Television is the absolute piss of the earth. I just watched an amazing movie on IFC called “Invincible” and a major component of the soundtrack was Beethoven’s Piano Concert No. 2. Exactly as it was playing, I felt tears welling up in my eyes, like it was almost too real, like the wailing orchestra’s modulations were bouncing off my living room walls…until it got unbearable at which point, I went upstairs to find my brother playing the first violin part of Beethoven’s Piano Concert No. 2. It was ineffable. Live music is the most divine way to savor music, even if unprofessional and relaxed.

Anyway, after it was over, I got bored and tuned to VH1. It was a show called “Paris’ Most Shocking”, featuring panelists who were trying to pretend-mock Ms. Hilton for all the shit she does, veritably coming off as a dowdy, fame-thirsty, jealous homage to their princess of detached, fleeting fortune. They said “many people were upset” that she was included in Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People of 2004. On the list, she was joined by the likes of Michael Moore, the inventors of Google (no panelist knew their names), and OPRAH. They claimed that these people “influenced society”, “unlike Paris”. The brainless part of all this nonsense is that viewers will never see that Paris is Oprah who is Michael Moore who is Barbara Walters. None of these people really care about anything, and that’s the only reason they’re allowed to permeate the media. It’s virtually impossible to know of any actually righteous member of the “public eye” because no one seen on TV has anything to say that might impinge upon the plans of the totalitarian government under which we live. If VH1 said to wear red underwear on Thursdays, I bet millions would hop on that band wagon.

The infuriating slant is that this bullshit television is preaching this ludicrous gospel right after I had a daunting realization about the human condition in a place I have never feared until now: Raven’s Crest. To preface my recognition, I must say: I don’t in any way condone hatred towards any group of people, but, I can generally see from the point of view of a heterosexual man the annoyance that comes with what is described as “flaming homosexuality”. However, if someone sporting black nail polish that didn’t so much as look in the direction of a male who I would describe as “in the deepest depths of the closet, any closet, all closets”, what conclusion would one come to about why this male was so infinitely frustrated at the mere sharing of space with this someone, who I would describe as a “straight, sensitive, music-obsessed, elitist-Goth-boy”?

Goth-boy’s name was Alex; I was the only person other than the house’s owner who bothered to actually meet him. I thought he was annoying and disgusting. When he tried to touch my hair, I screamed at the top of my lungs as if he were about brand me. In-the-deepest-depths-of-the-closet, however, could never be seen once that night without a cigarette and a limp wrist. His voice was identical to that of Graham Norton, bereft of the accent. He had the fakest tan and the nicest hair I had ever seen. Blonde bangs, swept aside, with a separation only to expose what I would describe as a “localized pathological change in a bodily organ or tissue” on his forehead. I don’t care, in this particular case, to acknowledge that one may not truly be as one initially seems; this boy was a racist, flaming, closeted homosexual who actually thought he was passing. The only time he talked to anyone in our group was to point out the “fag” with the black nail polish.

I am aware that I had smoked a ton and drank a lot, while trying to cope with the last night’s hangover, but it was the biggest bemusement, seeing how this boy worked. He approached us asking us if we’d noticed the huge fag sitting in the corner, completely keeping to himself. The others laughed and said “Yeah!”, I asserted “Is he even gay? He seemed straighter than some other guys at this ‘party’ to me.”, and he alleged “Definitely. Black nail polish. Come on!” I had no response to that, so I retorted “What’s that on your forehead?” and he shot back after one swift moment, matter-of-factly, “Scrape!” and I disputed “Really? ‘Cause it kind of looks like a lesion.” at which point he gave me a firm, solid huff and marched away. I wanted to insinuate that he had AIDS, a syndrome which someone like himself might commonly associate with gay men, but no one followed. Instead of being greeted with a barrage of praise for my observing nature, I was assaulted with a line of questioning by East Windsorites for an hour about lesions, AIDS, gay men, stereotypes and the movie Philadelphia. “What’s a lesion?” “It’s something people with AIDS get.” “Why, sweet Neeraja, do people with AIDS get lesions?” “I guess because their immune system is weak.” AND “You should just watch the movie Philadelphia, East Windsor ones, for you will much better understand what I’ve been referencing.” “Why, Mama Neerj?! I live in the REAL WORLD!” are a sampling of the back-and-forths I underwent. Hmmpf. And so began the frustration of an insidiously racist night.

