2 for 4 at Best

Friday was rife with irony, and for all the wrong reasons.

Bright Eyes was my favorite band for years. If I had to pick a favorite now, I'd still probably say them. It's mostly because they used to be so significant to me, and they will always have that sentimental, nostalgic value. Bright Eyes was the band that understood me. Conor Oberst knew what I was feeling and could put it into words better than I could have. Back in junior year of high school, whenever I was feeling angsty, depressed, or mourning another failed attempt at female interaction, I'd listen to any or all of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Or Digital Ash. Then I found Lifted and loved it equally.

With Cassadaga I had to listen a few times, but it grew on me, and I now accept it into the canon. But by the time The Peoples Key came out this year, I had grown a lot and was a different person than the high school junior with major depressive disorder (which was indeed a bad time, but the DSM, I feel, is somewhat dramatic with that one). Conor had changed too, in my estimation of things. The trend started with Cassadaga. He seemed to be searching for meaning in his life and finding it through unorthodox ideologies, which is fine for him but not something I'm about to do.

So for the period in Bright Eyes' music spanning Lifted, Wide Awake, Digital Ash, and Cassadaga and the period of my life from, let's say 17 to 19, Conor's music was absolutely how I was feeling, it was my outlook on life, and it expressed sorrow and beauty in ways that resonated with me.

So I love Bright Eyes.

In the middle of last week (a day or two before my birthday on Thursday), I found out from my* girlfriend that there was a free music festival across the bay in San Francisco with none other than Bright Eyes playing Friday evening, preceded by M. Ward (whom I love as well. This passion developed later than that for Bright Eyes and never reached the same intensity). I cancelled plans for a birthday shindig with some friends and decided to go to the festival to meet my girlfriend and see my favorite band. Great.

I got to Golden Gate Park, watched M. Ward finish his set, which was nice, and met up with her before Bright Eyes came on. We had a great spot on a knoll* next to a tree that prevented people from crowding in front of us.

I ask if she's going to stay the night with me in Berkeley before heading back the next day, she says she doesn't want to leave her friends.

"What does that say about our relationship?"

We're basically just friends. We text and see each other on weekends.

"Are we just friends?"

"[I don't know... etc.]"

"Well if you don't care, then the answer is yes."

"[I don't know, it's just that we both moved to different colleges, I have a different life, this is hard, I don't know if I have the time, etc.]"

"[Well that's shitty. Is this the last time I'm going to see you?]"

No, we're still friends, we'll see each other from time to time.

Wow.

I thought about leaving her there and watching the show with a former coworker from San Diego who just so happened to move to Oakland and just so happened to be in San Francisco at the same show and just so happened to see me walking through the thousands of people ten minutes prior and call out my name and chat with me for a bit. But I stayed.

I stayed and watched my favorite band play the last show of their tour with my new, first ex-girlfriend. I held her and watched a show I envisioned for years, and the show itself was as great as I imagined and hoped it would be, and it was nearly joyless because I could not stop thinking how that was the last time I would have my arm around her waist and that soon or very soon another person would have his arm there.

We both felt that after college we can be together again. Between songs she reassured me, "This isn't the end." Then "First Day of My Life" began.

After I went through that whole song contemplating the lyrics in contrast with my situation, they played "Lover I Don't Have to Love." Right. Really what I need to hear.

The set went on, and I would have been in musical bliss the whole time if my two-year relationship had not just ended. The band ended with "Road to Joy," which was everything I had hoped it would be live, except devoid of any enjoyment.

Then we said goodbye. We both said, "I love you."

Here's my problem with what "you" said, if I may address you. I'll admit things have been hard since I moved to Berkeley a month ago. We have never been apart like that, but we kept in touch while you were still back home, and once you moved to college only 70 miles from me, we made the effort to see each other. It wasn't what it once was, but it was working because we were making it work. I admitted during that conversation that I knew I couldn't do this long-distance thing for three years, but you know what... for right now, for the present moment, I was content with seeing you when I could and loving you.

My problem with what you said was that your love isn't the same as mine. If we shone it through a prism, let's say, or viewed it through a diffraction grating, it could be split apart, and we would see what it consists of. (Sorry, astrophysics is clearly taking over my life.)

You have (had?) storge, I know that. You loved me in spite of and even for my idiosyncrasies. I saw it from time to time, but certainly less as of recent. Thank you for that. You know I loved you in that way also.

