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[25 Nov 2006|07:03pm] |
Going into break I felt game to get my first taste of rootlessness. As it turns out, though, my roots are extensive and flexible, and far from feeling rootless, I actually feel closer to my extended family than I ever have. My plan was originally to spend the week in Brooklyn with ma cousine Alden, in the same loft she'd lived in since she was born and in the same building I'd lived in until I was six. Every time I go back there (the first real revisit being this past New Year's Eve combined with Alden's birthday) I find myself wishing we'd never moved to New Jersey. I know that there were good reasons for the move, and that the struggle with that decision is related to (though not the cause of) the split between my parents, and that I might not be the Zack I love so much today had we stayed in Brooklyn. Still, I found myself thinking that as bad as the neighborhood was when I was little, what a beautiful, beautiful place in to have grown up. DUMBO is the name of the neighborhood, short for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass", and the view of the bridge is incredible. Looking down its length as it goes from a majestic pale lacework on the opposite bank to a very real, rust-reddened, rivet-riddled, million-ton mass; booming and clattering with many lanes and two train tracks worth of traffic overhead. The lofts on the sixth floor were carved out of a single original factory floor. My dad and uncle, both writers and zesty with inexperience, added whimsical bathrooms, bedrooms and three-quarter scale second floors. Until I grew out of infancy the only separator between spaces in my loft was a 30-foot set of home-made bookshelves hanging from the ceiling on steel cables. At a party I once toddled the length of the space with a wine-glass in my hand, ignoring stern directives to "Put that down right now, Zachary." My uncle finally told me that I was not, under any circumstances, to put down the glass, at which point I put down the glass and gleefully toddled off. At the time, my uncle was married to my cousin's mother, Perry.
Perry was with Alden and I on Thanksgiving. It was just the three of us in the loft that my uncle had lent first to his son and now to his daughter, and which was soon to be sold. At best, I'll probably be there once more before it's gone. We spent the day cooking and watching old movies until it was time to eat, at which point I realized that I was experiencing the best Thanksgiving of my life. It wasn't just that the turkey was moist, although all previous turkeys have been dry to varying degrees. I think it was the first time I haven't taken Thanksgiving for granted. Perry is, for me, an emblem of the fracturing that runs through both sides of my family. Aside from platitudes at Alden's birthday/New Year's party and early childhood interactions that I can't remember, I had never truly spoken with this aunt of mine until two nights ago. I found her to be warm and intelligent, and during the evening she went from a near-stranger to a member of my family, one to whom, at parting, I could easily give a hug and say "I love you." Up till now I have thought of family, when I've thought of it, as something that I had no role in shaping. There were those family members that I saw with my mom and those that I saw with my dad, and the ones I never saw sort of faded out of existence. It has occurred to me over the past two days that family is something I can define for myself. Particularly now, without a home and having outgrown my parents planning my presence at family functions, I have the freedom and responsibility to maintain the family ties that are important to me. It's a hard conclusion for me to arrive at, inevitable as it seems. I've always had a hard time getting myself to stay in touch with anyone who's far away, even parents and close friends from home, but I plan to work harder at it from now on.
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[14 Nov 2006|03:22pm] |
This weekend I made a sculpture in the CFA that I am really proud of.
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[28 Oct 2006|04:35pm] |
I've been having night sweats lately. According to wikipaedia, they can be a sign of:
* Brucellosis
* Cancer
* Cerebral palsy
* Cerebral and brain stem strokes
* Chronic pneumonia
* Epilepsy
* Familial dysautonomia
* Head injury
* HIV
* Lymphoma, both Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's
* Hypothalamic lesions
* Leukaemia
* Menopause
* Pulmonary histoplasmosis
* Subacute endocarditis
* Tuberculosis
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| Tournament Cancelled! or... |
[28 Oct 2006|07:29am] |
...How I Got My Weekend Back
It's not too surprising, seeing as it's been monsooning since 1:30 this morning. I wish I could say I was really bummed, but with my body already this sick and the grumbling storm cloud of due-dates looming around the middle of this week, I'm pretty pleased. Now we don't have to back up the show we put on at Williams. There's the chance of some co-ed tournaments in the next few weeks, but for the most part we'll remain a Scary Red Unknown until Spring. It's strange--I was very ready to wipe my hands of the sport for a month, if not the entire winter, after this last push. Now it seems that all the mental resolve I'd stored up for the weekend has been applied like a delicious, low-fat spread to thoughts of winter training.
Week in Review:
On Tuesday night I pledged Alpha Delt. It was a lot of fun, and shall beget more. On Thursday night I hung out with Litwack for a while and then went over to the Bayit to play "Dirty Minds" with Alissa. It's a party-type game in which a player guesses at the nature of a thing based on suggestively misleading clues, success depending on the player's ability to avoid degenerate thought. I lost six predictable times in a row.
