![[icon]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/37125477/3897943) |
ain't no gyroscope can spin forever, yeah.
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| Stuff I saw this summer for the first time:
Eulogy
Funny Ha Ha
The House of Yes
Wristcutters
The Corporation
Dirty Harry
Dog Day Afternoon
French Connection
Crash
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Lost in Translation
Casablanca
M*A*S*H*
The Hurt Locker
Bonnie and Clyde
Manhattan
Synecdoche, New York
Strange Brew
The Red Balloon
Mother Night
Catch-22
And in theaters:
Star Trek
Moon
Funny People
The Hangover
Inglourious Basterds
Unless I'm forgetting something, I enjoyed every single thing I saw. Except The Corporation, which was interesting but not really up my alley. And Strange Brew is out of place there. But every single other thing - see it, if you haven't. | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment   |
| What do you do on the day that one of your personal heroes dies? John Darnielle's been talking about cancer a lot. Really weirds me out. Reminds me of the day I accidentally told Lynsey Major that Vonnegut died when I thought she knew. I smoked some Pall Malls and stood outside our apartment feeling sad for a few hours.
Everyone loses a hero. What did you do the last time it happened?
Oh, and I'm seeing someone. How weird is that? Facebook told me "you are now in a relationship" and it's a little spooky. Hurrah. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is my first year for fantasy football. Comment with your e-mail address (or mail me at arussell19@gmail.com) if you want in.
Also, my life has been pretty damn awesome lately. Hope yours has too. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| My 11 year old cousin was here this week. He likes House, apparently. His one comment about it was that in the episode "The Jerk" he said:
"I don't want to grow up and be like him!" | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| It's been almost three months of The Single Life starring our hero. I used to post more than anyone I knew, now I try not to re-write the same post every few days.
I'm over it, in a grand sense. I can see her facebook status updates without freaking out. I almost commented on one the other day, but it doesn't serve any purpose.
As with everything else in my life, this makes me reflect. Maybe I was in love with love and not the girl. Maybe I was just clinging to old times. It doesn't really matter, but I'll turn it over in my head just for the sake of it.
This summer I've worked a bit, listened to podcasts, read a few books (not enough) seen a few movies (not enough) and got caught up on every TV show I like. It hasn't been the rebirth I'd hoped where I drop 40 pounds and re-read every book in my room, but I'm in a good place with everything in my life.
It's still weird to see her "tweets" on people's phones or to tell a story and realize that I'm just making myself sad on accident.
I went to Kansas. I like Lawrence, even if I hate KU. The drive was interesting. I finished some books on CD. I rediscovered my love of The Hold Steady. Rekindled some friendships with some old friends. Let some others drift away.
I haven't tried to watch High Fidelity recently, making this probably the longest stretch in years in which I have not seen it again, but I think it's a baby step towards being fully beyond it by not pouring salt in the wound. Not yet, at least.
A bunch of people are moving away this summer, some of which have been rock-solid members of my past and present (Steph and alexgood among them) and it sounds like everyone's feeling good about what they're doing.
My brother just ran with the bulls in Spain and drank 18 dollar beers with his girlfriend/lady-friend.
The message is that some people are busier than others, but everyone I know seems to be having a helluva time doing it. I definitely am, even if I have less to show for it these months than usual. I'm not a basketcase, and I was definitely worried about that contingency.
Now I'm gonna go watch a movie and play a game with some dudes. In a month, alexgood won't live here. You make the most of the time you have with the people you've got. I'm proud of the memories with Abby and I loved our time together. I've had this all wrong. John Darnielle would tell me "[you've] got the best of my love" but he'd also tell me that there's beauty in doing everything you can, burning the candle at every end, and just coming up short. I will live in the moment we stood in 919, the greatest place I've ever known, and shouted at Matt's giant TV playing a game called "Shout About Music."
And maybe you shouldn't base a relationship on someone who will yell about music with you and laugh at people in public, but the sight of her uncontrollable leg shake as she gloated to me brings a smile to my face, even if I never see her again.
NEW GAME START | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| .... if you've never driven to a casino at one in the morning on a whim because you and corey buran ran into two guys you kinda know at a bar...
