Hats off to you

I have had a lovely day, and I would like to share it with a group of lovely people.

I played piano for a couple of hours. I read a new book under my favorite old tree in our garden while drinking tea I'd made with mint from that same garden. I had good-natured but intense arguments with a few members of my household; I listened to music until my ears twitched, sang some old songs, went through some old letters.

For the first time in a year, I wore a certain black hat that once called the Telluride House at Cornell home but soon grew attached to my head and later to my bookshelf, a hat that was supposed to serve as a comforting reminder of six weeks of forever but was unsuccessful in driving away the pain of separation when pitted against the memory of the actual thing.

As many of us go on to start a new chapter of our lives, as some of us already have, I want to take the opportunity to just smile at you virtually, tell you how much I love you, remind you that you all will always be in my thoughts and in my heart, and salute you for being the exceptional people you are.

If I had a false mustache (I want to write "moustache" so desperately. There, I did it.), a monocle and a tailcoat, I would don them now with that TASP hat as a flashback to our kooky TASPy cross-dressing party and then slip into a low bow, removing the hat with a flourish. A virtual flourish, of course.

Basically, I've been missing you these past few days (weeks, months, year) and wanted to say hello and how are you and please keep this blog alive 103 posts after its inception and please, pretty please excuse my use of polysyndeton, which I know is annoying.

In other news, I am thinking of taking a trip in the Easterly direction this Thanksgiving. Nothing for certain yet, but the prospect of a reunion could be the incentive I need to actually go and get tickets. Anyone?

Laura's crazy, but Mac's boring, which is worse.

I think I'm probably a little crazy. I'm always really hesitant to post on here, because I think, "Jeez, they're going to think I'm totally wacko. They're going to think I spend all my time on this blog, just posting stuff that no one wants to read. I'll be such a bother."

As is evident, I think about it probably too much.
I also forget that the fact that I always check the blog, compulsively, as I told Aurelie, doesn't mean I'm actually communicating. I mean, you guys can't tell. I'm a little crazy.

Mac says, "A little?" Mac says I'm a lot crazy, apparently. Mac's kind of a jerk, you guys.

Mac's also contributing to this post, and doesn't think this is fair. Mac says, "I could just delete all of that." But then I wouldn't be communicating, either.

Hey you guys, Mac came to visit me! In scenic Kirksville! Super exciting! Scenic northeast Missouri (NEMO), specifically. We drove around the House district today, seeing the beautiful hills and being friendly. Also running political errands. Because that's what I spend so much time doing.

We miss you guys. I read the post Julieta wrote, and the posts everyone else wrote, and we're all nostalgic, and I think it's great. Mac said I sound generic, and that I make him sound like an awful person, to which he objects strongly. Mac is not an awful person. But I digress.
Mac and my brother, Andrew, whom some of you have met, are making fun of me for needing to sleep eight hours a night. They're saying I'm a sloth, and that I have too many toes. I say they're inaccurate. I am not a three-toed sloth, or any kind of sloth. Nope.

Anyway, yes. We do miss you guys. When I read the posts, I wanted to be all, "Oh my gosh, totally, I totally miss you guys!" That was my immediate response. I sound kind of vapid, guys. It's terrible. That's not Mac making a value judgment, that's me being critical. Mac's being quiet, instead of making fun of me. Only now he's doing it passive-aggressively. You guys miss us so much, right?
Mac's not a terrible person. He's being really nice and not saying anything about the typos I keep making. And in general, he's a pretty okay guy. Awww.

Anyway. Again. We've got a point. Mac says I shouldn't digress again. But I'm getting to the point. Which is that you all, to me, to us, are inspiring. Meeting you, and getting to know you, and falling in love with each of you, mattered. And still matters. You still matter to us. Julieta mentioned that she still thinks about TASP every day. I read that, and it seemed like a strange statement to me. I hadn't really thought about it before. But you guys, I can't imagine not thinking about TASP, or all of you, or living in the house and the whole beautiful summer every day.

I'm glad you all say stuff like that, though, because then I know it's not just me. And then I don't feel like I'm quite as totally crazy. So that's good.
Mac agrees.

Incidentally, we're having fun here in Kirksville. Mac's computer is really cool, because it changes colors. And there's aliens on it.

happy day out of time!

