gar. apathy reigns supreme, or something like that

so I'm back on the grid. go me.

thursday afternoon and most of friday, we were offline, along with most of northeastern America. We weren't as stuck as we could have been, though, acos my dad put in a generator a few months back, to defend us against just such an eventuality. See, we live in the boonies, so we don't get city water, which means that, if our power goes out, we don't get water at all, which tends to suck. so we had enough power to have water and the fridge and a few lights, and we ended up movingbooks back into the newly recarpeted basement. It took forever, and we didn't even finish. Then again, we had a whole holy heap of books with which to cope: I'm talking about four bookcases, each one floor-to-ceiling, about 4 feet wide, and double-shelved. And we have some seriously weird books in our basement, most of them remnants of my parents' college days--the russian (my father's russian minor) and the economics (my mother's business major)--or just a familial addiction to the written word. It's insane.

The library (where I work) was also de-electrified, which meant that I left early on thursday and don't have to go back in until monday...which makes me happy. I honestly don't think I could be productive if I was paid, which is why I'm doing this...no actual thinking involved.

And whenever I do this I can't help but think of all of the people who suffer so much more than I...people in Africa, starving and dying of AIDS and civil wars and hopelessness. Or I think of the people in Kabul, who didn't deserve any of what they got, but suffer anyway from the stupidity of a far-away administration. I heard on the radio this morning that temperatures in Kabul are regularly over 120 degrees farenheit. I hope they're getting a kick out of our bourgeois dismay when our AC goes out for less than a day, and we still have clean water, and cars, and our world the way we're used to having it.

I'd never kill myself because of anything that happened to me, but I feel sometimes that I might just do so because of who I am. Looking at my complete disinclination to help, or even to do something productive with my time, makes me sick. I feel utterly worthless, and worse for feeling that way, because I know that I could be something more than what I am, if only I had the guts.

i can't wait to go back to school. there at least i will have someone over whom to lord my moral superiority. and i'll have work with which to occupy myself. and hopefully i won't be so goddamn depressing.

UN Resolution No. 9875.789

wrote this a while back, thought it was somewhat amusing. All names have been changed to "X" in an effort to protect me from the creepy old men of the world...and the creepy young men, and all creepy women, too. Anyways.

The United Nations,
Noting that Ms. X does not desire to attend dances,
Further noting that Ms. X is, in point of fact, quite happy to be left alone to read,
Emphasizing that Ms. X is, as proven through extensive scientific research, incapable of dancing with any degree of comfort or grace,
Bearing in mind that Ms. X has never listened with any great favor to music of the variety commonly known as 'pop,'
Further recalling that Ms. X is not inclined to socialize with people she neither knows nor cares to know, in a deafening, dark, and thoroughly unpleasant setting, where everyone will be better dressed, more attractive, and more popular than she, and where she will be the dark cloud and the pity generator for a crowd exceeding in number 300 persons,
Fully alarmed by the belief that there is something intrinsically wrong with Ms. X, or with any person, male or female, who feels as she does,

1) Condemns all those who chide Ms. X and her fellow antisocialites for being "a drag," no fun," etc, as she and hers are, in fact, a great deal of fun, the difference being that their sort of fun does not simulate sex;
2) Deplores any attempt to force antisocialites, by guilt or by physical action, to dance or to attend dances, or to engage in any activity in which they have no interest, provided that said activities are not necessary for their health or mental development;
3) Resolves to rid the world of those who would act suchly, by force if necessary, although naturally peace talks, logic, asking nicely, and wishing the offending parties to Siberia will be the frst resorts;
4) Commits to remain seized of this matter.

Yeah...that's what I think about dances.

oops...meant to add this last time, but got distracted by Igor-bitchiness

If any of you care to contact me, given that, as far as I know, there is no way for you to leave comments on Blogger, drop me a line at quintessential37 at excite.com (I am informed by my computer-savvy friends that this is a way to keep evil corporations from putting your emails on their spam lists. If they're completely misguided, tell me and I'll pass it on.)

'dats all...for real this time. or maybe just for the next 50 minutes.

my big Igor explanation/bitch-rant

back again...and this time I'm going to talk about boys. Or rather boy.

Boy is Igor--not his real name, but it was the one I met him under, so I'll use it. I liked Igor--this is not unusual. I frequently develop crushes on people. Never before, however, have I had to act on one. Oh, sure, people have found out I liked them before...but that's always where it ends. Sometimes it's awkward, sometimes it isn't, but it's always finished there: with me liking them and them knowing it, and both of us well aware that nothing is going to come of it. I put it down to sexual frustration and a desire for affection and some semblance of romance.

So I met Igor, and I had a crush on Igor, and basically I was waiting for him to pick up on it and ask me. At that point I would admit that I did have a thing for him, and he would acknowledge the existence of said thing, and both of us would get the hell over it and go back to being friendly. This is life, for me...my crushes are unrequited, and I like that, because I don't have to react. I can just exist, crushing, and that one frame of mind will serve me for the remainder of our time in proximity.