We had phileo for sure. We liked the same bands (clearly), I showed you my taste in movies, and we had a friendship based on numerous mutual interests.

Here's where we differ. There's no doubt in my mind, because I've been clear about it, that I had eros for you. If you don't believe me, check your text messages. I was afraid when we saw each other recently that yours for me was gone. I should have given greater credence to my gut instinct, but Friday's conversation would still have been a surprise. The "love" you assured me you had on Friday is not eros.

Lastly, I wouldn't say you lack agape in a general sense. You're a good person, and that's why I loved you. You care for other people and you do the right thing when it matters. But did you want to give me your selfless love, in spite of distance and difficulty? No. I was still content to love you even though it would be easier to find someone here and not make the trip to Santa Cruz every weekend.

So, "you," when we said we loved each other for the last time, I said, "I love you" (4 for 4), whereas you only love me (2 for 4). It's unfortunate our numbers don't match.

I'll miss you.

Getting back to that irony I was talking about, I haven't bothered yet to count specific instances, but here's a summary tally:

1. Break up a day after my birthday

2. Break up right before seeing my favorite band live for the first time

3. Chance meeting of former coworker in new city

4-9. Content / titles of songs juxtaposed with my shit

10. Watching show with someone I just broke up with

11. Saying "I love you" during break-up goodbye

*[erstwhile]

*Grassy, but alas not used for any assassinations that day to my knowledge.

beer and hot water

here's the situation with beer and hot water...

GOOD - beer in a hot tub. you combine two things that are relaxing and awesome.

BETTER - beer in the shower. same as above, but now you're naked. that's a plus.

BEST - beer in a hot tub, naked. that's beer + hot tub + skinny dipping. three awesome things together wins for sure.

good thing I'm still awake at 5A.M.

...because what else would I be doing but wasting my time sleeping?

I've never drank tea and felt any appreciable caffeine buzz, but apparently two 33.8 fl. oz. of Tejava's bomb-ass unsweetened tea is enough to do the trick (well actually, not to make me feel a buzz, but to keep me awake in bed for three hours rolling around, thinking "Why the hell am I not asleep?"). [that was a lot of punctuation right there.]

it was an innocent thought, six hours ago. "I'm thirsty. iced tea sounds really good right now. oh, two for $3? why not!?" damn you, Ralph's, and your good deals!

I ended up drinking both, along with some beers interspersed. then after finishing said beverages, trying to throw a frisbee silently in the street with the homies, and getting angry "come home!" phone calls, I decided it was time to hit the hay.

blah blah blah can't sleep, now we're here. I think I'll pass the time with an English lesson for you, whoever chooses to read this!

Lesson 1: "nother"

this is very common. I do this too, so don't think I'm coming down on you if you are guilty of this sin. we must simply be mindful of our wrongdoings and eventually make some effort to overcome them...

when we say the word "another", it seems that we might be saying "a nother", giving life and meaning to this bastard of a word. this leads to the phrase "a whole nother", which should obviously be "a whole other".

that's all. just something to think about.

oh wait...

Lesson 2: "I could care less"

think about this one... if you COULD care less, that means you DO care to some degree, because a lesser degree of caring is possible (according to you). if you truly DGAF super hard like an east county bro from a couple years ago, when all bros and bro-hoes had that in their MySpace names but didn't give a fuck what us non-bro people thought... if you truly don't give a flying saucer what someone thinks about you or your clothes or your hair or whatever... then you could NOT care less.

right?

yes.

you may abbreviate this to "I couldn't care less." I will accept this on the exam.

oh! I think the sky is getting lighter! should I watch the sunrise? it's been some time since I've seen one. (not that that's a problem with me. because... you know, I'd really fucking love to be asleep right now. k bye.)

food

food sucks. fuck food. if I didn't have to eat to stay alive, it would be a rare occasion that I did eat. this is all coming from the fact that nothing tastes good. well, at least nothing in my house tastes good. pizza, burritos, and cheeseburgers taste good. that's it. fat, melted cheese, and meat.

here's how the average morning goes for me: wake up at 10:something, muster up the motivation to shower, convince myself to put clothes on after much deliberation, go to the kitchen... "hmm what should I eat for breakfast? cereal is all carbs (plus milk, but that's not a lot of protein). so since the two things I can make for breakfast are cereal and eggs with toast, I'll probably go with eggs and toast." every morning it's exactly this.

and what's up with people who can only write when they're mad about something? how lame is that? how about you get some real ability and learn to write even when you don't want to.