...you should. just saying. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| i debated back and forth if i should have left my old post up. decided not to.
everyone knows how I feel, anyway.
i'm totally fine except for one thing. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I was at work today all day and I composed this big thing about times in my life I've "redefined" myself internally. Times I decided to embrace things about myself I previously didn't like. The Alex Bad thing, a few times in high school. After freshman year of college when I decided to stop using the "depressed" tag.
And I still believe it, but I don't think it would be honest to post it now. Not as a big "this is it!"
I have a few things to tie up before school's over for the semester. I do plan to stick to the weight loss program that has so far been only marginally successful and it might not even be this summer. I don't know if I'll get to the novel. I can't focus.
I'm not unraveling like I thought I'd be. I can't believe she left and I can't believe the reasons even more than that. It seems wrong the way bad dreams do, where people can fly so you know that it isn't real. Someone can't wake up and take themselves out of your life. They can't, not without warning. But they can. She did.
There's never going to be a big hatred post. No one really dropped a "you can do better" or anything. I think everyone I talked to understood that this was something I'd finally bought in on and it was supposed to be a big step. To borrow a line, this was "the person you never run out of falling in love with."
I don't need to get married at 24. I don't need to move in with anyone. I won't have a lot of money (any money?) and I have less than a complete picture of the future. But she at least opened the door. She helped me see that I COULD do that SOMEDAY. She always told me the same thing, if more cautiously, until the day she didn't.
This doesn't cause me to cast down the whole "I'LL NEVER TRUST AGAIN!" but when you go this long and this hard believing you've really broken the ice on going to the next step of your life, having your partner in it leave with essentially no fanfare and absolutely no warning is even more terrifying than a flaming breakup.
It went from 100 to 0 in about twelve hours.
Imagine waking up tomorrow and every sure thing breaks away. I'm not going to do anything drastic.
I just can't believe it's real. I keep expecting her to call up and say this is just like Bradley where she spent a few days demanding she needed an extra semester. Or all the times she went through rough patches with family and friends, most of which she made good with again. Like me, she's a worrier and dramatic. She takes things to heart and she gets wounded pretty easily. I always loved that passion about her, and to see her end it in a twenty minute instant message with sincerity, but really in a subdued way.... it doesn't click.
I keep expecting her to be the girl I knew for two years instead of the one i've known for less than a week. The one I really don't know at all.
----
I know everyone is going through rough times of their own right now. I'm trying to listen and I hope those of you who are graduating make some lasting memories and enjoy your last few days at this level.
----
Since I'll say it eventually, I may as well say it now. We had our problems, but we worked. And that's not something I'm good at - but I tried to listen and improve. I loved her in a way I wasn't sure I could, because all the callous mistakes of my past seemed unthinkable with her.
I don't believe in soulmates. I think Abby and I were lucky to find each other on a quasi-double date outside a bar we hated. She was a very special person, and one of the few people I can say I ever truly loved.
I don't think there's anything else to say. Barring unexpected developments, the story of Abby and I is over like that. We had fights, arguments, petty pot-shots at each other and months and months of love and respect.
I'm really not holding anything back. I'm angry, but more angry at the situation. She made an honest case, and you can't fault someone for that. I never felt like I was re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic with her. Every step felt like a real step, not repressed problems that come out in a fight. I tried, especially in the last six months, to do everything I could to make it work. So did she, to the point of making concessions I didn't expect.
I'm not really miserable, because I'm not sure how to respond. It all seems so unreal, so unexpected that it's like it couldn't have happened. I can't blame her for doing what she wants to do. If being with me isn't making her happy, then why would I want that for her? I would want to work it out, if there were anything to work out. But if there's not, then it's just over.
There's going to be sad nights, especially since I just saw her and we were so happy. The summer will probably see some weak moments, but I've already trained myself to stop checking her AIM and I deleted our text history, because it made me sad. You can't purge someone from your memory and I wouldn't want to. It never went bad, so I can't even find blame. It's just a blank space.
And it ends with an apology, as it only could have.
I'm sorry I wasn't what she wanted, but apparently she believes I never will be. And maybe I can't be. If she thinks she's right, then that's the only vote that counts. And that's how it ends. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| i wake up early for no reason and force myself to go back to sleep.
i sleep for twenty seven more minutes.
i dream we are in new york. austin duck, who i have not seen in a long time, is there.
she is there.
we get on a bus. she sits on my lap. i tell her, "i didn't expect to see you again."
she smiles.
i wake up.
i'm alone. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Reply with Five Things you think everyone in the world should experience but that few people have, along with your reasoning. So it can't just be something that's awesome, it has to be something awesome that the people in this LJ group haven't come into contact with. Hamlet would be a shitty example, because half the people here have read it already. There's no real limit, but try to keep it more on objects like books and food and less on experiences like "you should go to rome."
