Youngest of One

Reductio Ad Absurdum:

Has it been a month already?  Has it only been a month?  I've encountered a number of paradoxes here, some of them regarding time.  The most notable of these is the paradox that, in my opinion, the weeks seem to move very quickly here, and yet it feels like I have been here forever.  Those two points appear to be contradictory.  Wouldn't you agree?  I am quite glad for this paradox, though.  If the days pass quickly, then they are not passing by slowly, which would be much worse, as it would result in a sort of horrible monotony.  Furthermore, I am lucky that I have grown so accustomed to my life here, because it means that I am less homesick.  My friendships here already seem like close, lasting ones, and I am very fortunate to have met the people with whom I choose to surround myself.  Many of these people are my fellow writers.  After all, that is what I came here to do: to write, to learn how to improve my writing, and to earn a degree for having written.

This semester, I am taking an Introduction to Fiction class, which I am always very happy to attend.  The professor is a rather cheerful, down to earth man with the sort of southern accent that carries wisdom.  But it's the kind of wisdom that makes him just the right man for the job.  It's not any sort of divine, holier than thou wisdom.  Instead, it's the wisdom of a pickup truck load of experience, coming from a man willing to work with us hands on toward a goal that is his life's passion.  His words are extremely motivating.  My first experience having a story up for discussion in a workshop, however, did not inspire me the same way he does.  I am grateful for the criticisms of my peers, but they are not what has shaken me.  It's the possibilities for the second draft that perplex me.

I've got to choose just one important direction for this story to follow, and I must make it more plausible.  Since I haven't found this single direction right away, I've been tempted to turn away from the story.  This frustration seems to result in another paradox.  If I keep reshaping this story, I may tire of it or lose everything about it.  Eventually, I could deconstruct the story so many times that it is simply reduced to the absurd.  But if I start something new, then I just open a brand new Pandora's Box of possibilities, doubts, directions, second drafts, third drafts, and a myriad of drafts to follow.  The short story, as an art form, ought to have no rules, because such a wide variety of creations may qualify for the title of "short story."  It may happen on a page or on dozens of them.  The story may happen in an hour or over the course of a lifetime.  The possibilities are apparently endless.  What could be easier than the task of creating something when there are no rules or boundaries for its creation?  That might explain how God was able to create in only six days, if you buy that sort of thing.

But the task is not easy, because there are certain goals that the writer hopes to achieve.  First, fiction deepens feeling.  That is the most important lesson that I have learned so far.  My second point is the one that I am struggling with so restlessly.  Presently, my understanding is that everything in a short story ought to be the means to a single end, i.e. what the story is really about.  Don't miss my meaning here.  I'm not referring to theme or something of that sort.  Every short story is about something that can be articulated by anyone with a rudimentary understanding of it.  For example, "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff (if you haven't read it, please do so immediately) is about Anders' lost potential to become a sympathetic person with some appreciation for anything rather than the cynical jerk that he is at his death.  As a child, Anders hears those words "they is" and appreciates them, as I often do, and the reader knows what could have been, and suddenly we are mourning the loss of a man we earlier knew to be really closed-minded, self-absorbed, and rude.

I have a protagonist.  I have supporting characters.  I have a setting that may be subject to change.  I have much in the way of plot that must undergo some reconstruction.  But what is this story about?  It started as just a two page scene, our first assignment for the class.  The professor wanted to know more about my protagonist, especially what his background and home life are like.  I came up with the idea that his father left years ago, but not before passing down a guitar to him.  I have a habit of writing characters with problems concerning fathers.  I do not understand why that is true.  My father is still around, and I have nothing against the guy.  Moreover, I have read very little of Freud.  It seems so strange to me that this theme of father issues should come up in a number of my works to date.  That phrase, "my works," seems so pretentious.  It makes me sound like I think  I'm a professional, when I feel that that couldn't be farther from the truth right now.  I thought that the story was about this character's decisions in the absence of his father, but I haven't been too sure of anything since the workshop.

My classmates and I have been told that we must have an individual conference with the professor before we even attempt to write the second draft for our stories.  I sincerely hope that, after I have talked this over with my professor, I will have a concrete direction and I will know once and for all what this story is about, what ought to lie just underneath the surface like a shark revealing itself to the reader by its fin.  No matter how many drafts I go through, I can always make changes to the story, and so it seems impossible that I will ever write it to the point where I can actually call it finished.  This is no reason to quit, though.  I have to keep writing.  I must keep my butt in the chair.  I am allowed to suck.  These are important lessons as well.  I will press on, even though the task seems impossible.  But isn't that self-contradictory?  It sounds to me like a paradox.  If that is the case, then it must be downright absurd.  Then again, so are many other truths.

End Post.

