it’s story time i guess.

–

Jean Paul was a charming kid of 22 years. If he was older, he’d be an alcoholic. But for now he’s a college student. Most stories about college student’s are about underage drinking, late nights of unprotected but somehow infertile sex, and mistakes that really don’t take much out of one’s life. Jean Paul’s, is not.

Jean Paul was the type of boy that people loved to hate. Truly loved to demise. They found his every achievement a result of other people falling for his scummy air of arrogance. Fools who fell for his faux non-swagger gave him promotions. But to his friends, Jean Paul was a tool. They’d seen him sleep with girls he knew he shouldn’t, and they’d seen him be wholly unable to control himself when he was feeling anything but on top of the world. Jean Paul’s story, his friends knew, was not one of a heartbreaker or a man even. It was a story of sustained difficulty, even in the face of great circumstances.

Jean Paul was in love. Madly in love. The type of love that takes great men and makes them whining, shaking idiots. But love …

–

edit, stolen from a friend named a.e.:

“

i’m nearly halfway through my last quarter at UCLA.  has it really been one month since my hopes for her and me had suddenly been cut by latent incongruities ignored in our beginning?  i realize that if we didn’t ignore them at the onset, i would never have explored the coves, the clubs, the diners, the restaurants, the parks, nor watched the movies, the shows, the concerts.  not with the same smile at least.  there are no regrets.

i just don’t know what to make of it. what to learn.  i thought i did, but the more i think about it the more confused i become.  if not for trying would we deprive ourselves of love knowing it were doomed from the beginning?

trying is trying is trying is trying and trying is working is working is working is working is marriage.  what is irreconcilable?  is there such a thing?  we say, you’re you and i’m me and some parts of you i hate and some parts of me you hate, but i love you nonetheless.  i’m yours forever.  what they don’t tell you is how complex that really is.  it’s a decision.

sometimes love is not enough.”

you’ve always been much stronger than i have. a better resistor, more capable. so really, i shouldn’t be surprised that i wake up with a sore throat that threatens to end me and you run off to pilates. but that’s what i love about you anyway.

take care of yourself, don’t let me make you sick too.

life’s been moving along, but i’ve mostly been holding onto it by random fingers grasping at the caboose as it runs away oh so quickly. weeks are a blend of beast, bruin, law, pre-law, sexual representation, and architecture. all of these things are good, in their own way, so the mix can’t be that bad.

the headaches are back, but it’s obviously just from a lack of rest. i’m hoping to find some mid days where i can just call it quits on the day and crash. won’t happen for awhile though. tomorrow promises trip to arch prof’s house then straight to beast then straight to a meeting which will involve long long elections. wednesday is law school early until class until law school later until meeting at a bar. thursday i’m a beast again and friday morning i will be savoring sleeping in. don’t call me on friday morning.

i know complaining is pathetic when the complaints are so mundane. but i just need to grumble and i’d rather grumble online (though i must get better at shutting myself up in public). no one likes the kid who is busy and hates himself for it.

the weather is gloom. i ordered a watch that i don’t need with a band i definitely don’t need. but maybe someone will like it and then i’ll smile and say thank you. maybe my smile will make someone else smile, or maybe my thank you will be greeted with a you’re welcome and the conversation will be over. in any case there is no need to socratize retail.

odd times. seems every day someone asks me when/how/why/what new york. i dont’ know when i’m moving. i have vague ideas about why. and i don’t want to talk about it. i don’t want to think about it.

i’m also tired of getting called small. when did people suddenly realize i wasn’t lew alcindor?

i wish i could read all day. nymag, the new yorker, i want it all. but i don’t want an ipad, so please don’t send one in.

back to the class discussion board that no one has posted on yet. slackers.

thoughts, too many; time too slow

from these foolish fingers wisdom doth not flow

for in time there will be no more

time for anything but a poor man, a bore

with little joy and still less hope

does he sit around and idle, mope

anyway, most of the work i do here in the la bureau is related to entertainment or celebrity news. in the wake of the haitian earthquake, there has been a somberness that i wasn’t sure actually happened in entertainment circles after tragedies. but alas, it does. everyone here has had small tv’s playing anderson cooper, and while work must get done, the focus on posting links to gossip seemed to have slowed a bit.

