Flowered vine humming
I've had insane gas these last two nights in San Jose, and tomorrow I move to Los Angeles for an internship I accepted as I walked out of my last college final. I went from potential bay area sadsack to unpaid Jeff Nathanson go-for in the blink of an overwhelmed, half-slanted eye, and now after 2 1/2 weeks of much-needed HOME-home relaxation, it's off to the races. Wait, wait...lemme backtrack real quick.
I graduated college.
Seems that last time we spoke, I was enforcing the self-pledge of the ages, promising not to cry at a time when it was open season for film major tears: yes, I was nearing the end of my life as a Gaucho. What has happened during the time that has passed? Well, in no particular order...
- I worked way too hard on the Film Studies Department's end-the-year compilation video and realized, upon experiencing shivers of joy when it finally showed, that no work is ever too hard.
- I managed to get an A on my Italian Directors essay without ever having gone to class, while getting a B in Japanese Cinema. Lick up the irony.
- All of the filmies, coming to the stark realization that they may never see each other again, rallied up two weeks worth of panicked, are-you-moving-to-L.A.?-filled nights of weirdly themed drunkenness, proclaiming that each one was, without a doubt, "the last film party EVER." Then they tried to get busy with each other.
- Isla Vista, in its last week, became this beautiful, how-did-I-never-notice-that? thing, as all of us graduating seniors in our final fleeting moments of free youth finally saw it for what it truly had been all these years: a home.
- Families came, we all drank profusely into ungodly hours of the night (scrambling to Q's, but ultimately ending up at Velvet Jones...twice), then woke our disgusting asses up to drink more at the Hall in hopes of what, being drunk at our own graduation ceremony? Genius. By then, Lincoln, Bill, and I (with the gracious help of my parents) had moved out of our house in a record 3 hours, and I.V. had turned into Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
- We walked, we hugged, we kissed, we didn't cry, and we all somehow ended up trashing my parents' hotel room in an amazingly unplanned turn of events, eventually getting kicked out at 1AM.
- Oh, and I went to Vegas, lost $400, cruised the strip while high as a kite, watched Kim literally ask Lincoln to marry her (scary shit), got into a club for free wearing skater shoes, and put sunglasses, a purse, and sparkly purple lip gloss on a passed-out Steinberg, the perfect capper to what I have deemed my college senior trip.
Not bad for the end of an era.
To tell you the truth, it all was nothing short of a whirlwind...insane, sad, exhilarating, way imperfect, not a little apocalyptic. And that's when the internship thing happened. So here I sit, yet again locked in my childhood room, listening to sentimental twee, as if it were the end of winter break all over again, poised on the edge of professionalism. It starts Tuesday.
I did things these last couple of weeks that were utterly and completely fulfilling, and above all necessary. I had a grad party where the drunkest people were either in their fifties or their teens (I, meanwhile, was having a pep talk with my liver in the corner). I had coffee with someone I haven't seen in years: one of my favorite high school teachers. I caught up on some movies, including three of the best of the year: Crash, Batman Begins, and War of the Worlds. I visited Alice and Dan in Walnut Creek and realized that those who remain close friends (and deserve to) are the ones who don't ask of you the same things of which they asked in high school. I visited aging grandparents, caught up with them, thanked them for graduation money, and just flat-out appreciated them for their love and company.
And in the weirdest twist of the summer, I ended up watching several old home movies from the beginning of the 90s that my dad was trying to organize. All those camping trips and Christmas mornings and sessions of pre-adolescent face-making became hugely important all of a sudden, as I laughed at how adorable my brother was at 5 years old, or appreciated how awesomely mellow my parents were in raising us in front of a camera. After being away at school for four years, you begin to lose sight of where you come from, and while the smiling footage of the deceased grandma is just killer, or while you wish you could go back, just for a second, to that fishing trip, it's so great to remind yourself of who you used to be. Especially when you're at the threshold of becoming someone new.
Random sidenote: I noticed before I cooped myself up tonight that I was brushing my teeth with a toothbrush that has been sitting in this San Jose bathroom since, god...well, since I left for my first year at UCSB. The average person would gag at that, thinking that was just pathetic, and they'd be right; it's pathetic to the nth degree. But I can't remember the last time I considered myself average, and in the heat of this supreme-emo moment, I think that toothbrush is about the most perfect thing I've ever seen.