Your Ice Makers For The Evening:

Tonight I shall continue to recall past events so that I may not have to revisit them during my future at Susquehanna University.  I have chosen to replace all of the names in this entry, for reasons that I do not completely understand.  I have been single ever since last October, when my first serious relationship ended in precisely the sort of way that one always hopes it will not (i.e., with a text message from her).  Therefore, two weeks before my senior prom, I still did not have a date.  Since I went to a high school exclusively for boys, this search for a date was exactly the sort of teen drama--the kind you see endlessly powdered and presented on the CW--that I had always hoped to avoid.  The situation could have been more cliché only if I had suddenly found a zit on my face at the last possible moment before the prom.  As it turned out, I never found that blemish, but I did find a date.  As I was leaving school one day, I ran into my friend Miranda, and we immediately started catching up because we do not see each other often.  During my senior year, I had mostly gotten to know her through speech tournaments, because she was also in the category of Duo Interpretation.  When we came to the subject of the prom, she asked who my date was, and my response was something to the effect of: "Yeah, um, you see, I haven't exactly worked that out yet."  Within seconds, the matter was settled.  I would take her to my senior prom.  Little did we know then what sort of clever union of tension builder and ice maker we had accidentally created, but it didn't take us too long to figure out.  In fact, we discussed it with a lot of laughter on the car trip to the event.  You see, we each had our own sordid past in our little high school community, and together we were a force to be reckoned with.

I first realized the happy accident when one day my friend Luigi approached me in the hallway.  We greeted each other as warmly as ever, and at first I had no idea what he had on his mind.  Then he spoke.  He said, "So, Will, I heard that you're taking my ex-girlfriend to the prom."  I do not recall my exact reaction, but I think that it is safe to say that I probably laughed openly, the same way that I laugh whenever I think about it.  I'm sure that it was okay to laugh, because their relationship ended something like two years ago, and I believe that he ended it.  Quite frankly, I didn't know these people back then, so I'm not entirely sure of the details.  I do know, however, that Miranda has had dates or other relations with a few other students at my high school, including my classmate Blake.  (I'm not being clever about these fake names at all.  Take my word for it.)  According to my understanding, this encounter with Blake led to the end of her relationship with Luigi.  Blake and Luigi, of course, were both at my senior prom.  At this point, I hope that you are beginning to understand that Miranda and I might cause tension or awkwardness at the prom, but we knew we could love every minute of it.  Also, at this point, I realize that all this information may start to confuse you.  I'm afraid that I can take no measures to prevent that.  I am describing, to the best of my knowledge, not one but two sordid pasts, and all of these names and facts are bound to get mixed up because they're all new to you.  That doesn't matter, because I'm making a point.  It doesn't matter who dated whom.  What matters is that I demonstrate what long, strange histories my date and I each had.  Now, where was I in this avalanche of code names and details?  Oh, that's right.  I was just about to tell you about my history.

I only had that one relationship in my whole time at high school, but it's funny how just one relationship can spread like an airborne contagion and create so much tension.  For almost a year, mostly as a junior, I dated a girl named Tracy in what can best be described as an "is it on now or off again" relationship.  Over eleven months, our relationship was put on hold, shifted around with other priorities, put in time out, delayed for rain, and finally ended.  The break-up sent me spiraling into a heap of loathing, from which I eventually emerged the more bitter, more cynical, more laid back person that I am today.  (I like the new me, by the way.)  A few months later, Tracy started going out with one of my classmates.  I think I'll call him Humbert.  Yes, the name Humbert fits very nicely.  I hardly noticed Humbert throughout three and a half years of high school.  He was barely an acquaintance of mine.  Then, he started dating my ex-girlfriend, and suddenly I started seeing him everywhere.  I had no idea that he often used to hang around with my friends, especially my Duo partner.  There's no point in changing Joe's name, because I've already used it many times in previous entries in the context of Duo.  Anyway, Joe was still going out with a girl named Molly, a close friend of Tracy, which means that Joe started hanging around with Humbert and Tracy's crew a lot more than he spent time with me.  And, of course, they were all going to the prom in a limo together.  The most difficult part of preparing for the prom was deciding who would sit at our table.  My close friend Esteban insisted on sitting with me, and I gladly agreed.  Unfortunately, even though I made a lot of friends in high school, not many of them are well liked by Esteban.  After much deliberation, we came up with three other names that reduced the awkwardness and maximized the fun at our table.

