boston

this year is wearing on me. i'm enjoying not being in school full-time, and i do love my job, but the academic stress has been replaced by personal disasters.
i almost think i should leave the country for a while. after i graduate maybe i'll go to israel for a year; but i want to find a way out of the hole i've dug myself into now.
i left new york for boston so i could start over; leave behind who i'd been in high school. and i managed it for a while until i started burning out. and now that i've made my mistakes in yet another city i feel like there's nowhere else for me to go to try and fix things.
rationally, i know that moving is not the answer, because it involves too many complications. but hell if i want to stay here.

avoidance

i occasionally find it difficult to rationalize my intermittent disappearances. sure, they make sense to me; when the world is not quite the appropriate frame of existence for me, i wander off for a while and come back when things are less not-right.
but it seems as though people think that i'm deliberately avoiding them. and, well, there is a sense of arrogance in feeling that one is being avoided; as though one is at all entitled to the attention of others.
nobody is entitled to an explanation of what is going on in my life and why it makes me avoid interacting with them. i am alive, and life is unpredictable, and that should quite honestly be justification enough. sometimes i am busy, sometimes i would simply rather be doing other things; and that is legitimate, no matter who you are and what you ask of me.

on dreaming

remember way back when i dreamed of being a real musician? when i finished my last final and immediately sat down to look at conservatories for post-graduation? when i had Plans for my life?
...yeah. more and more, those plans are looking like a waste of my time. i'm not an actress; so goodbye broadway. i'm not really a soprano; so goodbye any sort of classical performance. and i have artistic integrity, so no recording contracts for me. going to a conservatory will really end up just being a waste of time and money.
the hardest part of having dreams is waking up and realizing that they were just that: dreams, and nothing more.

mindless irrational paranoias yay!

i have two days off from work this week. i think it's time for me to go back to therapy.
and i am terrified.
i've done a huge amount of introspection in the past eight months, and discovered things about myself that i wish i didn't know. i am loving, caring, and friendly; vicious, manipulative, and arrogant; fragile, insecure, and lonely. i am everything anyone could possibly be, rolled into a five-foot bundle of contradictions that i would dearly love to have sorted out. but who will i be when that's all said and done?
i am scared to shit of what i'll become. i don't want to change, but i don't really want to be who i am now either.
yes, okay, maybe somebody should call the waahmbulance.

things are looking up

i'm no longer unemployed! i had an interview at barnes & noble on wednesday (was it? maybe it was tuesday...) and i start work on monday!
and so i had to go back to ny today to get my social security card from the safe deposit box. been home for 7.5 hours so far, and not one argument with my parents. i guess it's kind of shitty that it weirds me out to not be fighting with them, but this is a really surreal feeling.
like, they just paid for my fall classes, and i owe them (even more) money now, and there *still* hasn't been any arguing.
now i guess the next thing to do is figure out this whole insurance thing, and get myself a new therapist. again.
still, i am breathing easier now.

non-separate entities

i am one half of an increasingly insane relationship. again. but here's the thing: she's one of my sisters, not a significant other.
we're sharing a room this summer and planning to move into an apartment together early next year (more on that another time). and because right now i'm not working and she has an irregular schedule, we've been spending a lot of time together both in and out of the house. things have gotten to the point where when one of us says "we," everyone knows who we're referring to; and people sometimes address us both even if they're only talking to one of us.
and let me tell you, internet, it is FREAKY AS SHIT. i wonder sometimes what sort of effect my relationship with her will have on the rest of my social life, because we go out together so often that i think the staff of the area restaurants think we're dating. i know, hilarious.
but sometimes it really does worry me, because sometimes we kind of function as a unit. am i losing bits of my identity like this?

the new star wars

is it normal to spend the afternoon of july 4th watching star wars? because that's what i'm doing.
and good lord, but the acting in the new ones is TERRIBLE. i will never understand why mediocre actors are cast in leading roles when the film clearly has the budget to hire people who can actually act. the only bright spot is the terrible punning from R2 & C3PO.
and when someone with a visceral hatred of puns says that, you know it's got to be bad.

in limbo

another birthday is approaching, and i am reminded of why i don't want to grow up. it involves being a real adult, with an actual paying job.
thing is, i'm meant to be on the stage, whether it's on broadway or singing classically. but being a successful musician isn't just about skill; it also depends a lot on who you know. and i'm reluctant to completely commit to a career in music, simply because it takes the right circumstances to begin making money. i don't particularly want to be yet another starving artist living in a box under harvard bridge.
right now i don't really know how to handle the disconnect between the various facets of what i want from life. i'm planning to apply to conservatories & get a degree in performance after i graduate, but plans never really work out the way you expect them to. i suppose i'll just be in an interesting sort of in-between for a while; or at least, until i decide to make up my mind one way or the other.

