what hath the internets wrought?
and i'm looking at this girl's facebook profile, and she graduated (high school) a year behind me, and i look up and realize i have no idea who this person is. of course, there is a name. Avery Latronica.
who the fuck is Avery Latronica? y'all have as much idea as i do, except i remember having the vaguest scent of a crush on her, and you don't.
(which reminds me: i've been thinking of writing a poem not steeped in history, about Indians, or sex about that magic year of 19 when i didn't actually know how to crush on someone. i mean, we all go through that golden patch of fumbling our way through dates; recently, i've realized that was exactly how i crushed on girls through my first year of college. fumblingly. unsure. well-meaning but unconfident.)
or maybe you do.
point is... well. point is now two things:
1. forgot one. see three.
2. there is nothing like looking back on a finished time of your life with other people who were there with you, but from whom -- at the time -- you didn't know how to ask for an alternate perspective. there are a couple of you out there, maybe even reading this, who would be surprised to know i had the vaguest wisp of a crush on Avery Latronica. this name-and-face-only girl. this person i'd talk to during lunch or at the soccer field if i could do it again. if only to know if it would've been worth it to be her friend.
3. the internet has brought this. never before in life have i had the opportunity to see exactly how many boats sailed sans my lonely ass.
4. today i also realized the value of articulating qualities of the human condition. sometimes, and i know i'm not alone here, i wonder what teenagers used to get petty and insecure over in the time before high school. now it's easy to see movements taking the place of one another: folk kids transform into rockers and punks, them into metalheads and goths, goths and punks into commodified goths and commodified punks, and now we're in the age of the emo and the hipster, FINALLY living down 1987.
the point here is not these particular movements, it's that there is always some available movement that socially uncomfortable adolescents & post-adolescents console their social dysfunction with. and that's groovy. i wonder what filled those shoes in 1850. at the height of Athens on the world stage. surely there were no IM conversations to misread and de-friend someone over, so there must have been other elements in the air to trigger immaturity, right?
i wonder if there weren't. at least, not as we understand them. i wonder if what we've experienced in the last twelve years is, frankly, New. and our reactions to it collectively contribute to defining us as human.
i wonder about the Egyptian or Algonquain boy or girl who had a crush on an Egyptian or Algonquain girl or boy, and how they surely fretted and fell apart in front of them like i do.
some nights, i just want to feel connected to them on a level that History doesn't have space to acknowledge. i want to know if we could have been friends.
who the fuck is Avery Latronica? y'all have as much idea as i do, except i remember having the vaguest scent of a crush on her, and you don't.
(which reminds me: i've been thinking of writing a poem not steeped in history, about Indians, or sex about that magic year of 19 when i didn't actually know how to crush on someone. i mean, we all go through that golden patch of fumbling our way through dates; recently, i've realized that was exactly how i crushed on girls through my first year of college. fumblingly. unsure. well-meaning but unconfident.)
or maybe you do.
point is... well. point is now two things:
1. forgot one. see three.
2. there is nothing like looking back on a finished time of your life with other people who were there with you, but from whom -- at the time -- you didn't know how to ask for an alternate perspective. there are a couple of you out there, maybe even reading this, who would be surprised to know i had the vaguest wisp of a crush on Avery Latronica. this name-and-face-only girl. this person i'd talk to during lunch or at the soccer field if i could do it again. if only to know if it would've been worth it to be her friend.
3. the internet has brought this. never before in life have i had the opportunity to see exactly how many boats sailed sans my lonely ass.
4. today i also realized the value of articulating qualities of the human condition. sometimes, and i know i'm not alone here, i wonder what teenagers used to get petty and insecure over in the time before high school. now it's easy to see movements taking the place of one another: folk kids transform into rockers and punks, them into metalheads and goths, goths and punks into commodified goths and commodified punks, and now we're in the age of the emo and the hipster, FINALLY living down 1987.
the point here is not these particular movements, it's that there is always some available movement that socially uncomfortable adolescents & post-adolescents console their social dysfunction with. and that's groovy. i wonder what filled those shoes in 1850. at the height of Athens on the world stage. surely there were no IM conversations to misread and de-friend someone over, so there must have been other elements in the air to trigger immaturity, right?
i wonder if there weren't. at least, not as we understand them. i wonder if what we've experienced in the last twelve years is, frankly, New. and our reactions to it collectively contribute to defining us as human.
i wonder about the Egyptian or Algonquain boy or girl who had a crush on an Egyptian or Algonquain girl or boy, and how they surely fretted and fell apart in front of them like i do.
some nights, i just want to feel connected to them on a level that History doesn't have space to acknowledge. i want to know if we could have been friends.