faking it

(amadika's photostream on Flickr)

I'm pretty sure no one actually likes each other anymore. In general, I'm the type of person who believes that people are inherently good. I like to look for the best in people. I don't know if that's my fatal flaw, or what, but no one else seems to like anybody else.

All my friends seem to do when they get together is bitch about this person, or that person. At the restaurant? Same thing. Everybody complains about everybody else. It's getting really tiring trying to keep who-hates-who straight.

One of the managers made me laugh tonight, but it was kind of a bittersweet laugh. He just walked over to my hostess stand, got on Wikipedia, and then motioned to the page to show me how he was feeling. "Misanthropy."

Good grief.

summer lovin' happened so fast

(appletea's photo from fotolog.com)

Where did the summer go? Seriously, how is it already August? I really don't understand this whole time thing. On a day to day basis, everything feels so long. But this summer has flown by. I came to New York two months ago without anything set, and now I'm leaving with everything going for me. Promises of the potential for an amazing fall. Opportunity.

Anyway, I just want to write a little bit about some of the events of this past week. Just so I can remember them and the thoughts that they've inspired.

On Sunday I went to this huge outdoor music festival in Jersey called All Points West. After a four-hour rain delay (which I spent clad in a garbage bag laughing with my two best guy friends) I danced and swayed and let the music take over and do its thing. We saw Akron/Family, We Are Scientists, Mogwai, The Black Keys, and Coldplay. There is just something about an outdoor concert that really gets to me. Sure, I get the feeling at a regular ol' concert as well: everyone together, enjoying themselves. But outdoors, it's different, I think. There is something more raw and human about it all. And the fact that the entire park turned into what Chris Martin called a "mud jacuzzi" certainly added to that organic, natural one-ness with my surroundings. It was an epic, epic night.

Yesterday, after a much-needed yoga session, I had dinner with two of my closest friends and my landlady, who happens to be an Episcopal priest. We chopped, grated, baked, and ate. We drank wine. And we talked. We talkedtalkedtalked for a good four hours, and sitting there, being a part of this amazing conversation, was the most invigorating experience I've had in a while. There is nothing like good wine and good company. There is nothing like having an intelligent conversation with intelligent people. That is something I definitely needed, something I was definitely missing.

Last night's conversation made me think about a lot of things. How much there is I don't know, for example. How different people think in different ways. I would really like to take a history class, a politics class, a comparitive religions class. I guess I could always just read a book, but I want someone to help guide me. I want someone to lead me and prod me into thinking in ways I've never thought before.

Or can I be my own teacher? Is that possible?

love poems

(celestephotography on Flickr)

I love you without knowing how,
or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly,
without complexities or pride.

So I love you
because I know no other way.

-Pablo Neruda, XVII

little letters

(by Sssamantha on deviantart.com)

dear new york city,
i'm completely in love with you, but you smell sometimes.

dearest paris,
i miss you. more than i thought i would.

dear simon & garfunkel,
thank you for making my lazy sundays marvelous.

dear roommate,
please clean the bathroom, or shave your head.

hello best friend,
i'm so excited to see your new life.

dear sunshine,
keep shining. you make me so happy.
p.s. tell summer to stay.

love,
faustyna

philosophizing

"Life must be lived forward,
but can only be understood backward."
-Kierkegaard

(image found on weheartit.com)

So I'm going to pedal forward and make it a beautiful journey.

I am realizing now that I am okay with not understanding why people do what they do, with making mistakes, even with being in a constant state of change, and feeling things out. A lot of times not having things figured out and set in stone really bothers me, but it seems that's pretty much impossible. And I am okay with that. I think that as long as I think my life was beautiful, when I think about it in retrospect many years from now, I will be happy.

that's amore

At the restaurant today we had a guy propose to his longtime girlfriend. He came in earlier in the day to give us a heads up and to make a few special requests, to pay tribute to some of their inside jokes; it was all really thoughtful and super cute. And she said yes! It was also probably the most beautiful ring I've ever seen.

But the moment was ruined (for me, anyway, and we all know I am a huge sap when it comes to things like this) when immediately after they sealed the deal with a kiss, they took to their Blackberries to spread the good news. They spent the rest of their 45 minutes at the restaurant on the phone, pausing occasionally to take a celebratory sip of champagne.

Technology is changing a lot of things. It's like we can't live in the moment and savor it in our own memories, we have to let everyone and their mother know what we're up to at any given moment. Granted, I myself avidly Facebook and Tweet and all that...but I think that for something as monumental and life-changing as an engagement, or the birth of your first child, you could put down the cell phone and just enjoy being with the ones around you.

Privacy, mystery, secrecy, whatever you want to call it: everyone else can wait.

blowin' through the jasmine in my mind

I cannot believe it is July already. Summer is already halfway over, but it feels like it really just started. I mean, I guess I did have a two-week limbo period where I was still trying to figure things out and get settled. Now everything has fallen into place.

Relatively speaking, of course. Lately I've been feeling a little distant and unattached from everyone and everything, and I'm not really sure how to explain that. I think I just have a lot on my mind: I grew a lot this past semester, and I'm trying to figure out what I want my life to look like now. So I sit and observe a lot. I watch the way people interact, what they talk about, what they do. I want to know if I want to surround myself with these people, or whether I'm wasting my time.

I am so lucky, though, to be surrounded by quite a few people who do inspire me to be a better, smarter, more active person. I'm tired of drama. I'm tired of conversations consisting solely of gossip about what's-his-name. I don't need friends just for the sake of having friends; for the sake of looking popular on social networking sites. And I'm embarrassed that I ever thought that way. I feel like I've been learning a lot lately from all my observing of the people I'm around. I'm realizing what I want out of the relationships in my life. And that makes me really happy.

But now I need to stop observing so much, and actually hold up my end of the friendships. Sometimes it's intimidating; I feel like these people are so much better than me, and it's weird to be intimidated by the thought of being friends with someone. I've never felt that way before; it's always been really easy for me to make friends. People just kind of flocked to me. Actually, funny little anecdote: in fifth grade, apparently, there was a new girl in school who wanted to be friends with me, really badly. I don't remember this very well, but I guess I sent my minions, my envoys, over to talk to her to see if she was "cool" enough to hang out with. But now I actually feel like I have to work to be friends with the people I want to be friends with, and I'm very okay with that.