Now What? - A Death in the Family

October 11, 1011...
I’m afraid to type about anything this week since it’s mostly very personal. Also, I have a crapload of work due next week, but that’s probably everyone’s situation. My brother hastily admitted that things have taken a turn for the worst since I left, and although it’s an expected reaction, it doesn’t make me any less guilty for “causing” it. My brother is only 13 years old, and only begun to realize how many challenges life will give him, and while I can advise him on most things, saying goodbye to your big brother is something he and I guess, all of my family, will have to learn to deal with, eventually. And to think the only problem I thought I had this week involved telling someone my religious affiliation (that doesn’t exist…yet.) As a creative thinker, an occasional thought can be something I love to dwell in for hours at a time, but sometimes, I suddenly get shoved right into a really uncomfortable thought that takes much effort and/or time to escape from. This week’s really terrible thought stems from the ongoing feeling I’ve had for this friend of mine. I never would’ve assumed anything about her, as to the possibility of a relationship and would’ve just waited to see what happen, but that’s never the way it works for me. The minute a conversation ends, my mind races with the numerous amounts of possibilities that this may lead to. I don’t know why that always happens, but I just can’t help it. It’s an internalized bad habit, and that much more difficult to break. In other news, I have a job. It’s not a very intense job, so…yeah, progress all around. Truthfully, I have nothing else to say about this week; in fact talking about anything just stresses me out further as I have to analyze on the many mistakes I keep making, and I’d prefer to just sleep on it right now. Sorry, bit of a cop out, but I couldn’t give any less of a damn right now.

October 25, 2011...
The wheel of life continues to spin on a flat. Since last week, and although I’ve had the support of my friends and loved ones, I’m still in a state of shock. The whole matter seems to be very simple and almost painfully complicated all at once. People keep asking me how I feel, and I can’t answer properly. How am I supposed to feel? Should be I grieving immensely, faking happiness to fill the hole, crying uncontrollably, or damning cars forever for being people killers? In a specific sense, I feel absolutely nothing at all, but much like there was no time in the beginning of the universe, at this moment, I might be experiencing every possible emotion but choose not to decipher any of them.  To assign a feeling to my current state of mind feels cheap and artificial, just posting another symptom on the goddamn bulletin board, and since there’s no pin, it’ll stick right off. It’s been more difficult than on Saturday, when I went shopping for the first time (don’t judge me, at least I did it), it was the first time I realized how distant we truly were: the distance of myself at the ancient, filthy bus station and her body back in El Salvador. The distance of her and I: infinite. Life does go on, and much like Spielberg bringing Seinfeld tapes with him on the set of Schindler’s List, I will do the same by listing off my favorite Seinfeld episodes on my blog, an unoriginal idea but…fff!! Also, my feelings towards a certain someone grew unexpectedly. As I’ve mentioned, life can be pretty complicated about things like that.

November 1, 2011...
This is it! November will be my month of triumph. No longer will I hinder my own progress on long-term projects by watching comedies until 1 in the morning.  No longer will I stare at a blank page for hours with all of my books and resources carelessly spilled out onto the tables. No longer will I grovel about how much of a failure I am. No, enough is enough! I will be a college student! Wait, hold on… How many papers have I written in two months? 5, technically, and have I enjoyed writing those papers? Well, yes, since I chose the subject for each. As it turns out, I’m already a college student and have been one since August 24. There might be one overarching problem that continues to be a problem, but in all other regards, life as a college student has been wonderful. By joining a fraternity, I’m learning about how to be a responsible person in an irresponsible world, whatever that means. I set my own schedule, do my own laundry, and so on, and so forth. I finally have two jobs and making enough to live by, and overall, I’m amazed at the amount of friends I’ve made in the first 2 months after fearing I would only make a couple. Of course, seeing if those friendships will remain by the end of the year is another story. No one ever considers that unless they have a personal relationship with their friends; usually, we stroll across the days thinking it’ll be the same for the rest of our college experience, unaware of the possibility of change. Whether or not that possibility makes us happy or not is another question to ask on another day. Either way, it’s going pretty well so far, and aside from the warmth that grows in our dorm, I’ve got no complaints…yet.

