Note to the Universe:

There is a reason I don't talk about art, why I avoid conversations like, "What makes an artist?" And it's not (only) because I am superficial. They always end up far too fraught, too angry, too tense. Because I do have strong opinions, but they are nihilistic in the most utopian way possible.

"Only the shallow know themselves." —Oscar Wilde

Truer Words

When will you realise that it never pays
To be smarter than teachers
Smarter than most boys?
Shut your mouth, start kicking the football
Bang on the teeth, you’re off for a week boy

something so zen

about calling the shop to ask about my car and being transferred to the service department where the phone rings into infinity.

CarF*ckers

I wanted desert, so I gathered together a random assortment of friends who were glum and tired, coming down after the ecstacy they took at a rave last night. We wanted not merely pie, but a House of Pies, so we drove up Vermont. I hit a pothole and saw my speedometer drop from forty to zero. I'm still moving, I thought, but slowing down.

"Why are you going so slowly?" Jessi asks.

I put on my blinker and pulled onto the next side street, and she just lay down and died. The tow truck came in a record-setting five minutes. The driver looked at it and told me that gas wasn't getting to the engine, so she needed to be taken to the shop. I smiled and nodded—he's the one driving that truck.

So she was dropped off in the deserted Pep Boys parking lot, just waiting to be vandalized. And the four of us shuffled away as nonchalant as when we'd entered the car. Somehow it just seemed so blasé, so we got some coffee and waddled home.

Bad Credit

Thanks to the Patriot Act, I cannot receive a credit card at my school address. Stupid Terrorists.

epiphany

As I lay in bed two nights ago, I asked myself what I wanted to do when I grow up (in less than two months). Publishing? True, it has been my devout goal for the past eight months, but salaries are low, and do I really want a job with homework? Teaching? Kids—ugh. Writing? I'd rather be watching television. Lawyer, Social Worker, Professor? I shudder at the thought of going to another class, ever. I never thought I would identify with the sentiment expressed in Office Space—that if I had a billion dollars, I would want to do nothing—but I do, I really do. If you need any proof, simply ask my friend Jessi who saved the three-page conversation I had with her away message on Instant Messenger last night.

So I rephrased the question: What job would I hate the least upon graduation? Something utterly nonacademic, something hands-on. Something retail maybe? Then, it hit me: a chef! I would love to be a chef! Just working with food all day long, trying to come up with ways to reinvent the chicken. It would be awesome.

I've started looking into it, and there are a few drawbacks: another four years at school, plus years of apprenticeships. Not to mention the hours: 4 pm to 2 am, hmmm.

So what does this tell me? Just how dire a toll academia has taken on my psyche. My mental acuity has been shattered to the point that cooking sounds like my calling. (And maybe it is, maybe it is, but there's no way to know right now.)

On the inside

there's a West Hollywood boi scrambling to break free. No, really.

Comprehensive List of Boys I Have Kissed

1. Nelson. Of course. Being the only two gay boys at our conservative, little prep school, it was inevitable.
2. That documentary filmmaker harassing people in line for the bleachers at the Oscars. He kept going up to girls, asking if they would make out with him. They all said no, and so did I. But when my friends offered me money for ten seconds of work, it was the easiest twenty dollars I ever made.
3. Alex. The last experience taught me that selling myself was quite my talent, so it was the talent I performed at the annual Mr. GroundZero pageant. I auctioned myself, and Alex won with a $20 bid. I promised him ten percent of my winnings. I came in second, I won fifty bucks, he got five.
4. Some guy at some club in Edinburgh. I thought people were whispering about me, but then I convinced myself I was just being paranoid. Then he approached me, "I don't mean to be rude, but do you mind if I snog you?" I was drunk and thrilled, so we made out for a few minutes until he said, "thank you," and disappeared into the crowd.
5. Louis. I met him at Jesse's party, but with a lip ring and beret, he was way too hot to be in my league. But he kept bringing me drinks and forcing conversation, so the question, "Do you want to go out to my car?" just seemed the natural follow-up.
6. Paul. At the Halloween party, he was dressed as a mermaid, and Peter Pan managed to land this one within two minutes of arrival.
7. Ryan. Same night, same party. As the game of spin the bottle wound down, he whined that he wanted to make out with someone. Peter Pan said, "I'll make out with you, Ryan." "Wait," he said, "what's your na--? Never mind." He was a senior in high school. Scandalous.
8. Terie. Valentines Day. I get, "Hey, haven't I seen you somewhere before?" all the time. But this time, it actually was a line. It was a tequila Valentine's. It didn't take much.

Yes, still single digits. And note, none of them are boys I liked beforehand.

Wisdom [Edited]

What we learned here is love tastes bitter when it's gone
Funny how it comes to pass, that all the good slips away
And there’s no one around you can remember being good to you
Shame, shouldn’t try you, couldn’t step by you and open up more shame
What we lost here is something better left alone
Second steps have been forgotten, will you tell me how they go
Set yourself, situate, like a fool try again
There’s no one around you can remember being good for you
But there’s no one around who can tell us what we’re here for
Funny in a certain light, how we all look the same
And there’s no one in life who can remember ever stood for you

Poststructural Analysis: Say what you will about clichés and the demise of artistic integrity in popular music, but may lightning strike me dead if these words don't ring exceptionally true right now. I've never been wiser than I was when I was thirteen.

