acher's Journal

It's perfect Marching Band weather
Sometimes it's good to let go, but sometimes, it's really impossible.

There are a lot of things still floating around in my head. I'm afraid I'm slipping back to being a freshman again, that i've lost all the hard earned lessons of the past school year/summer, that it's impossible to enact permanent change.

When do I "grow up" already? I'm disappointed in my own immaturity.

I need to let go permanently of V, of C, of last year, of everything else in my life that has ended, with good reason or not.

I need to hang on to D and A, not as diana, as separate entities, and to the world as I know it.

I wonder if it's all possible.

I tried to describe the past two weeks to someone, and this was the result:
Shoshi144: i'm taking six classes, still have two undecided majors, got a 60 dollar summons on the subway for fare evasion with old lady shopping cart, and lost my cell phone.
Shoshi144: life is fun :-)

So... yeah. I have a date for a court hearing and no phone. At all. My cell disappeared, and my barnard one's not set up. And my computer doesn't charge properly, so I can't leave aim up, either. I don't have a hard copy of my address book sooo...

If we correspond through phone, and you don't mind, could you email me your phone number to s (dot) gross (at) gmail (dot) com? I think I need to put a hold on service and get a new phone, and I would very much appreciate it. Thanks!

For the record
I voted today!

For freeholder. and sheriff. Other, slightly less relevant positions seemed to also be up for decision. Like president. Strange.

Now I just have to buy postage and send it in...

Nothing like attempting to stave off impending doom to make a rainy day more pleasurable.

I also ran through the sprinklers in front of john jay last night as it began to rain. New beginning.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: I got 99 problems but a bitch aint one

It's two months later, at least.

Why can I still not pick up my flute?

First playing meeting of flute choir's next tuesday at 8. I'll deal if I have to, right?

In other fun news, it's 10:30 pm, and my suitemates are just sitting down to dinner. Oh, college.

Yerushalayim shel *zahav!*
I acknowledge that nationalism is bad buuuut. Israel won their first EVER gold medal Wednesday and the thought makes me positively gleeful for several reasons:

Firstly, because it's windsurfing, and what kind of cockamamie sport is that?
Secondly, because his name, Gal, means wave, and it was a water sport
and Thirdly, because it's the israelis beating out the yevanim... like chanukah! except not at all.
oooh also Fourthly, because hearing their anthem is awesome
and Fifthly, because the israelis were too impatient and sang along faster than the music was playing.

Are fourthly and fifthly words? Whatever.

I heart my bias.

Can we call it hatikvah shnot chamishim v'shtayim? (shnayim? argh. i need to learn me some grammar). I don't care that sports are silly and identifying with a country is silly. I'm pretty darn proud.

I just lost a really long, exuberant, i'd like to save you entry, and now i have to go to bed. Pout. it even had IMAGERY. le sigh.

Suffice it to say i've had a good few days and i'm really content with my recklessness and calmness levels.

When I remember I'll write about winning races and spontaneity and height and music and unexpected ims and optimism. Perhaps.

Stand in the place where you live
Now face North
Think about direction
Wonder why you haven’t
Now stand in the place where you work
Now face West
Think about the place where you live
Wonder why you haven’t before

Your feet are going to be on the ground
Your head is there to move you around
If wishes were trees
the trees would be falling
Listen to reason
Season is calling

Bara's an old fogie
( Things I love from the past few days (in no particular order) )

the most important thing being
general drama-free, hookup-free, friendly, loving goodness.

I crave waking up and somehow finding my way into bed with dot or slipping into a hug with bara that says more than words at that moment or seeing a smile light up teresa's face or sharing a bed with heidi and max. Put simply - good times. Perhaps I shouldn't put this as an lj entry (i'm lame, i know) but I just like to remember the smoothness of it all. Yum.

Oh New Jersey
First morning back at home. I wake up to the sun streaming in my window at 9:55, having no reason to be up earlier. Wandering into the kitchen, I find my sister making blueberry pancakes. We might be going down to the shore later today. Seems like quite the idyll.

Of course, ten minutes later rachel and my father are screaming at each other at the top of their lungs about her math homework and my mother presents me with a scroll down to the floor of things to be done today. That I prefer more, because it feels more like home.

