Maybe we were made for each other

Maybe we were made for each other

I've been reading a lot about introvertedness online and I'm learning that certain things about me are just the way they are because that's the way I am, and also that for every six hours I spend with people, I need almost double that amount of time by myself recharge so I can repeat the cycle.  What I can't seem to learn via the internet is how to be an introvert when there's an extrovert living six feet away from me.

So I'm watching a show I don't care too much about yet and I'm sitting on a smelly couch and I want to call my mom but I left my phone in my room and don't want to go back in there to get it.  Tomorrow I'm going to go to breakfast and then I'm going to spend all day in the library, doing the homework that I could've done today but didn't.  But now I want to write and sleep and be alone and that's really hard to do here and I think it'll be really good to have a single next year.

We're only so strong love

We're only so strong love

Today I said goodbye to my tadpoles Van Gogh and Gauguin and they'd sprouted legs in the last few days and had gotten so big and so it was a little bit sad dumping them into the communal tank like that.  It's Reed's Centennial and it's a big deal, which is something I didn't really realize until tonight when the mayor of Portland got up to speak and I began to feel like a belong to something, or belong with something, or am a part of something.  I like that feeling.  What I don't like is the hole that I found in the corner of my room, where the walls meet the ceiling, where I'm pretty sure a nest of Buick-sized spiders is living, waiting for me to leave so they can burry themselves in my shoes.

I'm a lightweight, better be careful what you say

I'm a lightweight, better be careful what you say

I have this habit of trying to explain things to myself inside my head in case someday someone ever asks me why I do certain things or like certain things or am a certain way.  Only the thing is, I shouldn't have to explain myself to other people, and I shouldn't have to explain to myself why I shouldn't have to explain myself.  Does that make any sense?

Also you know when a song is so amazing and perfect and relative to everything that you think all the time that you can't help but play it over and over and over, and not just because your roommate is watching "Mad Men" on the other side of the wall and you don't really want to listen to it?  This usually happens at the most inconvenient time, when you should be worrying about rewriting your hum paper or sleeping or emailing your dad or  doing something more productive than this.

Awkward:  when you meet people in person and they're like, "whatever I won't bother remembering your name because you're boring/your roommate is cooler than you/your pink hair looks like crap" and then later you realize that they follow you on tumblr/vice versa.

How do you find your reasons in my deepest darkest night

How do you find your reasons in my deepest darkest night

I've been thinking about space, shared and separate and sacred, and the idea of compartmentalizing and rationalizing and lying versus omission.  I've been thinking about personality types and modes of behavior and being observant versus being open versus being both observant and open and also closed.  And what the word "shy" means and how it's related to observantness/awareness/I can understand what you're saying even though you're not making any sense/etc.  And about this promise that I made to myself to be more outgoing in college and how maybe that's not possible for me because I've come to see that when someone's telling a story I like to listen to it and think about it and not say anything unless they want me to say something because I can't say things I don't mean.  That sounds bad.

I guess maybe I don't like psychology because it makes me think too much about why I think so much and why I think the way that I do, and I think about those things anyway and I can't help it, and I'm sure psychology has something to say about that too.  I miss my dogs.  

One foot in sea one on shore

One foot in sea one on shore

What I do when I'm at home and I feel like this:  cut things out of magazines and make a mess on my bedroom floor; watch "The Notebook"; squeeze myself into small spaces and turn up Bon Iver really loud; blog even though I know I shouldn't.  When I'm sitting in a room with lots of windows and it's dark outside and I can't be bothered to close the shades, I wonder if there are people out there watching me, because during the day when I'm in rooms with lots of windows and it's light inside and outside, I look outside and I watch people walk by and boys juggle things that could be on fire but aren't and thank god.  Right now I feel like it's suddenly dawned on me that the walls here are almost literally made of cardboard and that means that when I'm standing in the hallway I can hear people talking in their rooms, and when I'm sitting in the common room and people leave their rooms and go to the bathroom, I can play this game with myself where I try to guess who's emerged from their own cardboard box, which is silly because I rarely find out the answers.

Things that make me cringe:  when people use internetisms in real-life conversations ("do want!" "ftw!" etc.); girls who don't shave their legs; pigeon pose in yoga class; how cold I am right now.  Last night after I turned my light off and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I looked at the two shelves above my dresser and thought about how comforting it is to have a shelf full of books, even though they're not my favorites and most of them I'm sure I'll hate and I thought we were done with ancient Greece but we're moving back to it at the end of next week and I guess the way this works is that we're never really done with anything.  That's hard to get used to.

