Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

Hmm, I noticed a trend. My blog seems to be devoid of ranting lately. Well... stupid ranting at any rate. I don't remember the last post I made that involved me going off about something ridiculous. Mayhaps I am becoming more like Karen. I knew this would happen! This is why we should never have met face to face! That's right Karen! You've ruined my life. I hope you lose sleep over this.

Or mayhaps I have actually gotten to a point where I've encountered all the things that would be likely to irk me. This could be a troubling possibility. I mean, perforated edges that don't rip still bother me. Westward facing windows still bother me. Heck, stupid people still bother me. But I've expressed my rage over those topics before. Could it be that my life has descended to a point where it is not even interesting enough to generate new things to be irritated about? I hope not. I also don't think this is true. Christian's recent remark about my constant state of grumbling would seem to indicate that I still get irritated all the time.

Christ, I am ranting about how I have nothing to rant about... sadness...

Actually, I had an actual purpose for logging onto blogger. I just took time to note that like my recent posts, it's not a simple itch that I'm attempting to scratch through a cathartic rant. It's more like a gash in my thigh that won't clot.

And maybe this is just me overthinking something because a. I overthink everything and b. it's a social-related thing which tends to make me think extra hard. Damn my low social quotient. Someone's having a laugh at my expense. In a sense, it's really actually me overthinking about whether or not I'm overthinking (which sounds absolutely INANE but there you have it). See, I was thinking to myself the other day, with the school year rapidly drawing to close and all, about whether or not there are people on this floor upon which I am currently living that would likely stay in contact with me next year. And of course, the answer is no. It's usually no. It's one of the great ironies of my life (up there next to my ironic women-I-am-attracted-to clause and my ironic I-am-socially-retarded-but-need-to-be-around-people clause) that I am generally as a rule very easy to be friends with. And those people who actually consider me their friend know this. I don't mean to toot my own horn but let's face it. I will deliberately section off time, regardless of how busy my schedule is, to see my friends. If something is important to them, I will support it. Whether it's a book they're publishing, a play they're in, a performance they're giving, a journey they're embarking upon, you can be sure that if it's important to them, I will buy the book, go to the reading, see the performance, and watch the play, even if it means making the trek from Kingston to Hamilton. I will make every attempt to sympathize with them when they are sad and every attempt to rejoice in their happiness. And I will do the initiating as long as I get the sense that they're not taking it for granted. I would also like to think that I'm interesting company to boot.

All in all, I consider that to be pretty good. But I'm not really doing all this just to draw attention to how good of a friend I am. Those who are my friends know this and those who aren't probably wouldn't be even if they did (I touched on this subject when I blogging about how I find it weird that people don't care for sympathy even if it's freely given). I'm mostly doing it to illustrate the irony of my situation. And that is how ironic I consider it that I have such a ridiculously hard time making friends that stick. It's not a discredit to those who DO stick, it's not a question of greed (although it'd be nice if more of my "friends," who are familiar enough that they can't really be referred to as "acquaintances," stuck), and it's not even a question of my ego (because I can't bear the thought of anyone who's familiar with me not liking me)... it's more like...

Hold on, I just noticed... I followed 2 clauses that mirrored one another with parathentical comments that don't. Ok, I was being serious in my first parenthetical - and sarcastic in my second.

Anyhow. The real problem is that while I have come to accept this fact about myself - that friendships are pretty much a hit or miss thing and it's basically not something for which I can assign blame (my fault for not being friendly enough, their fault for not seeing the value of my friendship, etc) - it does open up the question of whether or not there's really any point in trying. And I don't mean "trying to be friendly". I always try to be friendly. In fact, I don't even try; I am, by nature, a friendly guy. I mean trying to befriend people. See, cause most of my friends are graduating this year. This means very few friends next year (<-- not a problem for some; for me: big problem). My don says I should make friends with people on my floor. Notwithstanding their first-year-ness (and the fact that the one first year I got along with really well has been shunning me since October), I now question to what extent I can/should make this attempt with roughly a month of school left (less than that actually).