I graduated college.
Seems that last time we spoke, I was enforcing the self-pledge of the ages, promising not to cry at a time when it was open season for film major tears: yes, I was nearing the end of my life as a Gaucho. What has happened during the time that has passed? Well, in no particular order...
- I worked way too hard on the Film Studies Department's end-the-year compilation video and realized, upon experiencing shivers of joy when it finally showed, that no work is ever too hard.
- I managed to get an A on my Italian Directors essay without ever having gone to class, while getting a B in Japanese Cinema. Lick up the irony.
- All of the filmies, coming to the stark realization that they may never see each other again, rallied up two weeks worth of panicked, are-you-moving-to-L.A.?-filled nights of weirdly themed drunkenness, proclaiming that each one was, without a doubt, "the last film party EVER." Then they tried to get busy with each other.
- Isla Vista, in its last week, became this beautiful, how-did-I-never-notice-that? thing, as all of us graduating seniors in our final fleeting moments of free youth finally saw it for what it truly had been all these years: a home.
- Families came, we all drank profusely into ungodly hours of the night (scrambling to Q's, but ultimately ending up at Velvet Jones...twice), then woke our disgusting asses up to drink more at the Hall in hopes of what, being drunk at our own graduation ceremony? Genius. By then, Lincoln, Bill, and I (with the gracious help of my parents) had moved out of our house in a record 3 hours, and I.V. had turned into Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
- We walked, we hugged, we kissed, we didn't cry, and we all somehow ended up trashing my parents' hotel room in an amazingly unplanned turn of events, eventually getting kicked out at 1AM.
- Oh, and I went to Vegas, lost $400, cruised the strip while high as a kite, watched Kim literally ask Lincoln to marry her (scary shit), got into a club for free wearing skater shoes, and put sunglasses, a purse, and sparkly purple lip gloss on a passed-out Steinberg, the perfect capper to what I have deemed my college senior trip.
Not bad for the end of an era.
To tell you the truth, it all was nothing short of a whirlwind...insane, sad, exhilarating, way imperfect, not a little apocalyptic. And that's when the internship thing happened. So here I sit, yet again locked in my childhood room, listening to sentimental twee, as if it were the end of winter break all over again, poised on the edge of professionalism. It starts Tuesday.
I did things these last couple of weeks that were utterly and completely fulfilling, and above all necessary. I had a grad party where the drunkest people were either in their fifties or their teens (I, meanwhile, was having a pep talk with my liver in the corner). I had coffee with someone I haven't seen in years: one of my favorite high school teachers. I caught up on some movies, including three of the best of the year: Crash, Batman Begins, and War of the Worlds. I visited Alice and Dan in Walnut Creek and realized that those who remain close friends (and deserve to) are the ones who don't ask of you the same things of which they asked in high school. I visited aging grandparents, caught up with them, thanked them for graduation money, and just flat-out appreciated them for their love and company.
And in the weirdest twist of the summer, I ended up watching several old home movies from the beginning of the 90s that my dad was trying to organize. All those camping trips and Christmas mornings and sessions of pre-adolescent face-making became hugely important all of a sudden, as I laughed at how adorable my brother was at 5 years old, or appreciated how awesomely mellow my parents were in raising us in front of a camera. After being away at school for four years, you begin to lose sight of where you come from, and while the smiling footage of the deceased grandma is just killer, or while you wish you could go back, just for a second, to that fishing trip, it's so great to remind yourself of who you used to be. Especially when you're at the threshold of becoming someone new.
Random sidenote: I noticed before I cooped myself up tonight that I was brushing my teeth with a toothbrush that has been sitting in this San Jose bathroom since, god...well, since I left for my first year at UCSB. The average person would gag at that, thinking that was just pathetic, and they'd be right; it's pathetic to the nth degree. But I can't remember the last time I considered myself average, and in the heat of this supreme-emo moment, I think that toothbrush is about the most perfect thing I've ever seen.