Expectations

So everyone's finally back. Nine days later. 3 weeks later most will be gone again. It seems like it's only good ones that go away to make the rest stay. The good ones go to force the bad ones into something better. I spent the past nine days trying to figure it out. How was I going to make the senior year a good one. When you consider the reason I came to school to begin with was for things that abandoned me that I abandoned in return only to come back groveling in a pitiful exhibition of pridelessness. I'm a little coked up. Most of these are self-indulgent, self-absorbed, pieces of angst laced psychobabble that nobody understands but the person writing them. I'm so tired of being disappointed and not liking people. But there's always one good thing about the people around me. One good thing. It's your choice to make whether you miss out on that. That's the price you pay. When you choose alliances you're putting your trust with those people. When you can't trust anyone, what's the alternative? Lowered expectations. Expect nothing from everyone and there's no possible way that anyone will ever let you down. Or better, expect the disappointing things. The things like betrayal and loveless friendships. Expect abandonment and people who use you only as a means for something else. Expect complete ungratitude and mockery, the smaller, sarcastic things. Expect that and guess what, you will never, ever be disappointed. Live a life with expectations so low that nobody can undermine them. People can only exceed or meet them and you'll either be prepared or surprised. That's a sad way to live a life. People die to make life important. People go deaf to make hearing a piece of music beautiful. People stay to make others want to leave. People have contempt for others to make a person's love valuable. We always have this metaphor of "I would die for you" "I would take a bullet for you". Where does something like that come from? The concept of giving your life so another might live seems like such an obligation it's not even an issue of question. Is there anyone you would want to die for or just people you feel like you should die for? I could count the number of people I would on my left hand and the number of people I want to on less than that. It's driven by a selfish desire. How do I fill up the happiness? What can I do to make the pain go away? What should I accomplish? I'm not convinced it's supposed to be about that. So what's the broader purpose? The obvious Christian mantras are tiring. We're losing our spark and becoming the shells of the people we should be and can be. I want? No. It's about giving. It's the harder things.

"Always be closing"

Why is Alan Alda so awesome? He's one of the best actors of his generation and he's still getting great work. Glengarry Glen Ross, The West Wing, The Aviator. He's gonna be one of those Hollywood legends that won't quit until his heart does. There's a certain thrill to be 4th row, ten feet away from Hawkeye and George Bluth, these people you've grown up and lived with you thought were so far away. They're right there. That's theatre. Theatre, to me, seems like one of the most untouched entertainment mediums. There's never a need to speed things up or youngify a cast to get a cast hotter. There's never a need to spell things out. These things happen if they should. It's all organic and mostly natural. Or maybe not. I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

"Elitist feminist? You can't do that to the English Language."

Two days in New York without getting raped or mugged. I'm calling Guiness. Wicked would've been a whole lot better had we A) not had a horde of annoying, screeching, paper crackling, little preteen girls behind us and B) had we been closer to the stage. The whole family was a fan, which was a surprise seeing has how one of my first childhood memories was all of us watching West Side Story together and coming up with different ways to kill ourselves everytime they broke out into song. We split up later with half touring the city while the other half went to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels down on 45th. Not quite as good as Wicked, but worth it to see John Lithgow and Joanna Gleason on stage. Tonight sees Glengarry Glen Ross with ol' Hawkeye and George Bluth themselves, Alan Alda and Jeffery Tambor. My point, I like Broadway.

I've been to 441 baseball games in Yankee Stadium. There's not a single person there who's ordinary

New York: The Yankees vs. Orioles yesterday was less of a game and more of a massacre. We had pretty good seats: We bought a nice picture from a vendor and spent about an hour on the roof of the stadium parking. At one point we were harassed by a well intentioned black woman: a href="http://www.imageshack.us"> We live in Kingwood so yes, when we see one we need to take a picture. Next was Carmine's on Broadway. And let's just get the fact out of the way that driving a car in New York sucks hard. Planes, trains, taxis, and subways are fine but traffic is something of a nightmare. We ate a Carmine's and proceeded to Times Square and Ground Zero. Then we headed back to good 'ol mobster NJ. In conclusion, here's a picture of the best homeless man sign I've seen in a while:

"Free trade is essential for human rights"

The end of that sentence is "we hope because nothing else has worked." I there was a thought thought that came while riding the 'ol Brys-, er, bicycle. It's not really profound and it's probably incredibly obvious. But articulation and the the concept of being able to present an idea with style and wit is really like the verbal equivalent to an attractive woman. The girl could be a total ice-queen bitchfest horror whore of a person but if she's hot and that's all you get then you don't really care. The idea could be full of holes or be sinister in its root nature but if spoken in the right way it doesn't really matter. For instance, Kushner's AiA is a really hot girl. Some of the ideas in it are really very much covered in crap but it doesn't really matter because the way in which it's spoken makes it entertaining. There are some things on The West Wing that sound like the most noble and idealistic thing you've ever heard when it may in fact be the most socialist, communist, and about four other negative "ists" political agenda you've ever heard. A little sugar coating goes further than most people would think. Now I'm not trying to be this right-wing reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, "Leave it to Beaver" trip back to the 50s and I don't think I am. But it's fair to say that an argument's far easier to when you can sling a sticky web of words as a defense. There are better things than elegance triumphing over truth. Or maybe not. I really don't know what I'm talking about. Jersey isn't as bad a hellhole as Tony Soprano would have you believe. I've yet to see anyone whack a guy or dump a bag full of puppies in the river or anything. You can't turn right and nobody's white but you but that's okay because being able to say that you lived a week in New Jersey without curling up in a ball and crying like a molested Catholic schoolgirl is a bigger accomplishment than you might think.