Being here is strange, obviously, as all transitions are. I do hope I don't lapse into my stagnant patterns again. Eh. We'll see how THAT goes.

By the way, I finally got a chance to visit the Tang before I had to leave Skidmore. Mmm mmm good. There was a painting hanging on the wall at an angle that looked like a painting I have on my bedroom wall at home at an angle and i felt faux artsy. Aww yeah.

I also really liked this one called sparkler. It looked like a photograph, but of course it wasn't, and had this snowman in the background that disappeared if you looked up close, and somehow it just grabbed me. I don't know why. Just did.

Twas an interesting summer. Lots of growing pains, failed attempts at maturity, realizations about the inherent nature of interaction, etc. Good times, though. Good times.

Concert: Isle of klezbos
Dude, what IS it about music? I will never understand...

Why does it set our bodies pulsing, tapping, bouncing, undulating? How can a song hit that piece of the self we call our soul? Why does it come in as a distant memory, pulsing, flowing through our very fabric?

Odd thing is, my story (of a klezmer concert) doesn't even involve particularly GOOD music - the brass was off, the dynamics could have been better, tempo changes were rough and ugh, the percussionist - but it was moving nonetheless.

How do I make this make sense? They played tzolo kokosh mar.

I don't even know the linguistic set up of the words, but it means "the rooster crows" and it's a hungarian lullaby that my grandmother used to sing to me. Even before I was born I would respond to the song, kicking every time it was sang. It's a beautiful, modal melody and obviously it has strong personal significance.

What is it about personal significance anyway?

Thing is, this song isn't even technically klezmer and I wasn't expecting it remotely. I was foot tapping along and then they start playing this song and two bars in I go oh my gosh, I know this one! and it's an amazing feeling. I picture myself one day as one of those white-haired individuals the auditorium was filled with, bopping my head and nodding approvingly of times gone by as reflected in a familiar beat.

It has a magic and I know not how.

Yes yes, your neurons, and positive connections, and la la la, but something there is more than that.

It's time for hall meeting but there's much more to say. To be continued.

I just saw the most beautiful sunset.

The kids come in two hours...

Nervous, excited, and waaaay too tired for an 8:30 meeting. This job is going to be SO difficult, but also so ridiculously fun, I think. Mmmm One Two Three GO!

Leaving tomorrow for six weeks
But really the reason for this post is the splendiferous invention of gmail! So if you want to contact me, I probably won't be on AIM. I'll be sneaking on to the internet to check

s.gross at gmail.com

Wheee. I have a new toy.

(Yan and Alan are, as always, the coolest)

But all are agreed as they join the stampede
Started packing up for CTY today - craziness. Don't know how I feel about that yet.

Home is good. Surprising? I'm blessed with a tortured, but wonderful family. I had a really long talk with my father about screwing up and college and being miserable and happiness potential and the reason he didn't finish med school. I've never been able to honestly talk to him without stomping away. I certainly haven't since. It was rare and good.

Rachel is absolutely beautiful. She's nuts, and not so happy, but she's beautiful. I'm really scared for her but I think she can handle things.

Called someone today out of an impulse. He made me smile. New start at a friendship next semester, I hope.

People are mortal. It's crazy. Still no words.

I'm sort of sick of realizing things about myself, the world, others. I want to start enacting change, going out there, making things better, but then I realize that I can't possibly, ever. I wonder...

No more words
Vinci's in the ICU on a morphine drip, and it's doubtful he has any time left.

This world is now inherently colder.

Cold.

Did you ever realize that someone saved your life? and that you can't save theirs?

On the braiding of Rachel's hair.
My thirteen year old sister's going through the dreaded Bar/Bat mitzvah season (since she goes to a jewish day school where they have a mandatory invitation of the class policy, this means she has at LEAST one celebration a week.) Somehow I inherited the role of hairdresser for such events, as my mother is somewhat inept, and I can do a mean french braid when the occasion requires it. The conversations with Rachel leave me often bewildered. Her mind works in such strange ways, and seemingly always back to the same thing.

"I hate the French," she blurted out.
"That's a strong statement," I said. "Why?"
"Because they ate my friends!" she replied.

