Despertar

procrastination

I woke up really wanting a falafel. I took my destiny into my own hands by driving to Adams Morgan for a falafel. I got really, really lost on the way, but I found the place eventually, and I got what I wanted.

Falafel constituted the high and low points of my day. Other than that, it was just studying.

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1. If asked, how would your friends seriously describe you as a person?
Their descriptions would be wildly different, but they would probably all call me chatty, cynical, scatterbrained and engaging. In no particular order.

2. Do you believe what they say is true, or do you hide a lot of the real you?
I guess they're not far off. It's funny: I'm so used to thinking of myself as a secretive person that I can be, like, unnecessarily obscure about things. I don't really have any major secrets right now, except maybe from my parents, but I still habitually bristle whenever someone walks into my room. It's a personality throwback to the days when I used to keep all sorts of crazy-person lists and notebooks tucked into the crevices of my room.

3. How many people really know you inside and out?
Not more than two, and probably not that many. Put it this way: if I ever give you my email password, it means I've thought it over, and I have nothing left to hide from you.

4. Do you keep your feelings inside or express them loud and clear?
Internalize, internalize, internalize. If you ask how I feel, prepare for hours and hours of windy analysis. Most people know not to ask anymore, so it gets kind of backed up, semen-like.

5. If you have a problem or need advice, whom do you go to first?
This happens daily, and I usually just sort of muddle through it. Tina often gets an earful, and so would Meg, if she were on the continent. I try not to bother my mother with things too often, because she remembers everything I ever say, which fucks me up later when I want her to forget. Lately, I've discovered that Justin is an exceptional listener, and usually has a practical suggestion to offer. So that's nice.

6. Are you close with your parents?
Right now, my parents and I have very close, very caustic relationships. My mom and I talk every day, usually more than once, and, as I mentioned, she knows most of what is going on in my life/intuits more than I generally want her to, because she's smart and she's been there. However, because she and I have such different personalities, she tends to judge the way I destroy the same situations she handles with such grace. My dad...ugh. My relationship with my dad is worse now than it ever has been, except for maybe that one month when I was seventeen. He thinks I am incredibly flighty and irresponsible, and by his standards, he's right. I think he is miserly and withdrawn and fatally stubborn, but we can never have a dialogue about these things, just endless standoff. He catches me in mistakes all the time. I want to establish enough distance between us that that can't happen anymore. He's afraid of losing me. I'm afraid of being stuck to him forever. Et cetera.

7. Can you tell them everything?
No. I don't need to tell my mom most things--she assumes--and my dad doesn't understand anything about my psyche anyway.

8. Do you find it really difficult to open up?
To most people, yes.

9. Have you ever spoken to a therapist?
Ever heard of Bebe Moore Campbell's 24-Hour Hold? It's a novel that deals with the black American community's mistrustful view of the therapy industry, and it is terrifically accurate. To my knowledge, no one in my immediate or extended family has ever consulted a mental health professional, even in the wake of relatives' untimely deaths, alcoholism/drug abuse, self-esteem issues, eating disorders or any other type of everyday shit that send some white people running to therapists. That is to say, with my life as cushy as it is, if I had ever asked my parents to send me to therapy, they would have laughed in my face. I'm sure I could have used it, and I still think I'm going to try to get an appointment with my school's counseling services. I wouldn't tell my parents, though. That would fall under the category of things I can't talk to them about.

10. What was the most difficult time of your life?
It's hard to pinpoint a most difficult time. This year has probably been the easiest I can remember, emotionally, and it wasn't even that easy. Middle school was hard, high school was horrible, college was just plain ridic. Last summer was pretty wonderful, post-Marcus, pre-Justin, all my college failures behind me, law school still an abstract eventuality. I'm hoping San Francisco is magical.

11. "Life is like a box of chocolates"--true or false, and why?
Well, I don't know. I always obsess over the little guide pictures on the inside of the box top, and I nibble away the shells first, so I always know what I'm going to get.

