Tomorrow evening I'm leaving for Florida for a week.
My grandmother, who was moved out here due to Alzheimers, is still in ownership of her old apartment back in Fort Lauderdale. Mom went out a few weeks back in order to fix it up for rental. We're going back this week to work on some final touches. I haven't been out there since I was four or five or something, so it'll be an experience for me.
I'd say it'd be grand, but this is the forecast for the next week. So much for getting some sun!!
I'm going to be bringing my dad's laptop, so if I can bum wifi off a neighbor, I'll be reachable. If not, I'll have stories ready for when I come home next Friday.
There were no hitches, no accidents, nuclear apocalypse the night before (as I'd had nightmares of!). The ceremony was strange if not laughable, but the moments after were to be cherished. Some people, I'm just not ready to leave behind yet.
And then there's life After Highschool. I never really perceived beyond this, because from elementary to middle, from middle to high school, it's always seemed as if I'd never finish or get out alive. I'd be property of the LAUSD for the rest of my life. And now I'm off, away, on my own, and it's truly unbelievable.
I know life won't take a 360 just because I'm out of high school. I might even feel more welcome in my own skin, now that my status fits the attitude and schedule I've had for so long. I do have a strange sense, a rightfully optimistic sense, though, that things will begin to get better.
I really don't have much to say besides that this is ridiculous, I've never had such a busy last-two weeks of school. For one, we got solidly jipped of our much-needed dead week due to last-minute changes in finals scheduling. So teachers basically said, let's just keep teaching until they decide. And so I've actually had to study for finals at home. Woe!
Plus, I'm still popular around campus, and ever since senior awards night, my ability to say no has been considerably diminished. I still have three art/photography related endeavors to complete in the next week. And uhh, speaking of Senior Awards Night, you won't believe how much dirt I [accidentally] dug up..! but that's another story, for other ears and other times.
So I've been trying to study for physiology, but it's pretty friggin impossible when this keeps happening:
I don't quite have the heart to move her.
Anyways. It's been warming up, and all I can think of is what I'll do as soon as this next week is over. But it's a strange paradox, because I'd be a liar if I said nostalgia wasn't starting to set in. All this yearbook signing, all these empty class hours, it all finally has a finality to it. There's something very fatalistic about it all. There's a ticking clock over so many the heads of so many friendships. It's both strange and amazing, and against my better sense, I've been wishing these next seven days to slow down like they never have before.
The completion of this also marked the end of almost all my anxiety for this year. At this point I have just the play itself to deal with, and a few smaller art-related jobs. Besides that, I can enjoy my evenings (after rehearsals, that is), and sleep early on weekends. It'll be good relief for my well being overall. So, here's to enjoying what's left of the school year.
Today is my last day up here at CBGV. It's a Sunday, quiet, as to be expected. On a roster of over one hundred agents, there are maybe four that I'll miss. One of those might even be moving up to where I'll be.
Leaving people behind is a strange feeling. I reflect on perhaps how they influenced me, how I might have left some sort of impression on them. While likely in this sort of setting is that the chances are slim, it still brings to mind all the effort invested. All the effort to be kind, to listen sincerely, to give not only your time but a part of your soul to each person who you spend such time around. Will I ever see these people again? Does it even matter? Had I stayed, would I have gleaned anything more than what I already have taken? In this case, probably not, but let's apply it to more sentimental things - like, oh, say, a certain graduation that will be happening in a few short months. So I guess my point validates itself more there, and the basis is still the same. All these people I've invested so much in suddenly slipslide away into some vast terrain in the mind labeled the Past.
Back to the offices - my only reservation in making the switch between jobs was that I'd have to start completely from scratch, with people who hardly know my face, let alone my name, and build up a new foundation of proving myself from there. And then there are those seized by the fear of this change, that all of this hard work and sincere effort will be put to waste with a single change. I wonder if such fear really does paralyze the weaker of spirit.
And while I do realize this is the essence of youth - the moving, the changing, the growing, the evolving, I know a person can't last this way all their life. So at what point (obviously not now, certainly hypothetically) does one say, here and now is where I stop changing? Where does one say, Here is where I settle, for better or for worse, and grow into the life that I've made for myself?