Yes. Because they ate her friends.

It took me a few moments to realize she was referencing the fact that the dinner plates of frenchmen during the turn of the last century happened to from time to time have horsemeat on them. Horses, to rachel, are sacred. They must enter EVERY conversation, ALWAYS. This was just rather a strange way to do it. I'm used to nonsensical excuses for blanket generalizations (ie, I hate the french) - everyone has some prejudice somewhere in there. With my father's family especially I've learned to roll my eyes and not protest my grandmothers "Shvartzes are dirty" and my aunt's "you can only trust jews to not swindle you - it's not worth being friends with goyim." There was something strange inherent in rachel's defense of this admittedly ridiculous statement in that it sort of illuminates the reason for these statements: the illusion of morality.

After all, why else would we spit on another group if not to elevate our own holy selves? By saying that the french are dreadful I'm saying that I have inherently better judgement. They don't want to save the sick puppy / defend the people of iraq / whatever else we're doing that we think is awesome at the time, and we do! We are the coolest!

You know, sometimes I wonder whether or not she's not so abnormal after all...

324 Sulz wants to say goodbye
My belongings are all gone.

They're a state away now.

I'm left with a change of clothes, a pillow, and a mattress pad.

Also: a notebook. flip flops and a towel. and a glass from winter wonderland that didn't make its way into a suitcase.

It's strange how empty the room is. I only vaguely remember walking into a completely empty room 9 months ago. In a few weeks I'll walk into another empty room. A few weeks after that another. My life becomes the filling and emptying of rooms.

But what are belongings, anyhow? I have all I need for a night's sleep, and a few forgotten new yorker covers still adorn that part of my wall high up that takes standing on the bed to reach. But what does it mean?

I know, I know. Reach my silly "we shouldn't be materialist" connection and be done with it. That's not what I'm trying to say at all.

What I want to know is, what is it about stuff that makes it feel comfortable?

This is still my room, but somehow, it isn't. It's already transitioning to be someone else's. Maybe key's, for all I know, though that's doubtful. But I have to give it up. I can't have two rooms. I give up 324, I give up my hallway and, and I give up my study lounge which has the perfect view of a sunrise over campus.

I give up our resident mouse. The one we never named because we were in denial even though the tell tale signs of its late-night food rampages were all there. (He even got to chocolate hid six feet off the ground. Mousey's got skillz, yo!)

I give up Hewitt in my PJs and waking up a full five minutes before my art history lectures.

But damn, woman, it's just a room. There's a WORLD out there to explore!

It's just good to have a home in the middle of everything. This city, this campus, this quad... it buzzes. It lives. It's vibrant.

Aberdeen, NJ, is vibrant too. In its own way. It's far more clean (JERSEY IS BEAUTIFUL. DONT MESS.) and it's far more spacious. I can walk for miles without a commercial district or a highway. (Well I wouldn't really walk for miles. but if I WANTED to...) And it has lilacs that bloom on my birthday.

All places in the end are alive.

I need my creature comforts, ideally. I'm a spoiled brat. I need my little patch of grass to call mine. But mainly, I need breath. Spirit. Wind. They're all the same word in hebrew, and it's not because hebrew is a jewish language and they're stingy with words.

People move and change and ebb and flow and the song remains the same.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Austria-Anti-Herzl.html

"Carna Amina Baghajati, a spokeswoman for Vienna's 120,000-strong Islamic community, also criticized the plan [to name a square in Vienna after Theodor Herzl, who first suggested a jewish state and is seen as the father of Zionism].

She suggested a square be named instead for Mohammad Asad, the Austrian-born Jew who changed his name from Leopold Weiss, converted to Islam and went on to become an honored 19th century Muslim scholar."

Since when is Zionism a dirty word?

For that matter, since when is JEW a dirty word?

Oh. That's right. The dawn of time. Sigh.

(Fact of the Day: Herzl was willing to settle UGANDA, not Israel.)

I can't believe they're protesting naming a random viennese square after a zionist. As if it's a crime that forty years before the state existed, forty years before Vienna's role in the mass genocide of jews, a reporter saw what was going on during the Dreyfus affair and realized that the only way to stop antisemitic governments was to create our own. Obviously our taking that one small piece of malaria-infested land has wounded the twenty-two arab nations severely. Poor things.

