Another New Struggle

Descending the dark stairs within the English building, I had a moment of deep melancholy. I wished the staircase would go on forever, and I could watch each foot fall after the other, feeling the pang of the muscles in my legs straining and stretching forward. Always going down, down, down, speaking to no one, only listening to their innocent conversations, calling a blessing after every sneeze, hearing their shoes stamp in time and watching my feet fall. No destination. No time. No change.

That was on Thursday after Intro to Fiction. We were discussing "My Life with the Wave" by Octavio Paz, and talk quickly turned to modern relationships (which was in fact relevant). Somehow I felt disgusted by it and wasn't entirely sure why.

I'm watching myself get carried away with my feminist thoughts. It's always about balance... Anger is not balanced.

I had a lot of anger that day. Not really strong anger, just something a little beyond annoyance... confrontation. I felt confrontational. I wanted to fight the world. That only lasts a minute or two, of course, and then that tiredness I'm so accustomed to sets in and I just feel like lying down and dying instead.

Does something about humanity ever bother you so much that you don't want to be human anymore?

I felt like that then. I was angry at men and angry at women. I was angry at relationships. I was angry about the way the world works. I was angry at my mind.

Can anger be healthy? Is it unhealthy to never feel anger? Thoughts?

Transition: Friday:

So one of my suitemate's friends has a birthday soon. Said suitemate and another friend are planning a stripper party for her. Hilarious? A little? To me, yes. I was invited, too, but quickly declined.

I love my suitemate. Sometimes I want to write poems about her. I love how loud she is, how confrontational, how dramatic.

She liberates me. When she sings off-key, loudly, rebelliously, I am singing. When she yells, I am yelling. When she wails, laments, curses her life over a relatively small misfortune (or a large one), she does what I deny myself.

I love her.

Yet the nature of her personality means that I shrink from her. She is authority and I am passivity. Not that we don't get along, not that she gives orders and I follow them... Neither of us is unkind to the other. But the thing is, me taking any kind of stand against her, should the need arise, is highly unlikely.

So. She and the friend were talking about the stripper party and Nichole said "I wonder if they let strippers in dorms..."

I was lying on the couch reading. I kept my place with one finger and closed the book. I don't care if they think strippers and drinking are fun, but I don't want to be around it. When they have parties in the common room, I tell them all goodnight and close my door. They're loud, but it doesn't really bother me. But strippers? If they're loud just watching a movie... how can I ignore that?

"Nichole! No."

She laughed. "Why?"

"In the dorm? Why is that a good idea?" I laughed, too. I didn't want to be a jerk, so I tried to make it comical. "If you want to get strangers to take their clothes off for you, awesome, but don't do it here."

"Yeah... other people live here," said the friend.

Nichole laughed and said okay. I opened my book again and went back to reading.

I can't really believe I did that. For a normal person, that isn't a big deal, but it's completely out of character for me. To directly, blatantly, tell a person no? Normally, I would have said nothing and just planned on trying to spend that night at the commune, and if I couldn't, I just would have dealt with it.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing. Maybe it was unreasonable of me.


I've been writing that off and on since Thursday. I didn't want to end on that other sentence... so... instead I'll tell you that today I experienced my first Rain at J&B.

My thoughts are scattered and I'm far from a resolution... but it's okay.

Right as rain indeed.