Stare decisis.

We talked about stare decisis in class today.
In law jargon, it basically means the principle of following precedent, remaining consistent.
I could use some of that in my life: Consistency. Judicial review. Rational decision-making. You know, you know.

Even if it's a minor, small, inconsequential connection, this somewhat intellectual thought reminds me that others are coming soon.

FutureMe.org.

I occasionally send my future self emails. This is one I got today, from end-of-sophomore-year me:

Hi,

Life is a series of sadnesses.
True or false? Why always emotionally true?

Melancholy sneaks up at endings, transitions, destabilizations and uprootings.

Who are you? Are you still scared of being yourself? Are you nervous about the future? Are there prospects?

Learned this year: relationships involve more sacrifice than you knew; people are more difficult than you expected; school is not everything but the rest of it matters more than you understood before.

Forgot this year: selfhood, independence, solitude.

Summer: fully recover from relationship; read and write and fully involve self in literature; understand self-development.

For happiness, perhaps try to really know the importance of the things you care about. Stop being fickle. Stop being easily infatuated. Be level-headed. Avoid panicking.

Most importantly (and the thought that weighs most heavily right now) -- be over this last mistake, completely. Over it. Not even doubtful of any of it. It's not enough to be able to rationalize happiness. Coming to peace must be instinctive, must be earned.

Best friends: A and B and C. Has this changed? Hm.

Hope you're doing well. If not, things will get better. I promise.

Ever more so,
Me

Looking back, I think I was dead-on with this summer. And I should take my own advice: No rashness. Make decisions carefully.

I'm very ready for this year to be amazing.

Note to self.

Drunk me talks too much. Must learn to control nosy questions. Oh, hi. What are some really intrusive questions I could ask you, while we're sitting here buzzed?

Lost In Translation.

(Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen "Lost In Translation" and plan to, don't read this.)

Just saw this while waiting for my road trip buddy's sister to get home. I find my movie expectations to have changed in the recent past. I don't even like happy endings anymore. I actually find them unrealistic. So at the end, when Bill Murray stops his car on the way to the airport to find Scarlett Johansson walking in the street, I actually thought, "Oh no. Are they seriously going to--? Really?"

But no. And I liked the movie much better for that. It's more fitting, realistic. I thought about Bill Murray's character and instead of thinking, "Get out of your dead-end marriage, dude," all I could think was, "You have a wife! You have kids! You have a family and a home! Why would you throw it away for blond and busty?!"

Yeaaaah. Where did my inner kid go? Where will I find her again?

Nothing really makes sense.

I decided to ride my emotions to their ends instead of trying to moderate them. I have so many. I understand (so much more than I did before) what Foer meant when he wrote one of his characters' childhoods in these terms:

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.

I spent my life learning to feel less.

Every day I felt less.

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?

I don't remember the page number, but the book is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and I think that I could be that girl, crying about everything tiny, acutely feeling the small tragedy of existing at all.

I think I wrote a paper to this effect once, but I don't remember any of it, and I don't think I meant then the extent of what I mean now.

It's difficult. I want to cry about so much--even the rustling of paper, even the silence between and question and its response, even the green of my copy of Mrs. Dalloway because it is such a vibrant lime-chartreuse, because the front of the cover is rough and the inside is smooth and---

Doesn't really make sense. I know, I know, I know, I know. But still I believe myself, the way I believe Woolf when she wrote these thoughts for Mrs. Dalloway:

Big Ben struck the half-hour.

How extraordinary it was, strange, yes, touching to see the old lady (they had been neighbours ever so many years) move away from the window, as if she were attached to that sound, that string. Gigantic as it was, it had something to do with her. Down, down, into the midst of ordinary things the finger fell, making the moment solemn. She was forced, so Clarissa imagined, by that sound, to move, to go--but where? Clarissa tried to follow her as she turned and disappeared, and could still just see her white cap moving at the back of the bedroom. She was still there, moving about at the other end of the room. Why creeds and prayers and mackintoshes? when, thought Clarissa, that's the miracle, that's the mystery; that old lady, she meant, whom she could see going from chest of draws to dressing-table. She could still see her. And the supreme mystery which Kilman might say she had solved, or Peter might say he had solved, but Clarissa didn't believe either of them had the ghost of an idea of solving, was simply this: here was one room; there another. Did religion solve that, or love?

