so i haven't updated in a while, i'm sorry. school is more demanding than it used to be (except for typing class, holy shit easiest 1.25 credits i will ever hope to earn), though i'm really glad to actually be challenged by school rather than bored. and i've resolved to read a lot more this year, which has detracted from my computer time a lot. so far i've read:
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Without Feathers - Woody Allen
Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach
The Portable Dorothy Parker - Dorothy Parker
Autobiography Of A Face - Lucy Grealy
Skinny Legs And All - Tom Robbins
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry - Alan Kaufman (Editor)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe
Shopgirl - Steve Martin
Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
The Pleasure of My Company - Steve Martin
After Dark - Haruki Murakami
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong - James W. Loewen
Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Smashed - Koren Zailckas
Bagombo Snuff Box - Kurt Vonnegut
i'm pretty happy with the rate at which i'm reading. also, i've recently been excused from gym class for being a "safety hazard" (i don't have depth perception and am therefore embarrassingly bad at everything involving hitting, throwing or catching balls) so i now have a free study period that allows me to read even more. hooray for being a safety hazard!
here's some pretty stuff to look at/read:
^ aw, it's little devendra! if you don't know who devendra banhart is then please go immediately educate yourself.
i feel like i am going to get very into bollywood very soon. i don't know whether this is going to be another awkward drop in the ocean of my interests or insanely awesome, but either way, this song is hands down my new jam.
my power's back on. i don't know why the hell it's back on, but it is, and it's pretty magical. i can't see any of the other houses on our street with lights on, so i'm not sure exactly what's going on. my family has some of the town's electric equipment in the ground in front of our house (where i live used to be a makeshift town dump) so that might explain why we have electricity before everyone else. we also have cable running, which i don't understand in the slightest, but it's nice to be able to use the internet at home.
the electricity went out on thursday at 10:30 p.m., and after spending the night at our house, my family went to friend x's house, who lives in worcester. sadly, the gods were not smiling on us that night. five hours after my family arrived, someone drove their car into a telephone pole, knocking out all the electricity on friend x's street. they live in worcester, the second largest city in massachusetts, and there's a lot of people there who don't have power there. their single-street problem is tiny in comparison to the larger ones that exist all over new england, so it might be days before they get power. again, i'm really fucking lucky to have power right now.
after spending friday night there, we spent saturday, sunday and most of monday at friend y's house, the aunt and uncle of friend x. they are amazing people. we had hot meals every day and strangely comfortable orange shag carpeting to sleep on. they offered to let my family to stay as long as needed, but we decided to go somewhere else, since we, unlike friend x, weren't related to them, and didn't feel like we should overstay our welcome.
on monday, tuesday and wednesday morning we stayed at friend z's house, who lives in the same town as us, so it was very convenient. those couple of days passed by quickly, and it's a good thing too, as i was beginning to feel a bit homesick.
it's unbelievable how terribly grating it can be to have to spend a week away from your home when you're only an hour away, having to completely change your routine to fit around other people's and have to exist solely on other people's charity. it might have just been because i was pmsing the entire damn time, but i enjoy solitude. i thrive on it. i crave solitude. and when i cannot acquire it, i become a mess. a strange, bumbling, strung-out, going-to-sleep-at-9-p.m.-because-then-at-least-i-can-be-alone mess.
on the other hand, having to spend so much time with other people taught me a lot about the incredibly capacity for kindness so many people have and the inanity of needing more than warmth, shelter and food. (and alone time.) if my family didn't have these three other families to rely on, we'd have to rough it out in our own house, which is what i suspect many families had to do, and they definitely, definitely had more problems than needing solitude. plus, having absolutely nothing to do gave me lots of time to read. i finished up girl with a pearl earring and slapstick, read letters to a young poet by candlelight (what a lovely experience), read zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (which i plan on rereading, it's extremely hard to get through but what i did understand was completely mesmerizing), reread still life with woodpecker (which i can't find my copy of, damnit. it's a really nice copy, too) and began reading narcissus and goldmund (which i also can't find). it's astounding, what i can do when i don't have any distractions.
now that i've written more than is probably necessary, i'm going to go make some tea and keep thinking of how stupidly, inordinately lucky i am to finally have a home with working lights and water and a heating system and the fact that some people won't have electricity for another week and how absolutely insane i would go if i was in their position, which brings me back to point a, and it repeats. hopefully new england will be up and running again soon.
I like them
Jan 14, 6:09pm
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