christopher!

the sopranos this week wasn’t quite as anxiety ridden as last week. last week set a new record. last week was one of the tensest hours of my late — or least the tensest hour of my life i spent in front of a television set. this week was just amazing television. i yelped once or twice, and buried my face in Mendel Katz, the stuffed tiger my dad brought back from the zoo a few months ago.

i CAN yelp because i’m currently watching tv in the privacy of my own house. i’m home, and not because i’ve cracked up (although i kindof have). wait. no. i know that i have not cracked up because my father and my older brother both started making fun of my “fear of graduating” as soon as they were done hugging me hello. i must be okay.

i feel perfectly sane. right now. but at least once every day for the past four days something has hit me and i’ve collapsed. it’s as though i have no emotional reserves, no bumper. maybe it’ll help to be home, even if only til wednesday. at least being home gives me things to look forward to: seeing folks, seeing eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (at LAST), my little brother downloading back episodes of the O.C. for me off the internet. and i can’t over-emphasize the healing properties of Mendel Katz.

j.f., part I

being at college has made me somewhat blase about meeting people i admire. other, more responsible people make the decisions and spend the money so that people i admire can come speak within several yards of me. when i stop to think about it, that’s incredible.

just one of the many ways i’m lucky. also, this evening, one of my friends, who is effusive about me in the way i associate with younger sisters, thanked me for being her hero. after a long day in a rough semester, that’s better than cocoa.

but! jonathan franzen. or, j.f., as i like to call him. aside from not having blonde hair, he is very much like the kind of guy i always expected to marry: witty, deadpan, tall, bespectacled, stubbled, erudite, and cute. i sat in the second row and no one sat in front of me so i had a clear view of him. there he was. saying things like, “don’t mess with oprah.” things i wrote down and which i will post here, along with my dan savage quotes, as soon as i get a chance. if everything goes as planned, i will see him twice more: this evening, when he gives a for-real lecture (this afternoon was a “conversation”) and at the film studies fundraising gala in nyc to which i get to clap squeal and go.

oh, and he’s not jewish. as they say in the classic independence day, nobody’s perfect.

the paradigm is cupcakes

my film theory seminar, in its various permutations, meets a record four times this week. the first incident, this evening, went rather better than i was scared it might — kind of like today, which began with my receiving my third rejection (nyfucku). the sun, and ben, and friendly people kept me buoyant, and i apartment-shopped on craigslist for extra kicks.

i’m hoping it’s not a sign that, after a near-glorious weekend, it’s back to modulated depressiveness for me. after this near-glorious weekend, i’ve forgotten the roots of my modulated depressiveness; reflecting on it, it seems silly and pointless to me. why fret when you can get shoes, a book, and a t-shirt for under $6? and then, the next day, elsewhere, 2 more pairs of shoes and a kickass pair of “they’re not just hot, they’re hot topic!” punkish pants for free?

moreover, why fret when you can dress to scandalize at the annual “fuck gender, and me too please!” party? or re-watch one of the few movies that honestly deserves to be called a gem, spellbound? or be entertained by the one and only dan savage?

(this entry may set a new record for the number of times i use the f-word. i hope my parents and their friends and relatives are not upset. however, i am a college student and i won’t be one for too much longer so i beg everyone to bear with me, please.)

happiness: morning and evening, or, a warm gun?

this entry is dedicated to you’re a good man, charlie brown, the most aggressively Mostly Harmless musical i’ve ever seen.

so, when ben & i were in north carolina, we came across an immense collection of cheap books in the basement of a PTA thrift store. perusing the fiction, i noticed a paperback called “the milagro beanfield wars.” why have i heard of that, i wondered. well, someone must have told me to read it! it only cost a quarter and it was in good condition, er go it is mine.

flash forward to swarthmore. stressed out during the days, i look to the time before bedtime as vital, and in that vital time i often read. i began “the milagro beanfield wars.” bells began to ring faintly near the back of my head. i scratched my hair and continued.

by the time i was about a third of the way in, the bells had become insistent, obnoxious, and unignorable. i did the only thing i could: i called my father.

