you can't turn the Titanic on a dime, but a euro would work nicely

Alright, so after 11+ hours of sleep I'm actually able to form coherent thoughts and have mustered a high level of sarcasm in past conversation. (the last one included something along the lines of "he's called smiles because when he stops smiling the sun starts to die and god bleeds out of his ass"). So, there is certainly some potential for this to be an interesting rant. I don't think that it helps things that I've been sitting at this computer for over 2 hours reading a bunch of crap about things that I'm not certain I even care about any more.

So, needless to say Italy had a massive impact on me all across the board. Interesting...I'm starting to connect the dots on some things, given that I've had ample time for personal musings and whatnot. Right, so on to the thesis: WCATY was a big deal, so was Italy...And so was that writing conference thing that I did a few years ago at the art museum...Now, the funny thing was that the connection here is not an intellectual/learning sort of thing but that fact that there were a large number of cool people there that I got to hang out with. Perhaps I ought to spend more time with real people. This in turn has led to some questioning about videogames' appeal. Certainly they are fun, and can be a good way to kill time...But coupled with a review of God of War 2 on Action Button that I just read...I'm not sure that I really want to spend all or even a lot of my time playing games any more. I started working on the AOE3 campaign (expansion) and it sucks, to put it mildly. I've also lost my taste for God of War because it's boring. Puzzlish things are still entertaining, and I haven't played any shooters yet, but this could be the beginning or something worrisome. Maybe I should start developing some other slightly more useful skills or something. I could just start writing again.

(Side bar: wrote a cute little ditty that was about 1.5 pages long that was generally well received by my comrades on the plane ride)

Well, I seem to have been slightly sidetracked from my original point of pondering. Essentially, I feel like I would like to hang out with the people from the Italy trip more, perhaps even at the expense of spending time with certain parts of my current mass of friends. Lunches with them are never the most interesting things in the world...I've been also pondering what groups of girls in the freshman and sophomore classes are equivocal to the Nikki/Cali/Anneke cadre and the freshman one is obvious and many of them are in my art class, but as far as the sophomores go...I can't quite pin one down as they are either slightly too nerdy or preppy, but I guess I don't know all of them particularly well. This whole plan could certainly become problematic...but you can never have to many friends so it would be a good problem to have.

So, new friends, less love for videogames...These are some rather large changes, but Big Sister (aka Nikki) and others have effected others as well. Big Sister managed to convince me to buy some aviators and I've moved past the initial phase of feeling like a flaming tool and am starting to actually like them. I've also decided that my baggy pants look absolutely atrocious and aren't amazingly more comfortable that jeans, so I might have to pay a visit to Kohls again in the near future. There's another change. So, three rather large ones, and the greatest looms over the horizon.

There isn't any putting this off any longer, and yet I'm still rather hesitant about delving into this subject. The fact that I'm not listening to 3rd Eye Blind helps slightly, but the Refreshments aren't particularly upbeat and bubbly all the time. Good band though; I just put a few CD's worth of their music on my iPod and am rather enjoying it, while at the same time being disappointed with a different Spin Doctors CD that I found to the point of near physical illness. So, Pink Floyd is next, hopefully to remedy the somewhat low opinion that I have of Animals with Dark Side of the Moon. We'll see how that one goes. I suppose I need to read Tess as well...

So, after a slight bit more of procrastination I don't think that I can avoid this any longer, though I have an interesting little opening bit of musing on a slightly related subject that I would like to relate. Needless to say, this subject weighed heavily enough on me during the course of the trip that I felt compelled to write about it, first as a fauxwar story that was an allegory of both the events and emotions that went along with this whole thing, then simple documentation and mulling-over, journal style. This blog works just as well, and in some ways is more convenient given that I can type, which is infinitely more rapid a process than writing, though at the same time it loses some of the personal connection that I have with scribbling down thoughts in my none-too-neat script in the back of a notebook. The point, though, is that both of these forms of writing are at least semi-public: there is always the potential that somebody other than me might read them and decipher my sideways manner of talking about important things (note the use of "subject" and "thing" as opposed to what this really is). I like that, in a strange sort of way--it feels like I'm at least sort of putting myself out there, rather than just thinking about it. In a way, if I can't output all of my thoughts and feelings into even a remote corner of the public sphere, then it's not really much of a venting process, even if writing is better than thinking. Once my thoughts are out in the open, they aren't mine any more, but rather have transcended personal possession and public objects of manipulation for the use of the general public, even if they are often difficult to find. They're out there, and that's the important thing. (NB: I like this little section of the rant, and shall extract a copy of it, given its potential to grow into a larger essay, perhaps Wayfarer material, similar to the short story I wrote on the plane)

Now, this has gone on for far too long, and this rant is far too long for it's own good. Now that I think on it, I would like to rant on my short story that I wrote, but there isn't much to say other the fact that I love it because it is compact, concise, efficient, and simply well crafted. Best writing I've done in a long time, certainly. However, the weight of this looming beast requires my attention.