(Again, it's late... again, this is turning into a long post.)

See, it's like this. By now, I have met (almost) everyone on my floor. And for the most part, I have a pretty good idea as to with whom I could possibly make a real connection. As Karen can attest to from first hand experience, this is definitely a very limited number (cause seriously, just ask her - there's no way I could possibly make any sort of lasting connection with Alex... or Darcy; Karen for some reason seemed to attract all the doinks on my floor. Or maybe that was David... and Karen was just guilty by association). And going along those parenthetical lines, it doesn't help that I'm a moral, intellectual, and cultural elitist. For me to possibly consider making an attempt to establish a real connection with anyone, he/she usually has to be a good person, possess some degree of intelligence, and at least understand that bad music and bad films exist... and that their bad qualities are not negated simply because you have bad taste. Ok so that last bit was unreasonable. But it's also the least important of the three qualities I look for in people (and the one I'm least serious about). And the first 2 are definitely not unreasonable. I would add "you have to be interesting" to those 3 things but generally, if you possess any combination of the 2, you're interesting.

This is not to say that I will not befriend people who don't possess those three traits (although the first one tends to be REALLY important so I have serious doubts as to my ability to befriend someone who isn't inherently a good person). And besides, the truth is I always assume that people possess all 3 before they prove me wrong (it's just so happens that people prove me wrong all the time on this particular subject). It also means that if I am going to actively attempt to befriend someone, they'll probably possess all three of those traits to some degree or another. And while I really do assume that people possess all 3 until they've proven to me otherwise, I tend to seek confirmation of this before I do something as active as deciding that this person is worth the effort I will inevitably put into befriend him/her. That was an extremely long winded way of bringing me back to my original point (I promise, my informal writing piece will not be this tangential). There are only so many people on my floor with whom I can envision myself making a connection.

But like... since being a good friend isn't really the be all and end all of friendship-success rates, at what point do I stop "trying to befriend" someone and recognize that maybe he/she just isn't interested in making a connection? This, by the way, is the crux of my post... the entire reason you've read thus far boils down to this question. Right? Cause like I said, sometimes, friendships just... don't work; they're hit or miss. It's not because we don't get along and it's not because there's anything really fundamentally problematic with the two of us being friends... it's simply because, I don't know, for some reason, the other person has no desire to be my friend. Mayhaps he/she is an elitist in other departments for which I fail to meet a standard. But I can't just sit back and do nothing. Because then people will accuse me of not trying to make friends. So say I do. At what point am I supposed to figure out that this friendship has potential? Cause I don't think it's a good idea to just continually attempt to be friendly to someone who doesn't care to be friends with me. I mean, then the camp on the other side would tell me that I'm being taken advantage of. There's this balance somewhere I think.

And that's not even considering how odd it would seem that after literally 7 months of living on the same floor, I suddenly become intensely interested in "being friendly". Seriously, people question me about this from time to time. "You didn't even know me for all of first semester" and I'll give a somewhat unsatisfactory "Well... our paths just didn't cross very often" and leave out the "And also, unless you're actively making an effort to see me on a regular basis (which you wouldn't because you have no reason to), it literally takes me months to add up the sum total of all our short encounters and realize that I actually think you're interesting".

Obviously, I have certain people in mind when I write this. How do you express your desire to befriend someone (after 7 months of living together)? Walking up to them and saying "I think you and I should be friends" seems to be... I don't know, socially off-putting. And nobody say "Just be yourself". I HAVE been myself for the last 7 months. Seriously, people need to stop using that as a solution to all interpersonal issues. My self happens to be afflicted with social ineptitude. I am trying very hard to NOT be that part of me because people think it's WEIRD and UNCOMFORTABLE (I'm doing that Karen thing when she emphasizes every other word in her sentence in order to emphasize the sentence itself).