me: dad, i’m reading this book called “the milagro beanfield wars” and —
my father: *laughs for ten minutes*
me: dad! what? what?
him: *still laughing*
me: daaaaaaaaaaddddddd!
him: you don’t listen. i’ve been telling you about that book for 20 years.
me: aha! so you do know it!
him: know it! i’m IN it!
me: wow! are you charley [our last name], the bright-eyed east coast lawyer who moves to the little town in new mexico in the late 60s and helps out the poor oppressed hispanic farmers?
him: actually, i’m the second tier bad guy, rudy noise, the state engineer’s lawyer. my part was cut out of the movie.
me: …
him: sorry, darling. this is america. besides, john nichols was a gringo stalinist and i always thought his book needed to be edited. with a hatchet.

too bad. i think it’s amusing. i’m going to keep reading since i haven’t even met rudy noise yet. apparently (& i’d forgotten that this is one of my father’s favorite stories) (or rather, i remembered the story but didn’t know it was about THIS BOOK) he’s describe as being slender, intelligent, and well-dressed. a judge with whom my father was lunching quipped, “you should sue! they told three lies about you in one sentence!”

gobbledygook and upside downs

louise gluck was supposed to come speak; she got bogged down by freak snowstorms and a bad flu. johnathan franzen is coming but somehow between the time the “reserve your spot!” email was sent out (10:15 a.m.) and the time i next checked my email (1:10 p.m.) all tickets had been taken. ridiculous! that’ll teach me to actually try to be productive in the mornings instead of frittering away all pre-noon hours on the internet.

the plus side of my what-the-hell, may-as-well proactivity was that i had a full rough cut to show my class today. that put me in a good mood. as did the weather, as did a long overdue lunch date. however, no degree of good mood can withstand wednesday afternoons. i skipped into class and several hours later dragged myself out, in sullen teenager fashion, darkly envisioning nooses and pills and dorothy parker poetry.

my mood never rebounded. when i tried to watch junk television in the lounge, the christians kicked me out. and i couldn’t go to sleep because i had to read barthes for my attachment meeting tomorrow. i couldn’t talk to anyone because to talk would be to whine and i feel unjustified in whining.

because: i have a grad skool option. i have a grad skool option colocated with two of my sig.fig.’s grad skool options. my grad skool option offers cheap health insurance and priceless film industry connections. i have a job offer for the summer that would pay $2100 for 6 weeks — the most i’ve ever earned. my hair hasn’t started falling out yet. my history professor from LAST YEAR finally returned the paper i handed in LAST YEAR, which i need to revise for honors.

sadly, logic does not speak to malaise. if i could pinpoint my malaise (beyond “what if i don’t have talent, i just have a better-than-average ability to bullshit?” which in some fields is talent anyway) i could at least try to rip off its wings … maybe the key is to resume sleeping late in the mornings. my brother does that and he’s mostly happy.

sunshine of terror

again, up too early. i don’t understand. i’ve already wasted an hour and fifteen minutes and just about that amount of time still stands between me and class. i can’t work in the mornings. my very being shudders at the thought. nor is any one else up to talk to and if they are up they’re doing Good for Them things like practicing for a marathon or excavating babies and nuns out of avalanches.

last night i dreamt my little brother had become a serial killer. i ran downstairs and found that he’d left ben tied up and bleeding to death in the basement. once i managed to save ben, i told my mother firmly that this could not stand: my little brother would have to leave. abjectly, she agreed, and we all stood around the door as he walked out.

why we didn’t turn him into the police, i don’t understand. he then proceeded to follow us around paris (?) and much running through traffic ensued. i woke up tense, muscles locked in place as though by that new magic sportsbra.

the dream was probably a by-product of yesterday’s manic nature. following the emerson serendipity, i had to submit to 2 phone interviews. the first went fine, no better or worse than could be expected; the second, for co-lum-bi-a threw me entirely off-kilter. i had to talk to two people at once. one, a woman, was the good cop. she asked me specific, manageable questions, laughed at my jokes. the other, a skeptical-sounding new yawkish man, who i imagined with hair on his knuckles, made my head whirl: “who wants to see a movie about the 19th century?” “you know, i hate when movies try to teach me things.” “i want to laugh. will your movie make me laugh?” “do you have a story that you HAVE to tell that’s different from everybody’s else’s story?”

weirdly, they began the interview by teasing me. i have brothers; i know what teasing is. they were like, “are you SURE you want to come here?” “come on, we’re not THAT great.” “it’s a lot of money ….” it seemed like they were going to offer me a spot! great! then they shined the bright light in my eyes and got down to business.

