odds n' ends
どこでもいいよ
Despite my Piscean INFP tendencies, I try to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. But sometimes, imitational melancholy seems like a nice jigsaw piece to fit into the short respite between finals week and winter study, the time specifically designated for gaiety just because some old dude sat down at his desk, pushed up the silver-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, and proclaimed in a scruffy voice, "Henceforth we shall commence the holiday season!" Just kidding. Melancholy just seems more defiant than boring ol' solitude―what a clichéd, overrated term―of course everyone is lonely. From the introvert who has "Chasing Cars" on perpetual replay to the extrovert who asserts that everyone on campus is his "boi," we're all the same. Yet each year, I still hang up LED lights and sing Christmas carols and countdown with the rest of the world. But when fickleness renders even melancholy itself boring, there's nothing wrong with indulging in festive follies―"it's a self-fulfilling prophecy!" my friend likes to say. So I'll flood that fir tree with as many ornaments as I can get my hands on, scream the lyrics to "Last Christmas" just to annoy the person on the other end of the Skype call. There's nothing wrong with a girl getting tipsy off a few shots just before holiday break and accidentally shedding tears over something that ended quietly long ago. Nothing wrong with her shamelessly crashing a friend's dorm afterwards because if she slept alone that night, she probably would've cried more. My new year's resolution for 2017 is to become more honest with myself. That is to say, I wish supermarkets sold eggnog during all four seasons of the year, despite having personally spread the word that egg yolk is gross. I would gladly sacrifice the concept of pumpkin spice lattes if Santa granted this desire―oh wait, that is outside his job description and he doesn't even exist. That's the easy way to live. Don't drift off into REM sleep expecting a white Christmas at the ice rink in Bryant Park because global warming is very real and all you're waking up to is cold feet. Instead, Christmas Day is better spent under ten layers of blankets alternating between the Home Alone trilogy and Yuzuru Hanyu videos. Don't fall in love with the boy who reads Murakami because upon closer textual analysis, all his male protagonists are basically misanthropists with ear fetishes and a cultivated taste for jazz (is that my type?!). Run to the bathroom whenever you sense the conversation coming since A+'s are practically mythological creatures now that the glory days of high school are over. Everyone was a genius in elementary school, gifted and talented until college. Now, we are just average, though that itself is slightly comforting. i feel leik this post got troll im sry have this nice snow pic reminding u of ur own mortality
guess which starter town this song is from and we can probably be friends c:
When virtual reality was still a term exclusive to the realm of science fiction, I was a snobby twelve-year-old who always hogged the restroom for twenty minutes too long. Humming the retro 8-bit battle themes in the shower, where bubbles made from bath sponges became the "Bubblebeam" of my rival's old Squirtle, I carefully devised in my own mind theatre the most elegant way I could reconquer the Elite Four.
Now, virtual reality is located exactly a three minute walk away on the second floor of the Sawyer library in the room specifically reserved for upperclassmen computer science majors. I still periodically check my phone just in case a Dragonite or Lapras chances upon me, even though I do not sing in the showers anymore. The clever bastards who made the App Store phenomenon know. We know. When the Millennials who grew up in the crevices between analog and digital willingly sold their childhoods to capitalism, we mutually understood yet never acknowledged that nostalgia was a drug. Saccharine toxins more reliable than any placebo, reminding you of the "good ol' days" when you had to rush to a Pokecenter before your favorite starter fainted due to poison, when possession of an Alakazam separated the cool kids from the plebs because no one knew how to trade, when your president did not look like a rabid Raticate. My generation. I still relish the very moment it starts―whether that is in Pallet Town, Littleroot, or Twinleaf. After selecting the starter with the most aesthetic third evolution, you step into that first patch of wild grass and off you go, free in uncharted waters. Each time you defeat the evil team, name the legendary you caught with the master ball after your crush, and save the world, you selfishly wish that you can forget, just so you can feel that initial euphoria all over again. But before you realized how huge Kalos was, they already threw you Alola. And it's sometimes hard to be the very best without a 3DS, especially when some snobby twelve-year-old has more time for EV training than you.
stay in memory by yiruma
With a swift finger tap, a good internet friend of mine deactivated his art account the other day, effectively cutting off our sole source of communication. Considering he lived halfway across the globe and "Tofu" could not possibly be his real name, we would never speak again. I lost a 40+ day streak on Snapchat with another friend I haven't seen for around the same number of days, and we mutually kept it that way. A third party informed me that the girl I used to call "bff" in elementary school moved to New Jersey two months ago. It was all without much fanfare so I nonchalantly acknowledged the fact.