eh. life goes on.

the idea that life can go on in my absence takes a lot of getting used to.
last summer was like this too. i disappear for a weekend and parties happen. people acquire stories, photos are put on facebook, and i get to feel irrationally jealous about it. i guess it's because i miss my friends terribly when they're gone, but nobody seems to notice when i'm not around. they tell me they miss me, they say they're there if i need to talk before i come back; and then when i need them most they're nowhere to be found.
and this weekend, it was okay, because i know enough people in weird time zones that i found someone awake and willing to lie to me for half an hour so i could stop panicking. but that was just sheer dumb luck; and i wonder what will happen the next time if there's absolutely no one around.
one day i'll have someone who'll sit by the phone waiting for me to call. or at least that's what i keep telling myself.

8 miles, and then some

yesterday we went kayaking down the delaware. 8 miles, supposedly a 3 1/2 hour trip. and the best thing i've done for myself in a long time.
i was with my family and a couple of friends, but managed to get myself way out in front of everyone else. and up front there, it was just me, the river, and the birds. no phone, no ipod, nothing.
to be completely cut off from absolutely everything was just what i needed. it's been too long since i was last completely unattached, & to really feel that is wonderfully liberating. no boys randomly trying to contact me, no drama chasing me around, nothing; just the sound of the water.
with everyone so far behind that they were inaudible, and the rest of the river ahead of me, it felt like i could do anything. and even though that doesn't completely translate to the rest of my life, for a few hours it was completely true. bliss.

anything can happen in the woods...

this evening has been spent watching into the woods; which happens to be one of my favorite musicals ever. the last time i saw it was almost two years ago, and it was a great show then. but after two years of college, and life in general, it somehow has more of a meaning now.
i've been rather frazzled lately; but it's curing that feeling bit by bit. life happens, and you make decisions, and those decisions are hard and they have far reaching consequences. but whatever happens, you learn from it, and it changes you for the best.
everything that happens is ultimately for the best.

not being full of fail, for the umpteenth time

so. i finally figured out why i suck at blogging regularly, and now i have some advice for y'all who're thinking of starting a blog. DON'T DO IT IN THE MIDDLE OF TERM.
classes cause sleep deprivation. sleep deprivation causes sleep madness. sleep madness causes stupid posts. and then you get really embarrassed and you stop posting until you can come up with something intelligent...except you never do, because you are a) too tired to be a rational human being or b) too damn busy to sit down and think for a bit. and then before you know it six months have gone by without a post and you're like "damn. must have lost readers over that one. but what if i never *had* any readers in the first place? what if this blog is just a futile attempt at being an interesting member of society? WHAT IF NO ONE LOVES ME?!" and then you really stop writing, because you can't see the point anymore.
this is sort of what has happened to me as regards this whole Being On The Internet thing. it's kind of pathetic. but now, it's summertime, and since i'm not too busy i am hoping to get myself into a routine so that i can continue to be interesting even after term begins.
man, this post wasn't meant to be so huge. in summary, i promise i'll be back in some capacity. really and truly.

plots and plans

the trouble with being a woman at a top-tier engineering school is that you often lose sight of your own intentions. it feels as though we're not allowed to want to be domestic at all, simply because we want successful careers; but when you start suppressing bits of your consciousness you start going a little crazy at the same time.
i don't know where my career will be in ten years. i see myself in a house with a big, sunny kitchen, a sprawling back garden, and a piano in my living room. we're not supposed to want to be mothers, because it makes us bad feminists. but ever since acknowledging this to myself, i'm somewhat more at peace with the uncertainty of my future. i have none of it figured out, but i still feel better about all the confusion.

the best laid plans

i realized last week that i have no idea what to do with my life, and that i needed to drop a class to stay sane this term. so i dropped it, and changed my major. i don't know what's going to happen with my life, or what i'll tell my parents, or where anything is going, but last sunday when i realized that i don't know anything at all, it was the most wonderfully liberating epiphany i've ever had.
it would be a lie to say that i no longer worry about grad school or whether i'll get a job once i graduate, because those are still very real concerns. but for now, it's enough for me to do what i want to do with my life. yes, it's still sometimes a struggle to find a good reason to get out of bed, but there are so many more of them now. i am no longer living day to day looking for something to keep me going till the next; i just want to be happy, and it is beautiful.

