I haven't had any candy corn yet this year, and it's almost out of season! Since I'm apparently the only person on the planet who likes it, I'm willing to accept donations from any generous readers out there.
I was just refilling my Brita pitcher in the lounge, and I overheard this side of a telephone conversation some girl was having:
"Yeech! I hate her I hate her!...she's a lesbian...yes she is!"
It seemed bizarre enough to post.
And now, I have to go march at the New York State Field Band Championships. Being the exhibition band is fun because we don't actually perform until 10 PM. The competing (high school) bands have been doing their thing since 8:00 this morning. Good times.
EEEERRRRRRRRGGGGGGHBLELELFRGLEBGWLEBLELEASDFKJTHKLTHTIOMMAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!
*shakes fists*
Check this out:
In case you can't read it, I just bought a ticket to see Bill Cosby in downtown Syracuse on November 10. Should be fun.
However, that knowledge doesn't seem to have taken my mind off the fact that I still feel like shit and didn't get any sleep last night!
I wonder if I could just hibernate for the next three weeks...
Don't you hate when you have a good, new experience and go to sleep feeling great about life and planning to spend the next day (which is a day off because of Eid-ul whatever) working on a script, and then when you wake up that day, you feel like absolute shit and can't actually concentrate on writing anything?
I think that fucking ice cream was tainted.
It seems really retarded to even mention crap like this, but to me, it's a big deal that I just managed to hang out with other people for an hour and a half and have a fun time without saying or doing anything awkward. I even got a table full of people to laugh a couple times by waiting for the right moment to say stuff instead of submitting to ADD and blurting out every thought that came to mind.
Also, the Reese's cup sundae at Friendly's is amazing.
That is all.
This is going to be another one of those posts involving stuff that might seem obvious to most people, but strikes me as amazing because I've spent so much of my life in isolation. Anyway...
I was taking advantage of a lazy Sunday in a very long weekend and letting my mind wander, and I started thinking about a few of the seemingly successful social interactions I've had throughout my college years that ended in awkwardness. It usually goes something like this:
Person I either know casually or have not met at all approaches me and starts a conversation, we form a good enough connection for it to keep going, and it generally continues for a while. I have, on a few occasions, had conversations lasting between 15 and 30 minutes with people I had never really talked to before. Sounds great, right?
The problem is that after this first conversation, I usually end up never talking to the person again, and they seem to avoid me or just ignore me, even though I didn't say or do anything stupid or offensive while talking to them, and we parted on good terms. This has been a mystery to me for years, and is one of the reasons I get pissed off so easily at humans in general.
And then, a few minutes ago, it hit me: Social exchange theory.
Human social relations are based on a system of give and take. If people give their time and energy to you and don't get anything back, they'll see you as selfish and avoid you. How does this apply to the above situation, you ask?
Simple. In every one of these long-ass conversations, I was the one who had to be prompted to talk. I never started the interaction. And afterwards, I always waited for the other person to approach me again. Makes sense, right? They did it the first time, and we got along, so why wouldn't it happen a second time?
Again...social exchange theory. Maybe...just maybe...there's an unspoken rule that the person who initiated the conversation last time shouldn't have to do it again, and that the other person should step up and start one, keeping the social scales balanced and basically saying "hey, I care enough about you to take time out of my day and see how you're doing."
Can any of you with actual social skills verify this? It would explain so freakin' many of my problems, and I can't believe I never once thought of it until now. It's clear that I do, in fact, have some conversational skills, so maybe my inability to balance relationships is the main source of my previously mentioned connection problems.
On another note, the drumline is apparently going to Friendly's after rehearsal tomorrow night to hang out, and I'll be joining them, so this is potentially time-sensitive knowledge here.
UPDATE
Fuck. Now I'm all depressed after realizing how many friends I could have made by now if I had just talked to people instead of thinking "durr, they're avoiding me, so they must not like me, and it would just make it worse if I tried to interact with them again. Durr."
I'd like a do-over of college, please.
Fuck.
Check out just one paragraph from a ten page reading in the book:
There is perhaps no better way of grasping the epistemological and sociological presuppositions of objectivism than to return to the inaugural operations through which Saussure constructed the specific object of linguistics. These operations, ignored and masked by all the mechanical borrowings from the then dominant discipline and by all the literal translations of an autonomized lexicon on which the new 'structural' sciences were hastily founded, have become the epistemological unconscious of structuralism.