Editor's note: October 18th's entry was The Twentisecond One, with a few edits before posting. 

NW? - This Room...                                        NW? - Fixing the Flat

You're Not Gonna Open With That, Are You?

You are never supposed to go beyond your bedtime, especially when you're a mischievous 10 year old. Mine was at 10pm, but I was just too invested in professional wrestling to respect the 10pm curfew. I'll admit that I never paid any attention to the intersecting storylines, I just loved watching The Rock kick ass. He was my favorite wrestler, and I remember I bought one shirt that could be more suitable as bed covers or a duffel bag; I knew my parents were waiting outside, watching the seconds cross into the forbidden zone of 10pm, waiting to whip out the belt. PHEWCHA! At 10, I always turned off the TV, dove into my covers, and hid under my pillow, watching from a small opening to see if my parents were coming. One night, I forgot to turn off the TV. I heard their footsteps coming closer and closer to my room. With the most stealthy silence a 10-yr old can make, I  jumped towards the television and silenced it. The steps shrunk in silence. Wait a minute, what is this? It's a man, holding a microphone, red suit, very clean, and quite the hairdo. I rose the volume up just a bit out of curiosity of wanting to hear what this strange, and well-dressed man was talking about. No longer was I interested in the exploits of half-naked men and women putting themselves in unusual positions. This was my first exposure to a show that became my obsession for countless months, a little program called Seinfeld. The night Seinfeld was introduced into my life was the night I saw "The Parking Garage", one of the show's most famous episodes. I didn't understand most of the jokes, and I didn't know why the characters were in the parking garage to begin with, but for some reason, they were compelling characters to look at. I know, I know, what the hell could I be talking about? Well, all I understood was that the four guys were looking for their car, with no luck. When they found the car and started shouting and dancing, I applauded them for their efforts, the four guys with no name. When they got into the car and it wouldn't start, I knew I came upon something special. Every night at 10, right after my parents would come and go, I'd watch Seinfeld back-to-back, and though I sacrificed a good night's sleep, it was all worth it to see Kramer sliding in and out of Jerry's apartment. With more episodes came more characters: the eccentric billionaire J. Peterman, the diabolically nnnyehehh postman Newman, the incorrigible Frank Costanza, as well as the almost impressive catalogue of failed relationships. Despite the praise, I found other experiences, curiosities, and Seinfeld became a dormant interest for nearly 6 years. High school, life became ever more complicated, I fell in and out of love, and schoolwork began to grow exponentially. YouTube became yet another escape from reality as I preferred to deal with being Rick Rolled than with another goddamn English paper. Seinfeld bloopers, what could this be? From season 1 to 9, I saw this seemingly perfect group of actors break apart in unprofessional giggles and yelps as their scenes hilariously collapsed into something incomprehensible. One of my favorite bloopers was Kramer's unused take of ...check it out yourselves and bloopers from The Tape. After having nearly fatal giggle fits, I decided to watch two documentaries on the conception of Seinfeld, and it was truly fascinating to learn about how drastically different Seinfeld was compared to other shows airing in the 90's and it made me appreciate the series in a more profound way than I had when I was 10. Recently, I wrote a paper on George Costanza's effect on pop culture, and later on, I hope to demonstrate my appreciation towards this wonderful and groundbreaking series in many other ways. I've recently had difficult experiences to deal with, and revisiting Seinfeld has rekindled my appreciation for life, even if life treated the New York Four unfairly most of the time.

Thanks for reading, if you did. Below are episodes I would recommend above all others, or as an introduction to the series.