I'm used to being teased by my friends about my inability to take an aggressive crushing stance. They laugh at my willingness to say "I have a crush on you" and do nothing to pursue it. This time, however, a mutual friend decided we would suit very well. This is ridiculous...how can we suit if we hardly know each other? Still, this friend picked up on my crushing-ness and got it into her head to talk to Igor about it. I was pissed of, and, frankly, terrified. Her words would give him the idea that this was something I was willing to pursue...and while I was, I was also not, because it scared the shit out of me.

Then...insanity. He liked me back. And our mutual friend laid it all out on the table, and we sort of stared at each other, neither of us willing to admit what she'd said, or even to acknowledge that she'd said it. We were stuck in limbo--a sort of "I know, and I think you know, but I'm not sure and I don't want to assume you know if you don't, so I'm just going to pretend I don't know, and you're going to do the same, and we won't have to deal with any of this. And that will be good." Tension galore, naturally. And then it all went splodgy and pear shaped and he put his arms around me and kissed me and I had a boyfriend. For about a week.

Because the world came back, and we had to deal with an utter lack of privacy and down time, plus about 100 people assuming that we were together and a comfortably settled and established relationship, when in fact we were just in a weird wort of settling-in, getting-used-to-expressing-affection stage, and the relationship, such as it was, died into awkward silences and uncertainty, longing to touch but drawing back in fear of how I'd be received. And we had a talk and recognized that it wasn't working, and put it to rest, and after that we never talked and I just don't know why. And I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate not knowing why.

And while I'm aware it wouldn't have worked out, especially given how far we live from each other--over 700 miles, according to my trusty guide, Mapquest--I still wish I could talk to him comfortably, because I liked him as a person, not just as a crush.

Basically, I WANT SOME FUCKING CLOSURE!

...yeah. That felt good.

Off now, to mull over further ideas for bitch-rants.

Back from the oatmeal...

...and isn't it a wonderful thing? I love oatmeal.

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon filling out a "brag sheet" that my school sent me. The idea is that I spill my guts onto these six pages, hand my life's story in at registration, and then my counselor gets to pretend he has had more contact with me than a 20-minute interview last year. Then, knowing who I am, he will be able to write an insightful reccomendation sure to ensure my admission at the college of my choice.

This would all be bad enough, but I wouldn't blame it on my counselor. Incompetent tho' he be, he does have to deal with half of the senior class, which means about 350 people, so I suppose he can't know everybody well. And my deep-seated belief that I am much more interesting than the rest of my class is not a valid reason for him to pay more attention to me. In fact, I'm probably much less interesting, to him, than most of my classmates. I have an incredibly normal relationship with my parents, I have friends, I get good grades in hard classes, I am reasonably upbeat in the company of others, I have no addictions to illegal substances, I am not sexually active and thus am not in danger of STDs, pregnancy, or heartbreak. I am reasonably attractive, I suppose, and while I am aware that I am not beautiful, I have no desire to change this. I have very little drama in my life, and most of it comes from the emotions I repress and repress and repress, so naturally he doesn't know of it. My life is very internal.

As I said, this would be acceptable--if not thrilling--but it is not all. One must now consider the questions I am asked, and the amount of space I am given in which to respond. The brag sheet includes such gems as:

"Please list all travel experiences outside of Ann Arbor and dates of travel. Share what made them significant for you." I lived in France for a year. They have given me four lines in which to tell about all my travel experiences...I could write a whole brag sheet on France alone.

"List five words that describe you as a person. What made you select each descriptor?" Not actually a bad question...but when the adjective is "smart", what can I say for why I picked it? "because I am" is true, but egotistical.

"Share with us the personal qualities you feel you have which others might not notice." In three lines?

and my personal favorite:
"What books or people or ideas have been strong influences on the person you are? Tell us how they have influenced you." ...in four lines.

The thing is, these are not bad questions, particularly the last one. I'd actually enjoy writing an essay on how Pride and Prejudice has influenced me. But if they only give me four lines, there is no way I could possibly write anything that meant anything, which they must know, which means they know they're going to get an answer that, while true, is superficial as fuck all, which means that they don't give a shit, which just makes me sad.

Still, I filled the sheet out. And I feel like I'm overanalyzing it, but hey...my perogative.

All for now...I'll probably write more later, just because I can.

So now I have a blog.
I used to think that they were merely the next step in a long and depressing chain of self-aggrandizement, and thus I assumed that I would never get one. See how the mighty have fallen?
But though I still do believe that blogs are somewhat egotistical (particularly in my case: honestly, who cares?), I have also come to realize that I need to have an audience, even if it be only potential. When I know that nobody will read what I write, I trail off in a sea of ellipses and "yeah...you know"s. It's all in my head already, so I don't need to explain it to myself. Hopefully, this will encourage coherency. We'll see.
In other news, I'm a senior in high school, intelligent, irascible, impatient, and frustrated. I suffer from delusions of grandeur. I am neurotic and observant and something of a bitch.
And I'm being summoned to the breakfast table, or rather dragged there by a stomach which has long been empty, and so we must part. Tell me what you think, or not, as you so choose.