Our prom was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, which was extremely classy and downright elegant.  Personally, I bought my own tuxedo rather than renting one.  Of course, I shouldn't say that I bought it.  I've never earned a dollar in my life.  My parents bought it for me, because my mother said that renting one would be almost as expensive.  Miranda wore a lovely orange dress, which was a nice coincidence for me because orange is one of the school colors at Susquehanna University.  (Those colors, by the way, are maroon and orange.  I realize how atrocious that sounds.  They realize it, too.  But it's much better than you might think.)  Our professional couple's photograph turned out very nicely.  In fact, it looks much nicer than any prom photo should.  What the heck am I going to look at and laugh about several years from now?  I guess my yearbook will have to suffice.  The prom was a pleasant event, even a night to remember (once in a while).  I danced quite a lot, even though I usually don't do that.  I'm very lanky and uncoordinated, especially on the dance floor.  There was even a dance contest. I had enough sense to avoid participation, but I had a lot of fun in the crowd cheering for my favorite pair of dancers.  After the prom, some friends and I went to a bowling alley and then went our separate ways.  Miranda and I didn't cause any scenes.  We did, however, have a few good laughs at the expense of others--those who had wronged us in the past and then came face-to-face with us again on what was supposed to be the happiest, most exciting night of their young lives.  If the whole night was a movie or an awful teen drama on the CW, I'd like to think that we were the two outcasts who showed up fashionably late in order to have fun and knock the popular kids down a few pegs.  At dinner, my friends and I even discussed who would play us if we were roles in a movie.  My friend Lorenzo (I would never change Lorenzo's name) told me that I could be played by Michael Cera.  "But he only plays geeky, pale, awkward, sad characters," I replied.  He only laughed and said, "Yeah, exactly."

End Post.

Everything Is Eliminated:

Since I am moving to Susquehanna University on Thursday, I have only a limited time left before my life undergoes a dramatic change.  For almost a year now, I have almost fallen out of the habit of blogging, with an average of about one post per month.  Therefore, with such infrequent updates, I have not taken the opportunity to tell you about some memorable events in my life.  I think perhaps that, after my life at college begins, I may hesitate to recall and write about these events, since I would prefer to focus on my new friends and other new developments.  Therefore, I think it is safe to say that these last few days before the 21st are my final opportunity to tell you about the lost chapters of my life in high school, the ones that went undocumented during the last few months.  I can think of only a few events that deserve this last-minute attention, two or three at most.  Today, I would like to bring you all the way back to early April, as I do my best to remember and recount my experience at the New York Speech and Debate Championship in Albany.

As I have explained before, my speech partner Joe and I never asked to be a part of the Hearn, our high school's speech and debate team, but the coach knew us and thought we had some talent.  With our hesitant consent, he signed us up to perform together in the category of Duo Interpretation with a comedic piece called "The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged)."  I was happy to accept this script and play the role of God, which provided a great opportunity to use my booming baritone voice.  (That's not how my voice regularly sounds, by the way.)  Joe and I worked our way through several tournaments with some successes and some defeats, earning two trophies, one mug, and a full qualification to compete in the State Championship.  Of course, our high school sent dozens of students to the State Championship, so our achievement was hardly singular.  But it's a wonderful achievement nonetheless, especially for us as rookies.  We packed our things and boarded one of the school's buses headed for a hotel in Albany, where Joe and I, like all Duo partners, shared a bed.  Sure, we had a dispute or two.  He claimed that I was stretching across to his side of the bed, while I (rightfully) claimed that he was hogging all of the covers.  On the second night, though, we used all those extra hotel pillows to build a wall between us, and from then on we were two happy bedfellows.

The competition began at Albany High School on a Saturday afternoon, but we arrived at the hotel on Friday night.  With our spare time, my friends and I crossed the street and a large parking lot to get dinner at a nearby T.G.I. Friday's, where I drank a delicious Red Bull-based smoothie drink and ate some food that later made me regret my decision to eat at T.G.I. Friday's.  (The choice was so appropriate, though, because it was Friday.)  Before we returned to the hotel, some friends and I went to the nearest mega store.  It was probably a Wal Mart, but for all I know it might have been a K Mart, Walgreen's, Duane Reade, or anything to that effect.  Anyway, four or five of my friends invested in some Nerf guns that they would then bring back to the hotel.  It was here that I learned that Nerf actually makes a product that looks just like a shotgun--a slightly small, lightweight, bright yellow and orange shotgun.  Two were purchased that night.  Personally, I chose to spend my money on nourishment, specifically Reese's peanut butter cups and Red Bull.  By now, you may be thinking that I have a dependence on energy drinks.  Actually, I can quit any time I want.  All I need is one more fix, and then I'm off the stuff for good.  In all seriousness, I don't need energy drinks in my everyday life.  They provide a welcome boost under demanding circumstances, such as a speech tournament, which is more strenuous than you might think.  There are so many rules to follow, there's a lot of waiting to do, you have to be dressed very nicely, you have to worry about going over time as you're performing, and you're almost always in an unfamiliar setting.  It's more than enough to take a lot out of you.

