cxvii

“A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there.”

-Agnes Repplier

            Thanks to a brief moment of clarity earlier this morning, I realized one of the irrevocable, impossible, irreversible truths of the universe: it impossible to run with a backpack on without looking like a complete idiot.

            Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn that the hard way. Since I only have twenty minutes in between my two earliest classes to get from one far end of campus to the absolute other, lugging my books always ends up as a sprint to the Harrington Education Center finish. And it never ends prettily.

            I suppose I must be a funny sight to see to the hundreds of casual, sunglassed observers that I race by: my two-year-old backpack swinging from side-to-side in an awkward half-pendulum around my body. It definitely also doesn’t help that I haven’t actually exercised since the beginning of the school year, my face red from both the cold and, more than likely, just sheer exhaustion. And, invariably, I arrive to Economics with a guaranteed half-a-minute left before class starts, wheezing, drawing the attention of the two-hundred other people already in their desks, as I make my way to the very front of the class. It’s a great way to start the day, to be sure.

            My mother called me this evening, begging me to switch my class to another day set, effectively forcing me to admit defeat to the scheduling gods. But I will not let my backpack and my schedule determine how I live my life, no matter how often my backpack causes my shirt to ride up my back (very often) and no matter how tired the 1.3 mile trek makes me (very very tired.)

            Luckily, my long-suffering bike is now fixed. So this week is looking up already.

cxvi

“Knowing is not enough…you must apply. Willing is not enough…you must do.”

-Bruce Lee

            Today I am tired. Weird.

            It’s weird because, normally, I am bounded with energy, staying up until the tiniest cracks of dawn. Normally I find myself spastically dancing with my reflection, barefoot on cold linoleum tile floors. Normally my contacts dry from my eyes being awake for so long, soaking in all that is around me and barely blinking from the vigorousness of the day.

            And so, with the first day of a strict new course schedule, of me racing across the campus, avoiding puddles and stares, of me never having laughed so hard or felt so tired, almost officially under my belt, my energy has disappeared. When I threw my blue-jeaned self onto my familiar narrow bed an hour ago, I wasn’t expecting to not be able to have gotten up since. But inactivity has its merits; my fingers have been hitting the wearing letters of my laptop’s keyboard with increasing speed and a list of WILLSANDWONTS appearing on my monitor, to start off the new school year right. So:

            What I will do this semester:

I will study. Sometimes.

I will go to bed earlier.

I will actually exercise.

I will memorize the entirety of the “Forever” rap.

I will organize my iTunes Library.

I will actually pay attention in (most of) my classes.

I will finish the books I have started.

            What I won’t do this semester:

I won’t cry anymore while I read George W. Bush’s memoirs.

I won’t wear any clothes, as is appropriate.

I won’t swear.

I won’t forget my headphones in other people’s cars.

I won’t download discographies of one-hit-wonder bands.

I won’t write haikus.

I won’t pretend I understand football.

            But for tonight, there will be no more running or dancing, my contacts in their chemical case. So there is now time to sleep.

            I will.

cxv

"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet."

-Orson Welles

            It’s not very healthy to be nostalgic.

            But, health be damned, because that’s exactly what I’ve been the past week or so, pouring over old yearbooks and the photos that are falling off of my wall. Most of my friends have already gone back to their respective colleges, forcing me to spend my days either focusing on the past or sitting cross-legged in front of my laptop, watching the "classic" movies that I have only pretended to see before.

            There was still snow residue on the ground today, the weather too cold and dreary for me to be putting my pants on, let alone for me to go outside, which is exactly what my little brother wanted me to do. I had to try and argue with him the importance of staying in and culturing oneself with the untarnishable, perfectineveryway Netflix queue. He quickly saw the value and recommended Paranormal Activity.

            I can’t normally bring myself to watch horror movies and today would, again, be no exception to that rule.  I already have way too much stuff in my life that I am worried about, that I am scared of, for me to be frightened by a man in a mask jumping out and spraying blood all over the 13” LCD screen of my MacBook.  And, whether it is the future or relationships or grades or doing laundry, movies have always been the best way for me to forget, for at least an hour-and-a-half.

            And so I would have to argue that a full Netflix queue is one of the purest forms of beauty on this earth, letting my afternoons be filled with, consecutively, The Shawshank Redemption, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Pulp Fiction. Over the past few months, though, I have found myself becoming less and less involved with the characters and the plot of films and more and more focused on the technical side, on what I can find wrong with the film. It’s not a very good trait to have. And so, if you combine heavy bouts of nostalgia and a developing movie snobbery, along with the (apparently) extraordinarily egotistical persona that I put off, I’m slowly becoming a person that’s not so much fun to be around.

            Excellent.