The page number for that is 140-141, but maybe only in the Penguin Popular Classics edition--in any case, "here was one room; there another." What could Woolf possibly have meant by that, and yet I think I get it (if only in my own personal way), and yet it seems so plausible--Mrs. Dalloway's thought.

I'm just overwhelmed, I think, not that I can really justify it. Just: Colors. Eating. Gravity. Expectations. Glances. Age. A room next to another. How can it all be possible? And my emotions--the melancholy of a lazy afternoon, the delight of a brother singing off-key.

I am so influenced by the literature I read.

Ponderings.

I left my journal downstairs and am too lazy to get it. Oh, summer, what have you done to me? Just like how I drove around the parking lot today to find a better spot at the gym: inefficient energy conservation tactics.

Have been thinking lately about:

Death: how it happens, that it happens. A close friend's cousin died over the summer. Another close friend's dog just died (not the same, I know, but). My mother keeps talking about a friend who has an inoperable brain tumor. I watched The Fountain last night, completely unprepared for the questions it asks. I keep thinking about how I'm not ready for anyone I know to die. I keep realizing that this makes me naive and -- in an important way -- completely immature. Somewhere buried and psychological, I'm living a delusion where no one is mortal. I'm ignoring the end of the story. It's a morbid preoccupation, I know, but I used to think about death so much as a kid (a habit that seems to be genetic? my third-grade brother keeps mentioning his "fear of death" -- what a weird sibling similarity). And now I'm puzzled by my attitude toward it, or rather . . . my non-attitude.

Kids: I used to hate it when my parents told me that I'd understand something when I got older. I never believed them, always thought that people could mature in different ways, so why would I necessarily mature their way? But now I keep wanting to use that line on my brother. "You'll understand when you get older." It's just giving up, really. A cop-out when words don't do justice to the wisdom you want to impart. I really want to explain what I mean to him, to somehow find a way to use his language to express exactly what I mean. It should be possible, right? I think it should, it should, but then I see his eyes glaze over, and I know the game's up.

Baggage: How I Met Your Mother did this great episode about emotional baggage, complete with real suitcases that appeared whenever a character revealed his hang-ups. I can't stop thinking about it. I don't know why. I think it's because I keep trying to diagnose everyone I know, and part of me realizes how blind and/or arrogant I am to assume that I could know what makes even my closest friends tick.

Other disjointed thoughts -- not yet developed into anything substantive. The dregs of my attention-deficient mind. I should turn my laptop off, curl up with Mrs. Dalloway, and call it a night, but I feel oddly pensive. And kind of anxious. Not sure why.

[Edit @ 2:15 a.m.

Understand the weird fluttery feeling now. It's actually because of Mrs. Dalloway. I picked the book up and instantly felt like I was about to collapse of self-doubt. Oh, Clarissa. Oh, Peter Walsh.]

I really kind of love this poem.

Simple rhyme. Does it well. I'm respecting this.

Rain
by Don Paterson

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one big thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a starlit gutter, running gold
with the neon drugstore sign
and I'd read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood—
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain's own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.

Sights.

I'm deciding.
I'm setting my sights on Harvard Law.
Just ordered LSAT books.
Let's go.

It's actually kind of fun pretending to take this seriously.

"Have you listened to Radiohead ennui-ed?"

What I heard, not what was said.

What I found in Microsoft Word this morning:

IF I focus too much then I think that I’m normal. But it’s like I’ve been asleep. Asleep forever. And ever. And it’s a memory but it’s a dream. But it’s actually 60% dream until I realize it’s 100% memory. A real moment that I should ctrl+s as a MOMENT FROM MY FINITE LIFE.

I'll leave the rest up to your -- or my -- imagination.

I think it's here to stay.

The happiness, that is. The "nothing is actually terrible"-ness. The "my life won't end if I don't get this internship"-ness (though I would really, really like this internship).

Maybe it's called maturing. Realizing that angst isn't as appealing as it used to be when my future could conceivably consist of nothing but a job within a void of meaninglessness. Understanding that the biggest crises always end.

Or maybe it's called the end of summer. I always end the summer pretty well, full of new hope and delusions about how stressed I'll be during the school year.

But though I've always had something extremely tangible to look forward to (a boy, a position, a last hurrah before graduating), I don't think I've put my metaphorical eggs in any shaky baskets this time. I think I've actually learned something.

