I guess I've lived with roommates almost my whole life. When I did summer educational programs at Skidmore I had my own room, but it was in a dorm, and my life was scheduled, I was mostly in my room alone at night. When I did the Harvard summer program I had my own room, in a dorm. But my neighbors were nerds and I avoided them. My room was very large and had luxurious windows and I spent a lot of time by myself smoking cigarettes or eating hamburgers. I watched the entire of the State short videos before I found some friends, i think through my search for pot.
I met Lily, who described herself as a 'bio-girl' and a lesbian, and spent the whole summer fucking my friend Stein, who was into death metal, and getting fucked up. Andreas, a friend of Lily's from Cleveland, showed up. He was/is an anarcho-syndicalist and we talked about how much we hated the g20 and yuppies and stuff like that, he taught me how to use a rolling box to role my own cigarettes. Since my room was the biggest, and the liquor store in Cambridge didn't card me, we spent a lot of time in my room sleeping all over the floor and the bed and smoking weed and drinking.
When I was a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence I spent Thanksgiving alone, drinking mostly, and watching TV on my Computer. I think my roommate Liz was there, but she spent the entire weekend in her room (presumably) fucking her boyfriend who was visiting, although their presence went by unnoticed by myself.
I watched the entirety of Radio Free Roscoe, a young-adult canadian program I had originally encountered on The N when I would come back from sneaking out to dinners or to get high. The experience was very sentimental and by the time I had finished the season, and much whiskey, I wrote a rather bleary facebook message to my ex, whom I felt I'd lost touch with. It didn't amount to much.
Over XMas break, all my current roommates have left. My parents keep calling me because they are lonely, and they tell me they miss me, but I really don't want to go home. I almost wrote, "i get nothing accomplished at home" but then realized that I've gotten nothing accomplished here either.
The day before the blizzard I saw True Grit with Austen and Andrew, then had expensive but delicious drinks at the Ace Hotel. The Ace Hotel, decorated like some weird old Anglo-American library, struck me as both sinister and comforting. The comfort I associated to the amicable indie rock radio selections and overstuffed but decidedly 'tasteful' sofas. Andrew said the sinister feelings were probably attributed to the snippy waitress, who working on Christmas eve in a santa hat and hipster t-shirt, probably hated us, the patrons. There was also something sinister to the relative emptiness of the bar. And I was definitely put off by two men, one older and dressed like a businessman, and one younger dressed like a 20-something. The two man sat in total silence at a table while drinks or food were delivered.
The night of the Blizzard, Ghost Time felt very palpable. The world was in a presumed crisis. There was all this white snow in the air and the wind was very aggressive. There were dump trucks with flashing lights and snow plows moving all the snow around and people were literally parking on the BQE to take the ice off their windshields. It seemed like surviving alone was doing something. I took out some art supplies and listened to This American Life from the This American Life iPhone app, and also listened to Dirty On Purpose. I took out some art supplies and set myself aimlessly to equating a charcoal drawing of lines that i hung on my wall even though I do not like it.
My internet went out at some point and I watched some movies I had saved on my hard drive. I found both When in Rome with Kristen Bell, and Cabin Fever 2 to be disappointing, I deleted them from my harddrive.
Today I read a little over a hundred pages of Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai. I'm perplexed that I had discovered this book at an age when I wasn't seeking out contemporary literature, but remember being attracted to the cover image (a katana) at a Barnes and Nobles, and at the time was into Japanese things like fighting and weapons. Rereading it I'm even more impressed with the scope of the book, and how like either intelligent or well researched DeWitt proves herself.
Any story about geniuses reading Homer in the original greek at age 6 will make me feel like I'm wasting my life. I've tried writing lately, but I'm at a loss for inspiration, which sounds as lame as it is. I'm not sure if I want to write poems or prose, and I've been writing mostly neither. I've been playing guitar but it feels pointless without a full band. A lot feels pointless.
There is a great line from The Last Samurai which I'm quoting here from memory.
"I couldn't stand the idea of going to bed just to wake up to another day. "