85/100

if you think that was a B paper, then you're a C- teacher.

arrogant? probably. but true.

fuckin twat.

rough draft, Essay 1

to my poor readers, I would like to say one thing: I am grateful that you read my blog when you do, but by no means do I expect you to read every piece. I'll be posting quite a lot for the next six weeks while I'm still in this endeavor of academic asininity officially titled "English 120". so if you see a big one and you're pressed for time or short on attention, remember I hold no grudges over an un-commented post. I'm putting these works out here much like a message in a bottle... nobody has to read it, but the thought that one might is almost comforting.

on with the show! I had to turn in a rough draft today - three pages responding to a short story ("Too Many Bananas" by Dave Counts). there was no way in Jerusalem I could say that much about it, so here's the result...

"Too Many Bananas" - Critical Response

[insert introduction and one paragraph of scholarly-ish BS here]

That thought isn’t leading anywhere, so now I’m going to talk about why this piece is adequate writing but not great. To say that it is adequate though, we first have to establish that it does not suck in any way.

The story begins:

The woman came all the way through the village, walking between the two rows of houses facing each other between the beach and the bush, to the very last house standing on a little spit of land at the mouth of the Kaini River.

That doesn’t suck. If this short story sucked, it would start off, “We never knew just how much we would learn from moving to the jungle and getting rid of our money,” which it doesn’t. So far, so good.

Now look at the following sentence:

When the woman offered to sell us the watermelon for two shillings, we happily agreed, and the kids were delighted at the prospect of watermelon after yet another meal of rice and bully beef.

That’s a beautiful sentence. It starts off with “when”, but Counts is on top of things and gets that comma in there. Then there’s another comma right before a coordinating conjunction! With that, he’s free to tell us the kids were delighted at the prospect of watermelon, all without having to stop and take a break at a lousy period. Beautiful, Mr. Counts. Now he has a non-sucky introductory sentence and a black belt in punctuation going for him. But I promise things don’t end there!

Fortunately for the reader, Counts - I feel like I can call him Dave – breaks up this whopper into three easy to swallow sections. But that in itself doesn’t contribute to not sucking. What does, however, is his clever titling of each section. We begin with “No Watermelon at All” (except in caps lock), then “Too Many Bananas”, then “Not Enough Pineapples”. If this piece sucked, the sections might be called “Part 1”, “Part 3”, and “Part 2” (in no particular order).

I’m pretty sure I could go on for countless pages about my buddy Dave’s writing prowess, but I don’t want to give him a big head. So now I have to attempt to explain what keeps this piece from being great. I say attempt because that which is lacking is not quantifiable. I can’t go over the story with a red pen and circle the lack of greatness.

That is precisely my point: whatever it is that makes a work great instead of good is just not there in this piece. Sure, it’s interesting. It provides me with a perspective I’ve never considered before, and Dave deserves some credit for that. But at the end I find myself thinking, “Yes, things are different in a culture where ‘reciprocity is the rule and gifts are the idiom.’ So what? Thanks for sharing I guess. It was well written.”

To be fair, not much you’ll read is going to be Earth-shattering or mind-blowing or paradigm-changing. It’s rare that something like that comes along. So “Too Many Bananas” fits somewhere near the upper end of the middle of the pack. It makes a good bedtime story – you’ll enjoy it, yawn, and go to sleep.

English 120, take 2

I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. If I had to classify myself, I would say I'm a realist (which often leans more toward pessimism in our overly optimistic, you-can-be-anything-you-set-your-mind-to society).

you can call the glass half empty or half full, but the fact of the matter is that the volume of the glass is twice that of the beverage contained therewithin. cry about it or jump for joy, that's all on you.

fuck English classes. you want us to write a three page analysis on a five page short story, showing that we engaged thoroughly with the material? how about you go thoroughly engage your mother while we write anything about anything we want. if it comes out: 1) in proper, well-formed English with varying sentence structure, showing a knowledge of the rules and good taste in breaking them; 2) in a unique voice, avoiding cliches and banal ass-banter; 3) showing good overall structure, using tact and style to build up to an intelligent thought worth hearing... then we don't need you.

analyzing writing is inferior to creating an original work of your own. the purpose of analysis is to learn what the author was thinking in their development of their idea so that you can eventually develop your own ideas. when!? I'm fucking sick of analysis. I'm done with training wheels, you twat. show me how to do backflips.