This is how i deal with my boredom at work. Part one is at the info booth, part two is me sitting in union square, part 3 is the Q train. each situation is a mix of my observing people and then my reacting to them.

PART ONE
German woman i swear has a son named Adolf.
16 racks of maps outside and people still come to my window + ask
Why does my coworker keep telling people i speak spanish i dont speak spanish i know izquierda and derecha is all i know.
mexican parents are chubby and have lots of confused looking children
Crowd of tourists out my window but my eyes droop. time for a sanity break
Find myself wondering if people notice the burn on my hand. looks like a healing cut.
tourist in sneakers walks like a ballerina in his crew cut and buttondown.
kids always seem fascinated by cigarettes - dont do it!
i keep resting on my book and smearing words i wont stop
pregnant girls wear tight shirts and fat girls wear maternity clothes so ill never ask how far along she is, too confusing/risky.
cctv van parked, who is in side spying like in the movies?
pigeons downtown are especially filthy i wonder if 9/11 is a reason for it.
im filthy too, no shower ven after wiping cum off my chest last night
memories of good sex keep me sane
fat people everywhere why dont you take a walk sometime its good for you
3 dollars in the bank what the hell do i eat for lunch
she's pretty i like her hair+body+sunglasses
stanley brings water, you're a sweetheart old man i wish you were a good 50 years younger
i just killd a bug on my notebook do you see?

PART TWO
man disrobes his shirt showing flat and hairy chest hes lucky hes not a chick what would happen if i did that? would those cops arrest me maybe not but people would look at me funny
old ladys hair is too red and her eyebrows match but hey if she likes it power to her i guess
calling my mom at noon soon but shes in PT right now and i dont want to interrupt so i sit sweating in union sq paul hangs out here i thought i saw him and my heart jumped into my throat it took five minutes to calm my pulse
woman just said the word "ran" like 6 times wonder if she has ocd wouldnt that be awful can you imagine the addiction to routine - i only wash my hands twice a day and repeat myself only when asked to
fly lands on bench next to me this is the second tim ive made friends with a fly just hanging on a park bench together feeling the breeze
bass rumbles from summer concert stage someone fix the sound please but this band sucks anyway
i'm barely listening
noon exactly
ill write a bit more tho nice to exersise the brain if that is indeed what im doing
i see a zeppelin in the sky, what is it a blimp thats what they call them these days - remember in the 20s or 30s or something maybe earlier - they thought zeppelins were the next big thing lik,e everyone would have them but we all know from doctor who if everyone has a zeppelin its probably a parallel universe full of cybermen

PART THREE
went to strand and they had dear mili im so happy to be buying it soon that book was part of my childhood and everything about it is like a mannerist painting strange + beautiful +eerie but graceful.
waiting for train back to BK now i wasnt sweating much before but train station is humid w/no breeze except hot moving train air and i have no water.
pfffffft a guy blows his nose accross the platform, wipes w/tissue and looks at it i wonder if there was blood that would have been gros, i bet hes going to get on a train and put those hands all over the poles pffft he blows gain
thank god i have hand sanitizer maybe i wash my hands more than i thought
im really goddamn thirsty but cant drink til BK water should be free all over thr place and not tap water either- real filtered ice cold spring water the kind you feel chilling your throat all the way down the middle of your chest and you cant help but go, aah after every chilly fresh sip - thinking about it is torture why do i do this to myself
beautiful lovely a window seat i can rest my arm as i write
when i was a kid i thought you werent allowed to speak on the train because everyone is so quiet this is before i realized that most people on the train at rush hour travel alone and have no one to talk to anyway
i used to want to live under the brooklyn bridge where those windows are boarded up even when i was 8 i wanted to be a squatter before i knew the word for it - i used to want to run away and live behind an alley dumpster with my dog i never considered how id get $ or if child services would pick me up - you dont think about these things when youre 9 or 10

I often find myself wondering if I'll ever achieve anything worthwhile.