In conclusion, I have been around Karen too much.

Post 1000!

Special treat. You all get to read my opinion on something! Oh wait...

Actually, I was considering posting a segment of my informal writing piece up in celebration (since blogging is, after all, the source of my practice with informal writing... that and my penchant for letter-writing) but decided against it for 2 reasons. 1, I suffer from a common affliction that tends to attack writers and that is I'm not satisfied enough with any section I've written so far to feel like posting it. And 2, since I've already given my word that I will post a part of it, as a tribute to undergrad, at the end of the year, I figured you can all afford to wait another month or so (you'll probably have to wait years for the actual work so get used to it).

Aging. I mean, I've always head a very decided view upon this topic and reading The Picture of Dorian Gray has recently spurned me in its particular direction. By the by, I always felt that it should be titled "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" but I guess Mr. Wilde thought otherwise. Now, Wilde is a satirist so it's not 100% clear how much of his novel he intends for us to take seriously but either way, it does touch on the idea of being young and how it's far better to be young than to be old. And if I may be blunt, I agree with this sentiment. I'm not sure if I agree with this sentiment entirely but I do very much lean in its general direction.

Actually, check that. I do agree with the sentiment entirely. I do strongly believe that being young is better than being old. But I feel like I have to qualify this statement a bit. I don't think I would agree that it'd be nice to stay young forever (or at least, stay young for say 80 years and then die of youth or something). Dr. Morrison once said that the most important part of everything that we love and everything in which we find happiness is that it ends. If things never ended, we would cease to love and we would cease to find happiness in them. And he always told me not to feel too sad because good things don't last. They were never meant to. The only exception to this is our love for each other and even then, we are kept in check by the possibility that it COULD end. So youth, I imagine, is much the same way. Being young derives a lot of its value from the fact that it doesn't last. And really, most of us agree with sentiment right? That's why we're urged to do things "while we're young". In a way, it motivates us to do things; motivates us to appreciate those things when we've done them. If we were in a permanent stage of youth, we likely wouldn't feel the urgency to do the things we do. We would lose our capacity to appreciate our youth and lose the inclination to do the very things that make being young as great as it is.

But that doesn't mean that being young isn't better than being old. Paradoxically, it does mean that being young wouldn't be better than being old if one never GETS to the "being old" part. So I still believe that being young is far better than being old, but that doesn't mean I wish I could be young forever; I just recognize the fact that it is. And there's two reasons for this (well, in a sense, they're actually really both the same reason... just different facets of this).

The first reason is simply because of the extent to which we can experience pleasure when we are young. As Grant once said about our opinions on music as we age, "the music that you knew [in your youth] is attached to the memories of first kisses, hot sex, drunken nights, new love, drugs and revolution. How is it that this can’t colour ones perception when paired up against music that recalls rush hour drives to work, a crying toddler, commitment, responsibilities and strange new health problems?"

And it's true. Don't deny this! I mean, Grant is taking a more pessimistic view to illustrate his point by taking the best parts of being young and comparing them to the worst parts of being old, but even so... how we can we compare our first kiss with... I don't know, getting a promotion at work? How can we compare the excitement of walking along the lakefront with a beautiful girl we might be falling in love with... to the "thrill" of... god, I can't even think of anything that would "thrill" you at an older age. I always told Christian that the only thing that saves us when we get old are our kids, through whom we can then live our lives vicariously as they, in turn, experience the greatest things THEIR youth can offer.

The second reason is related to something I was telling Karen about. How I want to finish my informal writing piece before I get old. How I fear that growing old will cause me to lose faith in the good of people; how I fear that growing old will make me cynical and close minded. And to me, this has a lot to do with aging... mixed with cynicism (which comes with old age for most and without old age for a peculiar few who have seen/experienced more failure than the rest).