People are like Bruno Mars songs: easy come, easy go. Some leave a heavier trace of themselves than others, whether that is manifested in pixels of text designed to mimic human conversation or in polaroids that were way too expensive but regardless hastily purchased so that we, too, would be "like the hipsters." But at least with the latter, I would have a face to place with the memories. ✒ 2008. Memories of a time long ago when the term "squad" was not yet popularized through social media but we were the quintessential of squad. When stranger danger was the last thing on our minds and five prepubescent little girls skyped each other everyday and posted group song covers on Youtube, thinking we were going to make it big someday. ✒ 2009-2010. Memories of Azn Invazn. When Kyle did not get depression and disappear off the face of the globe. When Andy had a football head and was way too obsessed with professional wrestling and Fantasy Football (tbh he probably still is). When Luke still spoke to us. It's only Izzy and I now. The stories of Kagami and Izumi, of Aria and Ilsa, remain unfinished, neatly archived in the back of my drawer somewhere, forever reminding me of our crazy antics and the fact that karma is always out to get us. ✒ 2011. Memories of Alfie, the boy one year older than me with the British accent and (according to him at least) the most accurate gaydar. We were two bored, internet savvy kids doing kid things, trying to run away from the adult shoes we inevitably had to inherit. He's good at comforting people. I often wondered if that was what having an older brother felt like. ✒ 2012. Memories of Leo, the Asian Holden Caulfield, with Cien. Good times when angsty high schoolers made fun of angst itself. ✒ 2013-2014. Memories of "Dicken bois" with Eris and Wendy―Nir, Kiru, and Pikko―three street urchins against the world. It was the first time art trades and collaborations didn't feel like work. When everyone had a giant platonic crush on each other's art styles and in the universe of Rugiguji, our characters were infinite.
༼ ༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ༽
thanks for a great 6 years guys 4:35 PM marks the beginning of sunset. Too early for those who arose from their slumber mid-afternoon, yet too late for the individuals who subscribed to nyctophilia the moment the word home shifted from a cozy brownstone in the suburbs to a stuffy room identical to a hundred other ones hammered into the enormous building complex someone said was modeled after a ship. But you're located in the middle of nowhere. There is no water.
As compensation, the mountains are rather generous in the plant department. When deeper hues of mauve slowly splay across the sky, the trees outside twist and turn into amorphous shadows―large, wavering, yet strangely comforting. And when you pause for a moment, briefly counteracting the gravity pulling you downhill back to your room for a night of finals cramming, you notice a soft lull that lingers in the air. It politely sits there with the flickering lamp posts, almost comically threatening you, even though the most sinister presence here would be a lone squirrel chucking you acorns in indignation because you tried to approach it for a picture. And as days turn into weeks and weeks into months, the walks through the embrace of the trees become routine. The same security beckons you, reminds you that even as a decent adult, it is sometimes still acceptable to shy away from responsibilities. You almost forget that your home was a place where the sea was objectively more attractive than the woods, where stars were either myths or airplanes traveling too slow for their own good. So when your mother asks why you haven't called, you are ashamed to admit that you googled "homesickness" and wonder why you do not look forward to concrete and pigeons as much as you should. The trees back there were touched by too many human hands to be loved. Though it's true you still miss the water. The steady rhythm that greeted me this morning was not the usual cacophony of my 7:20 AM alarm, but the echo of footsteps, remnants from a dream I failed to recall. I woke up to lethargy and conceded to it, easing into my sheets while instinctively hitting the play button on my phone. Two birds, one stone. As the piano intro seamlessly transitioned into triggering words (simultaneously rendering myself personally attacked, but that's ok), I mumbled along.
When Toru noted the hypocrisy of human nature during student protests at Tokyo University, he wasn't kidding. I could still recall that skeptic from two months prior, scoffing at the plethora of love songs plaguing modern-day media, dismissing the friend who cried over the termination of a toxic relationship as childish. But now I found myself buying into commercial melancholy as well. It all happened too rapidly, too spontaneously. When two hearts were aligned, it was something akin to milk and honey. But when uncomfortable silence gradually permeated the afternoon air, stuck to my lips like dust to hot glue, it was closer to a game of pretend―who is the better borderline masochist―all in bad fun, of course. And it was easy to settle into this cycle, remind yourself of hands that perpetually smelled of tangerines, the straining voice that cracked when reaching notes beyond high C. How stasis was a stage that benefitted no one. How weed and beer were terrible life choices that exacerbated your sore throat but were nonsensically acceptable because you're a college student and he liked them. So I'll wait for the hustle and bustle to catch up to me, wait for time to accustom myself to a new pattern. Or perhaps the cycle would repeat once more for a different heartbeat, at a different rate per second, not like I had much significant say in the rhythm of my own. |
Authora little cynical & tired Archives
July 2019
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