In honor (or perhaps dishonor) of Salinger, I am posting an essay I wrote a number of years ago. 2004 to be exact. It’s a bit lengthy for a blog post, so it’s behind the cut. Yikes it is PAINFUL to read things you wrote 6 years ago, and actually SUBMITTED for a grade.
The thematic title is blatantly stolen from Charlotte, who is awesome and even responds to my whiny emails.
In the past week I have started several posts bemoaning my laziness but I never finished them. A parable. Sort of. Like that episode of the West Wing, when Donna whines to Josh about the budget surplus not meaning a tax refund, because Democrats know how to spend your money better than you do, and then she refuses to give him change from buying lunch, because she knows how to spend the change better than he does. Or something. Clearly my West Wing obsession is out of control. But I have nothing better to do in suburbia. I could temper the obsession by starting to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I’ve seen bits and pieces of over the years, but never chronologically.
Or I could, you know, read a book. I recently read “Reproduction is the Flaw of Love” (or something like that. And I don’t remember the author, but I’m not going to google that at work.) The book itself was ok, but the premise made me so antsy that I had to skip to the end before I could concentrate on the middle. I do this sometimes.
A bunch of new, interesting positions (for which I am highly qualified) came up on today’s job search. One is at Much-Coveted-Organization. They no doubt recieve thousands of resumes for every job posting. On some level, I feel that if I don’t get my application in seconds after the posting goes live, I’m screwed. But then maybe waiting a few days, until the announcement “cools down” so to speak is a viable strategy, given that it’s going to take me at least until tomorrow afternoon to put together an application, properly. And no one reads mail on Friday. So maybe it should wait until Monday. These are the things I’ve been thinking about lately. You’ll forgive me for not posting, right? You should thank me for not posting them, actually.
Oh and my resume has an NJ address and I’m applying for jobs in DC, and it has occured to me that maybe I should use a local address (of one of my friends) but won’t that just make things more complicated? I’m still at my current job, in NJ. And I’d need a little notice for an interview. Sigh. I fear that I may end of staying here until I go more insane than I am already going, and then quitting my job (which will no doubt be a bad move. I have never quit a job before. Well that’s not true. I worked for a headhunter for 2.5 weeks.) and moving to DC and sleeping on Keith’s couch forever, and I won’t find a job and I’ll run through all my savings and it will be another failed experiment and I will have to go back to answering phones, and I will do that for the rest of my life.
I enjoy writing long, run-on sentences with fatalistic predictions.
Oh, and I just got an email informing me that my car is being recalled. Awesome!
Today was insane. However, I think my shopping bug has finally passed, thank god.
My room is already a mess. I’m tired. I’m not happy with any of my interview outfits. I think I’m burned out. I have not been reading up on foreign policy and my justification for this is that cramming for the interview isn’t going to be helpful.
But mostly it’s that I can’t concentrate. That’s why it’s almost 9:00 and I’m just now writing the last blog entry of the month. Which also means I haven’t read any of your blogs. I’m sorry. This is also why I stay up late for no reason, because I keep putting off doing things that I want to do, because of an inability to concentrate on, say, the entire series of the Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor that I just got. I didn’t know most of them existed! I read about 5 of these when I was maybe 14ish, and I always liked them well enough, but they were not among books I saved.
(Example of my lack of concentration: I just had to get up and clean a few things off my nightstand/shove stuff in a drawer because I could not stand to look at the disarray for one more second)
Ok, I think I’m done. Because while i theoretically have a bunch of stuff going on what with the interview/trip to DC, and work being busy, and the fact that I can drive again, I still DON’T have anything going on in terms of social life/boys/drama or any of the other stuff that I used to fill blog entries about.
Happy Almost December!
Work = busy. I have no time/brainpower to put together a coherent entry, so I thought I would copy/paste some bits and pieces of drafts I have started and not published over the past month. I cannot even guarentee complete sentences.
