for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody

This line in V for Vendetta is where I cry.

I've been burrito'd in blankets on the couch since 5 pm, reading, interneting, reading V for Vendetta, housemeetinging. It wasn't really an enjoyable 6 hours, but I was feeling poorly so I didn't have much choice. I thought about inviting someone over but I didn't want to mope with company. I got really chilled this afternoon at an interview, and it's hard to recover from that without a full night's sleep between me and the 3 hours of dampness.

Yeah, the interview was a barbecue in Laurelhurst Park. It was fun, I met some interesting people. Social anxiety sat on my shoulder throughout, but I tried not to let it weigh me down. They'll have us around for more interviews, and I get half off a sensory deprivation float, so it was a pretty good deal even if I did lose an afternoon to bodily trouble plus some aporia.

I just saw a video simulating a euthanasia roller coaster. Considering writing a story about a group of people who have decided to die for science or something, who get to know each other. Question the meaning of life/death etc. Wow I am feeling heavy feelings today.

No reason I should be (apart from reading V for Vendetta) because I have some good news as of yesterday:

I HAVE EMPLOYMENT pretty much nailed down. I'll be working at OHSU doing electron microscopy stuff and it is pretty much ideal. I can't believe it actually happened. I'm going to check out the lab on Tuesday, and then Wednesday-Friday I'm going to the symposium on Bioimaging at the Nanoscale.

I know that this post doesn't really merit the title, but I've been a little too fuzzy to really recount the last few days. It was a wild weekend, but now I'm stuffy and sitting on the couch and I can't dream myself back into a state of excitement.

Some other time, some other journal, maybe. I promise this summer is off to a good start.

broken vows

I did it. My honor is forever marred.

I smoked weed, after I swore: "Never Again!" not 6 months ago. Weak, savage, animal that I am.

I only did it because I was with other kids who don't smoke and it's funny because I feel like it's how weed is supposed to be smoked. Giggling because no one can roll a joint and half of it spills onto the mirror-table. Sitting around in the dark taking tiny hits and telling stories.

Parties are poison.

I mean this quite literally, we went to a party and part of the "show" was a dude breaking fluorescent bulbs into a bucket. I fled the scene, having attended an Environmental Chemistry lecture on heavy metal poisoning a mere 3 weeks prior. I paced dramatically, I googled the periodic table on my phone, I looked up the mercury content of fluorescent bulbs and just generally spazzed while the rest of party was closed up in a garage that was rapidly filling with toxic fumes. Finally, I texted Neal my concerns and he came out. I milled nervously for several more minutes, explaining my concerns and also my reluctance to make a scene about it.

Neal finally volunteers to talk to the "artist" who was his friend. He comes back with the good news that the point of the "piece" was to recycle properly, and that the friend had sprinkled sulfur over the shards to neutralize the mercury.

Let's rewind again, sitting in the park across the street with Liana and Anna, watching the clouds do their cloudy voodoo in the sky, watching strange yellow flashes wink at us to the northwest of the sky, hearing a strange man barking across the street, barking back, talking about feelings and how to process and what people need. 2 hours of that left me solidly chilled, but also emotionally fulfilled somehow. It was difficult but also easy, and it made going back to the party a shift that I was interested in. I didn't want to talk to anyone there except my friends, but I guess that's normal. I just have this fantasy of going to a party and meeting exciting new people! It never happens. If it ever does, it's through other friends. I guess that's reasonable, I just dream of running off with a stranger and just getting along. Dynamics with my friends are always better though.

Melaina made me a ring out of wax. I stuck a bottle cap to it, and then a fridge-poetry word: vapid. It was a mood ring to match the one from our kitchen that I put on tonight. That was not my mood but when have you known a mood ring that was accurate?

Anyways, Melaina stole it back and we went out to witness the "art" and "music."


Now I'm sitting on the couch because the housies have gone to bed and Liana is next to me and there's Talking Heads leaking from my speakers in tin-foil Youtube flavors. I want to listen to Retrograde by James Blake but it was overwhelming Liana.

a reminder for bad days

http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-an-entj-destroyer-of-worlds,36075/

no more teachers

I didn't even really try on the quantum test. Just pass me, Lucas. I didn't need to spend another hour and a half playing with your stupid symbols. It was an interesting problem, but the issue with interesting problems in quantum mechanics is that the moment you write them down in Math they lose most of their originality, and the rest you approximate away.

Well, that was this morning. I turned it in outside of his office, and then went straight to the gym. I ran for 5 minutes, walked for 5 minutes and then ran a little more but I was over it just like the Quantum exam. There was a little bit of do, but definitely no try. Thanks Yoda.

I walked home to a cold shower. My housemates bought champagne, not even Andre, a whole step up from Andre, and I drank it from a martini glass and we laughed.

