4.16 - World Dream

May 18, 2005 00:19

I wasted Monday and Tuesday. Like Tina said last February, every time you say you're going to start something on a Monday, it gets deferred. I haven't worked out, done much of anything productive, and just lazed about comfortably. Until this afternoon, I was completely hedonistic, letting the world slide past me with no cognition of it. Pleasant change, I think.

Here's what I have to do before I leave:
__I have to get a bed, a desk, a microwave, and other assorted items/furniture for my new apartment, which I'll be moving into on June 1.
__I have to figure out if I still want to go on vacation with my family.
__I have to get some sun. I look like a freakin' vampire!
__I have to get my driver's permit renewed, get my driver's license, and a car.
__I have to figure out what I'm doing with my hair and do it!
__I have to wait for my computer to get repaired.
__I have to see Daniels, Gray, and Barrick among others at CHS.
__I have to do Phantom with Lauren.
__I have to get new clothes and shoes.
__I have to figure out how I want to fit travel into my future.

That last one is a little less pressing than the others, but I still feel an urgent concern about it. I've decided that I won't be an effective author until I spend some time abroad. And I'm not referring to one of those shammy "semester abroads" where you just end up in a dorm with a bunch of other international students, getting the Disney-fied version of whatever country you're visiting, that's cheating in my opinion. I want to take a suitcase, a messenger bag, the clothes on my back, and a few thousand in Euro's and skim the Mediterranean coast, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, taking time to pay my respects to the ages in Madrid, Paris, Florence, Rome, and Athens. I can't stay here and become conventional! I can't! I refuse to allow myself to be degraded by the decaying American institutions that exemplify the philosophy that a fresh coat of paint is all it takes to remedy the foundational flaws. I've started looking at Lost Generation literature, letters, short stories, and essays, including a few from modern expatriates. My first novel is going to be about the Millenial condition in America. I've been doing research on that and it only heightens my sense that I must travel. The Western prophets have always turned to glance over their shoulders to the eminence of the East. I feel that I must do the same.

In addition, I wish to travel to South America. In talking with Maritza and realizing that two of my best friends are from South America, I feel that it would be a better use of my time than wasting my youth in Philadelphia graduate school, though I want to do that too. I have such dreams of South American splendor...of verdent hillsides with red-tiled roofs sloping down into the valley. I dream of warm nights of Latin dance music, of Columbian rum and the vibes of Buenos Aires. I want to come home to a house of family, who are bound to one another in a way that I'll never be bound to my family. I want the exotic flowers and culinary decadence. I want to hear someone speak Spanish and understand it without turning to someone and asking in my irritatingly American voice "Wha wuz 'at?" Dreams come true before too long if I make it a priority. But in changing my priorities, how do I still graduate with my Ph.D/J.D. by 28 like I plan? I'm accelerated and on a tight schedule as it is! I requires an exhausting amount of thought, more than I think I can devote these days.

I'm tired and I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to see Maritza, stop by CHS to pay homage to the stately sages of my past, get a haircut, get my driver's permit renewed, and have an ALIAS party to watch the two-hour event. I'm excited and though I am unresolved about my travel plans, they can wait one more day before I get too stressed.
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