Speaking of the competition, I found that the State Championship was really not much different from a regular tournament.  While there were many teams in the field of competitors that showed amazing talent, nevertheless there were also teams that I could only watch and wonder, "Really?  State Championship?  You guys?"  Of course, there are probably a few people who had the same thoughts while watching me perform, because these matters are so subjective.  Nonetheless, during the weekend of competition, I came to the conclusion that some of the other teams must have come from less competitive districts in order to earn a qualification for the State Championship.  I would hate to see the teams that they were able to beat, because the worst part about forensics is sitting through an awful piece.  Actually, the worst part is probably the judges or the long hours without sleep.  There was one particular Duo team at the State Championship that I will never forget, nor will anyone else who saw them that day.  In the second preliminary round, Joe and I, surrounded by two friends from our school and two friends from a sister school, watched in horror and astonishment as that infamous team performed a piece called "A Walk in Your Shoes."  The plot is simple: a married couple wake up to find that they have switched bodies for reasons that are never explained.  Lots of yelling and raunchy jokes ensue.  It was the yelling that really captured our attention.  The young man, who played the wife in her husband's body, screamed many of his lines in the shrillest, harshest tones that I have ever heard.  To watch it was almost maddening.  As we exited the room at the end of the round, the six of us could not contain our laughter.  For hours and days afterwards, we told stories of the strangest Duo team any of us has ever seen.  I offered the theory that perhaps we had all suffered a collective hallucination, but the truth is that it was all too real.

The fifth and final preliminary round ended before lunch on Sunday, and the results came in during the afternoon, after what surely must have been an eternity of waiting.  Huge sheets of paper were hung up in the Albany High School auditorium, each one bearing the code numbers of the performers who had been chosen to move on to the finals or semi-finals in each category.  Joe and I stepped down from the bleachers and found that our number was not among the chosen few.  In that moment, we knew we were eliminated from the competition, but it felt like more that that.  Everything was eliminated.  My career in the world of speech and debate was over.  I had already won all of my trophies.  I was no longer a performer.  I was no longer playing God.  Minutes later, I watched a girl pass out.  I would later take that girl to my senior prom.  That is a story for my next blog entry.  As for me, with no more rounds to go to, I had a lot of time on my hands.  I loosened my tie and stepped outside to think for a while.  Within ten or fifteen minutes, I gained some perspective on the matter.  I might have chosen to end my speech career differently, but it had to end at that State Championship anyway.  I love to have an audience, but I was never a big star in high school forensics, and I'm okay with that.  Joe and I had our own little rookie success story, and we had a lot of fun doing it.  Now that it was over, I was finally able to escape from this world of obligations that I never auditioned for.  I found a nice bench and wrote a few pages in my novel with my laptop, because that's where I'm most comfortable.  No more waiting for scores and results.  No more trips to other high schools.  No more judges telling me what to do and always being wrong about it.  And I saw that it was good.

End Post.

In Recovery:

It's late July.  Fantastic.  Ever since I graduated high school, I've been telling myself that I am in recovery.  High school was four years of late nights, early mornings, long commutes, and other exhausting horrors.  By the end, it seemed difficult to put up with even the simplest things, like the annoying habits of some teachers or the bothersome attitudes of certain peers, all of which I had to put up with constantly because it was a pretty small school.  With all that I powered through in those four years, of course I must need a significant span of time in order to recover.  At least that's my excuse for the way that my summer has been, i.e. very lazy.  I'm in recovery, so naturally I have not gotten a summer job.  In my defense, I did make some effort to secure one.  During my last marking period in high school, I devoted two full days a week to volunteering at a local day care facility, where I worked under the supervision of my cousin.  When the school year ended, I tried to use that connection in order to get a part time job for the summer.  Unfortunately, when my cousin spoke to her boss, she learned that, due to low enrollment during the summer, they simply don't have it in the budget to take on anyone new right now.  By the time I learned that, it was already mid-June.  I'm going away to school on August 21st.  With my parents, I came to the conclusion that very few businesses are looking for a teenager with no professional work experience who can only stay on as an employee for about two months. So, I don't have a job, and I spend most of my days at home.  I have gotten out of the house on a few occasions, spending my graduation money to see shows and concerts around the city.  Most recently, I saw Spoon when they performed at Prospect Park, which was a magnificent show.  Before that, I saw comedians Jim Gaffigan and Patton Oswalt perform in New York City, and not once but twice I went to see "Jollyship the Whiz-Bang," the most entertaining show I've ever seen.  Also, in the past several weeks, I have the following books: When you are Engulfed in Flames, Lolita, Fight Club, The Picture of Dorian Gray, This Side of Paradise, and an anthology created and issued by my school entitled Art of Memory.  The day I received the latter book, I got quite far away from home, all the way to Susquehanna University.