I was reading over my lab report. I was constantly suprised--every sentence--that it was legible. The funniest thing happened when I was turning in my electro exam. It was bullshit hard, and after the third hour I started panicking and so I decided to cut my losses. I had stopped crying and composed myself in order to face my "professor." Walking to his office, I see my least favorite professor. I avoid eye contact very intensely. My head was turned away from him.
He says "I liked your lab report."
I stop and say "Really?"
He says "yeah..."
At which point I kind of lose my composure and barely peak my head in the door as I turn in my electro exam. I drop it on the post-doc's couch and left.
He said "all done?"
and then as I walked away trying not to cry "Have a good summer!" comes out of his stupid office.

And then I cried for a while and doubted everything and basically regressed about a month in terms of dealing with my feelings towards the department and physics as a discipline. A week ago I was ready to write a huge complaint about the least favorite professor and now it seems totally futile. They are all terrible.

So If I'm not gonna do physics with my life I guess I need new hobbies.

Post-Script I'm pretty obsessed with this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr4fIcvPXDA

impulse

me and two friends just went in on 82 feet of rhinestone chain. we are gonna make tiaras.

(yes)

(i love soldering)

trying to study and thinking that there should be more science themed porn in the world

Google images will not give me any pictures of a shirtless man staring quizzically at a test tube and that is all I really need right now.

The SpacePirateShip

Liana's painting of me

disappointing art

My recent encounters with art have been dissappointing. I saw The Last Five Years which was supposed to be some honest-indie-musical-theater that ended up being only slightly more than a gimmick.

Then the Portland Opera puts on Pirates of Penzance and their dramaturgue gets defensive when someone asks why they're putting on an operetta and I think to myself ooooh shit. And indeed, it is a terrible mistake. About as much substance as a meringue in the Sahara.

I need something to blow my MIND.

On that note I'm thinking of seeing Die Antwood in a week or two. 

goals

1) be sincere, but not nostalgic
2) rinse
3) repeat

my memories

realizing that maybe my memory wasn't fried by research chemicals, but instead by the fact that going to class and studying physics felt like torture all semester, so my brain has hazed it out.

Even before I had taken any drugs, high school became a blur because I had decided that I had misinterpreted most of it in the moment, and the only value in the experiences was the distance I had from them. As I become very aware of where my memory fails me or stays put, I find the damage is not visible when recalling events when they're prompted, but only when vaguely reflecting.

This isn't very clear, my head is still slow from Renn Fayre, but I feel more at home in it now that I can trust it a little bit more.

Anyways, if I ever need memories I know where to look.

people of early net

I was ankle-deep in a sea of balloons, carrying a roll of mylar over my head, and I anxious to leave but I was listening to a stimulating conversation. I think I agree with them. I think "Early Net" is what our generation should be called by the future. That's our definition. The silver cylinder and I walked out onto the soggy quad on Sunday afternoon of Renn Fayre 2k14. Synth-heavy experimental music moaned from a 35 foot geodesic dome as I headed home with my gift and and my fatigue weighing on my shoulders.

We joke that it should be called Rain Fayre. On Saturday morning I lay on my back looking up at a plywood roof two feet above me. Rain knocks on the platform, and my friend and I hide in the steerage of the pirate ship I built with my housemate. I feel pride and water, but not the cold because the drugs are distracting me. Knots in the wood warp and reform with rainbow auras as I blink at them.

I finally kissed him. It was the end of thesis parade when everyone is milling outside of Eliot and the drum korps is straining against their blisters. It was so soft. It was like falling onto a naked bed and sinking down into the seams. I want it again and again.

May Day

Light escapes from the living room windows and sees the shadow of my Renn Fayre project, pale sherbert blades of grass in a neat rectangle. I was painting those flats at ten in the morning, and I finished pinning the sails just as it was getting too dark to see. It was a full day. Overall straps swung around my ankles in 90 degree sunlight while I tried to create an aesthetically pleasing space-pirate ship out of questionable sketches and half-baked plans. I drank deeply from hydrating cocktails of orange juice and water. Physical exertion.

Mental exertion too. No fewer than 3 friends shared crises with me today. One had me so shocked that I was unable to deal with it. I sat on the floor and cried for a while. I am still overwhelmed by guilt. I don't know what to do. I tried to talk to him but it took two hours for him to show up and by then I had dealt with the shock by continuing to build. It's so hard.

Anyways, for a few hours I was worried that Renn Fayre would be ruined by all of the issues around me. People are not happy, or healthy. My people aren't, at least, and that breaks my heart. I feel like I would do anything to help them but nothing comes to mind.

Now I think it might be okay. I think I've been a really strong supporter for everyone in my life and that has had non-negligible consequences, even if they are still sad. And me? Well, I've had a lot of support too, but I am lucky enough to be my own best friend, my own sister, my own parent, my own bad influence as well. Sometimes to be propped up by so many things in so many ways traps you in a locked position. I don't feel trapped. I feel balanced. How else could I have taken so many shocks so easily?

I'm waiting for my room to cool down.  I think I will try to get it in better order before finally going to bed.