08 XI 2001 - 20:27 - ira5

* For those of you who are joining us now (I can use the "royal we" if I want to, yes?), you might want to go back and see a couple of entries: my last rant and the one before that and perhaps even the one before that. *

So I'm cursing myself for being a bloody fool because I did something to my knee today. I'm beginning to come around, however; I now realize that it takes talent to stretch a ligament when you know that you did it at some point during a class in which you are sitting for the entire 85-minute period. Really. I discovered midway through class that I could no longer straighten my knee fully or bend it completely, something that meant I would be limping around school for the rest of the day, favoring my right leg, and grimacing in pain when I forgot and tried to kneel to put things in my backpack. So it's great, because not only do I hate the class that this happened in (chamber orchestra); I dislike most of the people, and now I can say that the class is trying to kill me. *ominous music here* The PE guy who knows all about knees took a look at it and said "uh, you're really tense, so it looks like you've got tendinitis right below your patella, but that wouldn't screw you up this way: does this *twisting* hurt?" Response: "[grunts] arrrrrrgh." "I'll take that as a yes." Then he told me that I'd probably stretched, not ripped, the ligament that goes down the left side of my right leg and has something vaguely to do with my knee. Urgh grr argh. With luck it will be better in a day or two. If that doesn't happen, I'm in for an interesting time, hauling my cello in its hard case around... but I do see the doctor on Monday, which reminds me: is there some unwritten law that states that my body must begin to break down in all sorts of new and unexpected ways once I've made an appointment to see the doctor? Or is it just that I have really, really bad luck?

For once I won't be responding to what people have said in my guestbook on my guestbook; instead, I'll type a response here and hope that they still visit my site occasionally. (Hey, it's about as likely as the image of the religious reader of my guestbook.) Right now, I have quite a backlog of messages, starting from entry 69: I actually got the Kabalarians site from Al, who sent all of her UHS friends their little profile thingies (note: I got that spelling [of Kabalarians, I mean] on the first try, and it was a guess, too! ha!) but thanks for sending it anyway. And you know I don't mind long guestbook entries, even if you do cop out by making them copy-and-paste entries. 70: Yeah, although in my case it mixes with the scent of Parkay, the fake margarine spread everyone loves (now in flourescent pink, too! i believe it's to get children to eat broccoli... yeah, "they'll eat it if it's fun! and... uh... looks like it's from god knows where?"), because... actually, I don't know why my rag smells like Parkay. Rosin dust and margarine, that's me. Hmm... "that is I" seems so much more natural in Latin... 71: Yeah, and we all know how that went. 72: I really like that quartet; I'm a lot better with piano trios (in terms of knowing what I like), but that quartet is one of my favorites. Yeah, the Fowler's MEU is still calling me, and I still can't resist, and don't expect I ever shall. 73: Yeah, I got my books from your locker, have already returned them and the LPs, and by the way, I need to get the books I checked out for you back before Thanksgiving, just so you remember. I have your lock's combination written down somewhere, just as you have mine, so yeah. 74: How's the New Year now that Suharto is out? Sorry, don't mean to make broad assumptions: I don't think it's that much of a loss that you don't speak Mandarin. Happy Halloween to you, too. 75: You should be worried even though I know who you are. Maybe even because. 76: Mmm. 77: *looks skeptical* You!? Uh huh. 78: Aw, you're so sweet. Thanks for the offer; I expect I'll be taking you up on it. 79: Did my signature in your guestbook clear it up? I know computers distract, but still. You should go to bed so that I can um watch my lofty moral position erode? 80: Yeah, the subscription thing makes absolutely no sense. I don't have a response to that and never will have one, aside from the unbearably lame "because you love me?" which must be accompanied by Bambi eyes, otherwise it doesn't work. Well, I guess it was bashing, but really, "soda water?" Oh, you weren't there: he did a Seiji Ozawa impression with a really bad Japanese accent. I gave a brochure to Chinaedu, and I don't think announcing it in Civ will sell us any subscriptions. But it's a good thought. Oh, by the way: try to track Chinaedu down and talk to her because I gave her a brochure and now it's up to you. 81: We can make it to ACWLP and back in thirty minutes if my knee heals in time. But I might just show you the restaurant where you should eat instead, because I'm not too hopeful about how my knee is going to be. But at my usual pace, we could have made it there and back with plenty of time to spare. 82: Why thank you. Although I don't know whether confusing Adam is a good thing and I'm not quite sure about the amount of sarcasm in your last comment. Oh look, I'm blushing now. 83-84: you dork! 85: you dork, again, except now my whole maternal instinct is hitting full force and I'd give you my eyes except I can't plus my eyes aren't that good anyway. I got glasses when I was five so shh. 86: procrastination good! I get better grades on my papers when I put them off. 87: I'm not just the opposite of you, Raych, but the thing is that English essays come relatively easily to me, while trying to work math equations is like... like... dragging a lobster by the tail through a bed of sugar while trying to keep a penny balanced on its shell while you sing "I'm a Little Teapot" dressed in a one-piece bathing suit and stiletto heels and do the dance while being stung by hornets and wow my imagination ran away with me, but math is difficult for me is all I was trying to say. 88: thank you, you've just convinced me that I'm really *not* going crazy. for me it's not that my parents' parents were too strict, it's that they went to single-sex schools. yeah. anyway, you deserve a great big hug and yeah. although I don't know what it says about me that you think that it says that you're pathetic that you visit my diary, but whatever.