I lifted this from Andrew and Nata, and I liked theirs. Mine will be worse. I don't care if you like these things, but these are things you can experience if you do so choose.
1. Life After God (book)
Douglas Coupland is the kind of guy that I cannot stand, but I have to respect. I've read five of his books, and he's just weird. He supposedly popularized Generation X as a term and most of his themes deal with this ironic/hip/not-hip world we live in and the things we choose to identify with. Ramen noodles = poor and lonely lifestyle, MS Word = work, but a tool you come to identify with, etc.
I wouldn't have expected to like it, but Kenton turned me on to him years and years ago and I've given Microserfs out to just about everyone that's asked for a book rec. Life After God is about mortality and how you experience it before you actually die. It shook my whole world view and I read it in one night. I used to give it to everyone as a gift, I've probably bought it at least four times. It's something you could walk into Borders and read in a chair, and if you ever find yourself in that situation, I'd suggest it.
2. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (movie) or Daniel Johnston (music)
I am interested in things I can't explain but get well regarded reviews. I spent a long time trying to understand Radiohead's appeal as THE BIGGEST BAND IN THE WORLD and I think I'm as close as I ever will get. Bands like Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Muse, and half of the XMU Indie Radio line up just elude me completely. I listen to Animal Collective and I feel like there must be something wrong with me, because that stuff is 0/10 no stars bad to me. Sounds like screams and banging.
Some of this is cultivated hatred and some is just a difference of taste. But outsider music has always interested me. Daniel Johnston is about as popular as an outsider musician can get, and I got a bunch of his music to see. Jon used to listen to what he explained as "creepy" music. I'd call this a tributary of that, at least. Johnston was in love with a girl when he was younger, and she married a mortician. He essentially dedicated the rest of his life to her memory and his obsessions. His music is interesting as a look into his mind. He is very clearly mentally ill - he once threw the keys out of a plane his father was flying at the time and forced a crash. He is alternatively deeply religious (afraid of The Devil, Satan, Hell, etc) and into secular culture and drugs. He's also in the second half of his life and still lives with his parents. So, yeah.
The movie is a documentary about his life. I wouldn't call myself a "fan" of Daniel Johnston, but this movie puts a lot of issues into perespective - and the scene where they track down the woman he pined for through outsider music for decades and introduce her to him as a musician and somewhat closet star, well, that's worth the price of admission, right there.
3. High Fidelity (book)
Obviously see the movie, but that doesn't fit the assignment's requirements. The book has a lot of themes that hit close to home. I read this on the airplane and in the Detroit airport when I went to Chicago for my last Goats concert. I saw the film first, and I'm glad to have done it, but the book really is a treat. It has a somewaht different feel, in a good way.
4. Goose Island 312
Named after the area code in Chicago, this beer is delicious. I like a lot of beers in a wide range (except for Guinness, which is somewhat difficult for me to explain. I know I'm supposed to like it, but if I want beef and barley soup I can get that elsewhere) but this is my favorite. It might be that "go to rome' aspect that I only love it because I cannot get it here, but I really enjoy it whenever I go back. It's something I can drink a lot of and the taste never becomes unimportant. It defies description.
5. IHOP Coffee
I cut my coffee-teeth on Waffle House with Ashley and Jon and Jen and Lindsay and the like. I spent my fair share of time in CK's with Kenton and a rotating crew of people I didn't know well, yet. But there's something about the coffee at IHOP, which those of you who were a few weeks back can attest to. I won't say it's the best coffee in the world, but it's definitely the closest to what I expect from coffee. It surprised me, too.
If I had a six, it would be "Things I've Learned from Women Who Dumped Me" in the audiobook format. If for no reason other than "Don't Leave Room for the Holy Spirit" by Tom McCarthy, which is thirteen minutes you owe it to yourself to listen to.
