Thursday, June 20, 2002

As I listened to WZLX this afternoon at work, the DJ announced that he was going to play Boston's version of the national anthem as sort of a prelude to the upcoming World Cup game with Germany. It was refreshing, partially because I like the band Boston better than the shrieking sopranos that are usually called upon to sing the Star-Spangled Banner, but mostly because it was the first time in a while that I'd heard the national anthem without some sort of patriotic spiel about the war on terrorism. For once it meant "We are a great country and thus we are going to beat Germany at soccer," instead of "We are a great country and thus we are going to blow up some people in Afghanistan." And for once I wasn't muttering about it under my breath.

At any rate, as I'm going to be awake at an absurd hour tomorrow morning, I really should make an effort to find a radio station in the area that might be broadcasting the game. I'm doubtful that I'll find one, but as I'll be sitting in Logan airport for three hours and will have a walkman with me, it's worth a try.

Oh, and yes, I'll be in DC for the weekend, so you will not hear from me. Not that it makes much of a difference; I've gone longer stretches without posting while I was at home.

Amanda Hope -- 7:23 PM (linkme)

Wednesday, June 19, 2002

It feels good to laugh. Hysterically. For no reason. In the middle of a small coffee shop. With lots of people staring at you. It feels good to sit there with your best friend, and laugh, and not care.

Amanda Hope -- 11:07 PM (linkme)

The Requiem for a Dream soundtrack somehow has a way of converting stagnant negative energy to flowing negative energy (making me twirl around the room in a depressed state instead of curling up in a corner in a depressed state) and the motion somehow has a way of converting the flowing negative energy to flowing positive energy (making me twirl around the room in a nondepressed state and eventually actually accomplish something in a nondepressed state.) And it's occurred to me that I must sound terribly freakish and newagey these days with my ramblings about energy flowing like waterfalls and whatever else, but I can't quite find another way to describe it so I have to somehow convince you that I'm just talking about everyday things that there aren't exactly words for. Really. We've all felt the things music can do, right?

Amanda Hope -- 11:05 PM (linkme)

I just wanna be life-sized ... big enough to know what I am ...

~Stipplicon

Amanda Hope -- 5:23 PM (linkme)

I don't know if I'm going to explain this right, but I'll try. I can't even quite figure out where to start. It's this overachiever thing, see? I don't quite fit this mold. I can't quite make myself do all those overachiever-ish things that intellectual-type people are supposed to do. The motivation isn't there. Sure, I can reel off a list of things I'd like to read or languages I'd like to learn or instruments I want to play, and I do want to do everything that I list, but I never live my life that way. Over the summer I'm a bum. I paint signs to earn money. Afterwards I come home and stare at the ceiling for a while. Eat something. Fool around on the Internet. Sleep a lot. There's a pile of books that doesn't get smaller, though I am in fact interested in all they contain. I'm not doing the learning-on-my-own thing or improving any sort of skill except the ability to stare off into space for hours on end.

And yet I am an overachiever, by definition. I go to Colgate, I pull off an absurdly high GPA even though I always think I'm on the verge of failing something. I have a binder of awards and there are trophies and plaques collecting dust all over my room. I was pretty much brought up to be an overachiever, and I've followed that path without a second thought. I don't dislike it. I don't really know anything else. But there's a certain competitiveness built into the concept of overachiever. You have to be better than anyone else, or at least better than a lot of people, and as good as the rest. You learn after a while to measure yourself consantly to see how you're doing. You get to be a nervous wreck if you're not measuring up. It's really rather silly. What does it matter? But it matters because I've never learned to find my self-worth any other way. So I keep feeling like I have to get out of this rut, so that I don't have to compete anymore, so I can somehow find value in myself that comes from things I do, not things I do as compared to things that other people do.

But I don't know how. I don't know where else to go. I don't know what else to do, how else to think, what other way to live. I've never learned.

Amanda Hope -- 5:13 PM (linkme)

Have you ever seen something so perfect and beautiful that you feel compelled to back away lest you somehow mar it?

Have you ever known someone so close to what you wish you were yourself that you just want to find someplace to hide from your own deficiencies?

Same thing.

Amanda Hope -- 4:46 PM (linkme)