Jeff, a friend of mine who passed away a couple years ago, was a brilliant photographer, and his family has set up a photography exhibit of his work from Thailand and other countries abroad. When I knew him during his life I only caught a glimpse of his talent, but when we worked together we would draw things and write poetry in each others sketchbooks, and would talk about Kerouac and foreign cities and things like that. I had a huge crush on him (if you dig far enough back in my LJ you'll see the entries) and he was one of the first people who made me happy to be smart, because our conversations were so rewarding even in the brief months we knew each other.

I took it as some sort of omen that the news of his exhibit reached me a single DAY after I discovered the pamphlet from his memorial service and spent a half hour sitting on the floor looking at his picture and reliving a similar existential crisis to the one I had when he first died. I found myself wondering if I could ever touch a life the way Jeff touched mine. I barely knew him, let's be fair. But that doesn't mean that he didn't have a real affect on me both in life and in death. I didn't feel like a loser around him when I went on and on about Oscar Wilde or Jack Kerouac, because he was just as passionate. And now, even years after his passing, his photographs which I've never seen til this point are so striking and beautiful that I find myself considering the affect I have on others, and wondering if my passion for photography - or indeed ANYTHING that I find pleasure in - will amount to any valuable contribution to society.

I know that I'm not quite 20 years old yet, I have a whole lifetime ahead of me to make a mark on the life that surrounds me. I have too many hobbies and I overthink things far too much. But surely these will mean something one distant day from now? Surely I will be able to look back at my life when I am wrinkly and on the verge of senility, and think to myself, "That'll do, pig, that'll do."

Unfortunately I fear that a life of passionate hobbies and worship of brilliant minds will never make me, myself, a brilliant mind. Maybe I'm creative and passionate and maybe I have unique ideas or outlooks, but what good are they without a medium with which to express them? What good are they if they don't provoke similar passions in others? And certainly, what good are my hobbies or creations when I can't seem to excel at any specific one of them?

There will always be a better writer or photographer or artist or just plain THINKER. When I said this to my mother, she in all her brilliance asked me, no offense, why I thought I should be the best at anything. Very few people on this earth are recognized and praised for their work, but it shouldn't stop any of us from continuing in our passions.

Although I agree completely with the wise words of my mother, I still find it terrifying to think that the things which make me the most happy will only ever make ME happy. I find the most satisfaction in whatever work I do when it brings some sort of meaning to someone else. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen often.

There's a song by Paramore that I never listen to called "For an Optimist, I'm Pretty Pessimistic". Although the song itself means nothing to me, the title is something I can agree with. Through all my fear of mediocrity and my anxiety over achievement, I will press on. I hope that sometime in the (near) future a spectacular new idea will strike me and I will feel truly proud of and content with an achievement of my own. Hopefully that overwhelming warm fluffy feeling I get from a good book or brilliant movie or even a clever statement will one day be in response to something of my own creation.

I can only hope.

I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate the genius that is Stephen Fry.
I've always known who he was, and that he was a brilliant dramatic and comedic actor (check out Fry and Laurie), but I ever really took the time to learn about him as a person.

After exploring his website on a whim, I discovered his Blessays and Podgrams, two things which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who has an appreciation for the beauty of the English language.
Listening to his Podgrams is quite an experience- his mastery of our language is spectacular, it's as if poetry just leaks from his lips even when he's speaking of something as trivial as a trip to the bathroom.

Every once in a while I stumble across something Wildeian or Shakespearian which makes me want to clean up my use of English, but Stephen Fry is the first modern figure who stirs this passion in me.
I've also got to say that usually when I listen to the musings of an Englishman, I find myself embarrassed to be American, just because their perception of America is so specifically downgrading, and I'd hate to be pigeonholed because of it. But Stephen Fry has been filming a documentary for the BBC in which he travels to every single one of our states- and his opinions of Americans and his defense of them is really uplifting. In his Podgram he entreats his listeners to never utter the cliche of Americans being without irony, and often points out how the English carry around a "flabby need to convince their selves of their sophisticated superiority over the average American."
He also devoted an entire podgram to musings over Oscar Wilde, a man who, if you know me well, you know has influenced me beyond belief. Stephen Fry played Wilde in a film of the same name in 1997 and obviously did his research. His knowledge of Wilde's life and theories is rivaled only by his immense understanding of them. It makes me so happy to see someone appreciating Wilde the way I fancy I do. I've also got to point out that I see so much of Wilde in Fry, and perhaps this is part of the reason why I find myself so intrigued by and attracted to Stephen Fry.