They're not even pretending it's about just the land anymore. It's Islam vs Judaism on both sides and that makes me sick.

May Day :)
It feels so, so good just to be... thought of. loved.

This has been by far the best communist holiday I've had yet.

Woke up, met my parents, shlepped some stuff into the car, was showered with items, lilacs (yay!) ate in hewitt with the family, sat and chatted with them, enjoyed being a daughter again. then sent them away, showered, got dressed.

Meandered over to columbia in search of anna and discovered a musical!performance! (de la soul) and a lawn covered in multicolored pastely paint (ahh hinduism i love you) and a campus quite alive. Recieved a phone call from raj amidst wandering into the wonderful world of

HARLEM which is so lovely when it's beautiful out and vibrant, vibrant. Walked up to 135 and back and just floated around and back again at which point I recieved several phone calls and lovely IMs and lolled around my room until I decided to be jewish and went to shul to get some food at which point I discovered friends going a tempesting.

Now... How to describe this? Kings Crown means SHAKESPEARE for FREE moving from scene to scene ALL OVER CAMPUS. If columbia's redonculously adorned campus was made for one thing, it was free outdoor theatre. Fuck yes. Absolutely AMAZING performance, nymphs everywhere, oh so mystical creepy lovely.

ok so I didn't describe it at all, but it was rock.

Left and was wandering over to Mathilde when I get a phone call along the lines of "sam? you need to come to barnard right now. Why? my computer it's... the hard drive is deleting itself! yeah!" Oh anna. So slick. So I return to a cake and illegal (!) candles and a card from danielle and yay :)

So now they've gone out for pizza and i've stayed in for inner peace.

Wow. A good day. I'm amazed - didn't think it could happen. I love those friends here who I hold dear and my parents and spring. It's good to be happy, to be free, to be older and not quite so wiser. It's been a really really tough year, and I think in many ways I've failed utterly, but a new year is here now. It will be good.

Whine, whine, boo hoo, look at my awesome glasses...
I was looking through old entries kind of re-living the past and I found a particularly memorable one (when I accidentally broke the sink and flooded the entire chem lab during ap chem junior year). I happened to be talking to a friend on AIM at the time and mentioned it to him in an "aww, high school" fashion, saying how I found the entry on a journal I have aside from xanga (I joined xanga to keep in touch with high school kids) describing the said event. Anyway, he evidently took interest to this fact...

KBlinn57: but your nonxanga...was it an LJ?
Shoshi144: it's possible
KBlinn57: cuz that means you were emo

Um... Ok. Rightey-o.

(I still can't believe I flooded the lab - teehee :). Oh what a year...)

On a 56th (plus or minus 5000) birthday
ISRAEL. So hot right now.

:)

V'af al pi she at po, v'at kol kach yafa...

Resident Assistant Handbook fun!
Shoshi144: dude so yeah i saw the clause "interactions ...are not to exceed the boundaries of a friendly professional relationship. staff members should be careful to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in their behavior towards their students." and vaguely choked laughing

JMDiResta: hi, benny? it's me, cty

Happy Earth Day, kids! :)
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
and a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
And put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And they put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that D.D.T. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Dont it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Pondering.
I live off the impossibility of the coming morning. Most of my freshman year memories are taking place when I should be sleeping. Such is the lure of bein hashmashim. Or whatever you call it. Leaves you time to think.

A person I knew in high school died in Iraq about a week ago. He had been there for less than three weeks.

He was a year above me and that's weird. And a good kid, considerate, etc. (though aren't they all?). I knew his wife more than I knew him and they both deserved more.

I simply don't understand why on earth you volunteer for a position like that. And why a position like that should exist.

I've had conversation after conversation with members of the armed forces and I simply still cannot understand the eagerness to die for one's country. Particularly for practically no reason.

"Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Steven Sanchez, a recruiter in Red Bank, said he remembers Frank stopping in during a visit to New Jersey about a year ago.

Sanchez, assigned to recruit students from Matawan Regional, recalled being disappointed that he hadn't been the one to sign the young man up."