The day was June 28th, or Preview Day at SU.  Susquehanna schedules four Preview Days for first-year students (they don't use the word "freshmen," which I consider ridiculous) each summer.  Each student is required to attend only one.  Four exist so that the personnel are not overburdened with the entire class on a single day.  My father and I made the (approximately) three hour trip by car from our home in New York to the campus in rural Pennsylvania at the end of last month.  All of the new students were divided into several groups of about a dozen.  Each group was designated by a letter of the alphabet and separated according to prospective major.  To no one's surprise, I was placed in a group with several other creative writers.  Ours was Group E.  I suggested that we ought to be called the "group-ees," and I think it stuck, but only more time will tell.  I met a lot of people all at once, and I was amazed to discover how quickly we were all behaving like old friends.  The day's schedule was very busy, but in hindsight I hardly remember why.  I recall that the fine folks in charge had to convey a lot of information to us, so we listened to a number of speeches.  I think I walked through a rather brief tour of the campus.  Perhaps the most important event of the day was a survey that acts as one of the determining factors in the selection of our courses in the first semester.  Yes, SU does things a little differently.  Academic advisors choose the courses for first-year students, but only in their first semester.  It's not exactly normal, but I'm not complaining.  There has been some confusion regarding our first schedules.  A few weeks ago, our courses were listed on one area of the web site, and word spread immediately by AIM and Facebook.  However, the schedules were removed as suddenly as they appeared, about twelve hours later.  Some people reported that they had to be in two places at once, and so the schedules obviously weren't final.  Then, a few days ago, new course listings were discovered in a different area of the university's web site, and word spread yet again, like rats carrying a plague from coast to coast.  If these new schedules can be trusted, then my first semester will feature: Introduction to Fiction; Latin America, 1492 - 1825; Philosophy of Religion; Thought (my honors program course); and Core Perspectives (a two credit courses required for all new students).  That's eighteen credits in total.  I am mostly pleased.

My train of thought got derailed, took a detour.  Time to get back on track.  The wonderful thing about Preview Day is that it did a lot to prepare me to start my new life at SU with new friends and a closer look at the campus.  The unfortunate thing about Preview Day is that it prepared me to start this new life right then and there.  At the end of the day, I wasn't ready to go back home and stay there for almost two months.  I felt ready to move in to SU right away and keep building on my new friendships.  Instead, I had to do as all young men and women do these days.  I found my new friends via Facebook, and I have chatted with them by AIM.  Emma, a fellow creative writing major, is the one I have talked with most since we met that day.  She misses interaction with our new friends as much as I do, and a few weeks ago she suggested that I sign up for a program for SU SPLASH, a six day trip that takes twenty first-year students through rural Pennsylvania, D.C., and Baltimore in order to do work aiding people experiencing homelessness.  (That's the phrase they use, "people experiencing homelessness."  It's a lot like "first-year students."  I guess it's part of some effort to make simple phrases into more tiresome, politically correct ones.)  I've volunteered for a similar program or two in my high school career, and I was really looking to get out of the house, especially if it meant meeting new college friends.  I contacted someone at the Center for Volunteer Programs, and I learned that all the spots were filled.  They accepted my application anyway, and I was named the SU SPLASH "first alternate."  Then, a few days later, the phone rang at about 11:00 in the morning.  I was asleep in my bed, as I always am at that time of day.  I got up to look at the caller ID and saw "Susquehanna University."  What crossed my mind was, "This could either be very good or very bad."  I cleared my throat, shook my head around to awaken myself, and answered the phone.  Someone told me that a spot on the trip had opened up, and I graciously accepted it.  The trip was to begin at SU on July 20th.  Three new friends--Emma, Alyssa, and Mia--and I made arrangements to take the same train to Harrisburg, and my father was very pleased to learn that he would only have to drive me to Penn Station rather than Pennsylvania.  I packed two bags, with a lot of help from my mother.  The train left at about 10:50 A.M..  My friends and I found a "foursie," or two pairs of seats facing each other.  There was enough leg room between them for about one half of a regular-sized human being.  Emma is about 4'10", while I am about 6'4", so we sat across from each other.  We arrived in Harrisburg, PA at about 2:30.