I just couldn’t fight the fear that though I was living in America, and though it was more than half a century after any kind of battle of civil liberties, I was standing alone, facing an army. 15 white boys, all in uniform: solid colored polo shirt, stylishly tattered jeans, Birkenstocks, indiscernible-from-the-next-white-man hair cuts. After I yelled at Goth-boy to never touch my hair again, I had gone to the bathroom, and upon my return I was shocked to find Goth-boy gone. I turned to the two white boys who had blithely witnessed my altercation with the boy, and asked them where he was. “We got rid of him for you.” “WHAT?!” I thought they had beat him up and thrown him down the stairs or something. This boy was so drunk, even though he lived “just across the street”, I doubted that he could make it home. “He’s gonna die tonight!!!” The response from the white boys: SHRUG. (With a hint of peevish smile). I lowered myself onto the couch slowly, beginning to dig the brevity of the situation. These boys were sobering.

Scariest to me, discordantly, was the stereophonic method of choice utilized by In-the-deepest-depths-of-the-closet. No one else even bothered with Goth-boy, but this one went to all the masculine, manly, male men, spreading his obvious cover-himself-up slander, and those dolts were overjoyed to oblige, whether or not they believed their preacher was himself, gay. Too overtaken by the opportunity to show their hetero-maleality, they went along with anything that they, in their drunken, vulnerable condition, believed would help.

In “Invincible”, Tim Roth plays a member of the Nazi Party who once was a Jew which longed for a sovereign, peaceful, wealthy life. To live peacefully, he felt it necessary to abandon who he was, and essentially, hate, who he was. In 1933, I see that as a viable option to his life’s problems, however, the Tim Roth at the party, who resided deep within a deep, deep closet, had infinite options besides resenting those who, perhaps, freely do the things of which he wishes he was capable.

These are the kinds of lessons VH1, Oprah, Michael Moore, or even a closet full of D-list comedian panelists whose careers solely entail judging celebrities, a job that all humans do pro bono; can never teach. Real people are scary, and uninfluenced by the chirpy, flamboyantly ignorant ways of the “pop culture” obsessed (it’s not pop culture if it reflects no one’s culture and is inherently unpopular). As I complete this soul-wrenching recollection of my Saturday Night, I am looking out my window at probably the most inspiring sunset I’ve seen in years. I can see an actual neon pink, electric line separating the selfish, dense world of the unsullied Daylight, from the engulfing, capaciously drunken capsulation of Night. And I can’t stop hearing Beethoven’s Piano Concert No. 2.

The skills of samurai warriors never cease to be useful in all real-life situations. For instance, awareness. Being aware of a bullet that is heading your way, being aware of someone sneaking up behind you, about to throw an axe in your back, being aware of the trees and the stop lights and the other cars that you almost hit while cruising down the highway, high.

The thing about being high while you cruise down the highway, is that you’re actually alert in the most entertaining way one can be alert: you feel like it’s all a game, dodging other cars and stopping at red lights. Whoever follows the most unneccessary traffic laws at 4:30 AM when NO ONE else is on the road, wins. You’re actually TOO aware, you start seeing animals and cop cars that aren’t actually there. But the freak-outs are all part of the fun. You laugh to yourself the same way you would laugh when you were eight, playing Street Fighter on your Sega Saturn, accidentally shooting a pedestrian.

But I think the most applicable-to-life form of awareness is being aware of yourself. Of what you’re doing, how others react to you, how to win people over, and how to know when to stop. We all have certain non-tangible needs in life; love, care, attention. To acquire these needs, we must be aware of ourselves, because it is perfectly possible to live a miserable life, with these needs unfulfilled, if you continuously drive the only people who are nice to you, away. Awareness.

It takes a lot for people to be aware of themselves. It took me almost nineteen years, and I wouldn’t say the job is even nearly complete. It’s being unaware of our own actions that makes our own lives miserable, which really, is quite a reassuring fact for those of us who believe that we obtain in our power all of the freedoms we could ever dream up. Once you become aware of your position at all times, you realize: it is only you who controls your misery intake.

I would, at this point in the entry go on to describe obvious examples of how you control your own destiny/misery, however, I must say: one thing I’ve learned in life is that no matter how much you fuck up, most people won’t judge you, being aware of the fact that they themselves have fucked up, and being aware of how much more you learn from learning rather than bitching.

