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comments: 0When I got back to my apartment tonight, half of the ceiling in the common area was gone and my room was about 90 degrees. I'll explain the hole on the ceiling; but rest easy knowing that the upcoming soul searching is cyclical in nature. The heat kind of gave me a nostalgic feeling about first moving in; building my furniture at night in the heat, getting eaten alive by bugs on my trips to and fro, and my first few nights here trying to sleep to forget about how uncomfortable I was. Last summer, looking for a place to move to, was completely surreal; it seems like it was all a dream now.
This weekend, I happened upon a "band" (its actually one man named James White) called Minikon while searching the old digs for some new electronic music to listen to. I've been digging up some indie stuff that I had meant to listen to a while ago (the last Spoon album, the French Kicks, and Barcelona), but I was in a mood for something more kraftwerk. Needless to say, the album plays like a delightful innocent pink sugar cookie, replete with fromsting smiles and gum drop winks. Perfectly capturing about 10 years of my youth in a 33 minute album is no small feat, but what's truly amazing is that this is music that will make you feel happy. As I told Navid (Nah-veed) today at work, its like a mind altering drug; delivered sonically.
This got me all into some huffy gaming mood, so I decided to read up on what I've been missing out at the always excellent Insert Credit. Drew had posed an interesting question in the letters section: "What would happen if (pick any game) never existed?" I found the question to be somewhat intriguing, and since the Insert Credit guys tend to positively and uniquely identify assholes and elbows quite regularly read on. At the end, I found this priceless quote which spoke to me as much as Minikon:
I'll level with you. I hardly play games these days. It's not because I believe some smug bullshit about how I've grown up and games haven't and how there isn't enough originality and blah blah horph Snickers Bars, because I don't. Games are evolving at a steady, logical pace. Instead, I can't remember the last time I played a game for an extended period of time without feeling guilty about the hours I just wasted for zero gain whatsoever.
Even putting aside my feelings for the phrase "_blah blah horph snickers bars_" (I like it more than anyone should), the whole quote really sums up what I think a whole generation is feeling now; or at least, what a lot of people I know are feeling or have been feeling for some time. In some kind of twisted irony though, rather than have my nostalgia deflated with this and Minikon being so at odds, I found a new nostalgia for a new era (coincidentally summer; my sense of touch and smell are very, very strongly bonded to my memory and my mood); the summers I spent at the house reading Insert Credit, learning Python, and trying to get ready for real life.
This Nostalgia I was now feeling (which at this point deserved to be capitalized) had gotten me into this weird mood. I never quite know how to feel when I get it; and it usually happens once or twice a year (since going to college it doesn't happen at Christmas anymore; now its usually fall & mid spring). Part of me always wants to be sad, that I can't have those youthful days back... and the lying part of course tells myself to cheer up, and that the life I've had has been good, and I'll be nostalgic for these days sometime in the future.
Tangents are rife in my past works, so I'll leave this one out of it, but lets just say that where we are about to go has something to do with IRC and the Netherlands. I got in the manga reading mood; partially because Johnny has been pressuring Navid to partake in some reading and partly because I was in this weird Nostalgic binge and had the delightful taste of summer nights reading Beck on the top bunk and talking to Wendy (amit : pichu) on AIM. After switching it up with some shonen and shoujo (Blame! & Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne), I decided that a nice shounen love story wouldn't be out of the question; nostalgia thusfar hadn't let me down, and I had begun noticing I was calmer, more relaxed, waking up on time and focusing better at work.
I decided upon I's, which is your basic shounen love drama with comedy and indicisiveness and indirect kisses and cute side stories that Jeremy seemed to be reading to me about his recent experiences with Kitu; all of that nice sweet innocence that makes you forget this country created bukake. And lo, how scarilly art can mirror reality! Reading this series in my steamy 90 degree windowless cave, basking in a state unawares that its not yet June; it felt like my worries literally melted from me.
Before I let you think that any of this means shit, lets take a recap from our boys in the back (this is your game, its like black jack.) Last year at this time I was sweating through senior design not knowing whether or not I was going to be able to pass physics and graduate. In the year that's passed, essentially since I graduated, an indescribably large ammount of shit has happened. Starting from the week of graduation onward (how did I not realize it years and years sooner? please kill me with this Jeremy; I am not one to ever criticize you for the way you've been) I feel like I've lived 3 years in the time short of 1.
Where does this story lead? It leads nowhere; it leads back to me, lying in the heat on my bed (typing this entry and not reading Beck), with a broken ceiling in the common area. It leads to it's own midpoint; with the continuation-like option of prepending more story onto itself to stay in the middle. It leads to some future in which things will change and be perceived at the very least simply as changed, and at the very best (with a wink and knowing grin) changed for the better. I have a lot of social action going on in a lot of places with a lot of different people, and it looks like I've finally reached an equilibrium with this thing.
So... my ceiling broke. It's a tragedy; there appears to be some water leaking in from the roof, although nothing has actually gotten wet and it hasn't rained in a week. Over the last week I had the added pleasure of pointing out that the hanging tiles were slightly more bulbous on each occasion where they had reached their next level of bulbocity. Today was the first day that I really had an urge to go to the gym, or at least an urge to do something strenuous and physical, which is good because I've gained about 20 pounds in the past year (_thanks_, Texas) and have had little to no energy to do anything.
All I have left is this nostalgia and with it the feeling that somehow the next time I have it, I'll be thinking about now instead of then. You ask yourself what it all means a lot when you have these weird spurts of optimism. It means that I can't wait for the concert Wednesday, or on Saturday, or that I can't wait to challenge myself and get in shape (after a million tries and blah blah hoorph snickers bars), or that I'll finally make some breakthrough and discover who I really am. It means that all of the philosophic crap I've been thinking about the self is finally starting to congeal from its amino-acid microthoughts to full blow protozoa and multi-cellular rumination. It means that it's only a matter of time until I fall for some dame again, and fuck it all up again, and just like the last time, I can't wait.