The trip began with about two days spent on the college campus, where I was spoiled by the dormitory hall where we stayed.  I've recently learned that, during my first year, I am going to live in Hassinger Hall, which is just what I requested because it has a reputation for being quiet and because some English and creative writing professors have their offices in the basement (until they move out, which I've heard they're planning).  However, Hassinger is also known to have the most notoriously small rooms on campus, so the upperclassman hall where we stayed during SPLASH definitely gave me a false, generous impression of dorm life, at least for my first year.  Our first service trip was to a local transition shelter called Haven Ministry, where I spent most of my time painting some doors.  As a result, I learned a very important lesson about painting.  When you paint a light color over a dark color, it looks like you are doing a terrible job.  Regardless, I think we got the job off to a good start with our first coats, and I did my part to paint those high areas that the others could not reach.  Also, with no tarp to cover the ground, we did a great job of adding a Jackson Pollock vibe to the sidewalk.  Then, after the second night, it was on to Washington D.C., where we stayed in the basement at the Washington Seminar Center.  There were four bathrooms available to us on the premises, and they were all quite sketchy, perhaps the most disgusting bathrooms I've ever had to use in my life.  Therefore, when a tremendous downpour hit the area one night, I used the elements to my advantage.  With some friends joining me, I stepped out in my already wet clothes and shampooed my hair outdoors.  As for the bedrooms, there were two of them, one for the guys and the other for the girls, each with a large array of bunk beds.  Just outside those rooms was a large common area with some comfortable couches and chairs, where many people stayed up at night when they didn't want to sleep.  One night, I turned in earlier than my friends.  The next morning, I was told that during the night one of the other guys, a fellow named John Adams, stepped into the bedroom to grab one of his things.  Then, as he stepped out again into the common area, he announced to everyone else who was still awake that: "Will is in there sleeping like this."  He proceeded to demonstrate my position by lying atop a couch on his stomach with his face down, his arms at his sides, and his legs bent at the knee so that his feet faced upward.  I can not explain this.  I have no recollection of this, as I was asleep.  Upon hearing this story, my new friend Allie told me, "You sleep like a dum-dum."  That sums it up best, if you ask me.

While we were in D.C., we had the opportunity to tour the Capitol building.  This was a remarkably unpleasant experience.  Our journey began underneath a separate building, where our tour guides told us we would go through a tunnel leading to the Capitol building.  The line for the tunnel was long enough, and then we were delayed even further because the tunnel is shut down every time the House of Representatives votes on something.  (At least, I think it's the House of Representatives.  Honestly, I don't understand how our government works.  I don't even deserve citizenship.)  Once we were finally underneath the Capitol building, a security guard told us that the stairs were closed, although no one ever explained why.  Outside the elevator, I recognized the same people I saw earlier on the line for the tunnel.  They were easy to recognize because they had the same looks of boredom and impatience on their faces as they waited for the elevator.  We all lined up against the wall to wait, and almost immediately we sank to the floor in order to sit down.  Seconds later, another security guard walked by and not-so-politely informed us that, "You can't sit on the floor of the Capitol building."  Upon hearing that, everyone in our party channeled the spirit of John McEnroe as we collectively thought, "You cannot be serious."  The guard's seriousness was evidenced when he repeated his claim, and he watched us all groan as we stood up again.  D.C. is infamous for its humidity.  We had just walked around quite a lot to arrive at this point.  Before that, we did physical labor for a few hours to help people experiencing homelessness.  All I wanted at that moment was to get off my feet.  But no, we had to wait about half an hour until our tour guide finally decided that we should just walk back to the stairs rather than wait for this elevator any longer, and then we had to walk around the Capitol building and listen to his scripted little lessons until our tour was mercifully cut short by yet another security guard who reported that the building was closing.  I had a much better time at the CCNV, the Center for Creative Non-Violence, where we did most of our service during our stay.  One afternoon, as we sat around a large conference table after a long morning of moving lockers, painting them, and lots of weeding, we were introduced to a long-time employee there who wanted to speak with us.  He had no name, because he got rid of it.  He spoke so quickly that it is hard to recall his exact words, but I will paraphrase what he said on the subject of his name.  "People ask me, well how can you do that?  It's simple.  I gave it up.  You know why?  Because I'm insignificant."  He also told us, among other things, that he does not like titles, and therefore he is a janitor at CCNV, and he likes it that way.  He is a janitor with no name.  Yes, I thought of Scrubs, but only for a brief moment, because he captivated my attention.  I'll always remember him, even though he was insignificant.

From D.C., we traveled to Baltimore, where we only stayed for less than a day.  We were dropped off at the Inner Harbor, and many of us went to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe.  I ordered a burger called the Big Cheese.  The menu explains that the Big Cheese has three slices of cheese of your choice.  Upon ordering it, I asked our waiter, "What are my cheese choices?"  From the other end of the table, Allie laughed.  I guess I must order like a dum-dum as well.  I inhaled my burger once it arrived.  It was delicious.  Next door, I was delighted to find the largest Barnes & Noble I have ever laid eyes upon, four stories of books if I'm not mistaken.  We had a limited time, because we all had tickets to an Orioles game, but I insisted upon entering the bookstore, because I had a gift card with me.  I only had enough time to get to the second floor, but I spent my gift card and considerably more.  Then we traveled to the ballpark, where I spent most of my time reading Fitzgerald.  After that, we had a long bus trip back to Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and again I spent that time reading Fitzgerald, thanks to my excellent keychain flashlight.  We spent another night on campus and then had a closing ceremony for the parents the next morning (not my parents, because I took the train with Emma and Alyssa again).  Once it was all over, I was reminded of my feelings at the end of Preview Day.  I felt that it was unfair that I should be expected to go home and wait there for about three weeks before I return.  After making so many new friends, my days at home do feel quite lonely.  But, of course, my Facebook activity is through the roof.  And besides, the wait for college isn't that much longer.  Until then, I suppose I'll relax and try to enjoy my recovery.  Every now and then I still get nightmares about finals at the old high school.  Maybe I need a new treatment.