Bitching is the number one sign of unawareness. It’s the consummation of believing you are owed something by someone. You, and I, are not OWED anything. We live in this world for no specified reason, and if we don’t become aware of that fact, we begin to get caught up. At this point, it’s easy to say: we get caught up in ourselves, but the fact is we get caught up in everything BUT ourselves. We start keeping tallies and settling scores (NOT the same as revenge), judging others and staying current with all sorts of bullshit politics. If you do not become aware of the fact that you don’t matter, nothing matters, and the very idea of matter (the noun and the verb, for the noun spawned the verb) was created by humans who were caught up, caught up in explicating ALL things, only so as to lose the one instinct all animals (including us humans) share: Awareness; then you will lead a miserable, foolish, embarrassing life.

You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself. (Told to Ludacris in the movie Crash. That guy was too caught up in why everyone was hatin’ on his people, he wasn’t even aware of his own perpetuation of that very habit)

I’ve never been scared like I’ve been scared recently and the only place I can find solace at this surprisingly lonely, cold hour of the night is in xanga. After watching Crash, Batman Returns, Kill Bill Vol II, then Kill Bill Vol I within the span of one day, it’s become so clear to me how weak and powerless I am in this world. As thunder literally shakes my house. Not to mention that right after the first three movies and right before KBVI, this police officer rang my doorbell asking who had just come to my house. I just came home, but my brother came downstairs and told the cop that two guys came to the house asking for Joe. Evidently they had the wrong house. The cop then said that “because of the recent burglaries”, they were watching our neighborhood especially carefully. Never once in my past 10 years of living here have I seen police cars actually enter our neighborhood, but right after I spend all day in a crime-ridden cinematic cesspool, I suddenly have to be on the look out in the only place I ever knew to be safe.

No one in my house called the police, and I had been home for a good 15 minutes before they rang, so there’s no way the cops SAW the boys at my house. I just can’t help but feel that some neighbor who had been burglarized, a Sandra Bullock type, saw two black men pull into the Indian family’s driveway, and assumed some sort of scematic crime about to be planned out. And then he or she called the cops. When they came, after they told us about the burglaries, my dad was all “Oh, thank you! This is very good! You’re keeping a watch on the neighborhood!”. They were not keeping a watch on the neighborhood. They were keeping a watch on the non-Sandra-Bullock-types, and if my dad and brother hadn’t been right there, I would’ve done what I always did away from home when approached by an officer of any kind, and that is incite a small riot of sass. These officers ARE NOT looking out for me, and I’m really starting to believe that if I got shot, my family would be too nice to demand justice. I have to be the protector of my family, I feel like, because only I understand the importance of revenge.

Imagine if all those freed slaves murdered or enslaved their former owners. How much better would the world be today? There would be no resentment, or belief that there exist “races”, some of which have less power than others. Imagine if Gandhi just killed all the British who degraded and tried to kill him. He might still be alive today, to teach young’uns that it is important to not impinge peace with violence, unless someone else does first. Yes, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But an eye for nothing would make me cheap and easy, wouldn’t it? And really, an eye for an eye can only leave two people blind, maximum. But besides that, revenge isn’t like war, because you’re not inflicting it upon someone who is not connected to your cause in any way. War is cowardly. It’s like trying to cure brain cancer with lotion. Lotion can only cure dry, itchy skin. For brain cancer, you must go directly to the brain, and nowhere else. War essentially misses the target completely, not only not resolving anything, but creating more problems. Revenge is honor. It’s like having a surgeon remove the proverbial brain tumor of your life, the surgeon being you. It’s upfront and goes straight to the point. Revenge is that one really honest person you know in your life. You know, the one you always appreciated and admired, for being honest. If you yourself die seeking revenge, it’s infinitely more graceful and honorable than living your whole life with the physical and emotional wounds of someone who did you wrong.

revenge is a dish best served cold. (ancient klingon proverb)

Staying up for over 36 hours straight can really build up the tensions good, but so can the most painful day of my life, I suppose. I’ve been pushing my bedtime further and further back every night so much so that the one day I had to be in New Brunswick by 8:30 AM was prefaced with, literally, no nights sleep. This followed by a hasty shower, a frantic self-done wax job to which I initially responded “How painless!” however half way through Route 1 I found myself crying in my car, my tears stinging my burning flesh on their way down. Then, four hours of a woman who made me think of nothing but how much I had to pee, and how much I wanted to leave. Followed by me running to Bishop House after class, on the way to my car, in order to pee, only to bump into said woman as I leave, only to talk to her for twenty minutes about Mystic River and I Heart Huckabees, both of which she hasn’t seen, and both of which she didn’t remember by the end of the conversation. My daytime was topped off with an afternoon chock-full of the worst karaoke performances known to man, thanks to me and me alone.