Being less open-minded with age is not a misconception. Say what you will about sticking to principles and being open-minded but experiencing bad things and/or failure often enough can destroy even the most principled and idealist-minded among us. It's easy not to be apathetic and believe in the good if our lives are good; certainly easier when you're young and if nothing else, TIME saves most of us from cynicism. But as people grow old and experience how bad things can be; to be battered over and over again with failure and crushed hopes; how can we blame them? How can we expect them to see the world we (in our youth) do?

It's easy to be a great teacher when you're young for example. Not everyone is but I believe that young teachers have really no excuse at all not to be amazing teachers. And it would be fantastic if that never changed. But I see all these middle-aged teachers who are tired, unhappy, disillusioned. And while I wish they weren't because their students deserve better and even at middle age, you are responsible for being the best teacher you can be, in some ways, I can't bring myself to blame them 100%. How can I? How could I possibly know what it's like to get a new group of kids every year who don't try, don't care, and don't want to be in a classroom? How could I possibly understand what it's like to see any and all progress I might have made in 10 months walk out the door in June, only to re-enter my class in September and be forced to start from scratch again, and do this every year for 20 years?

Like that quotation from The Dark Knight, "Sometimes, people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded." And it's harder than we think to keep the faith if it goes unrewarded. In fact, I find that people who talk about hoping, believing, and keeping the faith (myself included) are very often the ones who have been rewarded, if not in that exact scenario, then at least in other things. Young people tend to have their efforts rewarded more than old people. Why? Because old people look out for the young people. Right? That's what parents do. As a kid/teenager, if you have good parents, life is pretty simple. Do good things, your parents will reward you. In fact, one of the incredible luxuries of being young is that your parents will reward you even if you DON'T do good things because parents (good ones) will love you unconditionally. I mean sheesh, how many people love you unconditionally? It's amazing how long it takes for us to realize how incredibly and insanely privileged it is to be loved in this way. But it's like Dr. Morrison said, it's hard for us to appreciate (those of us who have it) because we don't know what it's like to be without it.

But I digress (to make a very important point about parents but a digression nonetheless). Growing old means that we learn that our efforts don't always go rewarded. And it's hard... I can't emphasize this enough... how incredibly, almost unrealistically, hard it is to do things on principle alone. That's why being young is better. When you're young, you exist in a world where on a whole, you're more likely to be rewarded for doing the right thing, being fair, and believing in the good.

So where does this leave me? Well, for one, it's not like I'm saying that old people are or should be close-minded, bitter, or cynical. All I'm saying is that we should be careful about pronouncing judgment on them as if they were young like us. We are heavily influenced by experience and since, as I have indicated throughout this entire post, I think it likely that we have better experiences when we are young, it's not a surprise that our world views grow significant less optimistic as our experiences become likewise less empowering, invigorating, and revitalizing. Seriously, want to hear someone with a great outlook on life? Talk to a young couple in love after a great night that culminated with their first night spent together. I once spoke to Genin after something like this... the doofus couldn't get the silly grin off his face.

Contrary to popular belief (or contrary to the way I often badly express myself), I don't exactly have a fear of aging per se. I mean I do, but it's not because I fear old age. I fear that I will run out of time to experience the things I can only fully experience in my youth. And I fear that I might lose my idealism, my belief in the good of human nature, and my drive to be as good of a teacher as my students deserve. Already, I'm losing my faith in love... something really only kept buoyant by the fact that my parents are still married and presumably in love, and the countless Disney films I watched as a child.

It is 4 in the morning. I wish I could conclude this post with some poignant statement/inspirational conclusion but I'm too tired to do this and this isn't really meant to be an inspiring post anyway.

I have something interesting to say about youth. This is a reminder for me. Also, my next post will be my 1000th. Mayhaps something special is in order.

A weblog entry!

You all know the phrase "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle". And if you don't, you do now. To those who know me, it shouldn't surprise you that my gut reaction to this phrase is a facepalm. Not only because that's my reaction to almost everything, but also because for some reason, I can never seem to adequately express how absurd I think the saying is (even leaving out the terrible word choice...).

