Letting Go

As the new year rolls around, ready to pounce on us like a LOLcat on a ball of yarn, or just any cat really, it's easy to feel both nostalgia and hope. That's what year-end festivities do to us. They make us happy, but they make us recall the year that's been, and sometimes the years before the last.

I appreciate nostalgia as much as the next person. In fact, just yesterday, I hung out with two of my friends from St. Justin's. It wasn't weird, but I think they felt that I changed. For one, they thought I was smart still. Also, they were in the midst of me and my brother, so we were singing a lot...Needless to say, it must have been an almost surreal experience for them. Then we watched Scrubs, and I think I fell asleep because I woke up to Samantha about to suffocate me with a pillow while Francesca (quiet Francesca!) was recording.

Thus, I am not unused to nostalgia, as few people are, since it visits us every day. We don't always see it, but it does. And for those of us that do see it, and dwell on it, I contend that it's healthier to let things go. This doesn't mean that we should forget what makes us who we are, but if we live our lives in regret, won't that impede our future? Won't that even impede our present?

We need to let things go. Even as a culture. We gotta stop talking about Michael Jackson's death and Tiger Woods's infidelity (for the first, it's been 6 months, the second, who really cares?). I know how hard it is to let things go. That baby picture of your ex, that letter you wrote to me when we were 14, that prom picture we took that hangs out behind my closet. These things don't have to be thrown away, no. But they do have to be removed from our subconscious so we can move on with our lives.

Regardless of our need to move on, though, I really hope you threw away my thong. Please. Just throw it away.

Attached By the Hip

Last night, I was given a complimentary suite at the Sheraton San Jose, which is in Milpitas. It was a lovely room, similar to the one my Uncle San had when he stayed at the Element in Irving, Texas, except less contemporary (and eco-friendly).

I didn't want to have a party or anything, but I did end up playing Settlers of Catan. Things get crazy sometimes, and who am I to control it? I woke up around 2, and checked out at 4. Then Helen and I went to Applebee's because she was craving a steak. She got me two frogs for Christmas. One is a lot fatter than the other, so I'm naming them Kermit and Miss Piggy.

Anyways, the purpose of this post is to inform that I had a wonderful day today, even though it started late. My phone was out of service the whole day for reasons unknown, but I paid the bill yesterday. My throat has been in pain for the last two days, ever since I went to the Warriors game (beat the Suns<3), but even though I was hurtin' like mad today, I felt wonderful.

I wasn't near a computer all day, and my phone was rendered useless. I think it just shows how much happier I am without being rooted in technology. When we give into those needs to reach out, I guess I feel like we're losing a part of ourselves, asking ourselves to look outward and therefore be empty inwardly.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the weird one who's missing that inward connection. I don't know. I do know that while few things truly made me elated, while I didn't laugh extensively, while I spent most of my time alone at home, I caught a tantalizing glimpse of what seems to be true content.

But seriously, why aren't my calls, and more importantly, my fucking texts going through!?

Hey

Hey, hey. For all of you who have read what's-his-face's works, James Joyce, in the vernacular of Gaelic dialect, in the Irish tones of the lost English. Well, speaking of stream-of-consciousness, here I go.

I have possibly, maybe, possibly, probably drank more than I have in awhile. This means, combined with my little food consumption, I am probably at the most honest level as I will ever be. HAHA. Jk. I am never honest. The thing with inebriation is that it reveals your true self, or rather, exaggerates those qualities in yourself that most represent the natural tendencies of your mind or soul.

Thus, if you have secrets that are simmering, brimming, ready to seep over the already boiling pot, then those secrets will more likely be revealed with a small percentage (relatively) of alcohol in your system. However, and contrariwise, if you are a liar by nature (as I am) then those very qualities will exacerbate in you, promote the verbosity and strangely undisciplined nature of your tongue. Ergo, this blog entry.


More to come later.

Keys

It was 4AM. I as working on an assignment, and by working I mean opening the assignment and procrastinating. Sean, too, was working on a project due the next morning. He came downstairs periodically to talk about fantasy football, so naturally, we were both working diligently.

I was downloading Spirited Away from Rapidshare. Unfortunately it's in parts, so I have to download 14 things. Regardless, Sean came down for what must have been hte fifth time, discussing players he wanted to trade and pretty much bragging about how good his team is.

