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i don’t know who i am but you know life is for learning … why is that one of the most beautiful songs ever written? don’t worry about answering; it’s a rhetorical question.

so tomorrow morning, to north carolina until the 18th. miss lana comes w/, as do (get ready for this) 4 of adam’s friends, our family friend mel and his daughter joanna. that makes 12 of us in a house for 6. i guess someone can sleep in the hottub.

it’s supposed to rain the whole time too. oh man is this going to be insane. i’m bringing lots of books and a good pair of earphones. that should do it. ilana’s chill (lana and chill in fact are synonymous) and she and i should be low-maintainance. it’s everyone else i’m worried about. ah well. what would i be w/o worry?

meme (from wockerjabby):

three things i see:

  • little plastic box of thumbtacks overflowing w/ two strings of jolly’s mardi gras beads and a bracelet i bought during my summer in nyc a couple years ago

  • my smartwhore button and the gore/leiberman button i was trying to affix it to

  • ten women who shook the world — a book we had to read for fiction that i now use a mousepad

three things i hear:

  • adam watching lock stock and two smoking barrels in his room

  • “the circle game” — joni’s just wrapping it up

  • the rain getting more and more passionate outside

three things i feel:

  • the bottom of my jeans which got wet from walking thru puddles in georgetown earlier

  • the carpet under my bare feet (i hate wearing shoes indoors)

  • a little apprehensive about this n.c. trip

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another survey, this one courtesy of pandora’s boxers: In the last week have you…

Cried? yeah, from that ny times article

Helped someone? hopefully

Bought something? today: diet coke, diet pepsi, columbo frozen yogurt, and a spinach knish

Not known the answer in class? i don’t make a policy of that 🙂

Dissected something? not literally

Cut your hair? no, but i tear it out all the time. trichotilomania.

Worn a skirt? yes. well, two slips, actually.

Worn a tie? uh, no

Been mean? *sigh* probably, but i didn’t intend to be

Been sarcastic? *scornfully* sarcasm is the lowest form of humor.

Been horney? who on earth spells “horney” w/ an “e”? sheesh.

Sung? today in fact, walking down the street. if you’re going to get looks anyway, you may as well do something to deserve them

Gone for a run? no –> see #1

Gone for a walk? of course

Gone to the movies? tomorrow: apocalypse now redux. the new yorker went crazy about it; i hope it lives up to the hype

Gone out to eat? sushi yesterday

Felt stupid? being w/ johnny reminds me that i’m not as smart as he is

Said “I love you”? yes

Written a real letter? what, like “A”?

Written a paper? does a rant count?

Taken a test? personality test: i’m a journalist (idealist something or other. it means i’m paranoid.)

Met someone new? not really

Written in a journal? adam: you keep a diary? me: i call it a notebook. adam: so you take notes on what happens during the day. … sounds like a diary.

Watched your favorite movie? no, but i did see some good ones

Given someone a present? only the gift of my company

Had a serious talk? ha. of course.

Hugged someone? virtually hugged jamie; was hugged by my writing teacher as i left class (“keep writing”); kissed ilana’s shoulder

Had a nightmare? no

Fought with your parents? no, thank god

Fought with a friend? not really fought; disagreed … got on one’s nerves …

Done something Crazy? crazy w/ a capital “c”? nope

Taken a shower? yes. not that it’s done much good — this weather seems to delight in ruining my hair. my picture today for my passport was nearly turned the developer to stone.

three cheers for ross who is starting a blog of his own. he’s one of the barnies and a good friend from year 1 at swat. among other things, he is passionate about music and it is b/c of him that i have half my monster mp3 collection, my bob dylan cds, a couple jonis, elliott smith, and various random others. check him out. he’s one of the most unique folks i now.