i know this because that is a part of my job (to find the news to post), and my google reader was significantly less full these past few days. if anything, the focus has been on what stars are (and aren’t – hi kanye west) helping haiti.

but now, a week after the earthquake, things are picking up again. it really does feel like heidi montag’s “i’m going to replace my face with a white rubber eraser” story set the entertainment news world back on pace. it’s a bit disorienting, as I alternate between “cheating” stories on Haiti’s burial mounds and simon cowell and kanye west.

another blog coming soon about the bank bonus outrage and how the problem is that no one wants to admit that capitalism is unnatural.

there is a midcentury armchair next to a mid-90′s television. a chabby chic letter-writting desk fills space. a white book case, microwave, and mini-fridge make that corner more chabby-chic than i had realized until this moment. generally, i hate white furniture. it always looks unfinished to me. or maybe so damn finished that it emits a suffocating vibe of finality. it’s as though all the white furniture in the world collectively tells you, “we were too good for paint.” it could be worse though: primary colors.

my boss asked me to skip work tomorrow to ensure that my virality (pun) is adequately diminished. i’ll be home all day, no room mate. i have a shakespeare essay to write and i imagine i’ll try to start that fairly early. get a nice big, yolky breakfast in and sit down with the riverside. or at least a passage from othello. we shall see.

lsat scores released as early as friday and no later than monday. not feeling too great about it but that’s probably a defense mechanism at play. lower the expectations, build up the anxiety. hopefully it will make for a good or decent start to a great weekend with some friends from home (read: from cal) and an enjoyable albeit early day at the rose bowl. the historic rose bowl, that no one cares about.

anna’s cutting some dragonfruit. it’s bright and layered on the outside but she tells me its black and white inside. black and white fruit. almost logically impossible. a grayscale hat for the chiquita banana girl.

discussion today momentarily centered on the fact that the recipe of coke is so highly guarded. we decided there was no need, for two reasons. one – coke is the only company that can legally import coke plants (they’re not called coke plants). two, even if someone made the same exact drink, it is highly likely that it would not “taste as good” to anyone that likes coke. marketing tastes good. and coke markets well. i said probably the best, with nintendo as a second place. i suppose apple is in the top five. and maybe chiquita bananas.

the fruit is here now, it is literally white with black spots. like poppy seeds, like coke. like cheap imitation marble. white watermelon marble, tasteless. nature’s wonders.

slow writing for a slow day in a slow week, with a slowly developing solipsism.

of course, there are the nuances.

goals for this year – exercise more than i have in the past two weeks. guide pad through times tough and boring with minimal drama for the members. my phone has already begun ringing about every 30 minutes (with some inane questions…”what is the exec email?”), which is actually fun in an interesting way. phone ringing during exec with call that must be taking…not so fun.

at some point i should take this blog back from daily updates and “i hate the lsat but kinda love it” to the exploration of some grander thoughts (or grander topics). un/fortunately, those thoughts seem to occupy one’s mind when they are feeling especially down, which i haven’t really had to face lately. i’ve fallen into mostly happy routines, but routines always make me uneasy and make me crave some form of the hurtling sensation. in my experience, the most interesting people are either those that are entirely at peace, or constantly facing some sort of evolutionary tension. i’m far too young for peace, and i’m banking on the next decade or so of my life to provide me with enough tension to retain some level of personal interest.

but maybe the most interesting people are actually the ones that are at peace in the center of continual turbulence. in that case, we all have a lot of work to do. it’s an admirable goal, but i’ve never been especially calm. i don’t believe in stressing over many things (academics, grades, clothes, hair), but sometimes i feel hyper antsy at the smallest things. i wish i could attribute that to some grand artistic tendency, but that seems like a stretch.

but then again, maybe i’m just not seeing it.