"You wanna take a break?" he asks. I knew what he meant. Smoke break.

I declined.

"Alright, then. Your loss!" he smiled as he closed the door.

About fifteen minutes later I heard a rapping on my chamber door. "It's open," I called out, not wanting to take my eyes off some basketball blogs.

The knob turned back in forth. "It's not," Sean said. "What are you doing in there?"

"I didn't lock it!" I called out. I got up to open it. It wouldn't budge.

I turned the knob and pulled. It still wouldn't budge.

I look in between the cracks and saw this. The big part is called the latch bolt, and I think the small part is called the lock bolt. When you turn the door knob, the latch bolt turns. If the door is locked, the lock bolt somehow clings on to the latch bolt and neither go in. In this case, the latch bolt went in, but the lock bolt, the small one, was stuck.

So yes, I was locked IN my room.

I asked Sean to get my room key from Eric, who lives above me. We all switched rooms at the beginning of the semester, but our keys are all switched up because they gave us the keys based on our assigned rooms.

The key didn't work. Sean woke up Evan, who sleeps on our couch. As disgruntled as Evan was, he soon saw the hilarity of the situation.

"Hey Andrew," he asked me through the door. "Can I make one of your ramen noodles?"

"I don't think now's the time, dude...but if you're really hungry..."

It's okay, I thought. They'll think of something.

"Andrew," Sean called to me, trying to sound soothing. "Don't worry. Evan and I are brainstorming ideas to get you out of there...Hey, Evan. Can you put on Madden real quick?"

"Andrew," Evan would later ask me. "Can you take off the hinges of the door? Do you have a screwdriver out there?"

"Yeah. Let me check real quick," I replied. I shuffled through my drawers.

"Alright, guys. You still there?" I asked.

"Yeah. What'd you find?" they asked.

"Alright. I got a flashlight and a pair of fingernail clippers."

Needless to say, it didn't work.

So I ended up calling Public Safety. The door was broken down. I left my room.

How frustrating it was.

Grosse Pointe Blank

So the tragicomedy that continues to riddle my life lives onward, full swing in its cliches and mundane grievances. It seems like we've become so much of a culture that complains that it has inevitably led us into a dark crevasse of criticism.

Because we've felt this unyielding urge to express ourselves, in words, in actions, in pictures, we have forced ourselves to become self-aware. We have made criticizing art into an art form itself, rewarding not only the attributes we supposedly should hold so dearly and so closely to our hearts, but also those very attributes that supposedly make us better.

In addition to the already extant expressions of complaints, our interestingly inexorable ability to self-reflect on our culture has resulted in an immeasurable amount of nonfiction. I believe this is a shift in our cultural values.

While we once loved legends and myths and stories made up for our fancy, we are slowly and certainly shifting our love to stories that are real, reflecting our preference to understand ourselves more. Our films were once lauded for their storytelling abilities, their fiction our fancy. However, in recent cinema, the trend has been to reward films with a basis in real stories.

We see much greater appeal in movies that tell stories that have already happened, but captured in a light that somehow makes it more appealing, romanticized for our viewing pleasure. Biopics have recently taken off and will eventually peak, culminating in a genre of film few thought would be as popular as they are now.

We began as artists. Art is expression, and, as I see it, art is complaining. Criticism came along, bringing along its cynical brother satire. In this era, we have emphasized criticism and satire. We seek constantly to make things better, so we follow commentary on how to make other things better.

Look at the intense popularity of Stephen Colbert. He's so famous that you don't even pronounce that word the same way anymore. When you see "Colbert," you don't read it as "COAL-BURT" but "COAL-BEAR" (see irony). Colbert's popularity points not only to his capable and satirical commentary, but also points to an audience that seems ravenous for such commentary.


So as we began as artists we are evolving as critics, masters of observations. We become experts at looking inward as well as outward.

And yet, sometimes, we cannot express ourselves to we look to others to express it for us. We flock to those who can relate to us the most, allured to the security that is ultimately a reflection of ourselves.

And we keep quiet those emotions we find difficult to express. We harbor obsessions we seek never to disclose for reasons that aren't obvious. While it may seem we don't disclose these obsessions because we are embarrassed, it is also very possible that the embarrassment is actually not as great as the fear of embarrassment.

So we hold these things to ourselves, our quiet obsessions.

And I can honestly say that the cross that is resting on my chest has never been heavier.