Extra credit goes to those who know the source.

I Will Destroy You Something Beautiful

The Vagina Monologues ended around one o'clock in the morning last night, and as I walked outside of the theater, I saw an eight-year-old boy standing outside waiting for me. "Oh shit." I remembered he had approached me earlier in the evening to tell me that he was lost, and I had offered to help him find his parents. Instead, I had gone to see the play and forgotten about him completely, so he had waited for me outside for the duration of the two-and-a-half hour show. I asked him where he lived and he told me, "East L.A." We climbed into my car and I started taking surface streets east eventually only to hit a dead end. At that point, I had to turn around to find another street east, and it suddenly struck me how creepy it was—and compromising even—to drive a little boy I didn't know home at one-thirty in the morning.

Pop Jungian Interpretation: The boy must be my inner child, not the effusive, jubilant one, but the needy one who nurses drawn-out, draining and improbable crushes. And even though I am in control—I am driving, after all—I am playing to his whimsy. And it is creepy that despite knowing better, I still head east: a vague destination that can only lead to dead ends.

Quiet Life of Desperation

Story of my life, kids. I'm frantic.

Hot Little Hands

In my hot little hands, I currently hold a boarding pass for tonight's Hawaiian Air flight. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that I can't take anything at face value. Still, I can't surpress a slightly giddy feeling: things look promising.

By the Numbers

50: Number of people by which Friday's flight was overbooked.
115: Minimum number of people who held valid tickets on previously cancelled flights who were placed on stand-by for Friday's flight
165: Sum of previous two statistics; maximum number of people who held valid tickets but not boarding passes for Friday's flight
15: Maximum number of those people who were eventually given boarding passes
80: Minimum number of additional ticketed passengers necessary for Hawaiian Airlines corporate office to send a second plane
2: Minimum number of people arrested for assaulting Hawaiian Airlines representatives
2: Hours by which the closing of the gate was delayed by long lines to check-in

Worst Case Scenario Repeats Itself

Three planeloads of passengers attempted to check themselves in for the Pago Pago-Honolulu flight this evening. Among those were people like me who were booked on the Sunday or Monday flights, which were cancelled, but still have not been told how (if?) they will be accomodated. Check in started at six-thirty; people began lining up at three. The line stretched forever: those who showed up at six-thirty were finally met at the counter at eleven-thirty for a flight scheduled to leave at 11:20. People began boarding the flight at around ten-thirty, but it did not leave until two. Sound familiar to anyone? It would if you'd tried to check in for their Wednesday flight when the exact same thing occured.

So call Hawaiian Air and berate them senseless. (Their number is 1-800-367-5320; let them know exactly what you think of their reprehensible treatment of the people of American Samoa. Go!) Visit their offices and tease them endlessly. Stop by the airport, stand in their lines and bite their passengers. There are no innocents anymore.

Desperate Logic

The defining characteristic of postmodern capitalism, i.e. multinational consumerism if you will, is its ever-increasing interconnectedness and density of networks. As borders become permeable, corporations become multinational. Monopoly still refers to exclusively providing services within a given geographical boundary, even though horizontal and vertical integration can now occur on a global scale. Some experts have suggested we see this not as corporations become bigger and more powerful, but smaller and consolidating. The middle class disappears as the fat cats become fatter and fewer. Underlings multiply as there are now less positions in which to move up. This increase in bureaucracy parallels fascism in an eerily sobering way, and it makes it that much harder to kick the teeth in of the person who's screwing you over.

Hawaiian Airheads

Rumors circulating include: there would be an extra flight except that two planes are currently stuck in Portland; they're allowing people from all three overbooked flight to check-in for tonight's to show headquarters just how many passengers they're forced to turn away; they've had to postpone flights to Seattle and Portland so those routes get priority for planes; they are fifty seats overbooked on tonight's flight; there is no such thing as a "priority waiting list;" and the Portland planes are bogus.

Riot likely impending.

If you happen to know the home phone numbers of any of the upper management of Hawaiian Airlines, now is the time to make that call.

Gasping for Hawaiian Air

I am told that I currently on the Priority Waiting List for tonight's flight, which is customer-service-speak for, "Fuck you, leave us alone."

Who knew I was a revolutionary?

Participatory media, I like that.

Dispatch from the Homefront

There’s nothing quite like a natural disaster to make you feel just how petty and inconsequential your life really is:

“The Tutors’ Club. This is V---- speaking, how can I help you?”
“Hi, is Mark there?”
“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting at the moment. Could I take a message?”
“Sure, could you let him know that due to tropical cyclone Heta, I won’t be returning to work this week, but I will let him know as soon I can schedule a flight out of here.”
“A tropical cyclone?” he asks, in his wannabe-movie-star, Southern Californian accent. “Su-u-ure thing!”

And that’s it. No one really misses you.

Dispatch from the Homefront

I thought Samoa was dull over the the two weeks leading up to today. At least, then, we had electricity. I hadn't realized I had it so lucky.