I've decided to include a transcript of a few minutes of Podgram 3, Wallpaper, the one in which he discusses Wilde. If some of the grammar is slightly off it's because Fry is speaking colloquially, just off the top of his head. It's spectacular, the way this language is just so natural to him. It goes beyond Queen's English, it's something much more poetic and magical. Anyway, check it out:

"I often compare Oscar Wilde – I wonder if you've ever done this, it's a marvelous thing – I don't know if you know the city of New York, Manhattan, but there's Fifth Avenue, which is a famous street which goes all the way down past Central Park, and it does literally go downtown, it's a one way avenue, and it goes down towards Greenwich Village. And if you get into a cab at the right sort of time of night, when there's not much traffic, the lights are synchronized, the traffic lights are synchronized. Bear with me: it sounds completely irrelevant, but it does have a point. And as you go down, you pass the Empire State building – once, of course, the highest building in the world. And the buildings that are close to it, because you're low down in the car, appear to be taller, because they're closer, so you can't see the top of the Empire State Building, because you're too close to it. It's a sort of parallaxy thing, isn't it?
But if you twist your neck around and look out the rear window of your yellow cab, over the parcel shelf, and the lights are all green ahead, and the cabbie is getting a good run down towards Washington Square or Union Square or whatever – you look back, and you see the Empire State building rise up like a Saturn-5 rocket. It literally seems to launch upwards, because as you get further (sic) away, the buildings closer to it are revealed to be pygmies, and they dwarf and diminish, and the Empire State building rises and rises.
Now, I think Oscar is like that in history. From 1900, the year he died, to 2008, where we are now, a hundred and eight years later, the further we've got away from him, the more gigantic he is: the more benevolent, the more wise, the more impressive, the more noble, the more right. He was an extraordinary man. And the fact that I'm here, on a cold day, in Colorado, contemplating Oscar, gives me enormous pleasure."


Anyway... I don't expect much of a response to this entry, because I don't expect anyone to care. I just needed to take a moment to discuss my new love for Stephen Fry on paper because I doubt any of my friends, bless 'em, would sit through my gushing for more than five minutes.

So I’m walking down my block towards Wawa for my weekly junkfood kick.
From behind me I hear a massive THUMP, and a squeal of tires. I turn and see a small brown car hurtling down the street. A woman runs after it screaming out its license plate number. I turn around and see a girl lying on the curb. Two men yell out what kind of car it was, and what year. The girl starts convulsing. Her entire body shakes and jumps. Someone yells out that she’s having a seizure. Some people pull out their phones calling 911, what looks to be the girl’s father gets down on the ground next to the girl and goes to cradle her head, people scream DON’T TOUCH HER. I stand there, useless, wondering what the hell to do. A crowd gathers. A girl walking into the apartment building nearby looks at the girl on the ground, yells, Oh my god, oh my god, and runs into the building. An old lady walks by my with her hand up as a blinder from the scene, as if she just can’t be bothered to look. I’m on the phone with Belinda, she’s being completely rational, trying to keep me from freaking out. The girl’s father is face down on the ground, hand out, not quite touching her. I think he’s crying.

At this point I nearly lose it, and decide to walk away. I didn’t see anything except a car speeding away, ten people saw everything that happened. I go buy my junk food, kind of crying but kind of not. I try to call my mother but she’s in a meeting. On the way back home I see the ambulance, sirens blaring, driving down the street. It doesn’t look like it’s going fast enough. At the spot where it happened, a police car pulls away, and once it’s gone there is no evidence of what took place.