So it’s that time of the year again, in which either common sense or the hand of Nunn calls us to protect ourselves from the indignity of the Gregorian calendar, and to let this blog pass in silence, I’m sure you’d all agree, would be nothing short of egregious.

But anyway....It’s crazy (preposterous, even!) to think that a year ago we were still living in the same House. The same brickful of memory stuffed with creaking stairs and midnight excursions and funny quarrels, all topped with a handful of eternally endearing inhabitants who, even as I write this, having been scattered away to the four winds (though some are blessed to have clustered together), are now certainly busy with dominating the world, achieving intellectual greatness, etc.

Well—I don’t know what to write. I wish I could verbalize the unreality of those six weeks, or explain away this constricting of the chest that has made me so absurdly restless...

I went to China for six weeks or so. Time passes very slowly there (or is it the jetlag that has drugged me?) and then suddenly—knowingly, like a cruel jest—disappears. Beijing, as expected, is caught in the excitement and perspiration of Olympic fever. Children shout in the streets, thousands collapse in the wake of natural disaster; a genius is born and dies. The world seems so stupidly unaware of itself.

How I miss the tapioca pearls of Ithaca! And those random outings to collegetown, the academic eccentricity and quiet intellectualism we all possess to some degree, that air of familiarity I can’t quite place and maybe never will find again... Because as tightly-knit and visually aesthetic as it seems (actually it’s really not), Alpharetta pales in comparison. Everywhere I see strangers and forced smiles. True, the weather is nice and it’s always great to be in the company of classmates, but there’s an extreme deficiency in TASPer population, which invariably makes for some very dull and nonexistent conversations.

But back to the point: Happy July 25^th! I am in love with you all.

Croissants

I have accomplished something. Well, halfway. My mom made croissant dough, but didn't have time to make them. So... I rolled and baked them! And they are delicious. TASP comes back with every bite.

Flowers, Sunshine, and a Side Dish of Mosquitoes

My last comment on Julieta's post was amazingly depressing and I'm not actually feeling that depressed. Except when I think that someone else has taken over Room 21 at 217 West Avenue, Ithaca...

My life in Colorado has been full of mosquitoes. They drove me from my beloved garden! But I decided to defeat them and probably partially destroy myself by using mosquito repellent. Oh, you lovely, smelly deet. I'm not surprised mosquitoes hate the stuff, if I could, I'd probably get as far away from myself as possible when I'm wearing it. But of course, that sort of thing requires a much higher level of consciousness than I have personally reached. I suppose if I'd reached that point, I wouldn't have to put on the repellent because I would have ceased to notice the mosquitoes.
But, the flowers in my garden are the most beautiful things in the world. I have lupins, columbines, daisies, lilies, and tons of poppies. The poppies seed themselves EVERYWHERE. And my mom lets them. The neighbors think we're opium dealers, I'm sure.
I've been working on the farm, driving tractors mostly. If any of you want the farm experience, you should really come visit me! My dad would also appreciate the extra help.
The mountains are beautiful. But the snow is still everywhere, and I won't be able to go hiking for another two weeks, probably. I think my family's first trip is to travel about 20 miles of the Continental Divide. Then I'm climbing a fourteener (Mt. Blanca; elev. 14,100ish ft.), which I promised myself I would never do again, because there are so many people. If anyone would care to come on either of these trips, you should probably plan to arrive in Colorado in the next few days, because you'll need to get yourself acclimated.

So, what this post is trying to prove is that despite all the sad things I have to say about my community, my little sunny patch of Southern Colorado is really a worthwhile place to visit. And you don't even have to meet any people, because I live out in the country and go into town once a week at the most. Well, I admit that mosquitoes aren't a very appealing aspect of my life, but they should be gone in about a month! And I think everyone loves to have something to complain about in life, and mosquitoes make such a worthy adversary, don't you think?

The Anniversary

I find myself sitting at the computer on a Tuesday night thinking of what I was doing a year ago. I feel like I should be having some deep thoughts about TASP or sobbing or both. I always expected for this to be a weepy anniversary but I have had dry eyes all day. This may sound weird and obsessive and I may be the only one but a year later not a day goes by that I don't think about TASP or the people related to it. Not one day. I don't think there is anything else I think about everyday other than my immediate needs for survival.

