
It was by far the coolest thing I've ever done with my family. My cousin asked how much it would cost to have the whole thing for a night, and he said a quarter million dollars. My cousin' husband told us he had his bar mitzvah there, for free, of course, being that it was owned by his grandfather. Thanks to the picture phone, I got to take some pictures, so here are a few. Some really good ones I didn't get because my nine year old cousin kept jumping in front of the camera.

Just Checking In

I was in Florida this week. I didn't like it. It wasn't warm. The most exciting conversation I had was with a parrot named Murphy that just said "hewwo". Having lived in the same place for my whole life, getting home from a week away felt the same as getting home from school. And although I didn't much enjoy Florida, I'm not exactly thrilled to be coming home to school again. It wasn't so bad, I guess. It's just that we stayed on this creepy little island with nothing to do but "look at nature", and all the old people rode their bikes everywhere and rung their little bells when they rode by.
Anyway, I kept up with my poem a day although most of them weren't much to be proud of. Discipline first, though, and I did them all. Tonight will be the eighteenth. I'm finding that with writing them, even though I sometimes don't like what I get, it always seems to say to me what I wanted it to. I think it happens that way because I tend to do them kind of backwards. I think of how I want my poem to feel, and then I try to convey it. There must be more than one way it can be for it to feel like it's what I meant to do. If it comes out the way I wanted it to, I should like it and think it's good, but sometimes I don't.

Daily Practice

I'm really liking this daily practice thing. I narrowed mine down to a poem a day. It's certainty; if I write a poem a day, in a year, I'll have written 365 poems. That's all there is to it. It will be that way, and the only way it won't is if I don't write a poem every day. I find that I'm hardly resenting my new obligation; I actually look forward to it. It's a break from homework, it's better than watching TV, and I genuinely enjoy doing it. I honestly didn't expect it to be that way. What's keeping me going is how excited I'll be in a year, writing Day 365 at the top of my page. I'm even excited to write Day 15. Anyway, here I am on Day 4 and already feeling a hell of a lot better than I felt a week ago. Here's poem numero 4.

February decided to stay a while, so we
adjusted to salting the frozen rain
on the doorstep. Crunchy grass began our
days. Our down-filled coats never made it back
to the closet. I knew that if you called
to me, the hot water must be done, and if your
guitar was away when I walked
in the door, you had heard me
coming. Your words sounded like
footsteps upstairs. You walked like you
were facing the wind. The radiator
covered midnight silence. I'd fall asleep
aware of the light
in the bathroom where you shaved your graying
beard.

Core Values & Issues

Values:
Certainty, the inevitable
Things that exist vs. things that don't
Empathy

Issues:
Fact vs. opinion/belief
religion
selfishness
knowing or understanding a person
influence

Enneagram Test

The test said I was a 5w4, then a 4w5, then a 5w6, so I must be mostly 5. I hope that doesn't mean I'm too much of a pain in the ass. "The language of emotion is not their native tongue". Well, that's not good. I don't know how I feel about this test. I do tend to come off as emotionless, and that impression is indeed very wrong. It's true that I never ask anyone for help; I usually assume that no one cares to deal with my problems. I'm not great with relationships. I can talk to people pretty easily, but I'm not good at joining in on big groups of people who already know each other. When I do talk to people who I don't usually talk to or haven't spoken to in a while, I have to be a little different. I don't lie about my opinions or anything, but something is different about me. I feel like I behave differently around every different person I know. The test said that the people I have relationships with are usually lifelong friends. I don't know; I think I have a lot of relationships with people who I have no intention of keeping around forever. I can make small talk; I just don't like to.
I definitely am a thinker. I think a lot because I'm alone a lot. I'm alone all the time. If I'm not talking and no one is talking to me, I think as if I'm alone. Being a typically quiet person, that's a lot of thinking. I was talking to Luke the other day about words and things that can't be put into words. Sometimes I think so much that one of those things comes up and then everything kind of goes into a black hole because there are concepts that I just can't understand. I don't know if I think more than anyone else, but it sure seems abnormal. I know everyone's always thinking. My thinking makes me tired. It makes me want to bang my head on something. I have to read to shut myself up. I think about thinking. I notice patterns in my thinking. Thinking makes me sad. I argue with myself. I whisper "shut up" to myself so my voice can drown out my thoughts. It makes me lonely. I think so much that I forget to fall asleep.
Fear of inadequacy: true.
This test is a little too accurate. I don't like the idea that everybody can be put into a category and there's only nine. It makes people seem sort of boring. I guess I just don't like being told what I am. Are these numbers permanent? Not that any one number is better than the other (or maybe it is), but I'm wondering if you can go from one to another. And if we control which number we are.

Artist Statement

I've been thinking about today a ton and this is what I have. I'm not going to explain the values yet because I'm not sure that they're right and I need to think about them a little more.

Values:
Certainty, the inevitable
things that exist vs. things that don't exist- Actually, I'm pretty sure about this one. Last year I wrote a story about a man's relationship with his imaginary friend (which really represented a number of things). And I realized that the poem I posted just last week had a line about colors that don't exist.
routine

Issues:
Fact vs. opinion/belief- I had down religion, but I figure it ties into this. I don't believe in god; in fact, I'm sure that there isn't one. Not only do I believe in every corner of my mind that there is no god, I hold it as fact. Still, there are people who know that there is a god. They don't just believe it, they know it. These two blatant opposites are facts. They are as opposite as life and death, but to somebody, each is a fact.
Selfishness: I'm hung up on the idea that everything that everybody does is for themselves, no matter how generous. A person who spends years volunteering to build houses for tsunami victims or Hurricane Katrina victims or starts a charity fund for Darfur or Haiti or anything along these lines is doing it solely for themselves. The furthest I've ever been from selfishness is when my grandpa died and what made me saddest was that his best friend couldn't go to the supermarket where everyone thought they were brothers every morning anymore. They had done it every morning for fifty years. But even that was selfish; that was a part of me, of my identity. I was no longer someone who had a grandpa who went to the supermarket every morning with his best friend where everyone thought they were brothers. That couldn't be a part of me anymore.
Knowing/understanding a person: Mainly a family member. There is so much to everybody. How can we possibly know a quarter of a person's life and true personality when we're so caught up in our own lives? A parent can love their child without even knowing them. Yes, parents may know their children more than the children can understand, but if we don't understand ourselves, how can anybody else? And why is it just common knowledge that your family knows you better than anyone else? Do you have to love your family?

