A skittery, erratic attempt at a weblog. Rambles will be indulged and depths will be plumbed. Who knows what I'll come up with?
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| Fragments A skittery, erratic attempt at a weblog. Rambles will be indulged and depths will be plumbed. Who knows what I'll come up with? |
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004 I tried to post this days ago, with no luck. MAybe it'll work at 2:30 am. Weather: Kind of chilly...rainy Listening to: britcoms on late-nite TV Not doing: MCAT biology Some answers, at last? I f*cking hate computers. Anyway, you had questions, and at long last I think I can deliver you answers. You don't ask simple questions, though, you lot, do you? 1. If you were to identify that which makes you you, what characteristic would you describe? What uniqueness would people who know you say distinguishes you from others? Oh boy. What makes me different. What doesn't?? In thinking about what makes ME different, I found it instructive to think about what makes my life different from the lives of those around me. And the one thing that I've always felt was 'different' for me was the fact that these exchanges were common: Annoying person to me: "Ohh, are you out for dinner with grandma and grandpa?" Mom, trying to be nice to annoying person: "No, she's out for dinner with mommy and daddy." Annoying person, clueless: "Oh, are they here too?" Having a mother who was 44 and a dad who was 46 when you were born makes a lot of things in your life different. For example, they know each other and themselves extremely well, and most if not all of the big marital fights are long, long over. I've never seen anything but peace and harmony between them, minus the odd very, very minor annoyed spat. Having this in combination with being an only child increases the weirdness. None of their friends, obviously, had children my age, and none of my cousins are my age, so I didn't really meet other children till I went to school. None of the children my age had parents their age, either. Mom always says that she likes hanging out with my friends' parents because they keep her young, but I think that at heart she feels like THEIR mother, or at least their aunt. My parents lived through, but did not understand or like, the 60's and 70's. The last time they were shaped by and participated in modern culture, it was 1950, and we all know how weird those years were. Hence, we have a generation gap of mammoth proportions, and I've spent my whole life getting used to bridging it. I think the result is that I'm something of a chameleon, but one who's always caught between two worlds. It DOESN'T help that I love both English and biology, because that just provides two more worlds to be caught between. I can mostly fit in and adapt to anything, but at heart -- what am I?? I can't escape my traditional and old-fashioned upbringing, but I'm far too modern for my parents. Too artsy for my health sci and sciency friends, and too science-oriented for any of my arts-major friends. Sometimes I feel like I'm 40 -- I've always known that I'm going to have to handle the issues of ageing and ailing parents before anyone else, and probably before I'm ready -- but I can also be incredibly childish and coddled, being an only child. I spend a disproportionate amount of time feeling like a traitor, and the rest of it grining and shrugging. Fact is, I'm never going to fully 'belong' anywhere, and somewhere in me I embrace whatever sense of outcast I possess because that, at least, is a label I can live up to. No, don't expect me to don all black and sit in a corner, making bitter misanthropic remarks and scribbling furiously in a sketchbook. Maybe 'outcast' is the wrong word. I'm content, most of the time. I believe in giving everything a chance, and I don't think I have many prejudices at all. Maybe I'm more of a freelancer -- I'd say 'free spirit' but I can't quite stomach it. 2. If you were to dedicate your life to a single cause, what would it be? Which crusade could you feel passionate enough about to want your voice heard, your actions recognized? If I said literacy, would you people call me small-minded? 3. If you could relive one day of your life without changing any of the events, which day would you choose? How willing are you to risk discovering that nostalgia has clouded the accuracy of your memories? This question assumes that I'd relive a good day. I wouldn't. If I had the chance to relive a day without changing any events, I'd relive one of the days back when my mom was struggling with clinical depression and I was too small to understand that the yelling and the screaming and the crying and the panic attacks and the general inability to cope had little, if anything, to do with my actions. Maybe this time through, being older, I'd see why it wasn't my fault, or see the magical way in which I could help -- which have always eluded me, to my chagrin. I know that by the rules of the question I wouldn't be able to act on it, but it would be nice to know for the future. Nostalgia works both ways -- we overstate what's great about good times, but we also overstate what's bad about bad times. Bad days, childhood enemies, mean people, humiliating situations: they all grow with us in memory, become overgrown and looming. These days have taken on monumental, epic proportions in my mind that I'm sure are unfair, and I'd like to get rid of them. Chose a song that best describes your relationship with: A) your best friend There aren't many best-friend-type songs out there, I've discovered. I guess some combination of "True Colours" by like a thousand people (which is just a smidge cheesy) and "Ode To A Friend" by Jann Arden (which is just a smidge...I don't know...clingy or something. The situation is familiar though, although these days it's usually her house since mine is in perma-chaos. :) ) B) your partner/significant other When we FIRST got back together after breaking up, I thought the lyrics to "Call and Answer" by the Barenaked Ladies was the best description. This isn't to say that I thought the song was 'from' one of us to the other, or that the 'you' and 'I' in the song represented one or the other of us. Rather, there are elements in the song that I recognize and that I felt were applicable -- lines, images, notions. It's not right anymore and we're beyond that, but I haven't found a new one yet. My original song for this was "Head Over Feet" by the incomparable Alanis, and it still applies...:) C) yourself Indigo Girls, "Closer to Fine". A standard response, but oh well. (Ava -- your first two questions got swallowed up by the shoutbox. I had them saved, at one point, but this machine, as I've states already, doesn't like me right now.) 3. The world will be ending in an hour. What are you doing right now? My first thought was an innately selfish one. "Well, of course, I'm going to gather every single person that I love from every corner of the world, and I'm going to bring them all over, and I'm going hold them all close to me so we'll all go out together". But it isn't realistic. Each of those people has a network of their very own -- parents, aunts, friends, significant others -- spanning as many years and geographical boundaries as my own. I gave this a lot of thought. Actually, it caused me a lot of pain to realize this, and on the night that I did, I sat and stared out my window until it got light. If the world were ending in an hour, there would be no way that I could possibly see and say goodbye to everyone that I care about -- much less everyone who has touched me, or taught me something, or been a part of the accumulation of feelings, opinions and idiosyncracies that is me at 21. And there would be no way to visit every place that's given me a sense of home, see every sight that's been inspiring, hear every song that's become a part of me. You can't live your life over again in an hour, or, indeed, ever again. So, as much as I'd like to take that opportunity to tell everyone I know how much I love them, I don't in the end believe that this is the best use to make of the world's final hour. REALISTICALLY, I'd probably try to do exactly that in a panicked frenzy, and become massively and irrationally upset at the hugeness of the task. I'd feel torn and exhausted in nasty, nasty ways. I'd probably drop to my knees and try, in a half-hearted and futile manner, to pray -- for what and to whom, I have no idea. I'd probably spend a good 15 minutes of the hour engaged in a frantic metaphysical crash-course, trying to figure out what I really believe happens to us when we die, and give up. Maybe I'd try to write in my journal, depending on how the world was to end. Maybe I'd watch other people's behaviour, being naturally curious, but check myself in the end -- what am I watching for? what use can I possibly make of the knowledge now? Maybe I'd go out into the garden, touching leaves and hearing birds as if for the first time. Maybe I'd lie down, or maybe I'd start running. Maybe I'd squinch up my eyes as tightly as possible and mentally scroll through all my good memories of life, as if they were class notes and I were about to write a killer exam. The way I'd rather have it go: Wherever I am when I hear the news, I'd like to be able to smile, knowing that I have loved and been loved along every step of the way, and that that's something special. If I am unable to see or contact my loved ones, I would like to be able to be confident that I have lived in a way that lets them know how deeply I love them, and that they are going out in full confidence of that knowledge. I would like, in the end, to be able to stretch out my hands to whatever company I find myself in, take a deep breath, and be at peace. I guess that's kind of a strange, morbid, life-goal. ~SQ posted by susan | 1:17 AM Wednesday, May 12, 2004 FINALLY. A list of the computer complaints that have plagued me since the last post: 1. When I got back home from res, I discovered that my home dialup internet was being touchier than usual and didn't so much like letting me on. I downloaded a new version of my dialup software (NOT EASY...had to use the old computer...gggahh) and that seemed to fix the problem...until.... 2. ...not being behind a firewall/having an expired norton antivirus left me vulnerable to the stupid Sasser worm and the stupidness that causes. Easy to fix? Sure...just download the patch...but oh wait, you have to be on the internet to do it, at which point the worm finds you and shuts down Windows...and oh wait, it's too large to fit on a floppy disk, so I can't just get it off the old computer that doesn't have a CD burner...wow, THAT was a good design.... 3. So I finally get the damn patch, against all odds...and Blogger goes nuts on me. I could get to my own blog and my friends' blogs, but not to this edit page. I have no idea why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it now looks 100% DIFFERENT (and I'm having a crisis about that, where the hell is everything??) Maybe it just looks at my intenet connection and laughs. I don't know. Anyway, tonight everything seems to be working, FINALLY. Time for 3 days in niagara-on-the-lake. Everyone just pray to your deity of choice that these issues aren't setting the trend for me, the internet, and my blog for the entire summer.... ~SQ posted by susan | 12:26 AM |
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