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Currently Listening We Started Nothing By The Ting Tings That's Not My Name see related

Russian Girl

Hey, just look at the mess you made today,
didn't really think it would get this bad.
Hey, feel like you're living in a Russian play
where it seems like you made everybody mad.

-- Andrew Bird, "The Naming of Things"

A prevailing theme of my life is covering for other people. When I became president of the English honor society, I had to plan the the induction ceremony in a week and I almost lost a friend because of it. Becoming the co-Editor in chief of the paper this year was no different. Five out of seven staff members are new and with little training because the past year's staff was too busy being seniors. On top of that we might have to change printers because print journalism is failing. Of course, the paper that usually prints our paper is owned by the Hearst Foundation which just donated money to our school. That my co-editor and I can deal with.

It's the Student Association.

Nobody who joins student government past high school is normal. In high school, it's at least a popularity contest. You become figureheads, and if you even take your position seriously, you might enact some change. Like bringing candy prices down 25 cents. However, in college you become something worse. You becomes a middle man. You eat, breathe and shit bureaucracy. Correct memo format this, check request that. The worst part about this is that our Student Association president is 19 years old. Yes. I am being told to do shit by someone two years younger than me. So, yes he might be going for his M.B.A. in four years, but I'm not exactly sure that's a positive. The kid can't even drink yet and he's telling me what to do.

It would so delicious to just sit him down and remind him of the fact that he will be stuck in Albany for the rest of his life while I get a job in New York City, but I don't like to jinx myself, and that's simply not what I do. My mother raised me better, to gossip behind people's backs.

Instead, I flick on a smile and spin it like Billy Flynn.

I ask him, "Are there any Student Association events that we can cover?"

I get through life through ass-kissing and putting on a happy face. I should feel ashamed that I'm such a push-over, but sometimes, I just don't feel like fighting it. Besides, I have my friends who can do that, and do that for me. With my English professor who with the near ton of outside reading that might prevent from even bothering to try and like Blake and Shelley?

You bet your ass I raise my hand. The old girl loves me, and class participation is still part of my grade.

That cute freshman guy I made out with and saw for a week or two, who suddenly realized that my leaving December might be awkward for us?

"No it's fine, we can definitely still be friends."

One of the writers for the paper who doesn't have his work done because he's well-- he doesn't even have the excuse of being stoned out of his mind-- he's just that dumb? (Really you thought the paper came out three times a year? What?)

"It's not problem. Just get it in next week, okay?"

Whether it's dealing with a broken shower head or the hoards of people I encounter each day, I grin and bear it. Grin 'til my teeth start to grind together.

So when people call my dorm phone, thinking I'm the Russian girl across the hall, because the school screwed up once again, you know what I'll do?

I'll say in the politest voice I can muster-- "Da?"

T²

Currently Listening The Who Sell Out By The Who Odorono see related

City of Moths

What you must know that I am a misanthrope, a pervert and a snob-- at times. People say that I am a good person, and I don't think they are completely wrong. I try to do good things. I hold doors open, and I give to charity. I feel that people should be able to grow up with the same privileges I had. I genuinely believe in the good of human kind.

But we all have our moral failings. Luckily, I've learned to hide them, or even better: sell them off as positives. Perhaps I really should have gone into Public Communications.

§

For example: I woke up this past Monday morning to learn some great news. The track team runs down the street outside the window of my senior apartment. (Basically, an apartment with training wheels.) Half of the team runs with their shirts off. The half I like. If you couldn't tell by now, I have not gotten any in all 21 years of my life.

My mornings usually start off on a good foot, like that Monday. I get dressed, check the internet, and then go off to have breakfast at the dining hall while reading my morning papers. But then comes along 8:00 a.m. and my day already gets worse. Why? People. For example, the second day back up here, I go up to eat breakfast, and this old lady comes over to my table and asks if she can sit down. I oblige her because I don't think it could hurt, and go back to my book. But then she decides she wants to talk to me, and goes on and on, and wonders why she's the oldest person here. I don't know, perhaps this breakfast was for freshman who live on campus and the people who moved them in and not commuter students? Why do you choose me? Whyyyy? I have to wonder how she even knew to come up here, and why she keeps on talking even though she sees the book in my hand. I eat quickly, and kindly say goodbye. I have had better conversations with my mother.