Evening dawned with a desperate desire to both nap and see a movie, any movie, the summer is made for movies. Somehow, this lead me to what I remembered as my favorite pizza place Cosimo’s, however, only a little earlier than my date for the night, leaving me frightened and alone in what has become the jungle of illegality (where the only people scarier than the hoodlums are the security guards) known as Quaker Bridge Mall (what the fuck happened?! QB used to be the place to be…). Shitting bricks, I had to find sanctuary in the safest place I knew within the jungle. That place being The Children’s Place. When I finally made it back to Cosimo’s, I found it to be quite different from any sort of “favorite” that I remembered of my tender past.

Eventually, at 8:05, I made my way to the nice mall, Market Fair (what the fuck happened?! MF used to be the hood…) to try to see Crash beginning at 7:55, but it was sold out, thus prompting us to stick around till the 10:20 show. I sat, drank Green Tea, read Esquire, and then went on to drink some more Green Tea. Also, after the infinitillionth time that a woman who was with a man looked at me as if I was trying to steal their man that night, I told AJ about the strange looks I’d been recieving. He suggested that they were looking at me that way because they thought I was partaking in a deranged, forbidden biracial romance with him. After men started giving me the very look I was recieving from women earlier that night, I realized he was right.

Finally, it was time for Crash. After an overtly covert operation to get two extra people in for free, we sat down and I finally saw the first ten minutes of the masterpiece. At some pivotal moment during the movie, the large, white, skinhead of a man behind me kneed my seat such that I now don’t even remember the scene, only the knee. I looked back at him angrily, and he made some sort of noise I can only liken to a hiss. I looked at him like “bitch, PLEASE”, but instead of inciting an entire riot of sass right then and there, I quickly decided to delve back into the film. He continued to knee, but I just grew wary of it and let it slip amidst the cracks of unfortunate fates I was witnessing onscreen. At the end of the movie, the very moment before the credits started rolling, and no one was even up just standing and preparing to leave, he gave my seat one last forward thrust with his fat obnoxious pug of a leg and marched out of the theater angrily. I then told Arielle what a bitch the man behind me had been the whole night, loudly so as to incite a small riot of sass for what might have been his wife to see. What might have been his wife just stared at me with crossed arms. bitch, PLEASE. Then, trying to avoid the creepiness of my ex-coworkers, I slipped out awkwardly through the obvious mall exit, and drove myself home.

But alas, my night did not end here. I came home to no one except my dad, who arose out of the darkness as I entered the house, apparently he had been sleeping on the couch. He said he was staying there “all night” (it was only 1:20 AM) waiting for me. Now, I should preface what happened next with the fact that I’ve never in my life seen my father drunk, tipsy, or even a little buzzed. However, I guess in the darkness, he stumbled a little, which triggered a sharp shock to run up and down my spine, accompanied by the immediate thought that my dad was drunk, all by himself. I was like “Daddy?! Are you OK?!” and he calmy said “Yeah, I just tripped over the coffee table a little” and I was like “You kinda stumbled” and he was like “I’m really tired” and I was like “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going or when I would be back” and he was like “It’s ok, just tell me from now on”. As he crept upstairs, I immediately dashed to the wine stash (the only alcohol in our house) and saw it untouched, as usual. My dad had obviously not touched a drop of alcohol, as usual. I just got so freaked out at the idea of my father drunk. Not because he was my FATHER. Because he was MY father. The MY being capitalized because my father (and mother, for that matter) are not like other fathers and mothers. Other fathers and mothers had to teach their children lessons about the world, and protect them from its dangers, however, my parents being immigrants, I learned a lot more about this world that is America, that they must never know, that I’ve had to protect THEM. Like drinking. In India, my family never drank, they probably never will drink. I’ve seen my brother drunk, and it didn’t bother me. Just my parents. In my mind, I truly believe that me and my brother can handle ourselves with any amount of alcohol or drugs inside of us (maybe not handle, but at least survive) but that my parents will not. This sudden realization tonight did not bode well with my memory of the Persian daughter Dori’s situation with her father. She had to protect him in the same way I have to protect my father, and even though he did not do anything dangerous, I realize, that in this one special day in history when me, my brother and my mom were all gone from the house, leaving only my dad, I should have taken more responsibility, and not have let him worry. Weirdly, this responsibilty I’ve decided to take up relieves me of a great weight on my shoulders. The weight of meaninglessness. I used to believe I could do whatever I wanted with my life, and my time, but I realize…I could barely go a week at Rutgers without going crazy imagining my parents in danger, thus I had to go home so often. This same fear used to come over me at sleepovers, and on music tours for school. I need to take care of my parents, and thus, I need to get a good, legitimate career, and be just like Dori. Because even in old age, my immigrant parents will always need to be protected from the things they should never have to worry about.

