The thing is, I check your blogs every night. Some of them during the day. I'm waiting for pictures and for stories and I keep wondering why you're not posting more. And then I remember that I'm not posting more.
In the ongoing battle of EG v. the AC, I won last night, but I think that was more sheer exhaustion than anything else. I also suddenly feel justified in my struggle, as everyone else seems to be fighting the same battle. It's validating. Or something like that.
Yesterday I was so tired, I fell asleep at lunch. While reading Proust and eating a hot dog. I wish I were exaggerating. After work, I headed to the library to do some more reading, and fell asleep again. At least this time I wasn't risking a mustard stain. But I had class from 7:00 to 9:30, the prof lectures like he's running out of time from the word "Go," and I needed to take notes for a friend who wasn't there. Solution: Rockstar. Pounded. Class was this odd hallucination of Proust and memory and time and friends and this sensation that I should be falling asleep, but I wasn't. Luckily that feeling wore off around 1:00 a.m. and I was able to crash.
This is why I live alone.
I'm actually really loving my Proust class. The prof lectures like a mad man, but a mad man who has Very Interesting Things to Say. And the reading is a lot (like too much a lot, and that's saying a lot coming from me), but beautiful in places and ways that you don't expect. Most of the themes are things I'm interested in reading and writing about--art, time, memory. But I realized yesterday that what it's really about, at least the books we've read so far, is adolescence. That age of obsession and confusion and pages and pages of nothing much that will somehow inform our adulthood. What's interesting about this, is that adolescence wasn't really a solid concept when this was written. People went from child to young (wo)man, not from child to teen to young adult. (To single and alone in an apartment full of cats.)
Sitting in class, talking about how we remember things, how we perceive time, how we manipulate our memories, and how real "truth" comes in the unbidden, unmanipulated memory--well, it drags me back to adolescence. To high school, to the first time I realized I had friends in high school. To the boys I watched in high school. (Proust is also all about the relationships--or the wanting of relationships.) High school wasn't easy, but I think part of the point is that adolescence isn't easy. That this time of obsession with ourselves, with others, is necessary to reach some stage of stability in our lives.
Wow. That got kind of serious. I promise I won't do that again.
Also: I won a $20 gift card to Borders in the McC staff raffle today. I'm thinking I'll get something frivolous. Thoughts?
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4 comments:
You might be interested in "emerging adulthood." It's kind of a social phenomenon that is taking place in our generation. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is getting very put off, very prolonged, as parents support their children into their 30s, and college is becoming less of a proving ground and rite of adulthood and more of a playground for big kids driving daddy's car.
I'm interested in your thoughts, and eager to see what kind of writing comes of this class.
I kinda like the profound, serious posts. So you can do it again. And you definitely deserve something frivolous from Borders.
free borders card?? YESSS! hot chocolate should be one of the purchases. except that it probably isn't freezing in Chicago like it is over here.
you are very funny.
also, who knew that proust was about adolescence? you, my genius friend. what an interesting class. adolescence is totally the pits, yet also so exhiliarating--all of those extreme emotions. all of those moments of (what seem to be) life and death importance. sigh--sounds a little like life now. so much for maturing.
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