This weekend was a fat blur.
It was a fat, pungent blur, filled with enough random circumstances to fill any number of observational narrative books you can find in any Urban Outfitters store. Long weekends are a crazy social scene. Tack on another day to get over a hangover and you have an extra day to get a hangover.
Sunday was no different. The fallout from Saturday was:
(a) talking Japanese with two girls, one native Japanese, one from New York.
(b) meeting the three K's (Kat, Kate, Katherine)
(c) meeting the two Anna's
(d) waking up finding bits of paper with myspace/facebook information on them
(e) subsequently not hearing from anyone
I can't say this weekend was the most hardcore a weekend has ever been for me. But then again, one needs to define "hardcore" to establish what it truly means. For most, it floats between having a good night, and "almost blacking out". On Sunday, two people I was hanging with would explain to me their various nights of reaching the coveted "Black out zone". A mysterious girl I met the night before (Saturday), explained the quota.
"It takes probably 19 beers for me to black out. "
I said, "wow, I can see this guy--"I pointed to my friend Nate, "drinking 19 nineteen beers, but not you."
"Damn, I can see myself drinking 19 beers! " he replied.
The conversation would go like this for a long time. But in terms of the weekend being hardcore, I'd have to give it a 6.5 out of ten. In terms of mental stimulation and the "very cool" factor, it would get an 8. I'm slashing two points because there is no romantic ending to this affair. This weekend has had an interesting theme of educatedly-alcoholic discussions. It is funny to see how passionately and eruditely people can speak about dense, technical issues after seven glasses of wine. It is also interesting to note, how attentive YOU can be, when watching these people extoll the virtues of proper water-shedding pracitces to preserve our water supply, when a drunk (yet very intense) guy is simply like "But... we need plastic!"
Today was a "me" day. Meaning I had nowhere to go, no one to hang with and I needed to get the hell out of my room. The better my night was before, the smaller my room seems to be when I wake up. It is as if the world itself is pulling me outwards, telling me to enjoy the sun and look at the green-leafed trees before they become bare and the sky is grey for months on end.
Its a fitting end to a blurry weekend... a five hour introspective hike across the sprawling DC landscape. My stomach is growling and I eat a protein bar and drink some water. I'm feeling liberated after being so "open" this weekend and I sport a tank top, cargos and my always fashionable Von Dutch trucker. I stop in Chinatown for about ten minutes. Fall is approaching and I want to grab one or two hip looking sports jackets for those longs walks home. I see a few hung up and I make a mental note of the names and the sizes, then I start walking towards the National Mall.
To me the National Mall represents DC tourism. On any given day you can see buses filled with dozens of curious looking Asians, and people speaking a host of Germanic languages. Chinatown is ten or so blocks away from the Mall, which is a wide, sharply designed area that's the tip of the political hub. For about half a square mile, large museums dot the perimeter of a large open space which leads to the Capitol building, shadowed by the massive totem pole people affectionately call "The monument".
I'm walking around and snapping pictures, which naturally leads everyone to think I'm a tourist. (I see no one else wearing a ribbed tank top and cargos for the rest of the day). The last time I was at the Monument, I was watching an AFI (American Film Institute) "Screen on the Green" presentation of Annie Hall. That was one of the first times I truly saw a huge difference between white American culture and everyone else. Just before the movie started, a very old, horrible looking HBO graphic floated across the screen, as low rate synthesized sounds chimed out some horrible version of a pre-digital age jingle. At this point, several thousand (white) people jumped up and started dancing as if possessed by the devil. The screen was well over fifty feet in height, and by my inaccurate estimates I would say there were no less than twenty thousand people in attendance. The dancing was interesting, but not monumental. Hah.
I end up going to an exhibit in the National Air and Space museum. I snap pictures of Korean artwork and eye many cute, visiting Asian girls. There are tons of families milling about. Everytime I see these couples, whatever theories i've heard about aesthetics and the "typical guy" women wants is shattered completely. I ALWAYS see a tall, bald white man with an extremely gorgeous black girlfriend/wife. Or a tall, waspy white man with a gorgeous Asian girlfriend/wife.
I don't look on these people with envy, but I do wonder how it happens sometimes. Before the day is over, I will end up in Ballston to collect a guitar tuner from a guy I interfaced with on craigslist. I will see a short, very hairy chested man (the hair was literally pouring out of his shirt) with a very tall, very attractive Asian girlfriend/wife. The guy wasn't ugly, but he was closer to Wolverine than Superman. This trend isn't limited to waspy white guys of course. I do see many a tall, bald black man walking hand in hand with a cute Asian, but the trend over the last few weeks has definitely been:
Average white guy + attractive girl of other race.