Actually, no. I'm going to touch on the word choice even though it's not really the reason why I think this phrase is absurd. "Like a fish needs a bicycle"? Seriously? Analogies are really only effective if they are relevant. And a surefire way of testing an analogy for relevancy is to ask yourself if the nouns in your second comparison can be replaced by practically anything else and still be applicable. If yes, your analogy FAILS. "Like a fish needs running shoes" would probably work just as well. "Like a bird needs a bicycle" functions too. So really, this analogy doesn't illuminate ANYTHING. It's just basically saying "A woman needs a man like anything needs something it doesn't need". Replacing "anything" and "something it doesn't need" with 2 other nouns that happen to be incongruous doesn't make the saying any less idiotic. It's basically saying "Women don't need men" but it's trying to be clever by using an analogy... except that this analogy is completely non-illuminating.

But getting back to the point. Let's say we put aside that awful analogy for minute and actually look at what the phrase is saying... basically, women don't need men. And let's say we put aside the obvious biological response: yes they do or else the human race would die out. So we've narrowed it down to "women don't need men in a sociological/emotional/psychological way". And 2 examples instantly spring to my mind with this idea in tow. I was talking to a friend the other day about how women will "dress up for each other" when they go out. I said something like "Why would she want to wear that if every guy agrees that she looks better in something else" and his response was "Because her friends [being girls] think she looks better in it" (or something close to those lines). And that's an inkling of the whole culture. Because I hearken back to one of my visits to Hamilton 2 years ago and our trip to the one and only "Dirty Dogs" nightclub.

Dirty Dogs promotes an interesting culture. And I think Queen's has something related at Stages on "Ladies' night" or whatever they call it. Grant once described as a culture that promoted girls feeling sexy in and of themselves. The music, the atmosphere, the gender-specific rules where girls are allowed to certain things (like dancing on the counter) while guys are not - it's all geared towards making girls feel desirable... but without the need for someone else to desire them. This differs from some other club scenes, where both girls and guys alike are encouraged to desire and be desired in relation to each other. You dress up and look good because you want to be seen that way by others; even if you're not looking to hook up with someone, you gain empowerment through looking good and being desirable because other people admire you, not because you admire yourself.

Leaving aside the fact that there are people who just go to clubs to dance and have fun with their friends (this is my disclaimer clause because being someone who occasionally does this, I am aware that we exist... obviously...), and focusing just on the idea of being desirable at a club, I have always had a problem with the first kind - the Dirty Dogs of the night scene. And I mean, yes, I'm a guy so obviously, it's not really my scene either way but I have a problem with it on principle. And I am going to try to explain myself without coming off as an anti-feminist bigot.

It's not so much that I find it problematic that girls want to feel sexy and desirable in and of themselves and/or in relation to other girls. I disagree with it, yes, because my opinion is that it's done with cynicism. My opinion is that girls desire guys just as much as guys desire girls and that girls who focus on feeling sexy for themselves or for their friends are doing so because they are afraid that guys won't find them sexy or desirable so they play it safe (because let's be brutally honest here; your friends will never tell you that you're ugly. And this is the truth. But please, this is not a BAD thing). But like I am taking pains to emphasize, this is just my opinion. I don't know this for a fact, this is merely what I think to be true deep down. And it's the reason why I disagree with the sentiment of being desirable for your own sake or for that of your friends. I think that no matter how sexy we feel unto ourselves, or how our friend compliment us, we will, in the end, feel far MORE desirable if we feel like other people (or if the guy/girl among our group of friends who we secretly like) are attracted to us. And because of this, I think it is a pity when girls scoff at the idea of looking good at a club to impress other guys, and in this way, don't even give themselves that chance of feeling truly good when guys find them attractive because they're afraid that guys won't.