at least they agreed with me on lars van trier though, since the man even growled his approval, it was hard to decipher at first. once the interview terminated abruptly, i realized they never even told me their names. gee golly gosh! and i still really want to go to their skool!

effervescence

* phone rings *

me: hello?
voice: hi, is this [my name]?
me: yes?
voice: this is the president’s office. do you still reside at 264 parrish?
me: yes … ?
voice: we got some of your mail somehow, and i opened it, and well — it’s good news for you from emerson college …

heavy lifting

my god, what am i doing up this early? i guess the sun rose before it could be expected to; now it’s thrown everything off. at 8 a.m. i am unaccountably hungry and even my cherished 19s cannot help me. it must be a hunger composed of displaced sleep.

and my body is sore. saturday i went around filming with a handheld camera. i hadn’t realized quite how heavy a handheld camera is — dogme may be for dorks, but those dorks must have tremendous upper-body strength — and i had to stop eventually because my arms had turned to jello.

then, speaking of sugary food, yesterday evening co|motion steeled itself to sell 600 donuts. addie and i launched through parrish, dana, and hallowell, all the dorms i’ve lived in, and managed to sell 14 dozen. not unimpressive and not unexhausting either, frankly. when we finally disposed of our LAST ONE, we whooped like sports fans and considered tracing our footsteps door to door with a revised pitch, “hi! would you like to donate alcohol for a worthy cause?”

we got some great responses. one guy was half-naked when we knocked on his door. he pleaded for a couple minutes to get dressed. another girl walked up next to us and said “come see me once you’re dressed too!” joking, i turned to her and said, “maybe you could just see him now.” “oh no,” she said. “he’s my ex. he’d better be clothed.”

a few doors down we ran into the same girl again in a different guy’s room (another ex? a current?) would she like a donut? “no thanks,” she said. “but the guy who lives her might. hang on.” and while we stood there, she rifled through his clothes and the room looking for a dollar. finally she shrugged at us: “sorry, i can’t find his money. would you like some of his gum?”

another girl told us she was sorry but she’d given up sweets, cheese and peanut butter for lent. “you must be a saint,” said addie politely. “if i were a saint,” replied she, “i wouldn’t need to give up everything i love to feel god in my heart.”

anyway, if you bought a krispy kreme, thank you for lightening our load.

end of week giddiness

for the record, i’m currently working on making three movies. three. the next time i’m working on making three movies at once somebody better be paying me for it.

i have filmed 10 interviews for one of those movies, a video project i have to do for class called “who IS the swattie?” that footage, plus the amount i hope to get saturday at screw (one of swarthmore’s annual gleefully painful bacchanals), will go way over an hour. the finished project will be 3 to 5 minutes. so > 1 hour – 3 to 5 minutes = 1 hell of a lot of editing.

i’m actually kind of excited about the editing. that is, perhaps, because i’ve never edited anything before, certainly nothing of this magnitude. there’s so much power! so much potential! if reality television has taught us nothing else, it has surely taught us that.

a new pattern!

i alternate between leaving unpleasant events 2/3 of the way through and having anxiety attacks. the two are not unrelated: whenever i’m in the clutches of something that doesn’t engage at least half of my attention, i begin to perspire and palpitate about all the work i will never get done.

the worst part is that there’s no day i can look to when it will be over. at graduation you only trade honors/grad skool/job search/future/thesis anxiety for Future anxiety. with a capital Future. at some point, eventually, i imagine, there will a lull, some time when i have a new residence, new occupation, when i can spend thirty full minutes without gnashing my teeth about What’s Going to Happen. but without being able to mark that point on a calendar and work to it, i’m in my own personal idea of hell, walking down a corridor towards an EXIT sign that never gets closer.

there is no bright side. bunnies with bow-ties really aren’t that hilarious. no, wait, i’ll think of one.

okay: my hair hasn’t started falling out yet.

i’m in requited love.

i was contacted by columbia for an interview, which seems to mean i made some cut.

i’m seeing eternal sunshine of the spotless mind on friday.

the odds are i will get through this (however indeterminate) period, because i’m healthy and sturdy and, as charlotte reminded us on the last episode of sex and the city, we’re jews! we’ve gotten through worse than this.