The second to last time I came to the monument, was after a bad breakup with a girl I really liked. That day it wasn't easy watching all the waspy, squirrely men walk by with their gorgeous wives/girlfriends. That day I was wearing a nice white linen shirt, a fresh pair of "man capris" and my famous hat. That day I wanted to feel attractive, but the unbalanced couples all around me was like a slap in the face. Today, it wasn't like that. I don't feel lonely walking around a museum by myself. I am genuinely interested in reading up about Award winning pictures, Korean activists and the mating habits of Terns (a type of bird). I browse the museum a little longer, wondering if I should walk up to a group of Japanese-seeming tourists and say:
Sumimasen? Ago ga wakarimasu ka?
I decide against it. I have a copy of my project in my bag, and I spend the better part of thirty minutes reading through some of my writing. As usual, I'm not impressed by what i've written. These are my thoughts, and my experiences. Re-reading dozens of pages of my own prose isn't inspiring, or very interesting. Its like listening to my mind speak. It is almost boring, but its saved by the fact that there are some anecdotal memories associated with much of what I write. I sit on the steps of the museum, watching about twenty Asian families go in a large purple bus, and I wonder if I'm cut out to be a writer. I wonder if i'm just a 'passionate' writer, who had a great memory as it relates to conversations and circumstances, who can "somewhat" write. Sometimes I used to re-read things I wrote a long time ago, and I would marvel at how well it was written. Now, it is like looking at a page of barely legible scribble. Some call it a personal bias, I call it a lack of innovation.
I get up from the steps and shrug my shoulders. I'm listening to a Goo Goo dolls album, and one of my favourite tracks, "Am I gone" plays in my head. Part of me is hoping i'll see someone I know, but the odds of that are staggering. Most people are using the Monday to sleep, or recover from a nasty hangover. I'm using it to excercise my right to exist in a pattern of conditioned loneliness. I grab my man-bag, and head towards the metro. I see runners dripping rivets of sweat onto the hot midday soil, some wincing as they run, making them look like the messengers of somthing scary and forboding; they are the harbingers of Nike shoes. Some people are laying on tree trunks, sleeping as the leaves comfort them for another few weeks. I ask two large (possibly gay ) men where the metro stop is. They give me a concerned look and I head into the recesses of the city's underbelly. On the train, I switch my Ipod to a dancehall mix, and start reading the Onion. Even though I am sitting by myself on this day, I find solace in laughing at a joke that someone made up.
Maybe writing isn't so bad...
It was a fat, pungent blur, filled with enough random circumstances to fill any number of observational narrative books you can find in any Urban Outfitters store. Long weekends are a crazy social scene. Tack on another day to get over a hangover and you have an extra day to get a hangover.
Sunday was no different. The fallout from Saturday was:
(a) talking Japanese with two girls, one native Japanese, one from New York.
(b) meeting the three K's (Kat, Kate, Katherine)
(c) meeting the two Anna's
(d) waking up finding bits of paper with myspace/facebook information on them
(e) subsequently not hearing from anyone
I can't say this weekend was the most hardcore a weekend has ever been for me. But then again, one needs to define "hardcore" to establish what it truly means. For most, it floats between having a good night, and "almost blacking out". On Sunday, two people I was hanging with would explain to me their various nights of reaching the coveted "Black out zone". A mysterious girl I met the night before (Saturday), explained the quota.
"It takes probably 19 beers for me to black out. "
I said, "wow, I can see this guy--"I pointed to my friend Nate, "drinking 19 nineteen beers, but not you."
"Damn, I can see myself drinking 19 beers! " he replied.
The conversation would go like this for a long time. But in terms of the weekend being hardcore, I'd have to give it a 6.5 out of ten. In terms of mental stimulation and the "very cool" factor, it would get an 8. I'm slashing two points because there is no romantic ending to this affair. This weekend has had an interesting theme of educatedly-alcoholic discussions. It is funny to see how passionately and eruditely people can speak about dense, technical issues after seven glasses of wine. It is also interesting to note, how attentive YOU can be, when watching these people extoll the virtues of proper water-shedding pracitces to preserve our water supply, when a drunk (yet very intense) guy is simply like "But... we need plastic!"
Today was a "me" day. Meaning I had nowhere to go, no one to hang with and I needed to get the hell out of my room. The better my night was before, the smaller my room seems to be when I wake up. It is as if the world itself is pulling me outwards, telling me to enjoy the sun and look at the green-leafed trees before they become bare and the sky is grey for months on end.
Its a fitting end to a blurry weekend... a five hour introspective hike across the sprawling DC landscape. My stomach is growling and I eat a protein bar and drink some water. I'm feeling liberated after being so "open" this weekend and I sport a tank top, cargos and my always fashionable Von Dutch trucker. I stop in Chinatown for about ten minutes. Fall is approaching and I want to grab one or two hip looking sports jackets for those longs walks home. I see a few hung up and I make a mental note of the names and the sizes, then I start walking towards the National Mall.