I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel right now. Guilty for not sticking around. Yes. Definitely. I mean, I didn’t see anything except a small brown car driving away. Several people saw the whole thing happen, the type of car, the angle, the license plate number. So I doubt I would have been any help. I don’t know. It was scary and sad and that’s all I know right now.

I hide to myself various base desires
To which I assume no one will pander
Dreams bring me my delusions of grandeur
Which flicker out before the night expires.
Burdens for which there are no names
Drag my feet beneath their weight
A slowing stroll makes me always late
And my arms are far too heavy to play their games.

I bought a movie today with the money I made selling paintings.
Shopgirl, the film adaptation of Steve Martin's novella.
I thought it was going to be a comedy.
It wasn't.
Still, it's managed to completely affect me.
I guess I won't go into detail, in case you guys want to see it (you should!)
However, it is so pure and real and tender and so fucking true.
I never liked Clare Danes until now.
The characters are so true to life
I feel like every situation is one I have experienced completely.
Misunderstandings, saying one thing but meaning another, listening but not really hearing.
It's just very powerful and I think anyone who's ever been in a romantic relationship should see it.

That's my thought for the day. Good night.

I'm becoming my mother
Version 2.0
Except I'm not exactly fat like her
And I've got no cat to keep me company
There is no wine glass in my freezer.
Instead of a huge empty nest
I have a hole in the wall.
Like my mother, it is not my living situation
That hurts so much.
It's me.
It's her.
Two peas in a pod
Make no plans for anyone
And expect no phone calls
Living alone in a room is not the problem.
Living alone in life might be.
Looking for love in all the wrong places
or not looking at all.
I take the former but the latter will not hurt my pride.
Had I my mother's stomach
I would sit up late and finish bottles of wine
Pet the cat, watch CSI and call it a night.
Had I my mother's life
How different would I be?

Every once in a while I notice in a pile on my floor, old notebooks. From high school or summers, spanning months and months. These notebooks really represent who I was at certain points in my life. I gotta say, I really hate how I sound in my little entries. Like I'm so fucking smart and tortured. In all honest reality, I'm just a teenager trying to make sense of a life that hasn't been fully recognized yet. When I read these entries I also see the phases I've been going in and out of nearly all my life. Mostly I am a fan, a lover of art and music. Inspired by great artists. And then I pass through that and try to become an artist in my own right. This never lasts long, and I always give up, thinking there's no point if my work will never be as good as the work that I love.

If I don't get out of this pattern I'll never trust my own creativity - if I have any.

"How pretentious will I be in 20 years? Christ, how pretentious am I now? That's not rhetorical, I want an answer."

I wrote that when I was 16 and I guess it's only gotten worse. Because when I was 16, nobody ever TOLD me I was pretentious.

So the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one.

If I'm such a dick, how do you suggest I fix it? In an attempt to be humble, I leave this question open to all.

sitting in the courtyard at Furness. it's weird now. like liam says, it even smells the same. but no one is out here, no one has been out here for days and days. freshmen passing through, jingling keys, going to the vending machine, put out that cigarette.
remember when we used to sit out here and talk for hours? finish packs of cigarettes and get bitten by mosquitoes? keyboard synth "what's your fantasy?" and climbing from the courtyard up into the window. rikki and travis wearing the same shirt. people galloping by, capturing the flag. that time spruce actually won.
i miss all that shit. i really do.
back home, i was so scared of freshman year that when i got here it was heaven.
and back home, i was so bored with sophomore year that when i got here it was hell.
other situations don't exactly make it easier.
something that comes so naturally shouldn't be denied.
but you know what they say... if it tastes good, it's probably bad for you.

People like me because I compromise so well.
We can do it your way, it's fine, it's fine.
Level headed, I'm not mad, it's fine.
Humble and modest, oh, this old thing?
People like me because I'm nice and friendly
and I never seem to say what I really mean.
You're so pretty/ I wish I had your ribcage.
We can just be friends/ I'll take whatever I can get.
I have no faith in my validity
so why should anyone else?
I do not demand what I deserve
I do not believe that I deserve it.
It's time for a change
time to realize my own potential
and how much I'm worth.
It's time I regurgitated all that humble pie.