That is the reason why I disagree with the sentiment of either pretending that you don't want to attract the attention of guys, or actually somehow being convinced that you don't want to attract the attention of guys. But about this, I could be wrong because I am working under the impression that deep down, girls are... happier/more fulfilled if they know that they are attractive to other guys as opposed to their friends. And of course, I am biased because I would like to think this is true since guys never care if they're attractive to other guys but instead, depend upon girls almost wholly for social/emotional verification. In fact, Karen once told me about a psych study that revealed that girls are able to be emotionally dependent on other girls while men are not. So there is a possibility that my entire above paragraph is wrong and that girls actually feel just as good about themselves when they think they're pretty compared to when guys find them attractive. I don't think so because I think while girls can be emotionally dependent on other girls, they would rather, deep down, be emotionally dependent on a guy. But I don't really have any evidence to support my belief aside from the empirical fact that girls still seem to be dating us so we must have some sort of value that other girls can't provide.

But I don't really find all this to be problematic. So maybe girls really can depend just as much on other girls for emotional support and that they really don't need guys. It's a horribly depressing thought but I guess it doesn't really mean that it's untrue. I find it problematic when people claim to support the idea that "women don't need men" and then proceed to turn around and attack me later when I put forth the possibility that girls are more ok with being single/should be less affected than guys are when their significant other breaks up with them. And it's not even like I honestly believe this to be true; but when I suggest it as a possibility... instant attackage (<-- not a word). These same people take offense at that idea because it suggests that the relationship isn't as important to them as it is to the guy; it suggests that they didn't value their boyfriends as much as their boyfriends valued them. And god forbid, that could be construed to mean that they're less grateful for what they had and since men are always the ungrateful ones when they break up with women (cause as your friends will tell you, it's his loss right? You were too good for him), that couldn't possibly be true. So my hypothetical position gets attacked because girls will insist that they valued their boyfriends just as much as their boyfriends valued them; that they feel the pain of a breakup just as much as the guy...

Fine, but if that's true, then you really need us just as much as we need you. You depend on us for emotional support just as much as we depend on you for emotional support and the phrase "women don't need men" is wrong. On the flip side, if you really are able to depend on your friends for emotional support, then you will never value us as much as we value you. You can't claim on the one hand that "women don't need men," dress up "for yourself" and say that your friends are better than any boyfriend you could have, then turn around and claim that you're just as emotionally wrought by breaking up and/or being single as we are...

Because guys can't find emotional comfort in their friends... the best their friends can do is help them stifle it. We can't "dress up for ourselves" and our friends wouldn't notice if we "dressed up for them". We need women in our lives. They fix the parts of us that are broken or hurting. They can touch us; hold us; comfort us in ways we can only cheaply imitate with our friends. They make us feel good about ourselves. They give us confidence to take on the world. They are irreplacable in our lives and those of us who don't realize this or appreciate them tend to live far less fulfilling lives than those of us who do. It's because of them that we understand what it means to love and be loved and what could mean more than that?

It is with a great sense of relief that I have finally finished the outline to my informal writing piece. This means that I don't have to worry about forgetting why I wrote what I've written so far when I go on one of lengthy periods of slothful indolence (like now).

I don't understand why people always assume that those who don't dance actually have some secret desire to do so but are self-conscious. Seriously, it's not like I don't know how to dance; coordinating my limbs to music is easy. I just don't like doing it. And I find it highly irritating when people try to get me to do it assuming that I have some secret desire to dance but that I'm too embarrassed when I actually have no desire at all.

I make exceptions for all forms of formal, coordinated dancing. I would love to learn how to ballroom, waltz, salsa, and the like. But I recognize that kind of dancing as an actual learned technique that I don't know how to perform.

I was talking to Pearl the other day (as has become my weekly duty after the shoulder dislocating debacle) and she made a comment about how she appreciates the fact that I call her every week to check up on her shoulder but noted that I never called her before (which is true) and asked whether I'm actually only calling because of her shoulder. In order words, if I will stop calling after her shoulder heals. And that got a little complicated, ie.

