stll need to 'work on my thesis'

missing some notes on post feminism

April 2009

I kind of feel like I am holding my breath, waiting for graduation. I haven't written anything good since last fall. Part of the problem: I'm not sure what it means to be a 'college graduate' in this day and age. It seems kind of superficial and meaningless, and not too lucrative. I think having my own health care and savings might be nicer than embarking on further studies in race, class, and gender (which is why I want to go a more profesional route). It's stupid to feel 'marginal' and 'hopelessly upper class' and the same time, but I'm really way past that point already. I feel like a total freak of public/private educational meritocracy, 90s software money, mid century French critical theory, and Seattle music politics.

I'm really looking forward to moving to California and figuring out what the next few years will be like. It's a strange conception, graduating from college. I don't remember fully anticipating this moment at any point in my life. For most events (ex: prom, driver's license), I have some preconceived notion of what might happen and what I might feel. This have me some sense of success or failure (failed first driving test, still a boring virgin day after prom, etc). I have no 'memory of imagining' this moment. I can 'get' going to work, or even going to grad school because those things are just a clever continuation of improving my resume and staying busy, but the actual graduation moment leaves me confused. Am I done with something important? Should I feel proud? (I rarely have that emotion. It seems vulgar for someone who had so many opportunities to be self-congratulatory.) It's somewhat outside of what I have taken the time to imagine for myself. Is this lazy imagination on my part? Or just a realistic way of living a somewhat unexamined life? Is imagining an active, healthy future, and then attempting to achieve it some kind of responsibility? Should anyone do anything ever? (My roommates say 'no' with their endless lethargy, video games, and crafts projects.)

I'm I too self-conscious (media, friends, co-workers seem to say 'yes') or not self-conscious enough (close friends, family, academia, jealous enemies seem to say 'no')? For some reason I think beer and tapas at my graduation party will probably answer most of these questions. I'm not going to devote too much thought to them. Anyways, I have an 'important thesis' to write.

- re-working of 7th grade MSN groups post about graduating from middle school and reading quality 'chapter books'

'Coolhunting' in my appartment courtyard

It takes not very long

to bike to Ballard from the U District at night. Underneath some early summer foliage the bike path sped along like Mario Cart without lights. It was pure joy in darkness. Indeed, I could hear the music that plays when a player gets a star, though I could see nothing. Fremont was a hulking mass of closed coffee shops and warehouse start-ups. I imagined how alive it would be on July nights. When we finally stopped, a giant muskrat came out of the water to meet us. We said, "Hello muskrat. Why are you so friendly this evening?" It looked into the light of our bicycle lamps. Its dark eyes glowed and large body seemed to made of brown mud. It replied, "I have lived on this river bank all my life. A bunch of yuppie college kids are nothing to me." It slunk up the hillside like a slug climbing an escalator. "Well," I said, "now I feel as if we upset the muskrat." The muskrat, almost out of hearing yelled back, "Don't be so self-conscious; I see more stoned kids down here than you can image. Especially in the summer, they come in droves to the banks of the ship canal. They make noise, some of them beatbox or yell crazy inexplicable things. Some of them try to fall in love on that very bench while down here I am trying to catch fish."

"Oh," I said. I wondered who could fall in love while such an annoying muskrat is about.

Smashing Punks

via abe vigoda blog

Lost In Translation

Forever Young?

The night was plauged by a mixer that kept shutting down, a really trashy LA DJ/closer with his own party-pix crew, at least one fight, my lingering sobriety, and the sticky nostalgia that probably comes from ending a long, mixed love affair with a certain time and place for dancing. Thursday night at Chop Suey was sweaty with dancing kids and 21-year-old me felt like it was time to move on from the 18+ scene.

The 'last Club Pop ever' was typically debauched and more crowded than usual. Stranger music editor Eric Grandy was seen smirking at the door around 11:45, then later dancing on the floor. Talent buyer and promoter Michael Yuasa stood outside, bumming my smokes and deftly flirting with everyone. Like you'd expect for a last-Pop-ever, a number of people seemed to come out of the woodwork, like ALT bro termites scattering across Capitol Hill. One particularly social bro, looking confused and out of place in a sea of queer club kids, introduced himself to me and a friend on the terrace. Not recognizing him, we asked "is this your first Pop?" in a tone that implied "are you an akward virgin?" Of course, he said no, but that he hadn't been for a year.

Taking the bait he asked, "Do you guys come here often?"

My buddy replied tersely, "Do you even know who I am?" before turning away and leaving the guy, by himself, right inside the 21- rope line that separates 'jail-bait' from 'social drinkers.'

It was one of those precious Pop moments that makes you sure you're a pretentious asshole, and also makes you competely OK with that. Can't wait for those chill party pix.

{[(The 'Saga' Continues)]}

This probably counts as fan fic.

Appearance of Tao Lin on HRO PARENTING thread

read it all?

Carrie Fisher = still hot

I don't want to do anything but "work on my thesis"

Admissions interview in a week and a half. So stoked.

Roommate trouble

Lock your doors, hide your valuable possessions, and try not to get involved. Also, too many racist jokes today.

NY Times Columnist

Not to be mean but...

Synth pop is only cool if you are cool

This has been another episode of Mean Things Said by Elitist Club Promoters Who Live In Pacific Coastal Cities

Stinson Beach

Someone I went to high school with has a very important annoucment pretaining to the economy, cocaine, and the future of American values:

Easter PIRATE LULZ (Epic Win)

Woke up at ten and picked my sister up from SU. We drove to the Eastside for Easter with our parents. Why do we celebrate Easter? We're not even remotely religious. My parents are so unreligious that they pretend to be pagan. Pretend. When I would mention religion when I was younger, mom would conclude that she "always thought that everything had a spirit, rocks, trees, everything." But then we confide in one another when anyone remotely religious enters our field of view, as if we are haunted by those mythical people who actually "believe in things." We celebrate various high holidays from various religions that correspond to whatever family friends are in favor in any given season. I'm fairly certain our family religion is suburban non-mysticism. And I am lapsed, having lived in the city for three years. I now dabble in actual mysticism.

As I was saying, Easter around here is fairly striped-down. I think it has something to do with the good food and the fact that trying to go out and enjoy (without parents) a rainy weekend in April, in Seattle, is bad for one's liver.

That being said, my parents have been drinking all day. Of course.

When my sister and I arrived here, they were pouring each other mimosas and reading the Seattle Times. I sat down at a computer to check the news. Yup, the military finally killed those pirates. Wonderful. Happy Easter you Terror Pirates. Epic Win! What a huge waste of defence spending. When I complained, my dad explained that Obama was just trying to send a message. Perhaps, "Ye Pirates beware!" can hold this country together for a few more months.

Every sentence I form feels like a Facebook/Twitter status update. Clearly, long-form blogs are dead and my conscious mind is disappearing faster than Miley Cyrus's childhood. Too bad.

Hope you're having an OK weekend. We're all going to get through this thing. I can feel it.

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NEW MUSIC

I FIX GEAR 4 THE LULZ

luv toast

So Beautiful

SPIRIT OF HUMANS