I'm going to get so much done today.
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[25 Oct 2006|04:22pm] |
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Throat soooooo sick.
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| Purple Valley |
[23 Oct 2006|05:38pm] |
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The tournament at Williams was incredible. In addition to completely winning the party on Saturday night, we surprised the hell out of teams who were supposed to mop the floor with us. I just hope that the players who went got fired up enough to infect the guys who skipped it. It would be so easy for us to congratulate ourselves on our wins and let it change nothing, but if Nietzsch Factor could field anything approaching the number of dedicated players (and fresh legs) that other competitive schools regularly do, we would have a legitimate shot at going to nationals in the Spring. As much as I enjoy killing teams with ten or fifteen subs on the sideline as compared to our two, I am so, so frustrated by the fact that the fate of this team is largely in the hands of those who care the least.
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| This is better than I thought it would be. |
[14 Oct 2006|05:57pm] |
The tree outside my window is the richest red I've ever seen, so intense it shimmers. The pine boughs that get in the way turn brown and drab in comparison. After a full minute of staring, everything else is greenish.
May I tell you about my day? It's been a good one. I woke up at ten, breakfasted on Honey-Bunches and a banana, and by noon had decided what I was going to do with myself. Last fall I went on a bikeride to Lyman orchards with a friend named O.J.(Juice, Java, Rood-O, etc. He played frisbee.). I was riding a Panasonic roadbike with a nonfunctioning front gearshift. Reduced to five speeds, all on the lower end, I still had trouble with the hills. The last two uphill stretches in particular are murderous. This year, this bike, I have one gear-setting: difficult. I don't recall the exact ratio, but it matches, if not the highest, then at least the second highest possible setting on my old Panasonic. So, did I make it? Of course I did. But as I crested the final hill, the one with the view, I was going so slowly that an elderly power-walker gave me a nod as he passed me on the left. The view, once I'd dropped my bike on the grass, was gorgeous. There are little hills and valleys everywhere, and the colors--well, you know the ones I mean. I like them. New England isn't my home, but I sometimes want it to be. I go to that view to consume it. I want to make it a part of me.
I ate a couple of apples, stashed four more in the pockets of my jacket, then coasted down to the Lyman store. I bought an apple fritter and a glazed cider donut and watched ducks swim while I ate them. As I finished off the fritter I was thinking that there was no way the donut could be as good. Actually, no kidding, that donut was the best pastry that I have ever had in my life. The outer edge was so perfectly sweet and crispy that I almost went back in and bought a half-dozen more, but I would have had no way to carry it back to campus. I promise to drive a car full of people there when everyone is back from break, cause I've got a monkey on my back and his name is Donuts.
I stopped at Wadsworth Park to walk in the woods before I came home. I wandered a big loop of a trail blazed in white, and while I walked I thought about what I was doing with myself at school. Leslie Snipes told me by email last month that she might take me on for a drawing thesis, and I was wondering whether she'd gotten back from her sabbatical yet. The answer is that yes, she has, because I ran into her when I was on the return leg of my walk. We talked for a few minutes, and she mentioned that I had so many of my classes out of the way that I could probably go abroad next semester. Failing that, she said, there's also a grant that I can apply for in March that's tailored for art thesis students who want to go abroad in the summer before their senior year. I'm going to look into that.
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[03 Jun 2006|04:32pm] |
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toooooooothy grin
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| !? |
[03 May 2006|06:56pm] |
I am suddenly and unforseeably elated. It's like I was slapped on the chest with it. The immediate cause was a quick visit from Gabe, but it triggered what I will describe as a surprise party orchestrated in my honor by my own brain. So when Gabe said, "Zack, I'm really pleased with this close friendship we're developing," my eyes said "Awww!", my mouth said "Awesome!" and my brain said, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I will now remind you why your life is wonderful right now." Then Gabriel walked away, and for a moment there were no words.
More to follow after dinner with Marianna.
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| Dear Marianna, |
[08 Feb 2006|09:10pm] |
http://www.petsinuniform.com/
Five Cuteological Special Forces operatives died to bring you these pictures, captured during a raid on a major Pet base in the Balkans. Intelligence suggests they were executed by head exploding.
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[10 Jan 2006|12:04pm] |
I had the most disturbing dream last night. My mom forgot something like locking the door and I got pissed and confronted her. She ended up confessing to me that when she was in college she took LSD and lost most of her memories permanently. She was still functional, but she'd forgotten everything she'd learned and didn't recognize any of her friends. That was why she was so flaky, even now.
She's actually told me things to that effect. Mainly that her flakiness now is probably because she did so many drugs in college. But I woke up with the fear that my mom had been living most of her life secretly crippled, presenting a functional front but secretly frightened and confused every single waking moment.