Maybe that's what happened to me a year ago, I found something so impressive that it became fundamentally incorporated into my identity. Sometimes I think that perhaps I romanticize the whole experience into this epic experiment in communal living, intellectual inquiry, etc. And I think that I do but there is some truth behind the memories I hold. I don't know about anyone else but before TASP I believed that there had to be other people out there like me. Like me in the sense that with these "people" I wouldn't be accused of being arrogant for the way I spoke up in discussion, or that I would find others who pursued knowledge of a given subject with the same intensity that I did or that there were people out there that were simply dreamers like me. (Damn this is coming out like an angsty teenage confession. Sorry, it will get better--I hope.) I blindly trusted that those people were out there somewhere and that surely I would meet them in the utopic world that was college. But it wasn't until the summer of '07 that I actually knew they existed. And I lived with you all and just reveled in the feverishness that such a experience produced. That first week was simply dripping with life. I was wired on the energy of excitement. And I think that sort of exuberant excitement that lasts a whole week and trickels into another five only happens once in a life time. Other experiences are either too short to reach that intensity or too long to the point where the flaws are exposed.

I look back with nostalgia now but I am also focused on what lies ahead. After TASP, I have seen the energy and brilliance of my peers. Instead of becoming disillusioned when I am confronted with all the ways the world is falling apart these days I'm thinking that we'll manage. We'll survive because the world has people like all of you. I wish we could have stayed forever but we are all needed somewhere, somehow.

I'm sorry if this is corny. I can't help it. There is too much love for this to not be corny. Either that or I am just not badass enough. My writing skills could clearly use help from you rad bloggers.

I love you all.

My last column..dedicated to...hypocrite lecteur...mon semblable, - mon frere...whatever...dedicated to cornell tasp 07...for L.L Nunn...i guess..eeww

“Reading,” Schopenhauer writes, “is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.”

“Reading,” you think, “no one does that anymore. I read chapter summaries on a popular website for students who don’t like to read. And anyway, if Brian Sherwin is telling me that Schopenhauer wrote that reading is preventing me from thinking for myself, then I shouldn’t read, anyway!”

Wrong, but I don’t want to give you a longwinded explanation of why you should read. However, since I must write a column for the Hilltop Beacon, I’ll spend a tiny slice of your time to tell you why you should read. But I don’t like to be dogmatic, though. I don’t want to force you to do something that you don’t want to do. You go to Roslyn; you are constantly being told what to do by your parents, your teachers, your friends, your voices in your head, which are not the telltale signs of insanity. The voices in your head are your unique thoughts that other people cannot steal or see or read or hear. But that sort of contradicts my attempt to convince you to read because reading would plant an ancient author’s insane ramblings in your brain instead of allowing you to think for yourself. I’ve heard “think for yourself” so much that I don’t know what the phrase means anymore, though. But I want you to read! Here’s why you should read…

Alright, imagine that you are illiterate. You are unable to gather new information for yourself except for what you hear from other people. You walk into a grocery store (I don’t support product placement, so I won’t name the store Pathmark). You obliviously walk past the smiling cashiers and…forget the article, which I am writing at the moment because recent complaints from Complaints Choirs Worldwide have forced me to stop writing about illiteracy. They think that people from Roslyn High School aren’t going to start reading because of a silly little article that no one is going to read anyway. They think that Roslyn High School students should just join Complaints Choirs Worldwide to complain about everything. At least the complainers will learn how to unionize.

Complaints Choirs Worldwide would like me to say a few words about their history.

It happened in Helsinki, Finland. It was cold. Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen were walking in a park. They huddled together with a large group of people. Naturally, the group complained about the weather. There is a Finnish expression which means “complaints choir,” which describes when a large group of people are complaining collectively. The Kalleinens thought that taking the expression literally would be a good idea.

The first Complaints Choir was started in Birmingham, England. They sang about complaints. After the success of the Birmingham Complaints Choir, the Kalleinens were invited to initiate choirs across the world.

Now that I think about it…I am basically just a professional complainer. I’ve complained about boredom, the conception of the self, RCP (in an unpublished article), complaining, and people who use SparkNotes. So, another thought pops into my puny pulp of a brain. Oh…what was the thought? I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.

I think both of us have had enough nonsense. Let’s just shake hands, part ways, and forget that my column ever existed.

I’ve always wanted to end a column with the word mayonnaise.