-Doing all this political minded readnig lately makes me want to re-read Allan Blooms The Closing of the American Mind. If you are in academia, or even just thinking of going into it, I cannot recommend it enough. A professor gave it to me right after I transferred to Skidmore, after hearing about my experience at Hampshire College. It is definitely one of those books that made me question a lot of what I thought I believed or helped me clarify a lot of things for myself. The problem with re-reading anything is that I have about 1,001 books that I haven’t read, and should read.
-My life has also come to spending a Saturday night having dinner with my parents and their friends. But that was actually ok, because my Pseudo-Cousin Aimee is in the same position as me. Of course, she’s just out of college, so she can move back in with her parents and not look like a loser, but whatever. We didn’t used to get along for more then 10 minutes at a time when we were younger, so it is nice that we are friends now. We bemoaned the patheticness of our Saturday night and watched old episodes of Degrassi. I freaking LOVE Degrassi and their were episodes of Season 4 that I had never seen.
-For one, I would have gone for international relations as a sub field instead of political theory. Political theory is a horrid little sub field. They (the royal they) have decided that all the Important Questions have been done to death and now the field has just kind of turned on itself and there is a lot of political theory on how to do political theory, or why to do political theory, or if we should do political theory. And to some extent, you are limited by what is trendy in your field at the time. I wish I had known that better when I applied.
-I am somewhat obsessed with weather phenomena. I love big storms. So I hate it when BIG STORMS are predicted and wind up being nothing. We were supposed to get massive rainstorms here due to Hurricane Ida moving up the east coast, but it has failed to affect North Jersey. Down the shore, it is of course flooding, because idiots build their houses on the sandbar. Here it’s just gray and a little bit rainy.
-Going through the draft folder in gmail, I came across a conversation I had with David on The Morning After. (No, not that kind of morning after) “I did something really stupid,” I started. He named off a few things, because he was sure it involved a boy. (Usually, when I do something stupid, it involves a boy) It didn’t involve a boy.
It is cold and rainy here, but you’ll here no complaints from me. You might hear me complain about other people complaining though. There is much hand wringing over the fact that it “snowed” yesterday. Giant whatevers.
The guest on the Daily Show last night was the woman who wrote Ayn Rand and the American Right. I hadn’t heard of it, but now I want to buy it. I’m not Randroid – I’ve said before I that I can take or leave her philosophical writings — but this looks quite interesting. The author brought up Rand as a reaction to FDR, which is something I addressed in my senior thesis in college, so it was exciting to hear.
Additionally, I liked what the author had to say about Rand’s fiction. There are a thousand and one jokes made at Rand’s (and her book’s) expense because really, Rand is a drama queen. Her fiction is overwrought and yes, Atlas Shrugged does include a 60+ page speech by the “hero” that basically just spits out her “philosophy.” But the author honed in on what Rand’s fiction has always done for me – you can read about the main characters and they can inspire you.
And lord knows there have been plenty of times where I’ve admitted to wanting to be Dagny Taggart. For anyone who has read Atlas Shrugged , says the authors, this invokes the entire narrative. You don’t have to explain what it means, beyond “I want to be Dagny Taggart.” That’s all you have to say.
Of course, given that Rand is also hated, this could certainly stir up some negative connotations. But the first time I read Atlas Shrugged I was 18 (the perfect age to read Rand: you think you know everything) and the parts where the metaphorical camera is on Dagny’s thoughts, and connected with her more than any other literary character. (Also, Hank Rearden = Hot) For all of her faults, for all of my mistaken attempts at stoicism as a result, she taught me a lot.
This isn’t very light reading for a Friday, so I’ll leave you with an excerpt of one of my favorite passages, from my absolute favorite part of Atlas Shrugged.
“She felt no anger towards anyone on earth. The things she had endured had now receded into some outer fog, like pain that still exists, but has no power to hurt. Those things could not stand in the face of this moment’s reality, the meaning of this day was as brilliantly, violently clear as the splashes of sun on the silver of the engine, all men had to perceive it now, no one could doubt it and she had no one to hate.”
