Of Summer Days Going By
I’ve been negligent. I haven’t been taking good notes on my life, and so now I’m disappointed. I often feel like I’m nothing without my past, and I won’t remember the details if I don’t bother to write them down. If I LiveJournal has only given me one thing, at least it’s been a place, a method, of preserving these unimportant memories of mine, so that I can look back later, and see how they’ve grown important with age.
I’m not sure whether this was Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or whenever, but my mother is an odd woman. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon, and I was just sitting at the computer, probably just listening to music and reading some random Internet article. I get a call from my mother, and she sounds frantic, absolutely frantic. All I can clearly discern over the phone, partly because she IS that frantic and partly because you lose reception for cell phones near the apartments, is that she’s waiting in the car outside, and she wants me to get in. So I hurriedly yank on my shoes and sprint out the door, not even bothering to lock it, and jump into the car.
My mom puts it in gear and goes all of maybe seventy-five yards…so to the stalled ice cream truck. She had had a craving, poor woman, and had decided to get both of us some ice cream, hence the frantic phone call, which seriously had me TERRIFIED. But the ice cream was delicious and nutty, deliciously nutty, and I am not complaining. It was almost worth the heart attack.
In other news, my mother was being extremely random last night as well. We were waiting for some family friends to show up, and even though it was quite a bit later than the time they said they would arrive, she decided to tote me off to Michael’s to get me some canvases and brushes. I was quite flummoxed, for a while, as to why my mother had suddenly wanted me to start painting, but that all became clear when she explained that she wanted me to paint some nice pictures for the new house. I said I’d try to; I’m not that good at all.
But here I sit, trying to motivate myself enough to pick up those paintbrushes, because it seems like recently, whatever I’ve tried to do, I’ve failed at.
On the way back from Michael’s, my mom was searching her purse for a coupon she had for ice cream from Wawa. Again, I think she’s got this craving for ice cream that just can’t seem to be satiated. This is at a red light, and so she asked me to keep an eye on the light and tell her when it turns green. But there was music playing in the background, and so I just turned my head and looked out the window like I always do during rides in any sort of vehicle. My mother promptly yelled at me to pay attention. I said back, rather bitterly, “I have peripheral vision, you know,” and proceeded to promptly turn my head so that I was once again looking out the window, this time on purpose.
I saw the light turn green. I did not open my mouth to say anything. A tiny voice inside my head went, “Oh. It’s green, now. How nice. It’s much better than the red.” And that’s all it said. It took about a second after the light was green before I said anything, and then of course, it has to happen that the one time I don’t speak, there’s an anal guy in a big truck behind us who honks at us. I’m sure that one second cost him his worth as a man.
So we both turn left, and he’s right behind us, and seeing as how my mom was in a random mood, I turn to her and say, “Mom. Mom, can I flip him off?” She just looks at me. She didn’t say no, and so I continue to pester, knowing that I’ve already won this battle.
“Mom, come on, please? Please?”
She glances in the rearview mirror and sees that while we’re turning left onto Boot Road, he’s continuing straight down the road.
“…yeah, go ahead.”
And so I stick my hand as far out the window as I can and extend my middle digit.
I was so amazed, really, to see that extended finger in the presence of one of my parents, that I forgot to look at the guy’s face to see his reaction to getting flipped off my a teenage girl and her mother. My mom and I looked at each other and laughed the whole ride back.
I only had one question for her at the end of it all: “D’you think he noticed?”
And to which she answered, slightly screaming, “HOW COULD HE HAVE NOT?”
We had people over for two straight nights in a row. Family friends, meaning that of course they’re either really boring or annoying. Indian family friends seem to ask nothing of children other than how their studies are coming along, and nothing of teenagers other than whether or not they’ve prepared for the SATs and which college they want to go to. I feel like snapping, sometimes, “There’s life after college you know!” but they would only smile slightly and say, “Ah.” as if I’m too stupid to see the plain truth, and that hopefully one day, poor child, I’ll know better. Either that, or they’ll think I’m one of those Asian exceptions who hates the system because they’re horrible at using it and get B’s on occasion. I’d like to think I’m not that, either.
And I’m forced to have sat there and suffered through hours of this sort of torture; it’s quite a pitiful sight, really, to see so many lives cut down to percentages and statistics. Luckily, the second night, my mother let me sneak away early, but it was painfully boring in that room, and unbearably steamy.
It was steamy because I was ironing some iron-on letters onto my most worn pair of pants. Why? Because I felt like it. What does it say? “Peasanting around.” A fitting slogan for my life, because I get the feeling that I’ll be doing it forever. I wonder what Mrs. Magargee will say when she seems them; I have every intention of wearing them to her class.
I would also like to thank Megan for keeping me company while I was bored, though Madii saved my soul. Thank you MADII. ♥
That was quite a wonderful session of “girl talk.” Hyde really is SO perfect pour vous.
Speaking of conversations on AIM. Guess who just signed on at 11:09? ::sigh::
I suppose that I should be grateful that I’ve been able to talk to him for hours on end into the wee hours of the early morning; last night I went to bed at 4:30.
(On a random side note, remember even just several years ago how staying up until midnight was such a huge deal?)