"You never called me at all, much less every week before I broke my shoulder"
"I am aware."
"So you're really only calling me because of my shoulder?"
"Well... in a sense, yes"
"So are you going to stop calling me once my shoulder is healed?"
"Probably not. Not unless you want me to stop calling. But you don't have to wait until your shoulder heals to tell me to stop calling."
"No no, I like that you're calling, but that means you're not really only calling me because of my shoulder"
"I guess not."
"So why didn't you ever call me before I broke my shoulder?"
"Well..."

She can be tenacious like that. But she did open up an interesting line of inquiry. You see, I have come to realize that I have this vast reservoir of sympathy (and please, nobody jump on my case about the difference between sympathy and empathy. I am using "sympathy" to refer to both) and understanding that hardly ever gets tapped into except on certain occasions. And I will freely admit that this may partly be due to the fact that I am single and do not have a girlfriend to whom I need to constantly administer said sympathy and understanding. I mean, it's not as if I'm reserving my sympathy for later, and it's not as if anybody that I know is unworthy of this sympathy, it's just that I don't know many people who need it/actually have any desire for it from me.

You see, apparently there needs to be a certain level of trust or friendship or emotional dependency for someone to desire to be understood by another person. I might have the capacity to care about everyone but that doesn't really matter if other people don't attach any value to the fact that I care about them. So oftentimes, I don't. I mean, it's rather pointless and sometimes considered invasive to care about someone who doesn't want your sympathy or understanding. I sometimes consider it weird that people don't care to be cared for but then again, I'm sure there's some interpersonal-social thing/reason behind this that I don't understand. But someone like Grant, and to an extent, Belinda and Genin, can probably attest to my enormous capacity to sympathize because they have, at one point or another, drawn from it, if only briefly/sporadically.

So I think I'm pretty capable of a great deal of sympathy and understanding. And I mean, admittedly, I get a kick out of it. I feel good about myself when other people feel good. That's why I'm happy to call Pearl on a weekly basis as long as she appreciates it. But at the same time, I find it rather annoying to be sympathetic to an unreceptive recipient (<--ha!). And moreover, as I've mentioned, some people don't want it (being weirdos that they are). So I'm weirdly cautious about dishing it out unless I get a sign that it's wanted. Now, I am very attuned to the slightest indication that it's wanted but it's like editing essays you know. You don't ask other people if you can edit their essays; you just make it clear that you're happy to do it if they want. So I didn't call Pearl before this incident because she didn't make an indication that she wanted to be called. It just so happens that she broke her shoulder, thus allowing an opportunity for my caring nature to take over my personality. And then after awhile, calling her will probably become a habit.

Imagine being far less articulate in speech than in writing and then imagine trying to explain this on the phone to a girl in first year. Considering my unimpressive track record for speaking to first years...

I should probably note that now is the WORST possible time for me to be inspired to work on my writing piece considering how much schoolwork I have.

On another note, I've figured out what to do about the second semester of my writing piece. It's more risque than I thought it would be... darker perhaps, but I was right about the fact that I've forgotten some important lessons I've learned. And it's primarily because I sorta learned about these things the hard way. But, I suppose I shouldn't just stick to things that I screwed up right.

Ever since I started listening to Something Corporate, I always knew that Andrew McMahon was a brilliant songwriter. And not only for his infectiously catching tunes, but for his lyrical genius as well. I mean, I rarely heap praise on any musical artist for their lyrics, if only for me, lyrics are secondary to music and it's hard for me to appreciate a song, regardless of lyrics, if it sounds musically horrific. And to be sure, Andrew McMahon can be musically horrific at times. Even though Jack's Mannequin and Something Corporate are my 2 favorite bands (in that order), I am probably the first one to admit that Andrew has written some godawful stuff (at least, musically he has). His redeeming factor is of course, that his hits are so amazing that they negate his wild misses.