My attention span seems to have disappeared again. I was trying to re-read parts of the classic Road to Serfdom, because I need to remember what inspired and solidified my ideas about liberty if I’m going to write about it. I was also paging through Ever Wonder Why (and Other Controversial Essays) by Thomas Sowell, and made little, if any progress. I love Thomas Sowell. He has absolutely no patiences for relativistic, revisionist history or the silly liberalism of liberal academia and its ilk. I wish I had discovered him earlier, as I think it would have been excellent companion reading to Allen Bloom.
Not that it does me any good when I have internet induced ADD.
I think I want to be able to be pretentious without actually being a jerk. I just want the option. Then again, I’m still training the University of Chicago-speak out of me, so maybe I should be careful what I wish for.
For all my love of Russian history, Carl Schmitt, and obscure European wars, I do like my brain candy. I watch Degrassi – The Next Generation marathons. (I blame Jill-IAN on this one) I like People mazgazine. I’ve seen the movie Chasing Liberty about 1,000 times.
I didn’t think things like this were problematic until I dated HWSNBN near the end of college. He was fairly well read, a news junkie, and looked down on my more ‘shallow’ habits. I felt I had to hide them, and perhaps that is where the obsession with being well -read/ educated/”sophisticated” came from. I encountered it again, earlier this year, when I was spending time with this guy who was extremely well-read, and he was just too…much.
So while I’m in the process of getting back into reading, I am also vowing to broaden my horizons on the music/movie front. Maybe, just maybe one day I’ll wind up well-rounded
Three-point-five-years-ago, I occupied some of my time temping reading Important Works. I didn’t have anything else to do. Then I moved to Jersey Citythe summer of 2005 and started First Job in NYC. I was devouring books and quite proud to be moving towards incredibly well read. Dario, who I was mistakenly involved with as the time, pointed out that it was because I was lonely and hiding behind my books. I swore he was wrong.
Fast forward to January 2006. Dario and I stop dating. I move to Astoria. I start hanging out with Jill-IAN. Thus began my year of living life a rockstar. I had more fun in the 9 months leading up to grad school than in my entire life. I drank too much, stayed out to late, laughed too loud, and all those delicious clichés that categorize being an untethered 20 something in NYC.
I had no time for books and besides, I was off to grad school at UChicago that fall where there would be nothing to do but read. Well reading in academia is not quite reading…it’s more like skimming like your life depeneded on it. When I graduated 9 months later, I gave myself a 6 month break from all things brainy. I had a steady diet of blogs, message boards, nostalgic childhood reads and occasional chicklit.
Six months turned into a year plus. It didn’t help that I spent 9 of those months in a miserable drunken depression but the fact is that I don’t think I can properly say I’ve read a book in a year. (unless you count chick lit/beach reads ((Christ, I used to read Stalin’s biography on the beach.))
So basically, I’m looking to ease back into maintaing myself as well read individual. I’m going to start slow, a little Fitzgerald, Creators, by Paul Johnson which can be broken down, and we’ll see.
Because three-point-five-years ago I was the most well-read receptionist on the planet. Once this assignment ends, I might find myself at a front desk again, and I’d be quite happy to reclaim the title!
Contact is on TV. I love this movie. If I were to make Atlas Shrugged into a movie, Jodie Foster, circa Contact is SO my ideal Dagny Taggart. Yeah, that was like a decade ago, she’s probably way too old to play her now, unless they got another actress to play her teenage years. Although Jena Malone, who I also adore, could pull it off too.
If the pre-production rumors go through and Angelina Jolie plays Dagny…eww.
“I’ve kept a journal, on and off, for about 6 years now. In those notebooks I was wholly uncensored. I never intended for anyone else to read them. This notebook is addressed to you, and written with your eyes in mind. And though I repeatedly strove for the same level of candor how was that possible when I knew all along that you were going to read it? Writing for an audience turns in into a form of performance art no matter ho guileless I claim — or even strive — to be. Can there ven be such a thing as an unmediated experience theses days? Every storyteller is biased, sure, and we both know I’ve been a bit of a show off for you (you want my stories? I’l give you some stories, buddy!) I didn’t try to create the illusion I’m a better or more compassionate person…”
-Forthcomings
You know, I think I’ve watched more TV in the past 18 months than I have in the past 18 years. Well that’s an exaggeration.