STAC Live

Just after ninth period on Friday when we were still in the auditorium, some kid who was sitting directly behind us said to his friend, "Yo, we should join STAC". The friend said, "Am I gay?" Then they laughed because it was just the funniest thing since the atomic bomb. I turned around and gave them my "are you serious?" look. One kid was like, "Sorry." I told him not to apologize, just that if they came to insult us, not to sit right behind us. The idiot goes "Don't worry. I'll join STAC".
I wasn't offended. I haven't cared what people like that think about me for a while. I guess I pride myself on that. I was going to write that I couldn't believe how ignorant people could be, but then I realized that I could believe it very easily and that's what makes me sad. "Don't worry. I'll join STAC." Is that really what he got out of what I said? So I put myself in his position. We all play different roles. We are different people depending on who we're with, right? I'm thinking now about what we did at the community center when we became our characters. We do that every day, don't we? We believe we are the person that we project onto people around us. Maybe that's what the kid was doing. When he comes to school every day, he is a character. He tilts his hat to the side and is ready for action. He sees his friends and his character has sunk in. He sneers at anything and everything that he can possibly place himself above on the social hierarchy. He starts his sentences with "Yo". So when he came to STAC Live, he stayed in character. I'm not saying that secretly he loved it and went home and built a secret shrine to it in his closet, but maybe if he hadn't spent years creating and sinking into this character of his, he would have had a more open mind. At least I'm going to tell myself this because it makes me very sad that there are people who can't peer outside the norm and see that it's okay to like something that isn't drugs, alcohol, 50 cent, or not using their brains.
Rather than being offended by these kids, I was genuinely proud. I hate knowing something (STAC is full of smart, creative people, for example) and knowing that there are tons of people who will never believe you. It's like having a ghost follow you around. Why even try to convince anyone it's there? As much as I hate it, I thought, at least I'm one of the ones who knows. I had never felt more proud to be in STAC, not even the day I opened the acceptance letter. I was also proud of my ability to tell these kids off, or at least let them know I heard and make them look kind of stupid. Incredibly, I used to be even more of a nervous wreck than I am now. I'm in the two major groups of outcasts in school, STAC and track. Both are called gay cults. For some reason, I'm able to stand up for these groups when I hear stupid remarks. A couple of years ago, I would probably laugh along. I know that trying to change people's opinions is a useless effort, so I don't try to. I just pride myself on my new found ability to be a mirror to people being stupid. Last week, this nice kid trying to do his homework was being bullied by these kids who I've known since kindergarten and who I know to be idiots. Last year, during cross country season, my team ran past them during a warm up. As we ran by, they yelled "Fags" and laughed. As I ran that day, I planned out what I would have said to them and came up with a nice little comeback. I still know it by heart. And I hated that I hadn't said it. This time, the first thing that came to me was "What the hell are you doing? You're going to rot in guido hell", so I said it. They were kind of speechless (Like I said, I couldn't always do that). Then they apologized to the kid and walked away and started being stupid again. You can hardly change a person, but you can make them ashamed of themselves. It's more about me, though. They're kids who I've hated for most of my life, and I, a STACie and trackie had just put them in their place.
This is going to be then end of my venting about anti-STAC feelings. It's not really worth acknowledging, although I just spent a while acknowledging it. I just hope that if anybody is actually bothered by the people who hate us or pretend to hate us because it's the cool thing, they can take my mentality. At least we know that STAC is good. At least we're the ones who know.

The Piano

Lately, I've had a huge obsession with the piano. I've wanted to learn the piano for a while, but it was blown up completely when I watched this youtube video of somebody's fingers playing Army. I was just enthralled by the person's ability to move his fingers like that and make something so beautiful. And I thought about how if I knew how to do that, I would be a different person. So maybe I just want to add something to who I am or maybe I just love the piano, but I want to learn it SO BADLY. And it eats away at me that I don't have the time or money for lessons. And I don't want to wait until I do because who knows when that will be? The next few years I will be busier than ever and spending more money than ever. And I want to be able to play now. So, I listened to another Ben Folds song with a simpler piano part and I learned a little part of it. And I played it over and over again and I have it down, and I just watch my fingers and listen in awe. It's amazing. And I want to be able to do it better. And more! So I've decided I'm going to teach myself. I'm going to buy a beginner's book and teach myself because I want to be a person who can play the piano.

Poetry therapy

I'm terribly depressed tonight and on a poem rampage. Here's one. I'm going to hate it tomorrow.

Your hands look coarse,
Stop touching rocks;
they look the same when they are hot.
There must be places that you go and don't tell,
Places that are untouched by roads,
But become cities when you go.

Did you remember me when you got there?

No, it's in colors I've never seen.
It must be where you saw
what you were thinking of in the dining room
when I was thinking about
the red coat that you could see.

It must have been a girl with a freckle
above her lip or something.
But not that.

And while you blinked the room was different,
though it looked the same to me.
But I've been here all this year
with a red coat.