I've already written about this in other places, so if anyone out there is particularly interested, you could raid my history notebook and find at least some parts of those musings. For the interest of privacy (not so much my own but that of others involved who may end up being maligned by my slanted point of view). The narrative is simple and can be disguised easily as war, and in some ways it initially was--on an emotional level, certainly. It is comforting, at least, that the whole thing wasn't some great hallucination of my over-active imagination, even though this would be infinitely easier if it were. Simply put, I was rather soundly defeated over the course of much of the trip following the initial plane ride, why I cannot say other than my obvious inability to start conversation, though I started to get better at that toward the end. But even as far as that is concerned, I'm not certain whether that was a failing on my part, or whether there was some resistance to it (another of those double-edged things where it being my fault would help in the direction of this specific case, whereas the opposite would help me in the long run; maybe it's both and I'm just fucked). Oh dear, only three minutes left on my CD and I'm hardly even into this. Let's see...so toward the end I would like to think that thanks to what I perceive as rather large bungles on the part of the opposition and a slight improvement of my own work, I might have managed to salvage something of a stalemate out of this whole debacle. Certainly there is the possibility that this perceived retrograde action of the "opposition" could be nothing at all and I have in fact completely fallen on my face, but I would like to think that is not the case. Indeed there is also the possibility that the occasionally mentioned third party may have beaten both of us out, and that would be a much easier pill to swallow, but given certain actions on the initial plane ride I find that slightly difficult to believe. There may simply have been a combination of war weariness and general fatigue contributing to a bout of apathy on the return home. Ah, the possibilities. Now, there is that slight matter of probing and retreat on the return plane ride that is discouraging, and I find it difficult to write that off as nothing at all. What is perhaps most worrying about this is that I still find it hard to believe that the "event" of the first plane ride was entirely meaningless, especially given the second and the subsequent bus ride, but then there is the issue of me losing favor over the course of the week. Certainly, my own feelings can be mercurial at times, and there was a catalyst for change...so indeed there is a potentiality for a reversing of fortunes back to my favor again, and I would like to potentially pursue that, but I just get the feeling that both the opposition and I have more or less exhausted ourselves and are probably going to be passed up in favor of someone else, possibly that third party. (NB: I dropped all of the erudite lingo cause I feel like if someone reads this they might get a rather disturbing idea about my thought processes, etc). Then of course there is that problem of me getting emotionally worked up about mere potentialities and what not. That's probably the worst part of this, that I care so much when there isn't even anything concrete about this yet. At the same time, maybe I'm not that weird or anything, given that the opposition had to have had at least a strong interest in things to keep going for so long (unless my own actions were entirely invisible, which I find hard to believe given the number of not-so-friendly staring contests that we got into). So, there's something to chew on, but at least I'm thinking about this and not things that are even further into the past. The most interesting thing about this, though, is that I've been able to get over concrete things very easily, and that it's these ephemeral ones that are harder to shake. I suppose that unfulfilled longing can be much more potent than possession followed by lose. I guess I'm not sure what else to say here...I feel like there's more to write about this, but I guess there isn't so that's more or less it for now. I'm feeling rather dirty and would like to shower, etc; have to read Tess later (ugh) and clean up Josh's powerpoint at some point. Never mind writing/gaming, and all of that.

PS: A life lesson for all of you: don't give a girl roses when you're not even going out with her; I have the distinct impression that that ends badly, but I guess I could be entirely wrong on that count, still. We'll see.

PPS: I feel like this might be in the running for longest single post I've ever done, but comparing them without a large amount of annoying cutting and pasting is not really possible, so I won't try.

no more thinking, pleez

Wow...Italy....Just wow. So much fun, yet so stressful @ the same time. Basically, I'm back and I've been awake for more than 24 hours so I'm about to fall asleep and I can barely type. I'll keep this quick if I can. Already vented privately a/b all the "drama" (aka a personal little war) that happened (is still happening, actually, given that nothing has been really resolved yet). Proud of myself for forcing something of a stalemate, but I guess I don't really know the extent of that.

Wrote a lovely little story about a dude blowing up a bridge (God, how did you not get that, PY?). Yeah, so basically Italy (and everyone on the trip sans the New Yorkies) was friggin' awesome (that's what she said). And now it's time for sleep.