Annnndddddd exhale. I think it’s finally time to say goodnight.

Shit is so fucked up. I am so bored right now that I can’t help but develop all the sinister consipiricies that are going on in the world, all against me. I’m listening to early 90’s Aerosmith too, and it’s not helping. I just can’t help but remember my brother’s days as a bad ass, not that Aerosmith served as his soundtrack, but it just reminds me. I used to always think: “He’ll never get it right like me, he’s just too bad ass” but as soon as high school ended (for him) he just completely became a nerd, just when I was the age to appreciate his badassness. Now, he brought home his two closest friends from law school, and these people are so good. I don’t mean in a conventional sense, I mean, like, don’t you always behave a certain way around people you’re trying to impress, but it’s not the way you would normally behave. If you had it your way, you’d be straight atrocious all the time. But not these people, I was listening in on their conversation in my brothers room, where only they were thus free to be real (I know. I know I’m straight atrocious.). They were like “you HAVE to see these baby pictures of Raghu that Soma (my dad) was showing me earlier! They’re so cute!”. I just couldn’t believe I heard that. Like,  I can only imagine myself when I’m 23: trying to balance a job and my general badassness (not my words). But these people, well I don’t know about them, but at least my brother, he abandoned it all for the higher route. I just don’t know how he could give it up. I remember him and his friends, I thought they were disgusting at the time, but they seemed to have so much fun. I guess that was high school. I guess fucking shit up doesn’t matter until a certain time. If my brothers not strange, and he’s just naturally growing up the way he should, then I’m not looking forward to that. When do you stop wanting to fuck shit up? But even I can’t fight the feeling that I used to be better at it than I am now. Back in the days of fake friendship, prank calls and break ins, I guess I was more influenced by my brother and his friends than I ever suspected. And now, it’s all fading away. And it sucks. I don’t know what to do if I’m not plotting. And it seems like no one else likes plotting anymore, or spontaneity. Or fucking shit up. Everyone just wants to have good clean fun, which I used to have no problem with, but I just can’t ignore these dreams I have of still being in high school. Maybe not even a redo, as much as a relive. I just want to feel like nothing matters like I used to.

Every great event of the past few weeks is culminatng tonight and I can’t even be part of it…because of this, I’ve been indulging my guiltiest pleasure ever: Repeat 1. Yes, 867-5309 just replaced Lovely Day as Most Played. This song is so amazing. It’s so exuberant about this guy wanting this girl, who’s number’s on a bathroom wall. It’s like: he knows she’s ho-in’ it up, but he still loves her. Plus, it takes me back to a more innocent time when miracles like a cruel prank can lead to love.

But the best part of this song is that for all we know, Tommy Tutone probably never even got with Jenny, he just expresses that sublimly exciting pre-relationship moment, where you have absolutely no idea of what will happen, just that something will happen. I think that’s why we all loved the summer so much, we had no idea what was coming up. In fact, that’s why I love Rutgers to this day, every day, no matter where I go or what I do, I don’t know what’ll happen, just that something will happen. That feeling is the best…I can’t even bear the thought of graduating, and getting a job, and losing this feeling. Before the summer, I knew what would happen every single day, and exactly what I expected to happen happened. So boring, and I realized that nothing in this world is worse than boredom. I would rather be blind and in the freezing rain (as I just was) than be bored.

