My brother wrote a post the other day about his experience in Chicago so far. I related with it so much, I joked that I would copy the entire post and replace ‘Chicago‘ with ‘Baton Rouge‘ and would be completely true for me.
But the following week, he made a post contrasting me with him, romanticizing my coffeehouse haunt and overblowing the availability of Livejournal girls in Baton Rouge. We were adjusting to new cities, finding and fitting into new Ultimate communities, and generally dealing with living by ourselves, knowing no one. But in no way did I feel more adjusted than my brother. The only thing I have above him is that I own a bed.
It hasn’t really gotten easier living here. I’ve been writing a lot of music and I haven’t really been sleeping enough. Despite having established a moderately successful dance night, which might be expanding to another nightclub, I’d rather trade that recognition for some sort of affirmation for the music I’ve been writing. My first ‘performance’ for this semester is going to be December 8th as part of the Alice in Wonderland collaboration. I’m still waiting for the persons in this town that enjoy both the recreational and creative music I do. (Unfortunately in Gainesville, I didn’t many like that either.)
The weather has cooled down a lot, but today has been overall dark and gray. Not getting enough sleep and the lack of sun affected me a little today. It was one of those days that seems like you woke at the same time you went to bed- but you didn’t. I took yesterday off from writing music and just thinking about Dance Fever. The turnout wasn’t awesome, but the response from the people who did come was great. And the best part was seeing 3 workers from my beloved Highland Coffee there. It was a fitting completion to my daily cycle: Wake up, class, go to Highland, work on music at Highland, work on Dance Fever music at Highland, go to Dance Fever, see Highland workers at Dance Fever. Now, if they show up to my music performances I’ll marry one of them and the circle would never stop.
Then the problem of being initiative actually confronted me. I’ve always wondered why sometimes people look like they want to say hi to you, or you want to say hi to someone, but don’t. And I was asked last night why I have never come to her and said hi. And it was obvious- I’m shy. And it wasn’t until loud music, familiar faces, and alcohol took its effect that I could be audacious enough and overcome my typical coffeehouse fear. It really boils down to comfort. One of these days.
LSU has periodically been offering flu shots since supply is apparently limited. The posted time to receive shots was from 1-3pm and they suggested wearing short sleeves. The temperature that day was 40 degrees. I decided to go a little early to have time to take my jacket, tie, and button-down off before receiving my shot. I showed up at 12:30 to find a 30-person line out the door- they had already started delivering shots. When I finally got my shot, the nurse decided to put in on the highest point of my shoulder- it felt like the most lateral point of my clavicle. Also, it seemed like she used the entire bottle of alcohol on me before pricking me. I smelt like hospital the entire day. I could smell it through 3 layers of clothes and whole day I thought it was someone. After realized it was me, I imagined all my clothes soaking up the entire bottle of alcohol.
I’m going to be staying in Baton Rouge for Thanksgiving. I’m not quite sure I’m going to be doing exactly. But I will definitely be thankful for a. not being sick this season b. having a bed c. law and order marathons d. RENT.
Right now, I’m listening to someone give his friend advice on right an email that he said was ‘soft handed’ and unnecessarily ‘softening the blow’. And the entire time, the advisor (sitting a little diagonal from me, who has been looking at me for a while) is choosing his critical words and noticibly not saying what he’s really trying to say, softening his words. I wanted to lean over and say to the author of the email and say, ‘yeah, just like what you friend is doing.’ but instead, I just sat there thinking about how I would try to shatter the advisor’s world, a millionwordsinmymind. staring. And he just looked over. Now he thinks I’ve been just staring at him back. There’s one thing I can’t seem to avoid- attention from men. I took out my eyebrow ring (for good) the other day. Because it seemed that all the attention I get these days are 18/19 year-old girls and gay men and I’m not interested in any of those- so at a change had to be made. But it seems it seems like it wasn’t the right change.
