Lost among the make-up work
Posted Wednesday, February 19, 2003 @ 06:36 PM
It's so strange how everything piles up into a few short days, leaving you confused, depressed, and utterly exhausted with only a few precious hours to rest and regroup. And how ironic is it that I've been out of school for eight days with the flu, longing for the smell of the hallways at school and the abuse of a heavy bookbag, and now that I'm back I need a few days off so I can catch up and get a hold of myself. I need days off to work, but also to take a mental vacation, simply because everything is piled so high, and I seem to have lost all my theoretical paperweights.
And yet, I could really care less. I've been closing my locker door at the end of each day, leaving important books and worksheets crammed absently behind posters and projects, thinking that maybe if I pretend they don't exist, they'll go away, but they always come back; there is always a due date and a consequence, and sometimes if it were up to me--if I weren't so programmed to keep moving and hanging on--I'd rather just fail.
It has been this way with everything--not just my schoolwork. In all honesty, I'm not that stressed about getting things turned in; everything always manages to get itself done and taken care of, and for some reason my teachers all have this impression that I'm working hard and honestly trying to get things done, when really I've been dicking around on a perfectly good four-day weekend and avoiding work until Monday night at 11PM.
And things will get done and it's not the end of the world and I'll probably be back to my cool, collected self by the time the weekend rolls around, but right now I just want to walk in the front door to a pair of arms, a warm mug of cocoa, and some good, heartfelt conversation with someone I really love.
I suppose it really started this Monday, when Matt came to pick me up and we went back to his house to watch The Royal Tenenbaums--a nostalgic movie with good music that always makes me feel a bit frisky--and then we watched the Zwan DVD, Billy Corgan parading around with new band members and a scruffy face, clothed in a toboggan and a grey sweater, looking scrumptious and a little bit scarred.
And it's made me think about who we all used to be, back in the days of listening to almost nothing but the Pumpkins--Peter and Matt and I on Thomas's bed, listening to Jeff Buckley and staring at a lava-lamped colorful ceiling; listening to "Galapagos" in Matthew's basement with a good sound system and the lights off; Carson and I lying on an industrial-carpet floor with an acoustic guitar on top of him, playing and singing "Disarm" horizontally, while we waited for Melissa to come pick us up.
Even on the way home from school, when Missy popped in a mix CD of Pumpkins that probably doesn't mean much to her, I was taken back to the Pumpkin days. Every single song took me somewhere different with someone else.
The whole Adore album belongs to Jess and to Virginia, to making strawberry cupcakes and spraying 200 wasps with cooking spray in an early-morning kitchen, the bug spray left unnoticed on top of the fridge. It belongs to listening to "Jazz Nights" on NPR, personal narratives in the afternoon at breakfast, and not ever waking up in time for "Morning Edition"--not ever hearing the real news.
"Mayonnaise" belongs solely to the Scott's tahoe--to Mr. Scott driving home a bunch of worn out teenagers after showing them a good time at Arte Nuda, back in the days when Torrential Downplay didn't have a permanent home. It belongs to Ben and Clare singing along in the back seat, the windows down on an abandoned highway when it's getting chilly and late. Back when Crazy Greg showed up everywhere we went, and always managed to have a pack of stolen cigarettes. He was murdered a few weeks ago.
"Porcelina" is Nick's, driving from John's house to the bookstore before curfew--not to look at books, but to sit in the outdoor cafe and watch the city, our perfect perch for observation atop a small mountain, at the real summit, not just the shopping mall.
And all of this brings me to past experiences, even up to what seems like yesterday, and it's not so much nostalgia anymore as it is just needing to remember something, to remind myself that I have a past and that it isn't erased with every new dawn.
Mostly it is my knack for thinking too much that has gotten me into trouble--for thinking when I should be mindlessly cranking out creative writing exercises and test materials, when I should be memorizing study guides or doing science projects, when I should be paying attention to the one stack of paperwork that doesn't mean anything to me. And I've had the help of Sean and Caitlin in being distracted; they have become my partners in philosophical crime.
Being stressed and busy just means that I become longwinded [like now], with good syntax and a vocabulary more down to earth. It means I procrastinate not with other work, but with people and conversation, trying to make myself feel real again, trying to word myself in comprehensive phrases where I won't feel misunderstood, trying to tackle things like my ridiculously unread bookshelf.
And by this time next week, everything will be back in place again, without any traces of make-up work, and we will all go back to glancing nervously across the breakfast table at school, at new hairdos or secret, tear-stained faces, hiding behind coffee cups or fake eggs and pre-baked biscuits. I will go back to forgetting there was ever anything before ASFA, and we will get buried in schoolwork again, forgetting to call each other "long distance" between school systems, forgetting to invite each other to the symphony, forgetting to stop in the hallways to listen and ask each beloved person how they are feeling.
But second semester is as good as over, minus one last quarter and a few exams--things that will just be afterthoughts, little delicate poots lost in a mild wind.
I'll buy some new theoretical paperweights, and there'll be armies of them atop every stack of paper, organized, excessive, and compulsively glynnis.
Welcome to the past, bucko. You're swimming through the archive of rocket-fish.org. If this isn't where you were headed, I suggest you get out of here while there's still time.
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-feels loved- I got mentioned! yes, I'm proud of my distractions- you deserve them. And I love talking to you!
19 Feb 2003, 8:45 PM.