shoegazer1313

the more work i have, the less time i have to spend confronting my insecurities and fears.

ironic, since my "work" is all about self-expression.

more work, please!

new york is beautiful when the weather warms up and the breezes blow and the city awakens.

my friend just lost a roommate and is looking for a new one. all you people who've been meaning to move to the city and haven't had the chance, this might be a good one to pounce on. the rent is insanely cheap for NYC - $850 including utilities.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/roo/464716495.html

in other news, my life is really good right now.

not sure whether this is good for Hillary's campaign in general, but it certainly makes me like her a lot more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/us/politics/29letter.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

proof that real people reside inside politicians.

for some reason i'm tired and unmotivated. i have grand plans for this summer and yet i still spend most of my time either staring stupidly at this computer screen or watching Law and Order. ugh.

the writers are rolling in this weekend though--i'm very excited to get back to work on Moon Mary and really tighten it up, actually arrange it, maybe rewrite some songs.

i miss brown. and i'm really psyched for nyu.

it's late. i'm going to bed. a more substantial post to follow.

i graduated college today.

i am ready.

i am not ready.

i am exhausted.

having tried to make sense of the last couple days of my life, including where i am now, i've decided that it's impossible. life is crazy, unpredictable, uncontrollable. just when you think you've got it figured out and you're in a pattern, you get thrown for a loop.

people are unpredictable. best not to even try to figure them out. i've wasted a lot of time doing that. i always end up being dead wrong. no more.

besides my total inability to do work anymore, my life is pretty good right now, i think.

a brief rundown of SPRING WEEKEND 07

friday, 4pm: eat brownie
friday, 5:30pm-7:30pm: get really stoned off brownie. play guitar hero really badly. damn good game.
friday 7:30-midnight: Soulive and The Roots. both really good. was high the whole time so i'm probably not the most reliable judge, but i did really like both bands.
midnight-bedtime: float around. i can't quite remember it all. some of it involved drinking. these hours are a bit fuzzy for me, but i don't think it was all that amazing. i know at some point a friend laughed at me for being stoned.

saturday, some point after noon: wake up.
saturday, 2pm: go to the Main Green. the lineup for the afternoon: stardeath and white dwarfs, Mission of Burma, Yo La Tengo, Flaming Lips. stardeath and white dwarfs were fun and spacey. Mission of Burma were loud, punk, and generally quite good. Yo La Tengo mostly played shitty long boring noise jams, but they had some really charming pop songs in the middle. i'm told they chose their set badly.

Flaming Lips are now in my top 3 all-time best gigs list. (1 and 2 in no order: Radiohead at Giants Stadium, 2003, and Muse at the Avalon in Boston, 2005.) Wayne Coyne came onstage in a gigantic plastic bubble, as he sometimes does. there were balloons all over the place, Brown students dressed as elves and aliens dancing on the sides, crazy videos. Wayne did some political stuff too, and it was a bit trite and a whole lot of preaching-to-the-choir, but the music was beautiful, and the whole thing was a gigantic lovefest.

anyway.

saturday, 8:30-11:00?: go to barbecue at friends' house. despite telling myself i wouldn't, smoke up.
11:00-11:30: go home. still stoned. same friend as the night before laughs at me.
11:30-1:15: go to friends' party. kinda small. drink a bit. get hit on (or something like that) by attractive but bland girl from DePauw. (upon thinking back, I think I can attribute the extreme awkwardness of our conversation to a)my inability to talk to bland people and b)my inability to talk to non-artists and c)having no game.)
1:15-3:00: go home. chill. go to sleep.

sunday, 12:30: wake up.
sunday afternoon: go to Dave Binder, a Brown "institution" who plays cover songs including American Pie, Free Falling, Piano Man, the Macarena, the Hokie Pokie, and also plays such originals as the Unicorn Song. (in past years, the Gangbang Song was a favorite but he didn't do it this year. very disappointing.)
sunday, late afternoon to evening: original plan is work. do some bit of work but mostly chill outside while the football frat yells ridiculously. end up hanging out on my swing with a girl i know but not super-well. somehow end up kissing said girl. uncontrollable laughter and a mutual sense of what-the-fuck-just-happened results.

so i've completed the spring weekend trifecta, i think--sex (well, if aforementioned unexpectedness counts, though it's quite far from being sex), drugs (ok that one i've actually got down) and rock and roll. yea.

life is crazy and unexpected. no use trying to control it. this is what i'm learning.

i hate bad days.

especially after they come shortly after good days.

i hope good days keep happening, and not bad ones.

PLAYOFFS FUCK YEA

my head is not a good place to be right now. it's a very confused place.

the Islanders need to win this afternoon and tomorrow. and the Leafs need to beat the Habs tonight. if all three of these things happens, we're in the playoffs.

i've had a lot of free time lately. it's a new thing for me. i really enjoy it.

this last week has been quite insane. Keys tour started on Sunday and went through Friday, and featured tons of singing, ultimate frisbee, poker, and substance abuse. (i'm proud to say i ended up +$5 in poker for the week.) lots of fun. sadly, not so good for my body. came down with a nasty cold on Friday, got home and rested, woke up yesterday with an awful fever and feeling like death.

luckily my mother is the best doctor i know. and she doesn't even have a medical degree! how about that. now on antibiotics and feeling quite a bit better. and being sick is a good excuse to have family members bring you things while you lie on the couch and watch two movies (Scaramouche and Gangs of New York), three episodes of Law And Order: SVU, and an episode of House.

so, back to school today, for two more months of college before graduating. AAAAAAAAAAHH

i'm sick. this sucks.

i'm home. is anyone else home? because if you are, you should hang out with me.

and with my entire a cappella group, who i brought with me. hell yea.

so i got into NYU.

two years, MFA in Musical Theater Writing.

hell yea.

a fairly uneventful birthday but a nice one.

tomorrow, off to NYU for the weekend to try and convince them to let me in.

just read my old livejournal and xanga entries, all the way back to the beginning of freshman year. wow, that was quite a long time ago. it's amazing how quickly four years pass.

in many ways i'm dealing with the same issues i was back then...the same issues i've always dealt with, perhaps the same issues i'll be dealing with for years to come. in many ways i'm more mature, i suppose, though lately i guess i've relapsed into freshman year a bit. snap out of it, jon.

if i really want to make a change in who i am and how i deal with people, i'm just going to have to do it. gotta sack up. always have to sack up. things turn out better when you sack up.

i also realized a little while ago that this screwed up state of mind i've been in for the last few weeks is, perhaps, seasonal. i always have some sort of crisis around my birthday, always get depressed about something. i think i missed it last year (though i can't remember--maybe there was something), but this year i've definitely been hit.

push through, keep going, don't withdraw, hold on to what you've got and make it matter. that's all i can do, and that's what i have to do.

i'm tired, my room is a shithole, and i feel disconnected from humanity. i just don't interact with people in a normal way--i'm too awkward and nervous, i think. ugh.

http://www.43things.com/person/shoegazer1313