fake world

A former friend (and very funny lady) has been keeping a blog about her semester abroad experiences in Aix-en-Provence, France (I will not pretend that I don't read it with near-religious fervor and delight). She wrote recently about feeling like being abroad was like living in a "fake world." It seems, though--after a couple readings-- that it's the abundance of pastries, the meeting new people and seeing new things, and the making time to do stuff that's genuinely interesting that makes her world feel "fake." At the risk of sounding like a Carrie Bradshaw wannabe, I got to thinking about how often I put off what I want to do in favor of everything else, namely, what I should be doing. Life, after all, should be about making a better later now, not the other way around.

In a week in which the weather has been nice and I've been free to enjoy it, I have, more than ever, put off getting those pesky administrative things taken care of: taxes, planning my summer, presentation preparation and assorted assignments. All of those things, for better or worse, are my real life (and they're a real pain). But slowly--and verrry slowly indeed-- I've realized over the course of this week that getting those things done will make it easier to live my "fake life" and create my "fake world" in my real one.

And that feels good.

elephants overhead

Recently, I got asked to move out of campus housing and into the greater wilds of New York City. After saying-- and genuinely meaning-- that I'd think about, it seems that the universe is speeding up the thinking process.

A raucously elephantine party in the apartment above mine last night (not to mention the late-night entrance of my own, mutinous suitemates) has me thinking a lot more about dorm life. For the most part, I have had ideal dorm-living experiences, but this year has been pretty... different. I have never before lived in a "party dorm," and apparently this one is just that Thursday through Saturday. Last night, after calling the RA on duty, public safety, and berating my suitemates, I realized that I will always be a hermit, the curmudgeon-y guy who wants his peace and quiet after 1am. And maybe the best thing for me (and the University's obnoxiously exuberant party-goers) is for me to vacate the premises and carve out a new life somewhere else.

Zsa Zsa Zsu

I feel as though something's happened to my motivation and my feistiness. Has becoming a member of a two-some made me both treacly and indolent? I guess we all expect relationships to enable a certain amount of sentimentality, but I'm beginning to feel as though the heady, almost hubristic confidence-- my response to harbored bitterness-- that got me into this great, healthy relationship has evaporated in some of this summer heat. The thing is, being in a stimulating relationship has offered me so much in the way of emotional well-being and, well, general happiness.

So what the EFF is going on?

For example, I was recently asked to write an article for the World Daily News' insert for prospective college students and their parents, an immense and unexpected honor, clearly. Long story short, it's not getting published because of word counts and blah dee blah Asad's an idiot. But worse than that is just how absurdly simplistic-- and almost formulaic-- the writing was. When I edited the piece, I felt as though I was reading the work of some simpleton 9th-grade writer. Yeah, it was that bad.

Perhaps I'm not responding well to no longer being a teen. Perhaps being 20 disagrees with the Peter Pan in me.

I need school to start. I need to be in New York. I need to again experience the terror and the thrill of the hand-to-mouth student experience. I want to smell the stale (central) air of an East Village thrift shop. I want to be and avert clichés. New Jersey is both under-stimulating and deeply uninspiring.

Where's the fuckin' zsa zsa zsu?

"the summer is young"

The title of this post is from the end of a friend's most recent post on her own blog, Margin Notes (link to the right). Her writing's always evocative, but for whatever reason that phrase really stuck: the summer is young.

The summer, after all, is young- at least for the next three months, until it isn't anymore. And I still don't have any concrete plan as of this very moment, as I sit here writing this and "the summer is young" is what I keep telling myself. But I'm going to wake up and it will be August 31st and I'll be saying, "where did the summer go?" The odd old couple that lives in the violently purple house beside my family's own muted, yellow one was also most likely, at some point, in the habit of telling themselves that the summer, their relationship, their eldest daughter (now in her 40s) was "young." And then, suddenly, none of it is. It's just a striking notion, that time moves in such a way that seems so ample from a distance. I have all of my life ahead of me and these are the days of my youth, sure, but they're numbered. And I think I like it that way. Or I will at least until I'm not young anymore either...

I say all of this to say that I need to get the hell off my ass and do something with my summer. But also to remember that sure, the summer is young on the second of June but'll be no spring chicken come just a couple of months from now.