baby sisters

my little sister turned 13 last week, and it terrifies me. i remember realizing a few years ago that she was turning 10 and being freaked out then, but it's worse now because she's only a year away from high school and i still clearly remember the morning she was born. it makes me feel old to come home and discover that she's grown another few inches, or to call and find out that she took the SATs last weekend and is now treasurer of her school's service club. one day next year she's going to start high school, and then eventually go to college, and then graduate, and i am just going to be getting older and older while she goes through the same stuff that i did. i try to call her every so often so that we don't disconnect, and every time i do she talks and talks and asks me for advice and it struck me a few weeks ago that she looks up to me. worst realization ever, especially considering that she's probably smarter than i am. she tells me about the musical she's planning to audition for and i realize that i still haven't watched the video from her last one, this past spring. and then she reminds me that she's taller than i am now, and i think of all the times i used to carry her around, because she was my baby sister and that's how things go, and it makes me a little sad that i can't do that anymore. but then she asks me what to do about the boy that has a crush on her and i remember that i'm still her big sister, because never in a million years would she ever talk to anyone else like she talks to me. i guess i just have to get used to her growing up.

light reading

people seem concerned about me yet again. yes, i am reading a history of suicide. no, i am not reading it for inspiration. everyone has issues in their lives, but mine are not such that i feel i need to take that route out. i am reading it because i feel like it, because it was on the shelf next to a book that a response to a post on gawker this morning mentioned. i borrowed both. the post was about subway jumpers. it's relevant. and i don't really see why i need to justify my choice of light reading to anyone. maybe i'm dabbling in amateur psychology. maybe i'm interested in how religion affected people's lives from the middle ages onwards. maybe, just maybe, i don't actually need to see a therapist.
sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar.

best friends?

instead of doing my incomprehensible physics homework i tend to wander the internets; or in this case my facebook feed. i keep coming across the same note/quiz/thing done by different people, & this time i stopped to read one done by a good friend of mine. and for some reason it got me thinking, do people back home still think of me as a friend? i'm an insanely busy person with a stressful life, but who really understands that? i don't deliberately ignore people, but if someone's life consumes them and they fall off the face of the earth can you still consider them a friend?

regrets

what do you do when you know you've hurt someone and you desperately want to be friends again?
i dated my first boyfriend for three months, in between junior and senior year of high school. we were good friends all through middle school, and i think that summer might have been the best of my life (not entirely because of him, but still). he's the epitome of the skinny, nerdy white boy, and we were that couple who sat in central park using the uncertainty principle to describe our relationship. and it made sense to us, though maybe not to anyone else. every weekend or two was spent in a different museum, eating gyros and pretzels in central park, pretending to be the adults that we'd eventually have to become; and though we may just have been two silly kids, we were gloriously happy.
maybe i shouldn't have broken up with him when school started again. now i can't remember why i actually did; all i can remember is what i told him instead of the truth, and at that point i wasn't the accomplished liar i am now. he saw through it, we didn't speak for a while, he took me out to see macbeth that spring with some inscrutable reason which i still can't figure out, and then we drifted apart again.
i saw him in april briefly, but we don't talk anymore. maybe i shouldn't bother trying. but i hope somehow he finds this post, because maybe if he reads it and understands then we can go back to being friends.

overpopulation

natural selection
i kind of wish i could say i disagreed with her, because it feels like such a heartless thing to say, but really there are just way too many people on this planet. if people want to make unhealthy decisions and give themselves lung cancer or pick up an STD because of a habit of unprotected sex, then maybe they won't reproduce and the world will begin to recover from the absurd amounts of people inhabiting it.
being able to extend your lifespan and hold off death is also a stupid idea. the world is fucked up, and i for one do not intend to stay in it after my body tells me to go. instead of finding ways to defy biology so that post-menopausal women can have children and we don't die of old age, we should concentrate on improving the quality of life in other parts of the globe. you know, the ones that aren't overprivileged. the ones where people worry about where their next meal is coming from, or whether they'll still be alive in the morning. our resources would be better spent narrowing the gaps in the global spectrum of quality of life.

my ex. again.

i think everyone has an ex that they wish would leave them alone. mine decided to IM me again today. i broke up with him last september after dating for three months, and for some reason he still tries to talk to me.
i defriended him a few months after the breakup, because the temptation to facebook-stalk him was almost as annoying as he was. even after months of my ignoring his messages, he'd still IM me and ask me if we could talk, or if i had a problem with him, or various little things like that, so i did the most logical thing possible: sent him an email. a cold, PR-toned email signed with my professional signature. you'd think that would be some sort of signal, but it appears not. he's IMed me twice more since then, and while i know he just wants to be friends i would prefer not to be. we weren't friends before we dated: why should we be now, when i know that we have little in common intellectually or in any other regard? if it wasn't worth it to me to maintain a long-distance relationship, when i presumably felt something for him, why should it be worth my while now to begin a friendship that can't possibly function?
i understand that it's difficult to have someone drop out of your life entirely, particularly if you dated at some point, but by the same token it's difficult to have someone show up in your life periodically when you don't want to deal with them. and i do realize that this post sounds bitchy, but anything that causes me any stress or irritation gets removed from my life. it's the healthiest way for me to be.