End Post.

I'm Just Like The Juggernaut:

Since all of my classes ended, with the exception of the time that I spent in Maryland, my activities have been limited to sitting around, staring at the computer, and watching television.  I haven't forgotten about my novel.  At this point in my life, my most crippling fear is that I will become just like Brian Griffin, working on the same novel for three years without any real progress.  Of course, I've told enough people about this project that there's always going to be a Stewie by my side reminding me that I'm throwing my life's work to the side of the road as his voice gets higher and higher, digging deeper and deeper.  I must combine this sad knowledge with the fact that I also desperately want to devote more effort to short fiction for the sake of a completely new project that I would really like to make happen.  And what have I done about it?  Nothing besides the completely useless endeavor I am going about right now, i.e. complaining about my own laziness, which sounds about as annoying as it is pathetic.  I'm being a little too hard on myself, thank God.  I only brought up my summertime laziness because slowly I am making steps to move beyond it.  Last week, I made the horrible and shameful decision to pick up my Nintendo DS again and begin playing a new game of Pokemon Pearl.  That entertained me until it pissed me off two days ago, when a Graveler KO'ed my stupid fire monkey with a single attack.  I tossed the hand-held life-sucker aside, and I haven't looked back since.  That was Step One, but I guess that doesn't really count, because it was preceded by a huge step backwards.

Step Two occurred yesterday when I went to Target with the intention of buying a gift for a friend at her graduation party.  Instead, I left with something for myself: a copy of David Sedaris's new book, entitled When You are Engulfed in Flames.  That's the good news, but here's the even better news.  I'm reading again, and it's not homework.  I had forgotten how fulfilling that feels.  The last book I read for recreation took me months to finish, because I had make time for it in between many assignments.  Now, I can spend the whole day reading what I want to if I want to.  Today I read about a hundred pages of Sedaris's latest work, having read seventy-five pages yesterday, and I might continue reading even more tonight.  I'm just like the Juggernaut.  Now that I have momentum, I can't be stopped.  (Alright, maybe Rogue could slow me down, or that bald kid from the third X-Men movie, but I prefer to forget that I ever saw that film.)  I've been a fan of Sedaris for a couple of years now, and this book definitely follows in the footsteps of his other essay collections.  In fact, I'd go as far to say that this book didn't take a single step without carefully placing a foot right into a genuine footfall left in the sand by Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim or Me Talk Pretty One Day, two books with precisely the same shoe size.  In reading all of his books, I've picked up on some significant trends in Sedaris's essay.  For instance, it seems like the real job of a professional essayist (or nonfiction writer or whatever one might prefer to be called) is to weave together a few seemingly unrelated topics or events in such a way that the reader is left with a moral, a chuckle, or anything to think about.

Did I ever tell you about my senior prom?  It reminds me of the time that I was in Albany for the state championship in speech and debate.  While I was there, I sat alone and reflected on the first time that I stood before an audience for a reading at a coffeehouse at my high school.  I was so nervous that suddenly I had a flashback to the time when I met my first girlfriend, which subsequently resulted in a flash-forward to when she would dump me about a year later, even though it was impossible that I could see that because at the time it hadn't happened yet, and at the moment she was in the audience, though she wasn't facing me because she never really paid attention that day.  Sorry, for a moment there I think I stopped parodying a David Sedaris essay and accidentally moved on to parodying an episode of Lost.  Perhaps that's the secret that the creators of Lost have been leading up to all this time.  Maybe Sawyer, Locke, and all the others are just characters in the imagination of David Sedaris.  That might explain their tragic existences, the non-sequential stories, and plot points that are so bizarre that at times they seem comical.  Of course, this theory is completely unfounded and based solely on hearsay, considering that I have never watched a single episode of Lost.  Nevertheless, if my sources on Lost are correct, then I am semi-confident that my idea will turn out to be better than any mixed-up, faux science mumbo-jumbo the creators can come up with, because from what I've heard that show has just become over-the-top silly ridiculous.  (Yes, I had to use all of those adjectives.)