Human?

In today's list of shocking realizations (both mine and otherwise), someone told me that I didn't seem human? Or rather, he said that I didn't seem as human as I do now, after he read my blog. Which brings into question all sorts of things, namely: What am I projecting, through writing or otherwise? Am I actually developing a public/private persona divide? Exactly how personal/revealing is this rambling thing I do every once in a while (which I attempt to keep only minimally detailed -- I guess tangible details are less important and . . . thought details are more)? Should I even care what I or this seem like to anyone -- anyone being an "audience" of any sort? Onward with the over-asked, never-really-sufficiently-answered questions!

A Parallelogram.

At the Steppenwolf tonight -- saw A Parallelogram, which was either about time travel or agency or free will or determinism or existentialism or psychosis. Or all of the above.

Anyway. It was a good performance, and after intermission we snuck down to the first row. The change in perspective somehow made the female lead seem shrill and obnoxious. But the whole play was about that, sort of: perspective, subjectivity. (The other themes of the play -- the free will shenanigans -- were just a little too passé to be interesting. And the unanswerable "Is she crazy or is she actually time-traveling?" was Inception-esque. I hate it when storytellers don't want there to be answers.)

So went maybe the rest of Sunday too. Changes in perspective. The friend from high school I stayed with in Chicago -- I used to really respect and almost admire her. She was always well-versed in current events, knowledgeable about random trivia, less enslaved to the high school routine of "get good grades, collect leadership positions, repeat" than the rest of us. But last weekend, having both aged two years since we'd spent significant time together, I realized how dissimilar we are in the ways that matter.

I also saw a friend from college on Sunday. We haven't been extremely close the past year, mostly because we stopped agreeing about anything. Somehow as we wandered around the city, though, I realized that all the things we'd argued about -- in the end, really, she'd been a lot more right than I'd given her credit for. It'd just taken me a few months to understand things her way.

I am filthy. And happy.

Actually, I was filthy ten minutes ago. Now that I've washed the smell of Lollapalooza (a pungent mix of sunscreen, sweat, and marijuana) out of my hair, I'm not much less satisfied. A little more tired, maybe. And a little sore.

But worth it. So, so worth it. Performances in order of awesomeness:

1) Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes: performed on a minor stage and literally packed the entire grassy area around it. People were climbing in trees to get a better view. Such good energy. And NPR was right -- they're much better live than recorded. Must see again.
2) Phoenix: I wasn't a big fan until today. But wow. I was tired and dehydrated and dizzy from the pot smoke around me, and they still blew me away. Now must listen to "1901" for the rest of my life.
3) The xx: I saw them at Cat's Cradle last spring. Not quite the same vibe in broad daylight, but still contagious and supersensual.
4) Metric: Not much to say. A lot of hair-flailing.
5) Spoon: I'm not their biggest fan. But performance was on point. And gotta love the brass section.
6) Stars: A friend told me that Stars live is a disappointment, and I . . . can't not agree. Amy Millan was onstage in a shiny black dress and heels at least a decade too young for her. And it's just strange to hear her rhyming "ecstasy" and "sex with me" (to steal Pitchfork's observation) alongside a blue-violet-reflective-sunglasses-donning Torq Campbell.
7) Grizzly Bear: Okay, I know these guys can harmonize the shit out of everything, but they were really low-energy. And not interesting. And boring.

I need to make music festivals a habit. Actually, I need to make this summer a habit. Need to reflect on this more. Will be back when it's not 4:00 a.m. EST.

Chicago.

In a friend's room waiting for her to get back from Linear Algebra. Last night we randomly found a friend of a friend's small gathering and got there in time to see him break two wine glasses within an hour of each other. Then ran around looking at apartment renovations, heard everyone discuss Durkheim (more like Jerkheim, apparently) and complain about how many times they'd read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for their Core classes.

Really, really cool to see U of Chicago students going off on random professors and classes, knowing that if we were at Duke we'd do the same. Also made me 2% want to go to school here, but it's definitely a passing thought. More so maybe just made me miss everyone from school more and want late August to get here sooner? (Of course, I'd like school to start without classes starting -- ideal situation #1.)

Sometimes I think that I wouldn't even need to do anything with my life -- I could just wander around and observe other people living out their existences, maybe partake for a day or two before moving on. Maybe I could couchsurf forever. Probably not a sustainable idea. But I do so love a good adventure.