I doubt that even these authors know what the fuck they're saying sometimes...
You know, sometimes I think I should start drinking just to see what it's like...then I go into the bathroom and see people kneeling in front of toilets full of their own vomit and trying not to pass out, and it reminds me why I stay sober.
Unlike most of my "I love..." posts, that title isn't at all sarcastic. Seriously, as much as I bitch about the liberal arts aspects of my Syracuse experience, the communications stuff (you know, what I actually came here for) remains awesome.
I mean, how often do you get the opportunity to hear straight from Ron Meyer that Babe: Pig In the City is "the worst piece of shit" that Universal Studios ever put out?
Little things like that just make me smile.
UPDATE
However, little things like my blog disappearing after I publish a new post do not make me smile. If there's any weirdness going on, just wait it out, I guess.
I'm too exhausted from the past 24 hours to blog, so here's a sweet picture from last night's homecoming parade (it's very big, so click it for full size, or just click here for the original):
I'm the snare drummer closest to the camera. Fun stuff (we were going uphill when that picture was taken, and I think my inner monologue at the moment was something along the lines of "fuck this fucking parade bullshit").
More like it here, if you care.
UPDATE
Found some decent photos from the game on Facebook.
A little backstory: At every game, a few members of each section go up to the top seating area of the Carrier Dome and play during the 3rd quarter. This week, it was my turn. I had never done this before, so I didn't know exactly what to expect. Specifically, I didn't realize how fucking high this spot was. I mean, I've seen it before, but being up there is a little different. It looks like this:
For reference: The seats under the American flag on the top left = the same level we were on, but on the opposite side (the dude who took this picture was standing right in front of us). The big chunk of white behind the endzone is the rest of the band.
As I may have mentioned before, I have an almost paralyzing fear of heights, so for the first few minutes, I couldn't stand up, and I thought I was going to pass out. However, I managed to adjust, and we rocked out for a while (I shouldn't have to tell you which one is me in either of these):
Notice the fact that the top of the Dome is only a few feet above us!
The blank expression on my face is partly because I was trying to maintain my badass drummer persona, and partly because I was trying not to vomit.
Yeah. It was different, and kinda fun, but I'm never going up there again. Holy crap.
Question: What do lieing, dieing, sentance, comming, independant, and existance have in common?
Answer: NONE OF THEM ARE REAL WORDS, YOU MORONS!!!
Thank you.
UPDATE
For even more fun, replace the original words with "alot," "aswell," "atleast," and "infact."
Hey, everybody! Know what I love?
FIRE ALARMS AT 4:45 IN THE FUCKING MORNING!!!
Because there's nothing like standing out in the cold listening to dozens of people bitch about how tired they are! Really! It's fucking fantastic!!!
Really!!!!!
So, we were discussing defamation in my communications law class today, and the professor taught us about the "libel pinball game." Essentially, there are eight conditions ("holes") that must be met for a statement to be considered libelous, and in order to avoid the charge, you have to make sure that at least one condition can't be met (by making it so the "ball" can't go in the "hole" or something).
This kind of makes sense, but my first thought upon hearing about the "libel pinball game" was of an actual pinball machine that displays insulting messages every so often. I'm going to borrow from/add to Jeff Goldstein's Pinball Post (one of the most brilliant things ever written) to give you an idea of what popped into my head (and almost made me laugh out loud in the middle of class):
*INSERT COIN, COCKSUCKER*
clink. clink.
sproing!
ding. dingdingdingdingdingding.
*BALL LOCK, BITCH*
ding.
dingding.
*MULTIBALL, MOTHERFUCKER*
dingdingthwap!
thwap!
*EXTRA BALL, ASSHOLE*
ding. dingdingdingdingding.
dingdingdingdingthwap!
*JACKPOT, JACKASS*
thwap!
thwap!
*TILT, DIPSHIT*
...Maybe it's only funny to me. Specifically, I almost burst into laughter the second "MULTIBALL, MOTHERFUCKER" came to me.
I think I need to sleep more.
(NOTE: I am aware that insults technically don't count as libel, but I'm just telling you what was in my head at the time)