Yeah, 867-5309 rocks the most because it makes me feel like I’m in 6th grade again, where crushes are so important to you, yet you don’t even know why. You just want that person, and then,  you live and die by every word they say. Tommy Tutone wails the essence of sixth grade at my favorite part of the song: for a good time…FOR A GOOD TIME C A L L L L L ….riding on every word he has in connection to her. It’s so adorable and pure. Every song should be like this, and yeah, I know that Tommy Tutone probably just wrote this song randomly, just to have a hit (if you look at your phone, 8 and 6 go diagonally up, 7, 5, and 3 are parallelly above it, and 0 and 9 are parallelly below) but it’s like: this is how songs should be written, all Beatles songs’ are just written with the intention of becoming popular and selling a lot of records, yet they’re still amazing. He never  typically talks about why he loves her or that she doesn’t notice him, just that there’s now hope and wonderment. Songs aren’t like that anymore.

I started out listening to David Bowie, now I’m on Depeche Mode. It’s making me want to write. Like a month ago, I hooked up with this guy (that I thought at the time would be completely unmemorable), and in the middle he stopped and was like “Do you listen to Depeche Mode?”. I HAD listened to Depeche Mode, but no, I don’t LISTEN to Depeche Mode. So I said “I LOVE DEPECHE MODE!”. To that, he responded “Right now…I feel like the song Enjoy The Silence”. Cut to me now listening to Enjoy The Silence, and the lyrics go “all I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms”. Aww. It makes me wonder: how many other great moments in the past have I missed because I lied, or because I didn’t know something?! Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter. Now “Just Can’t Get Enough” is on. Cut to me during the weekend truly not being able to get enough of the singing madness, but now, it’s all faded. I realize that the anti-climax of the weekend was part of a greater, three month anti-climax. I have to get out of school, and have something good happen again….it’s been too bad for too long.

This can only be comparable to truly not being able to get enough of something…you’re so happy you have any of it…but you almost can’t live without more. That was the weekend. I don’t even know what “more” would be. I think it just fit into the theme of the past three months: nothing can truly change you, you’ll always have the same dreams and same vulnerabilities…fears are never come over. I’m still scared of ghosts, I just let the fear eat away at me because running to my parents bedroom all the way from Piscataway would not a be plausible solution. Actually, looking at it now, about the same time I stopped running to my parents bed, I began insomnia. I was probably too scared to sleep. Still am.

How can one group come up with “Just Can’t Get Enough” AND “Personal Jesus”?! Freaks.

I was just in the shower and as I came out everyone from my floor was in the halls, clearly coming in from outside, and I asked what was going on…apparently, a genius pulled the fire alarm (to be badass) and the whole building had to evacuate. While I was in the shower. Meaning that if there was a real fire I would have been the only person from my building who died, let alone naked and in my flip flops. All because either I was singing too loudly or because I just HAD to wash my hair…tripling my shower time. Nancy just pointed out the fact that everyone would have said at my funeral “She always loved her flip flops…she even wore them in the snow”. Then we laughed morosely.

After the semester and a half of world-wide Sex And The City idol worship, I decided it was my time to call people out on this. Sex And The City, while a wonderful show, did not have any lessons to teach. Every episode ended on a conclusion relating back to a third rate article in a bottom-quality newspaper. (Which is ironic because it ended up being a #1 show on a top-quality network) It didn’t open America’s eyes on unmarried women, older women, dating, double standards, or even sex. The only thing people saw a side of on the show that they probably hadn’t seen before was New York. New York was the only star of the show, and it was the only thing that was truly depicted artistically. Even the shows creators knew that, and that’s why at the beginning of the 5th season, they created the emotional end of the series, when Carrie said “New York is my true love…and nobody disses my boyfriend”. From then on, they mostly used the show as an outlet for New York quirkiness (Carrie ringing the Wall Street bell, doing the trapeze thing…). Before this admission by the writers/creaters of SATC, the show was (truly) a decent, moral sitcom about love and relationships (just like any other show) spliced with raunchy sex scenes and chock-full of curse words. And thus America became hooked.

