flickerfade.org

ok, now i’m home. home always brings with it one major disappointment–the incredibly slow speed of my internet connection. we’re still stuck in the early 90s here with our 28.8 kbps modems. so this will be quick, i’ll just spew onto the page.

i took my violin home this time. and on the flight to atlanta, one of the flight attendants told me about her attempt to learn violin. she said it was a brilliant instrument, although she only lasted two weeks. now she’s going to try flute. i liked her spunk, even through all the failure. even failure brings a new point of view, and it’s the effort that counts–if you don’t try how will you know? therefore, i don’t know, because i don’t really know if i’m trying, on many fronts. almost every front, actually. i feel like i am, is that enough? well i feel like it for a few things.

yes all b’s except for ian condry’s class, an a-. way to not try. i wonder what would happen if i started caring. i have to find a way to remind myself that i’m lucky, i guess. i mean if i can get half-ass b’s there must be something i can do to improve.

i will actually play my violin this summer, starting in two days when i purchase strings. tomorrow i will mail my minidisc player away and watch the champions league final. i started reading beckham’s autobiography too. found some old french workbooks i can redo. lugged 30 pounds of camera equipment home.

lots of stuff i can take pictures of here, i’d upload some but that would take all night long. the environment, the atmosphere, even the air is so different here. except, it was actually cool here today. that will change soon. lots of dilapidated buildings too. i didn’t talk on the way back from the city (ha, the city! oklahoma city is so tiny) and just stared out the window. so much has closed. the only things i can see expanding are hospitals and schools. and the width of the highway (they’re making three lanes). is there anything here at all? all i can think of is that frank lloyd wright building in bartlesville. the big mcdonalds straddling interstate 44.

should i buy a guitar? i think i want to but there’s no way to get it back to boston. i’ll have to find someone to borrow from or something. maybe i can rent for a couple months?

so much potential, and so easy to waste it all. one of the things i will have to cut down on is the television. it’s good, but bad, but good, but bad. basically it’s nice to have channels, watch what i want (the champions league final again!) but i think of that oompa loompa song, my iq’s gonna go down to 3 soon. and i have to honestly get away from the parents a little bit. not all the time, but it’s nice to NOT see them while i’m here sometimes. there is always a part of me that wants to be independent.

hey, there’s a soft rock station here. good for driving, i also sang along in a restaurant today. the lanes here are so much wider, and actually marked on the ground! no traffic, either, although you can’t run red lights here. i never would have noticed this stuff so much had i not driven just a couple of days ago . . .

in boston and cambridge. and as always, the story turns back to boston and cambridge and mit. in fact, if you look back a few paragraphs ago i wrote “there’s no way to get [the guitar] BACK to boston.” that’s how i think of it. i’m not going back to oklahoma, i’m going to oklahoma. like i’ve moved on from oklahoma, and now the place i go back to is boston. yeah, i’m always thinking of that place, and the people i left behind there, the people i’ll miss all summer, the people who will scatter around the globe this summer.

oklahoma, i realise, is no longer totally my home, although i call it that sometimes. i think i have said before that i was homeless, but now i think i actually just left my home–i just couldn’t admit it before. three years there now! the bonds are forming, breaking all the time. the world is not so static, i am not so static, my relationships with the world and other people are not so static. there’s so much stuff i don’t know about oklahoma, i feel like a tourist here now, all that’s left is memories and family. then again, they say the family makes it home. but i have a family at mit too. i’m so confused.

but i’m glad to have family everywhere. that is all that matters right now; i don’t feel alone in oklahoma, and maybe i can make it home again. and i’ve never felt alone at mit. so maybe i can make oklahoma a second home again.

thanks for all your help. i wish i had that kind of fire. i feel like i’m fading away, honestly but i think it might be the lack of sleep and the the crazy way i’ve been busy lately.

the airport was actually pretty crazy. lots of people had problems. some flight to jfk got cancelled, then there were all these passengers to france who had problems because of the paris airport collapse. and then when i got to the gate (before i got off the flight) there were all these texans (they were of course going to texas). and then i was reminded of the intolerance in my part of the country. there was this heavyset man next to me who kept making fun of the hispanics talking to the agent, and i could have sworn he was making fun of me too. every time he leaned forward the bench would lean with him.

sometimes i wonder if i should stand up. maybe not directly. but i should. i understand what you’re thinking. it’s hard to protect the world but we should try.

the flight got delayed such that there was no connection home. so i am still in cambridge/boston. oh well. it’s like a little reprieve, you get to see a few friends again. one of those fake goodbyes that paul likes to talk about. of course, i passed out so i didn’t see anyone at all.

i also slept through the badass storms. damn. i think it would be fun to walk to the airport. now i cannot sleep. i need some post-it notes so i don’t forget what i am supposed to do in the morning besides flying.

i also have none of my checked bags. so no clothing or toiletries. i am going to smell like shit tomorrow.

i wish i had driven home. i really do. it would have been more fun. next time.

too bad i can’t drive home. and when i drive home, i can visit you on the way. i can visit places nobody’d ever go, just drive off into the sunset like in an old movie. driving, riding, is so calm. i’d love to go on the longest road trip ever. any takers? hell, even driving in circles is pretty damn cool. you see something new each time you pass by. things look different in the night. things look different when you blaze by.

things look different when you see them with music. driving music is pretty damn essential. i wanted to hear mass pike quite badly, and then i could have whined along with it as i stuck my head out the moonroof. or is it sunroof? it’d be cool if it was a rainroof. why did they change that anyway? and where is boston’s soft rock station?

after tomorrow afternoon i will feel more disconnected, which is a strange feeling. i’ll miss lots of people. stay safe . . . stay in touch too! don’t be a failure like me. i will try my best, i promise. i think i know how i will, too. this site is just one method. so leave me some contact info or something via e-mail etc. (do it now! another failing i have–procrastination. the number one killer of my friendships and relationships.)

time flies. our last weeks, days, hours, minutes together have felt short. but the flip side of that is that i will see you all again soon. sooner than i can imagine. i wonder what will happen to me next year around this time. (besides the obvious, which is graduation–i hope.) at that time, it may be a while before i see you again. but really, probably not. still sooner than i can imagine.

home again, what will i do? i have a few things in mind, although some of them will make me look pretty damn frufru. but they’re fun.

but first i have to make it home. and to make it home, i have to pack. fun. i’ll be flying off into the sunset, though. (really! flying west haha.) that will rock.

it’s raining again. boston has a lot of rain in general but it pours rarely. oklahoma has little rain but it rains like crazy when it does. and i miss that smell. i’m sure i mention this all the time.