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apocamon, courtesy of www.sturtle.comahhh resolution. for most of today, i was a sun-frazzled victim of august. my site refused to show up; my brother adam and my father had a loud over-dramatized argument about israel — a friend of adam’s is determined to study abroad there. my father declared that commendable while adam decried it as foolish self-aggrandizement. as they were getting nowhere except into ad hominem attacks, i ushered adam out the door. we had to get our passports renewed. what should have been simple took forever: in the midst of correcting the first flawed set of prints, the person helping us left the store. “where’d he go?” we asked the lady behind the counter after he didn’t return. “oh, he went to buy a magazine,” she said. another employee eventually finished up the job. we went from there to the post office to fill out forms, and then, relieved, walked back to the corner of wisconsin avenue where we’d parked. for a moment or two, we just watched the traffic whoosh by.

“isn’t this where we parked?” said adam. “uh-huh,” i said. … “shit. shit shit shit.”

we hiked down to the police station, got the address of the place where our car had been towed, hiked there, paid the $75 fine and pocketed the additional $35 ticket. it would have been funny, at least in a life’s-a-bitch kind of way, except that it was over 100 degrees outside and adam and i, by the time we were done w/ the whole mess, were like melted canvases. he dropped me off back in the heart of bethesda where ilana, laboring as always in the seed, gave me water and a fan and restored my equilibrium. my writing class assignment was to write a rant and an opinion on the same subject; i hadn’t done either, so after i cooled off, i delved into the topic of beauty. creating the rant was so much fun that i never got to the opinion. it didn’t matter ultimately: we didn’t even discuss them in class. once i polish it a little, i’ll post it here.

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Harry Potter =D courtesy of http://www.tigrin.net/log/ this is too cute, i couldn’t resist. have i mentioned what a sucker i am for harry potter? last summer when i bought the 4th book, the nite of its release — johnny took me to b+n — i stayed up til 5 a.m. reading. then of course i had to defend my taste to my extended family. snobs. not that i should talk; before i deigned to pick up the first one, i rolled my eyes at the phenomenon like every other wannabe-intellectual in this country. i’m trying to make up for it tho by being upfront about my conversion. i have seen the light and now, like every other born-again in this country, i am the phenomenon’s biggest supporter and prostelytizer.

ADDITION: survey (courtesy of http://aim.uprush.com):

1. Open up your CD player, what’s inside?: belle and sebastian’s boy w/ the arab strap; i just took out revelling and before that revolver

2. Look in your VCR/DVD player, is there a movie?: bonnie and clyde and before that pi (and i just had a long conversation w/ my brother adam about requiem for a dream, also by aronofsky. he thought the film was equally well made and depressing. what’s the point of stuff that just depresses you, he asked. i argued Appreciation and Aesthetic and other Abstracts. he argued entertainment. but if the film was on his mind, as clearly it was, and if it affected him, i believe it was worth watching.)

3. If there happens to be music playing right now, what is it?: belle and sebastian, dude. i just told you that.

4. What are you wearing?: jeans, black t-shirt. boring but somewhat typical, especially when there’s no one around i have to impress.

5. Look down, what’s the first thing that catches your eye?: my tarot cards. much reading recently.

6. Turn on your TV if it’s not on already, what network is it?: i hate tv.

7. Look out the window, what’s the weather like?: dark, oppressively hot. thank god we’re getting out of here and going to the beach.

8. If you were to hit redial on your phone right now, where would it call?: ben. talked to alyssa since he’s not there (dinner w/ justin? alyssa didn’t know) she’s going to japan — brave girl.

9. Say “hello?” out loud, did anyone answer?: no. but i was too timid to say it too loudly; if i had, my little brother judah might have responded.

10. What are you planning on doing next as soon as you get offline?: mmm, sleep …

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anyone know where the quote “what fresh hell is this?” comes from? i think of it as said by katharine hepburn but i may be completely off.

plans this evening aborted. it’s all right. i can read, spend some quality time breathing, sleep. sounds excellent to me.

jamie and i watched bonnie and clyde. it’s always interesting to see two movies in a day that are both good for very different reasons.

last nite ilana and i were play fighting about something. “you’re judgemental!” she said. “i am not; i’m a perceiver,” said i. “well, you perceive judgementally,” said she. couldn’t argue w/ that. not so much, no. but i try not to judge — really.

this (prosaic.nu) is the best about page i’ve seen in a while.