Sure, I've been lazy for the past few weeks, but I think I deserve a break after what Regis High School has put me through over the past four years.  Biology, Algebra 2, Asian History, Church History, American History, Chemistry, Geometry, Trigonometry, Latin (for three years), European History, Physics, Precalculus, Calculus, Art History.  And I didn't even list the classes I liked.  So, yeah, I'm kicking back for a while.  After my graduation this weekend, I'll start taking life more seriously.  I'll make myself a system so I can guarantee some creativity, a daily word count or something to that effect.  I may even get my first real job this summer.  But for now, all the productivity I can handle is right here beside me: a laptop computer, a remote control, and a hardcover book with the image of a smoking skeleton on the cover.  Oh, and I'll need some podcasts to go with that, too.  In fact, I'll even interrupt my own finely crafted, "full circle" conclusion to bring you a couple of recommendations.  First, J.C. Hutchins has brought together many of the greatest authors in the new media scene to create a groundbreaking short story collection that he calls "7th Son: Obsidian," available at his web site.  Furthermore, talented author / podcaster Mur Lafferty has just launched her latest project, "The Takeover," her own audio drama complete with an all-star cast of podcasters lending their voices.  That reminds me that I want to tell you folks about Balticon 42.  Oh, and while I'm recalling past events, I ought to tell you about my prom as well.  And hey, I've never told you all about the New York Speech Championship, have I?  No time for all that now.  I guess it'll just have to wait.

End Post.

Sand Castle:

I'm reporting to you today from my back yard, because I worry that if I stay inside much longer then I will just watch The Truman Show until I fall into a sort of laziness coma.  All of my classes are over.  One can fairly say that I no longer attend Regis High School.  I've enrolled at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania.  I can't remember whether I've told you that already or not.  At the end of each school year, I'm usually left feeling a great deal of nostalgia, spending my first days of summer just thinking about the last nine months gone by.  Before May, I was expecting to feel more nostalgia than ever during this time, but it turns out that's just not the case.  It's a relief to be out of high school, and I'm not longing for the good old days.  I'm giving it time, though.  I haven't graduated yet.  In early June, I have to go back there on three consecutive days: for a Mass, for a graduation rehearsal, and then for graduation.  Maybe the nostalgia will hit me once those days are over, but somehow I doubt it.

The end of my senior years seemed long and drawn out, like one of those awful, boring love songs that you hear on the radio all the time.  (For a wittier take on such songs, see "(I Don't Like) Corny Schlocky Sappy Songs" by Carla Ulbrich.)  My classes were few and far between, with loads of free time dividing them.  During these hours of unstructured time, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had overstayed my welcome at my high school.  Everywhere I could go, there was either nobody there or somebody there whom I did not want to run into.  There was no comforable place for me there, which is beginning to become true in my own back yard right now, since it is starting to rain out here.  Five or ten minutes later, I'm inside my bedroom now looking out my window.  In hindsight, I should have known it would start raining while I was out there.  It was just one of those "of course" moments.  You know the kind.  The grumpy protagonist is having a rotten day, and then he goes out of his way to make it better, but then the world ruins his Plan B, so he picks up his stuff and walks away while rolling his eyes and saying, "Of course" with the "of" drawn out just a little too long.  That's exactly what I did, because that's what one does in such a situation.

My own day was not particularly bad before the "of course" moment, but it was boring enough to call for that.  I got out of bed later than I'd hoped to, and I haven't done anything besides walk an uncooperative dog since then.  The last three days have been like that.  School ended last week, and I spent the weekend with my cousin like I usually do.  (We played Marvel Ultimate Alliance.  How's that for nostalgia?)  In the past three weekdays, I've been alone in the house until my parents get home from work, so my typical summer has already started.  Sometimes I'd like to go for a walk, but it seems like all the so called "April showers" are arriving in May here in New York.  Instead, I've been watching a lot of television and making small steps in productivity.  Today, this blog entry is my small step, but maybe I'll think up another creative thing in the evening, because right now I haven't even had dinner yet.  By the way, my lunch for the past three days has been leftover pizza.  During that time of day, it feels like I'm already in college.

However, this fortress of tedium that I have built for myself is only a sand castle that will soon be swept up and torn down by the tide.  On Friday, I'm leaving for Baltimore, just like I did last year, to attend Balticon, the wonderful science fiction and fantasy convention that has embraced new media (blogging, podcasting, etc.) with widespread and very comfortable arms. I am really looking forward to once again seeing some of the talented, entertaining people who make my iPod so full and enjoyable.  Beyond that, I intend to keep myself busy with some creative endeavors, including that novel that I've told you about.  (Nine chapters are written in the first draft so far.)  Also, I think it's likely that I'm going to get my first real job this summer, some work that I'll actually get paid for rather than a volunteer position that I'm required to do by my school or some such institution.  I hope that I'll be able to work part time at the day care center where I have been doing said volunteer work for the past few months.  But if that doesn't work out, there will be other opportunities for me.  For instance, maybe you'd like to hire me!  I'm available for improvisational storytelling, reaching things in high places, voice-over work, vegetable chopping, and professional napping.  Don't ask me for a résumé, because, as I said, I have never had a real job yet.  I'll have more reports and updates in the near future.  Thanks for reading.

End Post.