But seriously, I just watched a re-run of House and how can I not be re-drawn in by the quote of “I think true love’s out there. It’s just very far away in another universe. We may have to develop travel at the speed of light to reach it” (or something like that) and that has ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT. I also liked “People who are afraid of commitment are afraid of it because they know how big a deal it is”
Clearly, I need help. It doesn’t help that I’m reading the fourth installment of the Jessica Darling books. If you’re a female with a sometimes TMI livejournal between I highly recommend them. (Sloppy Firsts/Second Helpings/Charmed Thirds/Fourth Comings, by Megan McCafferty. They’re like crack. And I want someone else to read them so I can find out if its not just me who dislikes the male love interest
This is just a post to say I am overwhelmed. Not neccesarily by work. Just by things. But it might be a good kind of overwhelmed soon.
I found a contradiction. So I’m checking my premises. Isn’t it obnoixous that I quote Rand (who is herself obnoxious) so shamelessly?
While I am quoting Rand, I am going to post one of my most favorite passage in possibly all of literature.
“She felt no anger toward anyone on earth. The things she had endured had now receded into some outer fog, like pain that still exists but has no power to hurt. Those things could not stand in the face of this moment’s reality, the meaning of this day was as brilliantly violently clear as the splashes of sun on the silver of the engine, all men had to perceive it now, no one could doubt it and she had no one to hate. ”
Thus concludes my shameless Rand-quoting. But since I know there is one other person in the world who can tell me exactly where in the book this comes from, I am not alone in my obsession.
Brent can’t tell me where this is from, but he does know that Charles Monet was a loner.
“The ability to make references that less than three people will get is a sign of talent”-Kevin
Giving to Pamie’s annual book drive will give you good karma. This year books are going to libraries along the Gulf Coast that were ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, but missed a lot of the media attention.
I gave a copy of Atlas Shrugged because it’s my favorite book in the world. (Note: the mild irony of donating copies of Atlas Shrugged does not escape me) I got my first copy of Atlas Shrugged as a “you HAVE to read this” gift and I’ve given copies to others for the same reason. My friend teases me because when I see someone reading this book in public I have to restrain myself from talking to them (especially if the reader is a cute boy.) I also donated Paul Johnson’s “Creators” because he’s a phenomenal historian and more people should have the opportunity to read his books.
So after aforementioned rain dance last night, sushi was eaten and the National Spelling Bee finals were watched.
I’ve abandoned my OCD note taking on history tomes and have been reading some very enjoyable fiction. I’ve never read Nick Hornby’s more famous books (About A Boy, High Fidelity) and I hated How to Be Good, but Long Way Down was very, very good.
You have to accept a dose of plot contrivance, but I didn’t find it to be heavy handed. It’s oddly moving and filled with all these little bits of hope and grace, and I wish I had my copy here, because I kept coming across these paragraphs that I wanted to write down.
Anyway, data entry awaits me for now, but I shall return with pictures and tales of DC. Visiting DC has spoiled New York museums for me, because I adore being able to waltz in and out of the Smithsonian’s (and yes, I make donations.)
This morning, I was hunting for my shoes, and found a sugar packet with the Skidmore logo, the kind that they used to have out at the SPA and Cyber Café. I have no idea how it got there.
I’ve FINALLY got my Rutgers application out (delayed solely because of procrastination). Dallas is the only one that’s left. The SOP is done, but they also ask for you to write an “educational history” ie, the changes you went through in your academic career that led to now. I am trying to fit the Hampshire experience, the “Rachel when are you going to admit you’re a Giant Right-Winger?” and the “Screw D.C., I want to read Hobbes and make lattes.”
(Of course, beyond the academic evolution that sounds pretty on paper, there is the shallow version, which I may write up, just for fun.)
Moving is a hassle. I’m sure I should consider “do I really need all these books?” but I don’t bother to ask myself that question because the answer is “Yes.” At this point, I’m over having to move and just want to be done with the move. Furniture needs to be taken apart, kitchen things need to be bought for the new place, and utility things need to be arranged. My perpetual desire to just be settled is acting up – and ‘settled’ will have to wait until February 4th.