"In No Particular Order"
-The Limo
-The Tape
-The Chicken Roaster
-The Parking Garage
-The Contest
-The Marine Biologist
-The Mango
-The Pitch
-The Hamptons
-The Deal
-The Opera
-The Outing
-The Heart Attack
-The Cafe
-The Sniffing Accountant
-The Opposite
-The Yada Yada Yada
-The Library
-The Trip(Pts. 1 and 2)
-The Boyfriend(Pts.1 and 2)

The Twentisecond One

Citrus Providers
When life gives you lemons, do the obvious. When life gives you grapefruit, throw it back since you don’t like it.  Sometimes, the grapefruit has rotted beyond repair, and catching it means getting the rotten, sticky pulp all over your hands. You go to the bathroom to get the pulp off but the unbearable stench remains, so you douse yourself with many different perfumes and finally, the awful stench disappears. You’ve had the stench for almost 2 weeks, and very little people have decided to stick around and suffer through the stench with you. But those are the good guys, the defiant ones; they’re the ones who’ll stick around longer than the terrible smell. You can never predict the whereabouts of the grapefruit; some of them appear out of nowhere and hit your chest incredibly hard, others are coughed up and spit out (luckily, they’re not rotten), and others have just fallen from the sky, splattered all over the floor. You recognize that these aren’t your grapefruit and take a moment to wonder if you should care about the floor grapefruit. Your first instinct is to clean it up, and throw it in the dumpster or in some kind of compost heap. Once you’ve done that, you can’t help but wonder about the other grapefruit that makes up the compost heap. You realize that people might’ve been hit by the exact same grapefruit, but it’s such an embarrassing thing to happen to a person, getting hit by grapefruit, that it doesn’t surprise you that no one else ever talks about it. In fact, upon realizing the amount of grapefruit in the compost heap, you get sick of saying the word grapefruit and resort to calling it “Citrus provider”, but oranges and tangerines are also “citrus providers” so now you’ve blurred your understanding of the term. You start having dreams of “citrus providers” raining from the sky. Upon seeing the rest of the world take advantage of the “citrus providers”, from practical juice-making means to ridiculous robot making means, you start attacking everybody and stealing their “citrus providers”. In the dream, you create an enormous basket and with your imaginary strength, you succeed in taking away everybody’s “citrus providers” and decide to jump into the basket and dwell within the pulps and juices of the “citrus providers”. You have the time of your life within the basket until others realize the existence of the basket breaks various zoning laws and have the basket destroyed by missile fire (since it’s a dream, you know). No one considers the explosion causes all of the “citrus providers” to pour out of the basket at once and engulf everyone in sight. You’re the lucky one, however, and are the only one alive after the missile fiasco, but you look around and clearly see how everyone perished, by the means of your precious “citrus providers”. The thought makes you insane and you wake up, before any further damage is caused. At this point, waking up in a moistened bed, you think about all of the grapefruits of the world and wonder why the grapefruits come and go that easily. It’s been two weeks since your last grapefruit hit you, but you start yearning for the grapefruit, praying and making ridiculous ceremonies to bring it back. One summer afternoon, the clouds are the same purple-orange that led to the “citrus provider” storm, and you smile and wait patiently, only to be disappointed by the rain, saddened by the reaction from others, and furious from being tricked by Mother Nature again. You go into a crazed madness that leads you to a farmer’s market, still open at Midnight, apparently, and smash up every “citrus provider” you can see. Lo and behold, the cops have arrived, forgotten their training, and hurl a grapefruit right at your face. The grapefruit smashes and opens up immediately, covering your whole face like a ski mask. You’re sitting in the back of the cop cruiser, having refused to remove the grapefruit from your face. The cops think you’re the most ridiculous lunatic they’ve ever had to arrest, but you’re not listening. You have your grapefruit back and that’s all that matters. After a while, the grapefruit slowly slides off of your face, and lands onto your handcuffed arms. It’s not the same grapefruit you remember, just a convincing impostor. Your eyes, filled with grapefruit pulp and tears, burn savagely, and your body crumbles. Your time in jail is thankfully a quick one, as it’s your first offense. As you sit in jail with the grapefruit mask next to you, you consider the grapefruits in the compost heap again.  You look at the grapefruit mask again.

Some grapefruits are the lucky ones.

-To my sister.­­­­­­­