To me the National Mall represents DC tourism. On any given day you can see buses filled with dozens of curious looking Asians, and people speaking a host of Germanic languages. Chinatown is ten or so blocks away from the Mall, which is a wide, sharply designed area that's the tip of the political hub. For about half a square mile, large museums dot the perimeter of a large open space which leads to the Capitol building, shadowed by the massive totem pole people affectionately call "The monument".
I'm walking around and snapping pictures, which naturally leads everyone to think I'm a tourist. (I see no one else wearing a ribbed tank top and cargos for the rest of the day). The last time I was at the Monument, I was watching an AFI (American Film Institute) "Screen on the Green" presentation of Annie Hall. That was one of the first times I truly saw a huge difference between white American culture and everyone else. Just before the movie started, a very old, horrible looking HBO graphic floated across the screen, as low rate synthesized sounds chimed out some horrible version of a pre-digital age jingle. At this point, several thousand (white) people jumped up and started dancing as if possessed by the devil. The screen was well over fifty feet in height, and by my inaccurate estimates I would say there were no less than twenty thousand people in attendance. The dancing was interesting, but not monumental. Hah.
I end up going to an exhibit in the National Air and Space museum. I snap pictures of Korean artwork and eye many cute, visiting Asian girls. There are tons of families milling about. Everytime I see these couples, whatever theories i've heard about aesthetics and the "typical guy" women wants is shattered completely. I ALWAYS see a tall, bald white man with an extremely gorgeous black girlfriend/wife. Or a tall, waspy white man with a gorgeous Asian girlfriend/wife.
I don't look on these people with envy, but I do wonder how it happens sometimes. Before the day is over, I will end up in Ballston to collect a guitar tuner from a guy I interfaced with on craigslist. I will see a short, very hairy chested man (the hair was literally pouring out of his shirt) with a very tall, very attractive Asian girlfriend/wife. The guy wasn't ugly, but he was closer to Wolverine than Superman. This trend isn't limited to waspy white guys of course. I do see many a tall, bald black man walking hand in hand with a cute Asian, but the trend over the last few weeks has definitely been:
Average white guy + attractive girl of other race.
The second to last time I came to the monument, was after a bad breakup with a girl I really liked. That day it wasn't easy watching all the waspy, squirrely men walk by with their gorgeous wives/girlfriends. That day I was wearing a nice white linen shirt, a fresh pair of "man capris" and my famous hat. That day I wanted to feel attractive, but the unbalanced couples all around me was like a slap in the face. Today, it wasn't like that. I don't feel lonely walking around a museum by myself. I am genuinely interested in reading up about Award winning pictures, Korean activists and the mating habits of Terns (a type of bird). I browse the museum a little longer, wondering if I should walk up to a group of Japanese-seeming tourists and say:
Sumimasen? Ago ga wakarimasu ka?
I decide against it. I have a copy of my project in my bag, and I spend the better part of thirty minutes reading through some of my writing. As usual, I'm not impressed by what i've written. These are my thoughts, and my experiences. Re-reading dozens of pages of my own prose isn't inspiring, or very interesting. Its like listening to my mind speak. It is almost boring, but its saved by the fact that there are some anecdotal memories associated with much of what I write. I sit on the steps of the museum, watching about twenty Asian families go in a large purple bus, and I wonder if I'm cut out to be a writer. I wonder if i'm just a 'passionate' writer, who had a great memory as it relates to conversations and circumstances, who can "somewhat" write. Sometimes I used to re-read things I wrote a long time ago, and I would marvel at how well it was written. Now, it is like looking at a page of barely legible scribble. Some call it a personal bias, I call it a lack of innovation.
I get up from the steps and shrug my shoulders. I'm listening to a Goo Goo dolls album, and one of my favourite tracks, "Am I gone" plays in my head. Part of me is hoping i'll see someone I know, but the odds of that are staggering. Most people are using the Monday to sleep, or recover from a nasty hangover. I'm using it to excercise my right to exist in a pattern of conditioned loneliness. I grab my man-bag, and head towards the metro. I see runners dripping rivets of sweat onto the hot midday soil, some wincing as they run, making them look like the messengers of somthing scary and forboding; they are the harbingers of Nike shoes. Some people are laying on tree trunks, sleeping as the leaves comfort them for another few weeks. I ask two large (possibly gay ) men where the metro stop is. They give me a concerned look and I head into the recesses of the city's underbelly. On the train, I switch my Ipod to a dancehall mix, and start reading the Onion. Even though I am sitting by myself on this day, I find solace in laughing at a joke that someone made up.
Maybe writing isn't so bad...
1 comment:
hey i took a picture of that "thinking rabbit" for my other class!
Post a Comment