It also fed into my worries about myself: that I'm not as smart as I should be given my upbringing, that I'm not as smart as my dad or my brother, that since I was a very precocious child I must somehow be deteriorating. I retain so little of what I read and learn, and it gnaws at me, particularly recently. I think the instant I managed to put aside my fear of being 20 (chances of being a prodigy at anything gone, lacking direction) I started focusing on my flakiness. Each time I've had dinner with my dad and brother I've felt like I wasn't contributing as much as I used to, that they were each picking up subtleties in the subject matter that I wasn't. Maybe it was just my mood both times, maybe I was tired, or maybe this is all a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe if I'm searching for signs of mental dullness in myself, that's all I'll see.
In any case, the dream made me realize something else: I came home from school intending to try several drugs over break. I had a really cavalier attitude about it, which is funny because I have so little experience. I even had it in my head that it might be fun and sexy to develop a little bit of a dependence. WHAT. THE. FUCK, Zack. If I need some sign that I'm getting more retarded by the instant, that's a pretty good one. Especially since I've often wondered whether this real or imagined deterioration began when I started smoking and drinking. I'm not recoiling from the idea of trying some drugs so much as from my attitude about it. I need to be cautious, especially since, at the very least, I'll be giving myself more cause to stress out about the state of my brain. How flexible and durable is it, really? What damage is cumulative and what is temporary?
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| Annual Reminder |
[27 Nov 2005|09:33pm] |
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I look like the Weasley twins. Okay. I get it. Every year a new Harry Potter movie comes out and everyone starts telling me that like I don't know. I know, okay? I know and I think they're really creepy looking. The next person who tells me is getting de-friended. In meatspace.
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[06 Nov 2005|11:06am] |
This weekend was amazing. Janie's show was, for the most part, hilarious, as was time spent with her afterward. Brian's and my several attempts to watch The Incredibles, though each a failure, were nonetheless rewarding. The visit from Mom and Stephen turned out to be wonderful--I had been dreading it, but they helped me think through some large matters. The dance in the cafe was one of the more intense I've been to, and I got my grind on more than I can remember having done ever before. Spending time with Alissa afterward was, as always, a joy.
I've been worried since September that this year could never compare to last in terms of sheer joyous revelry. Last year, of course, is viewed through the foggy, rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. And anyway, why should it compare? I'm supposed to be working harder and dancing less as a sophomore. The trend I've noticed, one of jagged alternation in my mood over the past few months, has seemed to confirm that. This weekend has been another peak, probably the highest of my year so far, and appearing to imply more in the future. I love my life so much right now.
OH OH OH! And I made a website of drawings!
http://zdavis.web.wesleyan.edu
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[26 Oct 2005|04:40pm] |
Okay, I know this is an illusion:
I feel smarter, funnier and friendlier when I'm interacting with the world through a thin haze of accumulated brain toxins, as long as said toxins result from sleep deprivation. Maybe it's like I'm better at pretending I don't give a shit? I feel like I could parade around with a boner undisguised, and when people pointed it out to me I'd be like, "Yeah! Isn't it cool how that happens sometimes?"
Maybe I've broken through to some form of useful manic depression. 8 dispersed hours of sleep powers three or four days of increasingly pleasant and effortless social interaction, plus a lot of academic productivity. This is followed by what I venture will be two days of sleep and loneliness. And, perhaps, a deeper and less pleasing analysis of what I consider meaningful in friendship.
That's not to say I'm reconsidering any. You're all keepers as far as I'm concerned.
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[25 Oct 2005|03:09am] |
I did not, in fact, go to sleep after attending english class. I did a drawing assignment until late in the evening, when I ate dinner, and then headed to the studio for more drawing work. I just got back. I do not feel like a corpse, although all this no-sleep is apparently eating my skin alive.
Can somebody explain to me how I have managed to remain awake? Have I broken some internal regulator or flange?
Now I will attempt to sleep. I was unable to do so this afternoon (confusion).
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[24 Oct 2005|10:09am] |
ALLNIGHTER'D!
6 pages.
1,630 words.
Incisive,
Brilliant.
On only two mountain dews? How am I still conscious? How in God's name?
I am actually going to class, which will probably be all it takes to knock me out. I will come home and sleep until 4:00 PM. I will then do other work, and proceed as if things are normal and proper.
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[13 Oct 2005|04:19am] |
Brian and Alissa and I just disentangled ourselves from a wonderfully wide-ranging conversation about the future of technology, the environment, our species, and the morality with which we'll weigh it all. I forget what we decided.
Actually, it's starting up again. Can't miss it. Brain just said "...I could smash Zack's head into the wall every time he annoys me, but we evolved to have morals!" Thanks Bud. I'm about to tear your thesis a new one. Orrrr keep typing intellectual bravado that nobody on the internet will ever know if I backed up. I'll spare you the trouble: I didn't. The moment passed because I was busy here. On the internet. While an amazing conversation winds down behind me. OKBYE.
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