But back to the point. For all the amazing lines that he has penned, there have been few that have struck me as more poignant and clever than the chorus from Dark Blue:

This night's a perfect shade of
Dark blue, dark blue,
Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?
I said the world could be burning... burning down
Dark blue, dark blue,
Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you.
I said the world could be burning... dark blue.

Admittedly, I was struck by these lines the instant I heard them the first time because I myself had said this very thing long before I ever knew Jack's Mannequin existed. Let me see if I can find it actually...

(literally an hour later)

"You ever get those random bouts of extreme loneliness? Like you're by yourself or even in a crowd and for some reason or another, you're suddenly aware of a stab of loneliness. It passes after awhile and you forget that it ever happened but you're very conscious of it while it lasts."

http://bona_fide.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html, Nov. 28th.

Wow that was a completely unnecessary waste of time. As if you wouldn't take my word for it. But anyhow. So obviously, when I heard Andrew McMahon echo that very thought, I was immediately struck by how well he had put it. And to a greater or lesser extent, everyone can empathize with the idea of being alone in a crowded room. I mean, unless you're one of those crazy social people who thrive in social situations where you don't know anybody else, we've all experienced times of being around people but without ever finding the kind of connection with someone that allows to feel comfortable in our own skin. Because when you're aware of being in a place where most people don't know anything about you, it's incredibly reassuring to have someone else "vouch" for you in a sense; it's comforting to know that someone will pay attention to you if you're not socially savvy enough to create interest in yourself. Because being alone in a crowded room is an awful feeling. Being alone is bad enough. But when you're in a situation where you're not even physically distant from others, it hammers in how really detached you are from everyone; like you can't even blame your disconnect on a question of proximity. When you're alone in a crowded room, everything is just so... cold you know?

But the true brilliance, as I always tell people, in Andrew McMahon's words, is how he changes one word in his line and it takes on a completely different meaning. And it's not even like changing a word from "do" to "don't" where the second line is just the opposite of the first. The line,

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

That's a question. And it's asking the girl if he's... good enough; caring enough; worthy enough; to be that "someone" who will always "vouch" for her so she never has to feel alone in a crowded room. He's hoping, I think, that her answer is "no"; that she's never been alone in a crowded room when he's with her because she'll always make that connection with him, no matter where they are; no matter how many people are part of that crowd. But it's still a question. And I think he answers it with almost the exact same line,

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you.

That's a statement. And it's almost like he's reminding her that if she wants, he'll be the person. He's reminding her that if she's ever been alone in a crowded room, she doesn't have to be. He's there with her and he's not going anywhere. No matter where they are; no matter how many people are part of that crowd; he might not know how much she cares for him but he's at least letting her know that he cares for her.

And that's amazing. Only Andrew McMahon could ever pull that off. I thought it was amazing the first time I heard it and I still think it's amazing now.

It's a pretty general rule that it's good to have an outline for any kind of written work. So now that I'm fully into my writing project, I took most of today to plan an outline for the thing and came across an embarrassing discovery. My intention was for my narrative to cover the period of one university school year. So 8 months. And I've already written the beginning and the ending so that's a pretty established sectioning. And yet, after throwing all my ideas into an outline, I've discovered that I only have enough ideas for 1 semester. That's 4 months.

That's ridiculous. That means I could learn, in one semester, the sum total of everything I've actually learned in the past say... 7 years? What in the hell have I done with my life during the times when I'm not learning/dealing with something worth experiencing? All... 6 years and 8 months of it. I mean, when I started out with this idea for an informal writing piece, I thought "material" was going to be the last of my concerns. Apparently, the sum total of 7 years worth of material can't even cover the basis of 1 university school year!

I'm clearly not getting enough out of life...

I was on the verge of another fear of aging/existential crisis post but I figured I have nothing interesting to say about it that hasn't been said before.