tyler redux

January 17. 2000

Choirgirl Hotel reduxBack to the same old same old. Yay.

When I stepped through the door of my dorm room, I almost tripped over two little stones with runes painted on them. They were the runes stones I had given to Sarabeth for her birthday in October. Compassion and guidance. I had made them for myself last summer when I was grappling with some difficult decisions in my life, and then I passed them onto her. I had intended for her to keep them, but there they were, probably slid under the door after I was gone. I immediately looked across the hall at her door. It was stripped of all the things she had pasted on it, and all that remained was two name tags, "Anna" and "Anna", the names of the people who were now living there.

For a moment I thought she had switched rooms. Then Alicia came out of her room half asleep and informed me that Sarabeth had withdraw because of "personal problems". I suspected that was the reason. She has a lot of problems, and I had tried to help her with them, but she always seemed to not be interested. I had seen her twice over break at the Allen, she hadn't said anything to me about leaving school. She apparently had emailed everyone letting them know she wasn't going to be there. Everyone except me. I haven't heard from her at all. It's ironic, she's probably the person I liked the most of all the people here, yet I got the feeling I mattered very little to her.

I can't say if I drove her away, or she was just in a position that she didn't think I could help her. I probably couldn't, come to think of it. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong in this cases, but like I've said numerous times before, I suck at reading situations. I suck at reading people, too. Often I piss off people for an extended period of time, and then they don't bother to tell me for a long time, and I assume everything is okay, and then suddenly, it's "You've been pissing me off for a while and I don't want to be around you anymore." Those have been some of the worst moments of my life.

So I moved into my room. My roommate did not show up today, so I have the room to myself for now, which is a real treat. The room, with Cheryl's influences now removed, is very pleasant and nice to be in. I managed to get my scanner, zip drive and printer all hooked up and going (ah, the joy of parallel ports), and I went through the arduous task of untangling all the wires under the desk. It still looks like a mess, but at least it's an orderly mess, right?

As soon as my parents left, I discovered I had forgotten a bunch of things. My toothbrush, for one. And of all the stupid things, I discovered I had only brought one bra. Doh.

I went to Borders with some of my friends. It was subzero temperatures, as in it hurt to even breathe. And Paul's car is very old. Thus, the heat was sluggish, but with the six of us crammed into his car, we were pretty warm, if only from the body heat.

I almost hate going into bookstores anymore, because I know I'm going to buy something, whether I have the money to blow or not. In this case, I found myself in the jazz section, under Coltrane. Giant Steps, $9 on sale. How could I resist? I'm such an ass, really. I also stumbled across a really great book about album cover art. It wasn't just one of those lightweight listings of best album covers, but they actually went into the design aspect of each cover, which, after my 2d design class, was really fascinating to read about. When I was in NYC, Dave showed me these books on Pink Floyd's album artwork. The connections between the music and art pretty much blew my mind, even though I am not a fan of Pink Floyd's music (despite Dave's greatest efforts). I would love to end up doing something like that as a job, if the pottery schtick never works out. It might be a good way to combine my love of art and music, but I am not a huge fan of all the technical stuff that goes along with graphic design.

I really just want to do too much, I think. It would take me a couple lifetimes. Fortunately, I've probably got a whole bunch left to go.

music: Heather Nova, Siren
food: a nice clove cigarette
read: The Last Battle, Book 7 of the Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
sight: smoky air. I don't recommend smoking in your dorm room.
song lyric:
when somebody needs you, well there's no comfort like that
-Heather Nova, London Rain