A person I generally despise always says she likes to do things for the story she can later tell (and she tends to tell these stories repeatedly and continuously, with or without your permission). I hate to say that I'm like her, but -- yeah, it's kind of like that.

Lists.

It was brought to my attention during my stay in China that I am an obsessive maker of lists. (Not to get all MBTI again, but this is probably the most J part of my otherwise extremely P propensities.) Not even just "To Do" lists either, though (to be fair) those litter my desktop, both in real life and on my computer. It's not enough for me to make lists of mundane tasks to finish, objects to buy, books to read, etc. No. I'm worse than that.

My lists extend into every aspect of my life. When I'm happy, I make lists of what's gone right, the songs I'm most into, the people I'm grateful for, etc. More often, when I'm a little put off, I make lists of exactly what characteristics of a person I can't stand, why my life is falling apart, what I need to improve, what I need to remember in the future.

In mid-June, while I was still mid-journal, I actually made a list of all the lists I'd compiled so far. I counted seventy-seven. That's seventy-seven in a little less than four months.

Oh wait. I was in the middle of making a Chicago list when I got . . . distracted . . . by . . . hm. Maybe making lists is actually P after all.

Sometimes you wake up and you feel better.

Sometimes it takes months. Years. Decades. Sometimes it takes an entire lifetime.

Sometimes it takes no time at all.

Right now Jason Mraz is making my anthology-editing a cheery experience. I've been surprisingly productive, considering. And will hopefully continue this productivity into the night.

This morning I woke up on my friend's couch and felt better. I looked around her basement. I scratched a mosquito bite on my foot. I answered a stray text message. I thought about my dying phone battery. I thought about my relation to the rest of the things that have happened to me.

I thought about the night before. About the beach, the bioluminescent algae glowing at our fingertips in the water. About sitting on the shore building sand mounds and talking while the boys had not-yet-men conversations in the water. About overhearing a discussion about whether cheating was appropriate if a girlfriend cheated with another girl ("Just because it's hot doesn't mean it's okay!"). About flying down I-40 at five in the morning at nearly one hundred miles per hour. About dozing off in the backseat with Stevie Wonder lyrics nudging the direction of my dreams.

Then I went further back, to the afternoon -- how I'd lied to get out of the house, how I'd feigned studiousness because it was easy, because it's always easy be That Girl, how comforted I am by the idea that a version of me is somewhere doing the things I should do. How naturally the image comes to me. But also how untrue it is.

Then I thought about how I'm scared, about how scared I am. About the conversation I had with one of my mother's best friends, whose house I'm staying at right now. About what she said to me: You will make mistakes. You have the space in which to make them. Not everyone is allowed that freedom.

None of this really describes what I mean. But how about this: Yesterday while we were walking along the shoreline in the darkness, my friend told me that I should look into taking advantage of the free counseling services on campus. Not because I'm crazy, but because everyone is, a little. And because it's never a bad idea to understand more. I can't yet place a name to my personal glitch yet, but I know it's there, a backseat driver to my neuroses. I'd like to find it and stare it down so we can finally part ways.

Last night was extremely surreal, but I think it allowed me a distance I needed. I talked to another friend today about her current state of spiritual constipation (crude yet apt analogy). This past week -- and especially the weekend before last -- allowed me to let go of petty grievances I was ashamed to admit I still entertained. But that's what a backlog is, right? Everything minor collects. And collects. And collects.

Until the dam breaks.

[Snow White].

I love this type of poem.

[Snow White]
by Lightsey Darst

      do you have
           scars / if not the hurt is mostly imagined.

slash of blood against snow and who would wish for a child
"red as blood"—pretty words,
but the daughter suffers.

When I was young I loved ____, now
I love ____, and in between
                salt air, eclipse, the tinny rust of each year's puncture.

"As white as snow as red as blood"—I'd include more news

                if I knew it. For she was a thin little thing,
hardly more than a peep coming from that carmine mouth—

                yes ma'am, I'd like to bite the shiny apple, please.
      A disease will fill the airwaves until spring and then a girl

and then a war. "And black as ebony." Mother,
you had your wishes, all three. And then you die and she

      is running through midnight woods while
           the most beautiful woman in the world
      salts and peppers the heart & lungs she leaves behind.