intertribal | teen drinking is very bad. yo, I got a fake ID, though!

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teen drinking is very bad. yo, I got a fake ID, though!

I'm officially pulling for Fabio in Top Chef. I'm sure plenty of people like Fabio, but I've never been good at picking original favorite "characters". This is something I realized back in middle school. But his words tonight won me over: "It's called Top Chef, not Top... Scallops!"

Check out my new poster. It is more awesome than I could have ever hoped for. I wanted to get a seniors only poster but I didn't know if those were even made. And the UNL bookstore does not, uh, sell football posters? And the 2008 Offense and 2008 Defense ones are lame-o collages. But then Carol, who works with my mother, came to my rescue and gave me this one off the wall in Graduate Studies, the last of its kind. And now it is mine! As are they! Forever!

I just love having connections within the university.

I totally redecorated my room over break. Got rid of the old computer, got rid of a lot of old junk, recycled a bunch too because I'm such a good girl who loves the fucking Earth. I'm afraid the lifespan of our notes came to an end, Lindsey - hope that's ok, but I at least was frighteningly stupid back then. Also bought a nice chair for cheap, lugged it back across town barely attached to the trunk of the car... good times. Haven't redone the closet but I don't think that's going to happen for a while. Some old pictures and postcards I bought in Surabaya are now in frames, but I don't know where to put them because for a while there I was going to buy a whole new slew of posters. Except there are no posters of any worth in the entire city of Lincoln. Rage. I'll probably hang them over my bed. The slot by the television where I look most of the day has been claimed by the Huskers.

Sorry, Surabaya.

My mother and I had to have a "conversation" today over dinner. About my future. Good thing I had a pina colada to distract me. I hate those fucking conversations. Ironically, because I'm a fucking good girl, I have a plan, unlike many people my age. Take break at home. Join Peace Corps. Go to grad school for two years. Start trying really hard to join the Foreign Service. Ta-da. And I think I'm having "plan anxiety". I get this from time to time. Because sometimes I wonder if this plan is what I really, truly want. Would it work? Probably, yes. I'm sure I'd have good days. But is it what I really want. I feel like my whole life has been so fucking planned that I'm not actually living. I'm following a plan. I guess sixteen years of straight school will do that to you.

On the other hand, the guy I had a complicated relationship with in high school, renowned for his complete lack of planning or ambition (I think I was feeling so over-planned then that that was what attracted me to him - when I realized he had no future whatsoever I went right back into crazy planning again), is now apparently homeless in California. Good Christ. I want a happy medium.

Whatever, I'll just delay thinking about that and watch Adult Swim. Turns out I like the new show Superjail! So much blood. Have I mentioned that I think I like The Venture Bros. way more than anyone else on the planet, except the creators? Byron Orpheus is one of the more amazing characters I've run across. Like, I seriously. Seriously. Like this show:

"Yeah failure, that's what Venture Bros. is all about. Beautiful sublime failure." —Doc Hammer

"It shows that failure's funny, and it's beautiful and it's life, and it's okay, and it's all we can write because we are big fucking failures." —Doc Hammer

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But why? Out of curiousity.

Aw, yeah, no problem. I mean, I care for your happiness and well-being, and so if you did things that went against that, I would be concerned, and I am capable of being mistakenly so, but I don't think you can really disappoint me. Even if you were a homeless bum in California. But I highly doubt that'll happen.

Yeah, I'm sure you'll be fine. And to be fair to them, it's probably risky to put people with 'psychological issues' in stressful situations, which going abroad can be. But yeah, grief issues don't have much to do with it.

For one, I don't do well alone. I like living with people. People who aren't psycho. For two, I did have a very positive, supportive family environment when I was little, and I still do now (with my extended family), to some extent. As my friend Lexi says, the family is like a "clan", and I'm a support network type of person. Other than that, biology? And the desire to be with someone you love on a more stable basis? I like flexibility, but I also like grounding. I think I lost that stability while I was in college, and it was like, the worst feeling ever for me. I could never be a drifter (or a homeless bum in California). I guess I'm way too conventional for that. Not that I can imagine actually having children now, it's just a nice idea.

I agree. People can go psycho abroad, and it's probably good to be paranoid, esp. if you don't want to be dealing with breakdowns (I mean, a study abroad program can accommodate breakdowns more than the Peace Corps).

That's interesting. I think losing stability--not fucking up, but feeling the weight of my parents, internalized expectations, and all of that gone, which I only feel in glimpses--is probably one of the best feelings I've had. Intimidating, but so free and unworried. I first had this feeling while I was in China. I don't know if that's what you mean, but it's what I associate with a loss of stability.

Anyway, I wish you luck and all that.

Well, we are different people, you know. I see what you mean, and how it could be that way. I've never lost so much stability that I don't feel all that weight and internalized expectations. What's weird is I associate that sort of freedom with, you know, not going down my little fucking plan and just doing what I want to do instead of what I feel like I should do. So I definitely want that kind of freedom, but I don't associate that freedom with not having a family, so I think we're talking about different kinds of stability and losses of stability.

Thanks.

I do know. Maybe it's helped by the fact that my parents don't really have a plan for me anymore. Like, I still have the 'internalized expectations' but no real idea of what doing well is, except doing whatever I do perfectly. They don't even understand what I'm doing anymore, are all like, "Maybe she'll be a spy!" so...yeah. So there are some times I take a step back and realize that when it comes down to it, this is my life, and I can do whatever I want with it. No one will even care that much. I'm the only one whose good opinion I really stand to lose. But yeah, I can see where we're talking about different kinds of losses of stability. I'm not sure I've ever felt the other kind, maybe 'cause I never had it in the first place. Family stability for me just means they're taking care of my life for me, I'm not in control of it.

I think our childhood experiences make a big difference here, to be honest. Although I totally hear you about "when it comes down to it, this is my life, and I can do whatever I want with it".

And LOL at "Maybe she'll be a spy!"

incidentally, a reedie just linked to this, since commencement speeches tend to be on similar subjects, and it's that time for seniors and all.

also, a somewhat different one, which i prefer...

I really love the second one. That was really excellent. I lost interest in the first, pretty much immediately...

haha, nice. incidentally, the guy who wrote the second one killed himself.

well, don't they all. sigh.

i looked him up on wikipedia, cause i liked that and this piece he wrote for harper's about kafka, and i discovered that he was a writer and a philosophy student. apparently his medication stopped working right, so he tried going off it, got more depressed, and long story short, killed himself

that's funny, because just reading the speech he reminded me of Kafka.

Come to think of it the name does sound familiar. It was a huge deal when he killed himself on the NYTimes (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15wallace.html), and I remember reading the obits.

really? that is funny. http://www.badgerinternet.com/~bobkat/kafka.html

oh, wow. i almost want to read one of his books now. yeah, me, read something.

not 'cause of the obit...more that he reminded you of kafka? that's a really weird reason. but i'm being a little weird at the moment.

it reminded me of something I read by Kafka. I don't know. Like it sounded like something Kafka would say.

To put it precisely, what I was going to reply to the comment when you said that he killed himself was "well, so did Kafka" - except Kafka's suicide was more passive.

yeah, i got that. i was saying that your saying he sounded like kafka made me more inclined to read his books.

hahaha. yeah, i read the bit about hanging and was like, "whoah, hardcore." which is probably not what my reaction to suicides should be, but whatever.

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