I need an auto-complete; still haven’t found an apartment, written my Dallas essay, or cleaned my room.
I spent Sunday night laying about, reading the first four books of the Little House on the Prairie set and eating sushi.
I spontaneously took the train to Ridgewood on Saturday and went to see Brenty. We went to Hillside for ‘quality time’. Our wacky drive was a creative way to Jersey City (Last exit off of Route 4, and then drove through Fort Lee, Edgewater, Weehawken, etc. I believe it’s the Weehawken area where things get creepy; it’s ALL condos and little Sim City enclosed communities along the Hudson. I am sure they are outrageously expensive. Also, that is where Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr dueled. (Note to the younger-wiser-sibling: It is unclear whether they were dualists.)
I am reading “Inventing Japan: 1853-1964” because it is only about 200 pages, and I hope it will make up for the fact that I never, ever paid attention or did the reading for the Japan part of “Comparative Politics of India and Japan” two years ago. I remember lots of stuff about India, (SHINING INDIA) but nothing about Japan other than never mix sake with any other alcohol and, regarding the Jews “you guys are alright, but…”
I really, really hope to find an apartment tonight, because I want to go out for Czech food with my co-workers tomorrow. Mmm, Czech food. And Czech beer. I adore Eastern Europe! Blah, blah, blah, debate about whether the Czech Republic is still “Eastern Europe.” You can’t take the Government major out of the girl. Which is why I’m going to grad school, for which I should be writing an essay. …and full circle!
Well. It’s almost 2006. I have survived a full year in the real world, and six months in the City. That right there is pretty damn good. This year is kind of a blur in a way 2004 wasn’t, because so much happened, but it doesn’t feel like it. Because I feel as if it’s been this way forever, and I say that in an entirely neutral way.
Anyway, I’m not big on New Year’s Eve, nor do I believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but these are things that I would like to commit to or work on or whatever. It is more of a “To Do” list then anything else, but it is purposeful. Starting January 3rd, I will re-dedicate myself to self-improvement. Or smtg.
-Drink less.
-Figure out the living situation by January 15
-Finish my grad school applications by January 15
-Commit to the 50 Books a Year thing and be hardcore about it. I’m already doing the “Three Books a Month: One serious non-fiction, one serious fiction, fiction/non-serious non-fiction.” I definitely read 50 Books a Year, but this is if you count things like re-reading The Little House on the Prairie box set and mass market chick-lit. Some book bloggers say these would count, but some don’t so I don’t know if they should be included in the total. Wow, I’m really neurotic. Maybe I should try and do 100 books? I don’t know. I want to read everything. Whenever I go to The Strand and look at the tables full of cheap Oxford World classics I think that I should read them all. Like, I think I should go to The Strand after work and purchase several of them. Which I won’t do, because I’m moving and the last thing I need is MORE books to move. But then I want the entire history section in my living room. And then I have this fear of not being well-read or educated enough for grad school, because I’ve still never read The Republic all the way through. But now I have the Bloom translation. So I have to read it. And continue to refer to one of the speakers as “That Thrashy guy”
-Stop going on rants about reading books and intellectual insecurity because I will be fine in grad school because I’m going to get a fully-funded ride at Rutgers, and study with a Tocqueville scholar and write about the ways in which women in an aristocracy were better off than women in democracies. Sebastian will get credit, since he gave me the idea last December at the Parting Glass gathering.
-Read the Economist more often. Each one of those should count as a book. There are so many words! You couldn’t get away with that in an American magazine. Oh the Brits!
-Commit to doing more stuff in The City. This month it’s the Museum of Natural History. I’m going on Sunday. Anyone who wants to join is welcome.
-Eat actual meals, maybe even meals with Nutritional Value. Doritos are not a meal. Salsa is a condiment, not a food.
And that’s all I can think of right now. And I get out of work in twenty minutes anyway. So Happy New Year and all that nonsense.