And this is my problem.

I seem to attract these people. The fringes of society. I am a lamppost or a light-bulb to the figurative moths. The problem is that this city is full of moths. I end up as their translator and some times their caretaker. I take this on, because I see myself in them, looking on from the outside and retreating into my own world. This is precisely why I want to put a sheet over their heads and throw them into the Hudson. Unfortunately, I was born with compassion and empathy.

This is not to say 'society' is any better. As I walk through the campus green I see freshman girls all dressed up for class and tanned to orange, unaware of the STDs that await them and that by next semester that they will be in sweatpants like everybody else. Or the gay guys who very obviously are, and fail so badly at hiding it. Or the Long Island kids who came here because they couldn't buy their way into better schools. Or guys who wear the same 3 variations of Abercrombie clothing. That's just on campus-- parties are worse. You think your friends were the only ones invited but you get the freshman party crashers who have no idea where they are or whose house it is, but it doesn't matter because there's beer, and fuck you. It's not like you were getting any intelligent conversation without them there.

Basically, I spend my days trying to avoid having an aneurysm, and the fact that I can drink leagally this time around seems to help, but not by much.

Yet, I have to wonder if I will miss this place. I have only three-or-so months until I return home to Long Island. I will miss the friends that I have made, even though most of them have graduated already. Perhaps, in few months or so, I will recall my time here fondly.

But as of now, I honestly wonder who dress these people in the morning. I swear, I've seen socks with sandals. Seriously.

T²

Currently Listening I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master By Electric Six It's Showtime see related

That Ol' Tragic Magic

Tired of your sleepy little town?
If you're looking for some magic,
make your self a story,
and make the story tragic!

If you're in distress,
get a mistress,
Kill your lover,
kill your brother,
Go down in history
due to the misery
--This isn't libel,
just check a Bible--
And so every year in jail
Is step toward book sales.

Sell your story to the media,
and get a page on Wikipedia.
Trying for television
takes some precision,
you'll have to time
your heinous crime
for the 11'o clock news
and some Youtube views.

A politician? That's easy.
You know how to be sleazy.
You just tap your toes--
Oh, you know how it goes.
A star? Really? Please.
Run in with the police,
or perhaps a hooker,
make sure she's a looker.
Or make it a guy,
(Hey, just give it a try.)

A charming self-abuser,
or a loser drug abuser?
How do you pick from them all?
My friend, Go for the biggest fall.
They'll put you on high,
and then watch you fly,
just hope when you land
that you're able to stand.

You wonder if all this pain
is really the price of fame?
Look around, people need celebrity.
They need something they want to be,
something to criticize and despise,
or they might even sympathize.
Don't worry about much,
like tact and such,
you'll be shameless,
infamous and famous.

You could take up a cause,
something worthy of applause.
You could adopt a baby, or two,
but that's work and it's not for you.
It just takes a knife
to jump start a life,
just a little crack,
to get it off track.

If you want fame and magic--
just remember--
keep the story tragic!

T²

Currently Listening Modern Guilt By Beck Gamma Ray see related

(21 & Gone)

Not a lot of people came to my 21st birthday party. My birthday was on the starting date of the Oylmpics, so the number 8 was not a lucky for me as it usually is. The post date was not much better and plans for Karaoke just became a night out at a kitschy bar. People had work. People had family obligations. I could complain, but I had both as well. And really, would I want to hang out with people who didn't work and didn't care about their family? We're growing up

So, the four of us just had a relatively quiet night out in Chelsea. Traversing sidewalks and subways.

A nice excurison before I return to school. I'm packing now, and have one or two more loose ends to tie up. Who knows what's going to happen next. I'm the school paper's co-editor chief and a part of other clubs. There's more basement shows to go to. Internships and jobs to look for.

I started all of this off with me getting some teeth pulled out of my head. I tried to work hard, and I don't think I did too badly. What did a learn from this, this long season with out a name? Nothing-- and everything. The space between the big and small things. Some of it got written down, and some of it I'll hopefully remember. I learned that life, at times, just is. I learned how to just be.

T²