bookstore musings

Jun 09, 2006 20:52

I’ve been spending more time than necessary in the self help section of Barnes n Noble’s, mostly reading about stuff that doesn’t pertain to me. One particularly interesting read was this dating handbook on some dos and don’ts of dating, as well as providing an analysis on specific relationships that fall under certain umbrella groups. Of course none of it really pertained to me, as the stories I found were more Sex in the City than real, the stories were about JAPs, VAPs, and compulsive daters, directed towards JAPs VAPs compulsive daters and the socially awkward, not socially independent. Not to say a none of them had souls, but there wasn’t a single story about a man that was needier than a woman, though they did point out that it is unreasonable to assume all men are assholes and that a good relationship will provide heated romance for life to go with your prince charming. The book did give me a little insight as to what some people expect of relationships, I know I don’t know many people that agree with all this stuff, but I feel like everyone else outside of my group does. Maybe everyone actually reads and buys into this shit. It was interesting to see these people write about their relationships to this woman and have her dissect their every move, say flat out who was right or wrong, producing a list of suggestions on how to strengthen the relationship with many small things directed towards men and one or two bigger things towards women. Apparently once you’re in a relationship, it is considered unreasonable to have private conversations with someone of the opposite gender, or give flattering comments. Richard you’re a stupid douche how can you say that flirting isn’t over the line, flattering comments don’t have to be given in a flirtatious manner, if a close friend has a horrible self image, it’d be my job to prove to them wrong, so long as my intentions are understood. I do believe that it is difficult-impossible to maintain a close, strong, healthy, undamaging friendship with a person of the opposite gender, disagree with me if you’d like but unless both people are in perfectly happy places where they wish nothing to change, well you get the idea. Did you know women outnumber men by 7 to 3 in the cooking section? People ranged between the ages of 25 and 45, mostly around the extreme ends, not seeing too many 30 some year olds. My mission today actually was to meet people and of course I failed, okay no not people, I wanted to meet someone I might potentially find attractive but sadly, I have a dork’s interests and dorks don’t go to dwell amongst many women. Jeff wanted to have a contest/bet with me and Jeremy on who can meet the most women, seeing as we’re all pretty average, though Jeff thinks a little more highly of himself than say me or Jeremy, but he also thinks I’m a smelly slob/asian chick so by contrast I guess he would look good, the trim eccentric guy with original taste in music. Say Bok Gwai is not music though, can’t say I know many people that follow the whole punk scene. He says that punk is doing what you want just cuz you felt it, I do a lot of stupid shit just because, but I don’t consider myself punk. Is pissing out a window punk? They moved the anime section under teen fiction at Barnes n Noble’s and now the teen section is overrun with 10-13 year old girls, god the giggling. It felt like the burbs was attacking the city through a bookstore, these girls were too trendy to be normal, too TV to be sane, too stereotypical to be real, and definitely too young to be talking about sex, but hey, what they do with their boyfriends is their business; I’ll try not to eavesdrop so much. I went upstairs to the fifth floor where the much larger Manga section was located, lots of kids, lots of boys and a few asian girls passing by quickly. There was nobody I was really interested in and everyone was too absorbed in their mangas to stop and talk to me anyway. I stood by the tokypop spinny rack idly for a good five minutes waiting for a black asian couple (the typical mix) to notice me and move out of the way so I could see the books on the other side. The FLCL drawing style is quite different in manga and actually seems much more anime than the anime itself. The drawing style in the show to me looks like it took more time and originality, it looks so very GAINAX too, but both the manga and the show capture the mood of the story. The sketchy look suits the manga well. My only complaint is the way that Mamimi is portrayed, she is much too normal, natural, mass produced for her character, a mid teen who smokes, plays videogames and dates a noticeably younger boy. Everyone else looks about the same. I’ve lost my passion for anime amidst the sea of romantic comedies I’ve been marinating in for the last year, year and a half, maybe 2 years. The only thing that has captured my attention recently was the sequel to School Rumble, maybe Harima will have a happy ending, maybe everyone will get what they want, I just want everyone to be happy. Initially I had not finished the show because of the fact that nobody ended up with each other in the end, that fact disturbed me, how no problem no conflict was resolved, it would have felt like a waste of time to watch the show without making progress, there was change yes but no progress. I want to see a happy ending. My hair looked nice today, nice by my standards meaning the sides didn’t stick way out like the usually do and the hairs were nicely clumped, separated and away from my forehead which has somehow stayed surprisingly pimple-free. I had planned to clean my loft and draw today but of course I didn’t get to those things. I did do that one thing I planned to do, the visit to barnes n noble’s, and if I don’t play flyff tonight, I’ll be content with how the day went. My loft, I’m going to miss it when the manager tears it down. In a little while the manager is going to make some major renovations and relocate everyone until the renovations are finished, then he can enforce any rule he’s implemented by knowing who exactly is living with what people, and what shit they have. He also has the right to jack our extremely rent controlled rent, way way up so I doubt dad is going to have the courage to quit his job until I find one. Dad is quite unlucky to have been born with such a personality, it really has held him back a great deal. I wonder when I will meet someone who will be willing to give me some attention, Gen says she rates me a five out of ten, and rates herself a seven, reasonable. I wish I found more people attractive and I hate to look at people and put them under the doable or not doable category, but running on appearances that’s all I can do to leave room for personality points. Doable seems to be the bare minimum of physical male standards where a relationship can be formed regardless of the presence of a personality, so long as it does not openly repulse. The book I read today made it seem like a month was an unreasonably long time to wait to sleep with someone, how much sex is the rest of the world having exactly? I watched a movie about a girl’s transition into womanhood, not teen but a 25 year old, Parker Posey, I found her incredibly attractive and it made me feel incredibly disgusting. She eventually became a librarian at first to prove her grandma wrong that she can’t shape up and learn and do something right, but then she just wanted to grow. I also watched an indy film, though I do not know the name, it did really capture my attention. I do not have the words to describe how I feel about it, or what I really think, it was just about relationships and interactions. The book said that if you date a girl that looks similar to your ex, you are likely to be a whats it called… cantgetoverherus hominus whatever, quite obviously made up of course but it made me think about the assumptions people make. Risa told me that we make a lot of generalizations as people because it would be inefficient to store information in any other way, I agree that we do make a ton of generalizations. The book itself, a book full of rules and dos and don’ts, they’re all generalizations in and of themselves and generalizations do what? Ignore the specifics. The book was telling people what their problems were without considering the specifics. Some people say life and relationships can’t be put into equations, I also extremely disagree with that, its just the equations many people develop are just - too - simple. Life is complicated and if I could think of a proper analogy, it would be the proof on how to trisect an angle with only a ruler and a compass. We’re always so very quick to say who is the villain and who is the victim, I say we’re all villains and we all try so very hard to be victims, dunno why, it just feels great to be. I guess to be a victim is the closest one can get to being a good person.
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