And it was such a perfect night. Great food, great pants, great movie playing in the background (The Fifth Element), and I’m talking to, quite literally, the guy of my dreams. (And it pains me to type that, because it’s not a Nupur-sentence at all)
But it’s frustrating because I get the feeling that the only reason he responds at all is to be polite.
In which case I’m being annoying, and he’ll like me considerably less than the little he does now. So…
So.
This leads us to another order of business: The Fountainhead.
I picked the book up rather recently, after he recommended it to me, and I have to say, Ayn Rand is one hell of a writer. I’m almost convinced that by the end of this book, she’ll have converted me to an atheist. Good thing? Bad thing?
It smells like wonderful Indian food, even though there’s no food out.
But going back to The Fountainhead…
In the introduction, she says:
"Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not live, think or write on the range of the moment. Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish in a month or year. That most of them do, today, that they are written and published as if they were magazines, to fade as rapidly, is one of the sorriest aspects of today's literature..."
I. Couldn't. Agree. More.
This is, perhaps, the best quote I have ever encountered to explain what I want to write in my lifetime. To begin with, let me just say that I've always wanted to publish something in my lifetime. Oh, I had elementary school teachers who told me that I'd already been published simply because my poem was chosen to be in some anthology or another, but those I now disqualify. They were, are, nothing. I want to write something that survives the decades, centuries, even. I want people a hundred years from now to be able to be able to open up my book and get as much out of it then as would the people now, "now" being whenever, if ever, I get this book published.
I am almost sick of people saying, "Oh, if my book changed just one person's life for the better, it was all worth it." No, no it's not. I'm unable to see the small picture, yes, but I'd appreciate it a lot more if more people saw the bigger picture, like me. Enter Ayn Rand. Thank God for a woman with such similar ideas [though her political ideals are...um...I'll get to that in another entry, I suppose, specifically for this book] and a much better way of articulating them.
Chris reminds me of Roark; it's scary. I told him, and he said he gets it a lot.
This is also why I have such a low tolerance for teenage stories. MOST of them suck. MOST of them are not written well. MOST of them have to deal with the negatives aspects of life, and almost NOTHING else. Why can't there be a decent teenage book written where the antagonist doesn't have to be dragged through sorrow and muck before the cliched happy ending? Or, if they think they're being more realistic, an ending where people, meaning more than one, of course, die.
Don't bother arguing with me that this isn't the backbone of most teenage novels. You may tell me that I'm just plain wrong, but I will say, in response, "Is it? Probably. I don't know." And I will not give a damn.
It you're going to write, add something to the world. I discovered that that's what today's literature needed. Why the hell do you think I've haven't sit down and attempted a publishable work in years?
So in conclusion, read The Fountainhead, it will not be wasted time.
I’m not sure whether this was Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or whenever, but my mother is an odd woman. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon, and I was just sitting at the computer, probably just listening to music and reading some random Internet article. I get a call from my mother, and she sounds frantic, absolutely frantic. All I can clearly discern over the phone, partly because she IS that frantic and partly because you lose reception for cell phones near the apartments, is that she’s waiting in the car outside, and she wants me to get in. So I hurriedly yank on my shoes and sprint out the door, not even bothering to lock it, and jump into the car.
My mom puts it in gear and goes all of maybe seventy-five yards…so to the stalled ice cream truck. She had had a craving, poor woman, and had decided to get both of us some ice cream, hence the frantic phone call, which seriously had me TERRIFIED. But the ice cream was delicious and nutty, deliciously nutty, and I am not complaining. It was almost worth the heart attack.
In other news, my mother was being extremely random last night as well. We were waiting for some family friends to show up, and even though it was quite a bit later than the time they said they would arrive, she decided to tote me off to Michael’s to get me some canvases and brushes. I was quite flummoxed, for a while, as to why my mother had suddenly wanted me to start painting, but that all became clear when she explained that she wanted me to paint some nice pictures for the new house. I said I’d try to; I’m not that good at all.
But here I sit, trying to motivate myself enough to pick up those paintbrushes, because it seems like recently, whatever I’ve tried to do, I’ve failed at.
On the way back from Michael’s, my mom was searching her purse for a coupon she had for ice cream from Wawa. Again, I think she’s got this craving for ice cream that just can’t seem to be satiated. This is at a red light, and so she asked me to keep an eye on the light and tell her when it turns green. But there was music playing in the background, and so I just turned my head and looked out the window like I always do during rides in any sort of vehicle. My mother promptly yelled at me to pay attention. I said back, rather bitterly, “I have peripheral vision, you know,” and proceeded to promptly turn my head so that I was once again looking out the window, this time on purpose.
I saw the light turn green. I did not open my mouth to say anything. A tiny voice inside my head went, “Oh. It’s green, now. How nice. It’s much better than the red.” And that’s all it said. It took about a second after the light was green before I said anything, and then of course, it has to happen that the one time I don’t speak, there’s an anal guy in a big truck behind us who honks at us. I’m sure that one second cost him his worth as a man.