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jamie chose this color. she slept over — so did ilana, but ilana’s already back working hard at the seed. we watched pi by one of my emerging-favorite-filmmakers darren aronofsky. it’s not that his pictures particularly have moved me — he doesn’t seem to care about having the audience identify w/ the characters — but he has a unique vision and a talent for creating scenes that stick w/ you. the genius is in the details: like the sounds in the background, for instance. i hope he doesn’t end up like tim burton, who began bright and became a sell-out once he got money.

last nite we paid a surprise visit to becca and laid waste to her pantry. that was after fro yo at always-spooky kentlands, a suburbs-in-their-purest-form neighborhood reminiscent of the one created for jim carrey in truman show. it’s an experiment in closeted living. they have a school there, and a church and a mall (complete w/ 50’s diner and movie theater) and a couple hundred expensive houses. “new urbanism” — an attempt to create a microcosm in which cars aren’t necessary and crime is seen on television, not in the streets.

not that my own unicorn lane is so much better. (really. that’s the name of my street.) what on earth could be expected of me having grown up on unicorn (or as becca once miswrote it, “chicorn”) lane?

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courtesy of http://dreamtank.waferbaby.com/main.phpwhat the hell was i saying about layout being fun? right when i was about to put my self-satisfied-self to sleep last nite, i decided to tempt fate by actually checking to see how the site, w/ all its new impressive changes, looks in netscape. (i am a moderate person. it takes a lot to become someone i really dislike — in fact, i can’t think of an enemy i even have at the moment. recently, the closest i’ve come to to shrill, blazing-eyed fury has been when confronted w/ the idiocies ot netscape. but so as not to drop the narrative:) i heard the fates chuckling around me and ignored them, sauntering onto communicator. the page loaded; immediately, i threw my forearm over my face to shield it from the horror. it was a mess, worse than my room at the present, almost worse than my room at swat.

i backed away, forcing myself to breathe. once i recovered my strength, i ventured in again, and i spent the next 2 hrs trying to reformat the (this) page so that it looked acceptable on netscape without compromising too much of its original design. when i signed off at last, i was exhausted but so jumpy that i kept expecting to see stern little girls appearing behind me or hanged people noosed from the shower head. (i have a terrible imagination. once it gets started, i feel like the kid from the sixth sense only this has been plaguing me for years and that’s a movie.) i took refuge in bed w/ tom jones. my mother heard my door — she hadn’t been sleeping either. she came in and we sat and talked until 5. nice conversation even if it was a ridiculous nite. she left to actually rest a little before work and i was soothed enuf to go to sleep.

but christ. … well, i guess everyone needs a nemesis. if my life were all sunshine, lollypops, and 5-for-$5 film rentals, it might get pretty dull.

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all right, just redid the bio page along the same lines as this page. i realized why it all’s so crazy new to me: i never did layout before. my focus was always on the literary/content end of things, as tho the two were mutually exclusive. this is my first real opportunity to play w/ how the material is presented. 2:15 a.m. fun, you betcha.

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so ben’s back — 🙂 his astrology report, as listed on his site, is astoundingly apt (i think); as much as mine is. i wonder if he got the idea to check it out from me. seems a rather large coincidence that we use the same folks to determine our personalities on the same day, each independent of the other … and mine came first, dammit.

dinner tonite was lovely. met johnny and ilana in bethesda and we had a leisurely meal on raku’s patio. afterwards we strolled around dark bethesda, chatting. oh-so-relaxed, oh-so-lowkey, just the way i like things. threes rarely work and we worked. that’s as close as one gets to a miracle in these godless times.

anyone like the new design? i only spent most of the day on it (ooh guilt trips come so easily to us jews.) please note the new links. i don’t know why i keep finding more gay men’s blogs — the ones i’ve happened upon seem more substantial than average. rabi is a swattie whose blog i started to check out while at skool, and reggie i added b/c i admired his drive. he visited over 50 blogs and left messages in guestbooks. why don’t i have that kind of initiative?

chai and the beatles (revolver) are putting me to sleep. more tomorrow probably. this is what comes of summer lulls.

to live a better life/ i need my love to be here …