I'm still having trouble conceptualizing what it must be like to live in a real war, not like this one. To fear the draft, watch your friends being plucked one by one... and we're not getting into the realities of war on other shores. I can't picture it. I really just don't know.

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
The young girls picked them evry one
Oh when will they ever learn
When will they ever learn?

In which Sam realizes she sucks
Mws86: is there stuff that gets you psyched up
Mws86: music
Mws86: or anything really
Shoshi144: *raises eyebrow*
Mws86: i don't mean this sexually
Mws86: look--you're a perfectionist, right?
Mws86: that's a lotta work
Mws86: where does the energy come from?

Whoa. good point.

In which Sam loves being Jewish
I think it is possible to explode from poorly choiced matzah and other passover product consumption.

We did "female" yoga in class today. Whoa. Slightly too intimate for my taste. Only at Barnard.

Also had a conversation about whether or not shaving one's legs was a worthy endeavor. This, too, only at Barnard.

I'm making "major lifestyle changes" whatever on earth that means in exchange for doing schoolwork. Beneficial overall.

Still making the kosher/vegetarian/vegan/fuck-it-all decision. Also the shomer shabbat decision. Shomer negiah is WAY out of my league. Hell no.

It feels good to turn boys down :)

It also feels good to quote a girl in your away message and get someone responding to you with "Saaaammm's got a booyyyyfrieeeennnd." Even more amusing is when you actually did, but it's not the person they think. Even MORE amusing when they send that to you five minutes after you dump the boyfriend (the boyfriend was an accident, I swear! Long story.) but there's another one in the works and eh my life is angst. Sam = playa. uhuh.

Huzzah confusing and pointless lj entries.

I love chametz. A lot.

Sam remains confused
WoodyBrookz: what if i still believe in hollywood endings?
Shoshi144: what does that mean?
WoodyBrookz: a happy ending
WoodyBrookz: where the guy loves the girl, the girl loves the guy, everybody is happy

I guess I'm a fan of choose your own adventure books. Lots of people and lots of tzuris. Poor kid.

I can't believe that people are matched up nicely. It doesn't work like that at all. Bashert? What is that.

I don't know if I believe in love. We'll see.

Max and I will be friends. It's just so. strange. And not my fault, really. or his. Whatever. Just handled very badly, always. I love him dearly, i'm not in love with him, he'll deal. I hope no one ever treats me as terribly as I treat him.

Additionally, I am le slick and lost shuki's number. Oops. I really really need to procure that again. Mmm. I make such a big deal out of nothing.

Addendum: I've realized I'm a racist. and a snob. and numerous other detestable things. Am working on it.

Also have realized that if I consider myself a jew I'd damn well get started working on it. Maybe. We'll see.

die die die die live live live live...
Just failed a midterm but had a long talk with the professor afterwards re: existence and it was quite helpful, actually.

It's going to be a really strange weekend/week. Going to queens to be a good little jewish girl, going out with diana on a crazy excursion, seeing a really strange military history film, and oh yes catching up on work. I hope.

oh and additionally

sex sex sex sex more more more more!

Oh denise...
Cluckatura13: i went to mass because it's holy thursday...last supper...etc...
Cluckatura13: and during the most solemn part of the mass we were on our knees...
Cluckatura13: and kevin called.

Cluckatura13: i didn't turn off my phone
Cluckatura13: do you know what cell ring i have?
Cluckatura13: mind you...the priest is on his knees like 10 ft away from me...
Cluckatura13: everyone on knees...
Cluckatura13: THE GODFATHER THEME!!!!!!!!!

Cluckatura13: the deacon said after mass...i don't know who's cell that was...but the timing couldn't have been better

My favorite little catholic. AWESOMENESS. Just thought i'd share.

Clean clean clean clean clean clean clean clean meh.

Stam chiuch lelo siba.

It was a good weekend.

I must say it's fun to have options. and experience.

Haven't slept properly this weekend but I have done mad passover observance, seen some loveliness, read some, played some, jew-ed it up, etc. Fun.

I got my summer job, which is lovely. I'm really looking forward to working there. Being potentially in control of a little howlett (among others. and i'll play nice.) rocks my socks off.

Looking forward to homeness for just a bit.

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