Oh Highschool!

This past weekend, I went back to Long Island for my little brother's graduation from my high school. It is incredible how many years have passed... almost a decade... since I was also standing on the very same bleachers; except my brother being the senior class salutatorian, was comfortably sheltered from the high noon sun in the speakers' tent. 

The school has grown physically; adding two new wings and another floor over the past nine years. The character of its students and the community have remained the same though. As I sat with the parents and families, watching patiently, I thought about my time at the school.

I must have been such a strange kid... but kids are all strange, no? Unlike the rest of my peers, I was a relative new comer to the community. I never felt right, never felt like I fit in, socially or economically. It wasn't as if my peers did not tolerate my strangeness. In all fairness, we were amicable. Amongst the rest of the school population, I stood out because I wasn't into celebrities, tv, or the same music that most of the students listened to and I was slightly nerdier. Amongst my peers in my honors/ap classes, I never felt that I was dorky or nerdy enough. I didn't participate in the race for the best grades or test marks or honors. My classmates all grew up together, with their house parties and sweet 16s whereas I spent a lot of energy dealing with family problems. Sometimes I look back and resent their suburban psyches; the political apathy, the consumerism, the "which kid has it made, deservingly and undeservingly, why and why not" gossip... And sometimes I look back and marvel at what an opinionated asshole weirdo I must have seemed like to everyone else because I was so vehemently passionate about stating my differences. 

Sorry for the shitty caricature but that was me - unsolicited and in your face opinions. 

Thankfully, my little brother did not follow in my footsteps and kept his nose focused on academics. It is a good thing he will have life-long friends from high school.

I have at most one very close friend and lots of random friend-acquaintances from the community. It's a comforting thought to know that I have changed, and so has most people from then, for the better. And some times I wonder if friendships will rekindle when I go back for the tenth anniversary reunion next year. Will I find solidarity and community? HA HA HA Um... otherwise I will enjoy drinking that haterade, secretly laughing at which bastards got obese, who turned into losers, and which bitches got ugly from age and pregnancy, and multiple marriages.... you know, the typical juice that people find at high school reunions.

Cauldron

It is hot here in NYC. It's not as hot as I currently make it seem like, but that's because our AC is off due to apartment power outage concerns.

This week has been a boring one. I've been thinking about the May article in Poetry Magazine entitled This Land Is Our Land by David Biespiel. Basically, Biespiel laments the disengagement of modern poetry writers from the outside world. I would like to agree with him but after glancing responses on Poetry Magazine's website, I'm feeling conflicted.

I think I agree with Biespiel because I am disengaged from a community of writers and poets. Perhaps if I were to network, I'd come to learn more about other poets' non-poetical pursuits. I feel conflicted on this. Whenever I have attended poetry readings in NYC, I'm 90% of the time alone. While I'm not a shy person, I'm not exactly the most social either. I generally do not reach out to other poetry reading attendees. I suspect the reason I don't do this is because I must be terribly fearful of acquainting myself with other poets.

It is really silly of me. I know. But I'm intimidated by the theories and knowledge that I imagine other poets to have more than me; that I won't measure up some how; that I won't be able to speak eloquently on this or that poets' work; or they'll think my writing is non-poety. I'm a weirdo okay? And I'm afraid of rejection because, well... I'm a hater myself.

When it comes to writing, I like words. I like the certain visual shape, rhythm, mental image of the word. I like dwelling on a certain word all week because I'm charmed.

For example, "vinegared." When I first saw the word this past weekend in a poem, I read it as "Vine" and "Gared." And it amused me when I figured out that it was vinegared.

It amuses me so much I want to put into a poem. Soon.
I'm also amused by the word "liege" - as in the li-aege waffle. Ever since I had the liege waffle, the word makes me salivate. I want to put this word into a poem. I've been meaning to. But how can I do so without the word "waffle?" and have the word Liege create the same delicious feeling? Or maybe I will add "waffle" because "waffle" is also a very charming word.

But what about the ideas of the poem? Often I would like to express an intense feeling; something sharp, almost jarring. Something interesting. Provocative. But its difficult to be provocative now.

I'm pretty certain degreed poets and published poets use nicer words to describe their process. I'm afraid I won't connect. Well, one day. I guess.

I digress.

On another note. I have to say I really like Poetry Foundations iphone application. And it makes me wonder why there aren't more apps like it. I would also like to see real time collaboration applications for poets; omegle for poets, wave for poets? On the phone? So many ideas.

Return

I am ashamed. The last entry was dated May 2009. One year and one month ago.

Good news though, what has been written in the past year have remained in my diary and laptop. Anyways, I'm here now.

I sh!t you not.

I started 2010 with a herniated L1-S1 disk.

Around February, I began to believe that it was hopeless. I would be crippled for life, unable to dance again or sneeze or cough without pain. After a month and half of physical therapy, continuing to go to the gym, taking some pilates classes, I've returned to 90% normal in the past two months. You have no idea what a humbling experience this has been. Maybe you do. On the positive side of this whole ordeal, I've lost all the weight I put on in the last year or so. :::awkward self-cheering:::

Half of 2010 has come & gone. I live in Manhattan with my lover & I have been job searching. I hope to have a work home soon. Deep inside, I honestly believe that I will find the right place to be, even if it takes a bit longer than I anticipated. Why on earth did I leave my previous position in the worst job market evAR? Because I want to. Because I can. It's about time I move on to something bigger and I'm confident that I have the skills and abilities to do it. I hope the nay sayers drink their haterade and haterage when I land it.

Still, I see my peers from school and do feel that pang of envy for what I interpret as stability or success in their lives. "I grow old. I grow old. / I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled." ::smile:: What is success anyways? I am happy, I am youthful, and I am loved. That is all.

I want to leave this thought, and perhaps I will elaborate in the next entry, that I discovered re-reading Minima Moralia by Adorno; passage #25 in which I found libidinous solace during this job hunt. I understand that what I'm taking from the passage is not wholly what he intended to express. My reading of it expresses my feelings towards my experience job hunting so far; having filled out already countless applications for positions.

"...Anything that is not reified, cannot be counted and measured, ceases to exist. Not satisfied with this, however, reification spreads to its own opposite, the life that cannot be directly actualized; anything that lives on merely as thought and recollection. For this a special rubric has been invented. It is called 'background' and appears on the questionnaire as an appendix, after sex, age, and profession. To complete its violation, life is dragged along on the triumphal automobile of united statisticians, and even the past is no longer safe from the present, whose remembrance of it consigns it a second time to oblivion."