12. Have you ever considered suicide?
Probably not seriously enough to ace one of those checklists. I don't have a detailed plan and I have never set my affairs in order in preparation, but I have had those moments, lots of them, when I just could not see how things would ever be okay again. I'm sure everyone does, though.

13. Are you scared of death?
I don't believe in a literal afterlife, so I have no reason to be afraid of death as an ongoing condition. I'm a little afraid of dying, of not knowing when it will happen or how painful it might be. I'm afraid of that moment of knowing I'm experiencing my last minute of life, and all i can do is hope that experience comes under comfortable conditions rather than as I'm careening out of control toward an eighteen-wheeler on the highway.

14. Do you believe in reincarnation, the spirit world, and afterlife?
I mean, I have no idea, honestly, but no. I think the "spirit world" is a web of legacies and memories. After life comes death, so, no to an afterlife.

15. Do you believe in ghosts?
I wish I did, but no. It does seem weird to me, though, that so many cultures independently acknowledge them. More than coincidence.

16. Are you scared of how the world might end?
Not especially. I would think it would be gradual and that the scientists of the day would be expecting it, warning people and so on.

17. What are your most strange fears?
The depth and vastness of the ocean, the Mariana Trench. All the other ones are pretty standard (failure, loneliness, obesity).

18. Are you still a child at heart?
In some ways.

19. What do you hate most about the world?
Tina showed me an article about West Indian families so desititute, they had to resort to eating, and feeding their children, nutrient-poor pies made of mud. It reminded me of how my dad said growing up in Detroit, some of his relatives who couldn't qualify for government assistance had to eat dog food, which cheaper than ground meat intended for people. What I hate most about the world at large is that everyone doesn't have access to the resources they need, plus more. What I hate most about my world specifically is what little control I have over the things that are meaningful to me.

20. What do you love about it?
Babies, rain and the Sims.

21. Explain the best time of your life?
Last summer was amazing because I woke up every day excited. I spent the entirety of every day with a group of twelve amazing eleven-year-olds, all of whom were exceedingly bright and had SO much to say. I was completely in charge, which meant if there was a problem that needed solved, I had to solve it, which, for someone like me, with control issues, is pretty much the most self-empowering feeling there is. They said hilarious things all the time, we played games, they fought and laughed and cried and learned things and it was just amazing. I spent time in the sun, my skin always felt like it was on fire, my muscles ached at the end of every day. Children are pure, they are completely egocentric and it's okay. One day in the carpool line, a kid I had never seen before (six or seven years old) came up to me, tapped my arm and said, "Do you see my car?" Her questions rode on the wrong assumptions that i knew (a) who she was, and (b) what her car looked like. She was still the center of her own world, and, she assumed, mine, too.

22. Have you ever been depressed?
Clinically, Lord knows. Definitely, by the regular definition.

23. What are your past times?
What?

24. Do you have a short temper?
I have no temper at all. I never get angry or lash out at anyone. It's kind of pathetic, really.

25. What are your weaknesses?
I just can't for the life of me keep shit straight. I lose track of dates, I lose my things, I forget deadlines and freak out when I realize how colossally behind I am in everything. My concentration is bad. I can sit through entire class periods, two hours each, and not hear a single word of the lecture. I am also, I think, a touch hedonistic. Right now I'm inordinately excited because tomorrow I'm going to drive home and play the Sims in peace, without my parents there to harass. I should be thinking about how great it is that I have all day tomorrow to study for Property. I'm not.

26. What do you want to do in the future?
I want to blow off some steam, so I hope Justin calls pretty soon.

27. What is your sexuality?
Hetero, more so now than ever. I really, really, really like men. I like that hungry look they get when they want you. The first time I saw that look, I think, it cemented my straightness.

28. What do you strongly believe in?
Pregnancy.

29. Would you stand up for yourself if times got tough?
They frequently do, and I never have.

30. Are you scared of life itself?
Sometimes I think it's the hardest thing there is. (Bonus points if you can identify the quote!!)

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And now, back to studying.

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Follow the Leader  (13+) Round 12 open for sign-ups! #1378797 by mood indigo