Seven would be EarthBound for the SNES. Game is great. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is totally unedited. In AP English, five years ago, Mrs. Parker made us all write a letter to ourselves in five years. At the time, if I'm not mistaken, Morgan and I were together and doing well (as well as we ever did) and I expected to be about where I am now. Those days are somewhat of a blur. This was written on the day that I stood up against Dan Cummings, which is an interesting day to remember. Five years from now I'll be 28 - who knows where that will put me.
5/11/04 12:00 PM Senior Year - AP English
Hey,
Today, you spent the day bickering at people about gay rights. That's because, at 18 you were mighty pissed at all sorts of things.
Remember that anger. Write your book. Fight for what you believe.
The most important thing in life is that you feel OK with everything that happens.
So long as every night, you can say that's true, then life is as good as it gets. That's all you'll ever need to know.
Little failures only matter if you let them.
But you only get better when you let them.
Love,
Yourself
(this is the back:)
Tucker, Jon, Adam, Brent, Morgan
These are the people you'd die for.
Doug, Leigh, Jessica, Jessica Bode, Andrew, Natalie, John Arnold, Austin Duck, Stephanie
These are the rest that you love, if not all at once.
Never forget these people, and never remember your grudges.
Life's too short, and you're too lucky.
JUST BE OKAY, du calme, c'est la vie , and stall for time. life will be okay, despite your detractors.
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| | Subject: | BUSY | | Time: | 06:02 pm |
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| I am glad to see LJ come back.
I have been ridiculously busy lately but doing well.
I got my letter from five years ago, I'll type it up this week. There are lols in it.
I have to go read about England! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| I just deleted my deadjournal.
Those days are only embarrassing. Probably going to purge the old livejournal, too.
If you have any memories from my old journal ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) zander019 go ahead and back them up or whatever. I'll probably delete it soon.
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| Actually, I'm just calling the pool off. I'll mail back any money I get. People didn't seem too interested and being this far away from each other without paypal seemed doomed from the get go.
HOWEVER, there's a couple (fifteen at writing) folks in my facebook pool at
http://apps.facebook.com/cbssports/groups/group/179084
so join up if you want bragging rights.
Name's "I Am Right About Everything And Now You Know That, Like Me"
I think that says it all. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This is the day they announce the brackets.
We are all scattered across the USA, but we are doing this.
I am going to host a pool. To enter my pool, mail me five dollars in cash or check or mail order or whatever you wish. If you get me five dollars to:
Alex Bad
3471 Bent Creek Cv
Collierville, TN 38017
Then you are in. I will invite people by facebook to said pool. The winner will get a check for all the money I get after the national championship game. Alex Good and other non-facebook users post a bracket in the comments of this post.
If you want to bring me the money or have me meet you in town, that's fine too. I know this doesn't seem like much money, but you wouldn't MISS five bucks if you didn't have it - but don't you want 150 bucks?
Post here if you mailed it. I'll start inviting after brackets go live. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | MARCH | | Time: | 03:04 pm |
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| If I were to do a winner take all March Madness pool on facebook for five bucks, who would do it?
Comment here if you'd be willing to put five bucks down. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Saw Watchmen.
I know, read the book.
I know. You've told me.
Seriously, I know.
It was okay. Parts of it were pornography and senseless. It was really entertaining, the ending was lousy as hell, and the love story was asinine.
Night Owl was really boring.
Every single other thing was great. I was on the edge of my seat and I loved it. But in my opinion it suffers from that all too common problem of not hacking up about twenty minutes of it. "Murder your darlings."
Seriously, that sex scene was hilariously awful.
But the rest was exciting. Worth seeing, for sure. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Stephanie, Kay, Bailey, Adam, everyone else who was in AP English five years ago...
...remember those letters you wrote "to yourself" five years in the future?
P-Law just told me she's mailing them this weekend.
What do you think yours says? I have no idea what mine says but this is going to be GREAT.
Sidenote: It just occurred to me that I think Bailey was not in AP. I think he had Hendrix. I don't know who was in sixth period. Maybe he was. He is, in my mind.
I have been unable to remember who was and who wasn't. The more I think about it now I think he might have been in that class. But it would have to be sixth because of Newspaper. Bailey, what the fuck? All I know is that fourth period was full of creative, interesting people and sixth period probably sucked.
We were great. We still are!
Well, except for Adam.
(sixth period sucks) | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
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ain't no gyroscope can spin forever, yeah.
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