Besides the America-wide misunderstanding of the show, the worst byproduct of the show’s ending/TBS running clean reruns of it is the fact that a crop of younger, more impressionable girls are buying into its relationship/love guidelines and its lifestyle advice. The ridiculous part about this situation is that the only scrap of advantageous knowledge you can take from all the crazy shit that went down on the show is : anything goes. If after 18 years of life, you couldn’t figure that out, then you need to OPEN YOUR EYES. I was listening to one girl in particular ADMIT that she wanted to BE Carrie Bradshaw. First of all, I understand (secretly) wanting to be characters on TV or in movies, but to admit this to the public takes absolute devotion…idol worship, if you will. But deep down inside, everyone who wants to be anyone else must know that the person you want to be is inherently him/herself for one reason : He or she is him or her, not anyone else. Carrie Bradshaw never tried or wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw, and that’s why she is. In trying to be someone else, you just create two distinct you’s: The “real” you (the one everyone else in the world sees) and the secret you (the REAL real you). The two you’s always end up battling it out in your head, the conclusion of the battle being no conclusion, but rather, paranoid schizophrenia. If you really want to be like Carrie Bradshaw : go out and live your OWN life, realize that SATC is over, and it was just CHARACTERS (SJP is married to Matthew Broderick (lemme repeat that…MATTHEW FREAKING BRODERICK) with a child, and she wants nothing more than to be a loving mother. She HAS a father, and several siblings. She’s been on broadway. Carrie Bradshaw doesn’t exist anywhere beyond Candace Bushnell’s mind and the hearts of millions.), and have your OWN adventures, create your OWN conclusions, exude your OWN idiosyncracies, and realize that puns are so 1998.

I’m not just irrationally criticizing something because a lot of people like it, I used to be obsessed with SATC (while loving SATC was vogue, mind you), but as the show faded away and new, more exciting topics emerged in the media, I evolved as well. Life is evolution, and to stick with something that is OVER (not just the show, THE HYPE!…Carrie Bradshaw herself, if real, would have said “SATC?! Sooooo 2001″ or maybe “Two Thousand PUN”…I don’t know…), is like sucking your thumb until you’re 36. Unreasonably backwards. SATC didn’t bring things in style, it was a reflection of things that were already in style. Friends and 9/11 made NYC the “in” city…SATC just expanded on that idea. Friends also created the idea of single women (and men) and gays in society, SATC, again just expanded on those ideas (incidentally, just as one of the single Friends became engaged…). Rachel worked in fashion…SATC was CRAZED with fashion. As you can see, it was nothing more than a globalized, technologized Sign O’ The Times. As the “Times” ended, so did the show, thus clinging to the show is clinging to an entirely different era. Now, post 9/11 and War On Terrorism, America just wants a ludicrous, fantasied-up escape.

…California, here we come.

Omg, xanga…I feel dead inside. I don’t know what these sudden mood swings are but after my last realization came the cold, hard truth that I basically have nothing to live for. No crushes, no goals, no vengeances, no wishing I had some Arrested Development. Life is so worthless when you start getting what you want. Though many might disagree, I used to be able to look in the mirror and hate what I saw. But I cannot any longer. I look and I think I look good. I don’t mind the clothes I have. I am satisfied with my grades. I don’t like any unattainable guys. I’m not on a dry spell. There is now proof that I didn’t immaculately concieve a baby. I have no major assignments due for a little over a week…probably more. Why can’t I just enjoy this? How do I fill this void? I drank last night and I didn’t feel adventurous or crazy as I normally do. I felt almost no change in my mindset. Just nothingness. It’s like trying to describe being blind because you imagine being blind is just like when you close your eyes…but it’s not. When we close our eyes, we see darkness. Blind people do not see. Until we experience that captivity ourselves, we’ll never understand it. Like in Garden State, when Zach Braff’s character felt that medicated emptiness…I wish mine was medicated, so at least some of this black hole would be filled with the knowledge that within me, there is some sort of longing. My life thus far has been defined by longing. I just don’t know what to do in a situation like this. I should be ecstatic. Which is so ironic because all my life, whenever something great, good or even ok has happened, and my mother has reacted demurely, I used to demand that she be ecstatic, becuase “it’s good to be happy”. Why can’t I just feel happy? And if my mom always had to fake being ecstatic, does that mean she’s always been as depressed as I am now? Should it even be called “depressed”? I imagine depressed people getting pills, to numb their senses. But therein lies the depression. Crazy, ADD-ridden kids should never be given pills to calm them down. I think it’s way better to be crazy. Craziness is what makes the world go round. It’s why the fact that Buster cares if George Michael’s a plumber or not matters. It’s the greatness of Ali G’s mother wishing she was raped by a different man. It’s why the boss in The Office thinks his company is pleasant. It’s why I am suddenly feeling better. Thank you craziness, you always deliver.