So we both turn left, and he’s right behind us, and seeing as how my mom was in a random mood, I turn to her and say, “Mom. Mom, can I flip him off?” She just looks at me. She didn’t say no, and so I continue to pester, knowing that I’ve already won this battle.
“Mom, come on, please? Please?”
She glances in the rearview mirror and sees that while we’re turning left onto Boot Road, he’s continuing straight down the road.
“…yeah, go ahead.”
And so I stick my hand as far out the window as I can and extend my middle digit.
I was so amazed, really, to see that extended finger in the presence of one of my parents, that I forgot to look at the guy’s face to see his reaction to getting flipped off my a teenage girl and her mother. My mom and I looked at each other and laughed the whole ride back.
I only had one question for her at the end of it all: “D’you think he noticed?”
And to which she answered, slightly screaming, “HOW COULD HE HAVE NOT?”
We had people over for two straight nights in a row. Family friends, meaning that of course they’re either really boring or annoying. Indian family friends seem to ask nothing of children other than how their studies are coming along, and nothing of teenagers other than whether or not they’ve prepared for the SATs and which college they want to go to. I feel like snapping, sometimes, “There’s life after college you know!” but they would only smile slightly and say, “Ah.” as if I’m too stupid to see the plain truth, and that hopefully one day, poor child, I’ll know better. Either that, or they’ll think I’m one of those Asian exceptions who hates the system because they’re horrible at using it and get B’s on occasion. I’d like to think I’m not that, either.
And I’m forced to have sat there and suffered through hours of this sort of torture; it’s quite a pitiful sight, really, to see so many lives cut down to percentages and statistics. Luckily, the second night, my mother let me sneak away early, but it was painfully boring in that room, and unbearably steamy.
It was steamy because I was ironing some iron-on letters onto my most worn pair of pants. Why? Because I felt like it. What does it say? “Peasanting around.” A fitting slogan for my life, because I get the feeling that I’ll be doing it forever. I wonder what Mrs. Magargee will say when she seems them; I have every intention of wearing them to her class.
I would also like to thank Megan for keeping me company while I was bored, though Madii saved my soul. Thank you MADII. ♥
That was quite a wonderful session of “girl talk.” Hyde really is SO perfect pour vous.
Speaking of conversations on AIM. Guess who just signed on at 11:09? ::sigh::
I suppose that I should be grateful that I’ve been able to talk to him for hours on end into the wee hours of the early morning; last night I went to bed at 4:30.
(On a random side note, remember even just several years ago how staying up until midnight was such a huge deal?)
And it was such a perfect night. Great food, great pants, great movie playing in the background (The Fifth Element), and I’m talking to, quite literally, the guy of my dreams. (And it pains me to type that, because it’s not a Nupur-sentence at all)
But it’s frustrating because I get the feeling that the only reason he responds at all is to be polite.
In which case I’m being annoying, and he’ll like me considerably less than the little he does now. So…
So.
This leads us to another order of business: The Fountainhead.
I picked the book up rather recently, after he recommended it to me, and I have to say, Ayn Rand is one hell of a writer. I’m almost convinced that by the end of this book, she’ll have converted me to an atheist. Good thing? Bad thing?
It smells like wonderful Indian food, even though there’s no food out.
But going back to The Fountainhead…
In the introduction, she says:
"Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not live, think or write on the range of the moment. Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish in a month or year. That most of them do, today, that they are written and published as if they were magazines, to fade as rapidly, is one of the sorriest aspects of today's literature..."
I. Couldn't. Agree. More.
This is, perhaps, the best quote I have ever encountered to explain what I want to write in my lifetime. To begin with, let me just say that I've always wanted to publish something in my lifetime. Oh, I had elementary school teachers who told me that I'd already been published simply because my poem was chosen to be in some anthology or another, but those I now disqualify. They were, are, nothing. I want to write something that survives the decades, centuries, even. I want people a hundred years from now to be able to be able to open up my book and get as much out of it then as would the people now, "now" being whenever, if ever, I get this book published.
I am almost sick of people saying, "Oh, if my book changed just one person's life for the better, it was all worth it." No, no it's not. I'm unable to see the small picture, yes, but I'd appreciate it a lot more if more people saw the bigger picture, like me. Enter Ayn Rand. Thank God for a woman with such similar ideas [though her political ideals are...um...I'll get to that in another entry, I suppose, specifically for this book] and a much better way of articulating them.
Chris reminds me of Roark; it's scary. I told him, and he said he gets it a lot.
This is also why I have such a low tolerance for teenage stories. MOST of them suck. MOST of them are not written well. MOST of them have to deal with the negatives aspects of life, and almost NOTHING else. Why can't there be a decent teenage book written where the antagonist doesn't have to be dragged through sorrow and muck before the cliched happy ending? Or, if they think they're being more realistic, an ending where people, meaning more than one, of course, die.
Don't bother arguing with me that this isn't the backbone of most teenage novels. You may tell me that I'm just plain wrong, but I will say, in response, "Is it? Probably. I don't know." And I will not give a damn.
It you're going to write, add something to the world. I discovered that that's what today's literature needed. Why the hell do you think I've haven't sit down and attempted a publishable work in years?
So in conclusion, read The Fountainhead, it will not be wasted time.