God, two-veined doesn't cut it, so damned sick of not having a place to belong, of not having an elsewhere to be even in the most awkward situations because i don't fit in, so it's easy to think that i am going to spend the rest of my life on the fringes no matter where i go. because if i can't cut it in this immigrant society without experiencing a profound disconnect between my self, which has too much of china mixed in, and the values of the people around me- i can't cut it anywhere. and how much of this disconnect is my own defeatist thinking and how much of it is genuine i don't know, and i'm not sure i want to find out.

and right now i am being given a choice: either you can give up your cello and your piano and help your friends study for tests the way you do now, or you can just refuse to help them and stop being on the internet and stop writing for yourself and fill your time with music. except i need both because they keep me sane in different ways. and i can never tell my friends to piss off even though that's what i feel like doing all the time because i feel duty-bound to help them study. and i won't lie and say it doesn't help me, either, because if i didn't help them study i probably wouldn't be studying. but i want to know what the fuck is wrong with me and how the hell i'm going to get out of this mess i've made of my life and of my priorities, because i see no end in sight. because i will feel bad either way, but i know that i can. not. give up the cello, and if can be helped, i won't give up the piano either. so it looks as if my friends will lose out, but do i have the stomach for it? easier for me to stomach the guilt i already know, the one that tells me i should be practicing, the one that tells me i should be a better son, a better person, than the one i don't, which is to say the guilt of leaving my friends alone when they ask for help.

but god damn it, it did not take two hours for us to talk about sculptures. and right now i can not be put upon to care about anything other than myself, really. it's this self-absorption of mine which waxes and wanes with god knows what.

so why the hell can't i just hang up? because i know i'm going to get in trouble and i know i am going to be punished and threatened and i know i'm going to hate myself even more than i already do when it's all over. so why can't i just say "i'm going now, bye?" why don't i just hang up? why do i continue to listen?

i will be walked over as long as i allow it, i think. the trick is getting myself to see that i don't have to allow it. that i don't always have to help. that i can go because they don't expect me to stay with them. but i'm so good at being manipulated and my friends can be so good at manipulating me and, truth be told, it's not as if i don't enjoy it, either.

so what the hell went wrong with my character when it was being formed?

i know i will get in trouble. it's been two hours with t. and one with a., all of which could have gone to homework and practice. and now i will not get to bed until at least midnight because i'm typing this entry and doing latin and because i have to get at least a sheet of chinese written for my class tomorrow.

why do i do it?

but i can't expect you to explain me to me when even i don't understand myself.

*kicks rocks*

screw it all. why am i here, doing this, doing anything, here at all?

Postscript, 11:49 PM, same day: Am I trying to drive everyone I care about away? Am I trying to make myself completely unlikeable? Because I have to say - from over here, it's succeeding. "Yeah, friends, you're manipulative, stay the hell away from me but hold me close because I'm fragile." I would say that that wasn't my intent, but reading, it sure as hell seems like it. Rule: I don't apologize for any of it, because it was true as hell when I was writing it (and it took me like three hours to write this entry anyway. This postscript comes about twenty minutes after the dust settled.) So what is this? Some attempt to drive everyone else away before they can figure out that I'm not an investment worth making themselves and cast me out?

ignis, ignis m. fire