And theres me, knowing me - and for the few who really do to the deepest extent, will understand when I pose the question: Will I ever settle?
- - -
I'll take a bit of a segue here into a different branch of this social psychology. Recently it's occurred to me the absolute humanity that the Internet provides. So, we have the basic (literal and figurative) linking from one person to the next, across miles, infinitely. But what truly provides, I find, is either the complete anonymity, or the blatant personalization, and how it juxtaposes. Here on one hand you have MySpace, Facebook, Livejournal, you have FacetheJudges and all its infinite spinoffs, you have BBS systems and blogs, all of which a name can be stamped to a face can be stamped to an opinion, point of view, or sex appeal.
That's all great, but my interest is in the opposite end of the spectrum - the way that these same psychological outlets can be fulfilled in total anonymous way. Let's take a look at a few of the more common examples of this. We have the now popularized PostSecret, a concept that while mobilized by snail-mail, would not exist without the communalization of the Internet. And of course, its immediacy-based Livejournal counterpart, which plays off an alternate meaning of the word "post", which is even truer as there is no second-party discretion in the display of these secrets. Similar, and often lewder, is GroupHug. And then there's FutureMe, and while its basis is off of emailing your future self, its public-posted anonymous submissions have the same effect as the former.
Shameless as it is (and shameless is truly the adjective at hand), I still find myself drawn in as week after week I'll return, for a few brief minutes, to dip into the lives of others. I'm not sure yet if it's a feminine compassionate (or gossipy, curious and prying) trait that makes me so intrigued, or if it's a broader theme of the connection of likeminded (or not-so likeminded), and utterly human voices that come across through these ones and zeros. And of course, I'd be a liar myself to say that I don't indulge in it too.
So is this a revolution? An emotional revolution, to be exact? In what other form has it been provided for us such an honest, faceless or represented, means of inner expression? Regardless, in a small way, it's capable of teaching us a lot. It erases that ever-so-tempting existentialist front that we may tend to put up, and lets us realize that we're only human, just like everyone else.
So, I'm making my dress for senior prom this year, and now that I'm done with applications, it's probably a good idea that I get started.
Except, I'm very much indecisive about what dress I actually want to make, and your opinion (yes, every one of you) is required to aid my decision-making.
So, I had the most amazing sandwich in the world. It dripped all over my shoes. And then I got pissed off and it made me feel yuckeh. Such is life, I guess.
- - -
So, that video on Prohibition that we did last year for Mercer's.. I finally got it up onto YouTube, thanks muchly to Zoe's connections.
It's pretty grand, considering we had to do it without any edits on an old tape camera. I can take credit for the script, direction was a complete collaboration of four minds of genius, and the acting is at least good for a laugh. :]
Driving oftentimes, I lose total conscious control, and slip into a safe sort of autopilot. And I follow habits navigations, routes I don't intend to take, some of them so deeply ingrained it takes me a while to realize why I did just what I did.
This is how I found myself taking sidestreets back to my house, taking Shirley Ave. to chute me from Parthenia to Tampa. I was so deeply focused on figuring out exactly what pattern of by-gone habit caused me to drive this way, that I almost missed the significance of the rows and rows of white trucks on the unpaved road. At first I took them for moving vans until seeing sound booms, large black equiptment and many very busy looking people.
I slowed down in attempt to pathetically rubberneck, but all I could catch a glimpse of was a very handsome, Wayne Coyne-esque beard.
I drove on, lines of parked cars narrowing the already narrow residential street, wondering why they had to drive half an hour from Hollywood just to find a ranch house.
- - -
I got home and opened the fridge, stomach aching always from lack of proper something. There was no milk, but a cereal box tucked next to the vegetables.
It's an attempt to get me to not only draw more often, but actually post what I do instead of letting it sit two years in between website redesigns. Add me if you're interested, but I won't be offended if you don't. I won't LJ cut. I will be happy if you give me good criticism, or just lvoe.
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blublayze's journal
