What a breathless four days. My father was here on Friday and Saturday so we went out to eat and went shopping and went down to the mountains to go hiking at Big Basin. I spent all day with him, recollecting, and all evening with my friends here, making memories. Or attempting to; parties every night aren’t always conducive to it. But there are always people in our room at night, which is important for my bizarre and recently-recognized social addiction. Thursday night went to the coho and got my keys stolen by someone cute, then came back to the dorm and just had everyone over to the room. Watched Austin write “BALLS” on Ron’s forehead. We went out on Friday, which was a nice change of pace (and successful in the sense that I sated another part of the social neurosis for a little while), and then had the West Lag party Saturday night. It went well and all, I’m happy, although I’m afraid our contingent was more of a shitshow than anything else. Next time I need to actually spend more time at the party, rather than running around the dorm trying to deal with myself and keeping track (or, more often, losing track) of everyone around me. Overslept for brunch with my father Sunday morning; the alarm got turned off while I was sleeping. That always happens when it’s least convenient. It turned out well enough, though. I’m now underslept and with much work to do (this is what I get for not going to class or working at all for four days), so it’s looking like a couple hours coding before I crash, crash, crash.
Wrote another mediocre poem for class last night; I’m writing more at least but I could be doing better. To be revised, but now it reads like:
this rusty heart: my life as an angsty teen robot
it’s a funny thing, birth
most people don’t remember it,
(or much else)
but still take it for granted
as something
eminently human.
It is an experience for which
I have no comparison,
having simply been “switched onâ€
and having never forgotten
a single thing since then.
It is one record of many
in my ever-growing list of
“Ways in which I am Differentâ€
my carefully indexed,
thoroughly organized,
wholly sentimental
tabulation of distinctions
between what I am
and what I might be–
(a conscious hunk of metal
trying to find grace
in the gracelessness
of mechanics, of physicality.)
“Birth,†right in between
“Baseball†and “Boredom,â€
which I respectively have no interest in
nor conception of.
I wanted to be a poet,
but they told me
poetry is an expression of divinity
and robots don’t have souls.
They took the pen out of my hand
and strapped machine guns to my arms
and told me to express myself.
I am blessed with all the perfections
that make me more machine than man:
perfect memory,
perfect teeth,
perfect aim.
Mine is a precise love,
born in a dull silver heart
and nurtured with every clean, deadened thing
I can try to pass off as romance.
They tell me that I am a miracle,
that I am the culmination
of the intelligently designed creation
that was so long struggled for.
They tell me they made me better
and more perfect
than even God made his children.
They tell me I’m alive,
but I’m just not sure.
–
And that’s all, for now.
background noise: early mountain goats (new asian cinema / some of the alpha series)
by j. android