The revolution starts in a sea of paper cups

The revolution starts in a sea of paper cups

I keep starting things with "hi from college" like I'm at summer camp, but that's not right, is it?  Because this is basically permanent now.  This is my life, and it's weird that it's not really feeling weird anymore.  You know what else is weird?  That it never feels like a week night here.  It's really strange to be living with my friends.  Also, I would like the weather to realize that it's fall soon.

I've been thinking a bit about families and differences and diversity in small ways and also big ways and about luck and privilege and opportunity and who I am and who I could've been had I been born somewhere else or to someone else or just been born someone else.  Does that make any sense?  Sometimes I get the feeling that I've gotten so twisted around inside my own head that I'm suddenly speaking a different language and that's why everyone is looking at me so strangely.  

I just deleted someone on Facebook and I literally clicked "unfriend" and I would have felt slightly bad about it except after I clicked it I noticed that he's a Republican so, no remorse there.  

Come on skinny love just last the year

Come on skinny love just last the year

I feel gross right now, which is the worst time to blog, but my head is spinning with thoughts about too much intellectual conversation and star signs and I miss my mom a lot right now, and I think this is the first time that I've felt like that since I've gotten here.  Also I'm really really sleepy, did I mention that?  Sleepy + the middle of the month = grumpy negative thoughts.

I can hear someone hitting the buttons on the microwave down the hall in the common room.  God, the walls here are so ridiculously thin.  I miss my dogs.

Whatever they're making in the microwave is done.  I think I'm going to go to sleep now.

Making islands where no island should go

Making islands where no island should go

Emma and I just watched "Say Anything" and the scene where Lloyd teaches Diane to drive is one of my favorites because it reminds me of summer, not that that makes any sense.  Today I went to my hum conference leader's office, which is in the basement of the oldest building on campus, in this dark corner with a window that's basically ground level so you can see people's shoes walking by, and right now it's nearly midnight but the guy with the really loud voice who lives on my floor is out in the hall talking to someone and I'm not annoyed so much at how loud he's being but at how he's breaking quiet hour.  Like, go to bed, man.

Early this week I read at Poetry Night and it was terrifying and it made me think about how many writers are out there who are other things first, like doctors or teachers or whatever, and could possibly be geniuses with amazing things to say, but just never get the chance or maybe just never say it.

I just said something to them.  Was that rude?  I'm sorry if that was rude.  But they were talking about physics.  Isn't there a certain point each night where it becomes too late to talk about physics?  But maybe here there isn't.  People never stop talking here.  And most of it's interesting.  But I don't like biology.  I'm trying, really.  But I'm just not sure that I can.  

And on that note I'm going to talk to Michael for a few minutes and go to sleep and then wake up and begin my horrible 9-to-5 Friday.

Where are you now

Where are you now

Good things:
1. Long conversations with my roommate
2. Jack's Mannequin concert tickets
3. Meeting other nerdfighters on campus
4. Finishing the rough draft of my hum paper much earlier than I expected to
5. Decorating the hallway
6. Floreigners, Chocolate Milk Boy, Cell Phone Sam, "Do you live in Sholz?" Monty, etc.
7. Attempting to catch flies in my hand
8. Feeling sleepy at night
9. Whoever is playing the piano right now
10. The ukelele-playing boy who lives above me.

Tore up like your baby blue jeans

Tore up like your baby blue jeans

Things I am not doing right now include:  sleeping, thinking about how much I miss my puppies, pushing back my comforter even though it's slightly too warm for it right now, putting away all that things that have accumulated on my desk in the last two days.  Today we went to Safeway and I did my laundry and we made Starry Night brownies and where else would I have met anyone who would've been willing to make Starry Night brownies with me?  It's really hard to get used to being here and I like it despite the fact that I expected too much from it and expected it to be a complete and total departure from high school, because it definitely isn't.  But it's really weird now to think about high school, because it really does feel like it was so long ago.  Even though it wasn't.  Does that make any sense?  Some days I feel like a little kid, and then on other days I can't believe how really really old I am.

I didn't call my parents today, for the first time in a few days, not even to tell them that I watched last week's "Doctor Who" or that I picked up my prescription or that we made Starry Night brownies.  I'm not even sure that my mom would care that we made Starry Night brownies.  She'd pretend to care, I guess.  Is that part of being a mom?

Oh, and:  I am going to the Jack's Mannequin concert.  As in, this is happening.  I am making this happen.    And what's bizarre to me is that I've met people who are legitimately interested in going not just because they like concerts or have never been to one (hi Emma) but because they appreciate music and talent and genius and smart people are just so refreshing after spending four years spending time surrounded by people who still sound out words when they read.  Obviously that's a hyperbole.  Mostly.