TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW
A while back I said that I was going to post on my blog whenever Zach Braff posted on his. Since I made that statement two things have happened. One, it seems as though Zach has totally lost interest in the whole blogging thing. And Two, I learned from three independent sources that he’s kind of a dick. What this second thing means for all of you…I don’t know. I just thought it was worth mentioning.
The reason that I haven’t been posting isn’t because of my misplaced hero worship. I simply haven’t been posting because when I’m here --here, being Columbia-- I get to tell you guys all the shit that’s going on in my head. I see you and therefore can tell you in person about how I really want to start asking my Shakespeare professor what Francis Bacon meant when he wrote “this is the winter of our discontent.” I don’t have to write about it. And as for those of you who aren’t actually here --I can think of maybe two who might be reading this-- well, I’m sorry.
For those of you who don’t know, the summer in California was good. It was productive and I met some people who might be able to help me out further down the road. But that doesn’t do me a whole lot of good right now. I still need to graduate. I still need to apply to grad school. And I still have to take this damn online driving school, which I’m planning on doing the second half of while inebriated just to stick it to The Man.
I recently got a new cell phone. My family has this plan where we get a new cell phone every two years at some kind of discounted price --obviously this hasn’t been explained to me very well, nor for that matter am I all that interested in learning the ins and outs of my family’s cell phone plan. Needless to say, my two years was up about a year and a half ago so I figured it was time to get a new phone.
What didn’t occur to me at the time was that getting a new phone meant that I’d have to transfer all of the numbers out of my old phone. This wasn’t any big hassle since I only had about thirty or so numbers saved, but an interesting side-effect of this process was that it let me know who I was still honestly friends with.
You can look at the numbers in your phone every once in a while and think “oh, I should give them a call” or “I wonder how they’re doing” or “gee, we haven’t talked in a while”. But it isn’t until you look at that same number and say “hey, am I ever going to talk to this person again” that you start to consider whether or not that person is still your friend. Needless to say there were a few people that didn’t make the cut. And a few that made the cut that probably shouldn’t have.
Part of me feels bad about this. It’s not an easy thing to think about someone who used to be your friend and then discover that you don’t really care about them any more. Granted, discover might not be the best word here since, at least on some level you already knew it, but there are things that you know and then there’s things that you know. And secondly, saying that you don’t care about them anymore might be a bit harsh. But let’s be honest…if you really cared about them, the way that you used to, then you’d probably still need that number.
It’s a strange thing I suppose, letting go of friends. But there comes that point, we’ve all felt it, where a friendship no longer feels like a friendship. It feels strained, like something you have to work for. And it isn’t as though you’re trying to hold onto something that’s already gone. It’s more than that. It’s like you’re looking for something that doesn’t even exist any more. And the two of you talk and through the talking it’s like saying “Look, look here it is. I’ve found it. I’ve found our friendship.”
But there’s nothing there. You know it. And they know it. So why do we still try? Depressing isn’t it?
See you all again in 1974...
A while back I said that I was going to post on my blog whenever Zach Braff posted on his. Since I made that statement two things have happened. One, it seems as though Zach has totally lost interest in the whole blogging thing. And Two, I learned from three independent sources that he’s kind of a dick. What this second thing means for all of you…I don’t know. I just thought it was worth mentioning.
The reason that I haven’t been posting isn’t because of my misplaced hero worship. I simply haven’t been posting because when I’m here --here, being Columbia-- I get to tell you guys all the shit that’s going on in my head. I see you and therefore can tell you in person about how I really want to start asking my Shakespeare professor what Francis Bacon meant when he wrote “this is the winter of our discontent.” I don’t have to write about it. And as for those of you who aren’t actually here --I can think of maybe two who might be reading this-- well, I’m sorry.
For those of you who don’t know, the summer in California was good. It was productive and I met some people who might be able to help me out further down the road. But that doesn’t do me a whole lot of good right now. I still need to graduate. I still need to apply to grad school. And I still have to take this damn online driving school, which I’m planning on doing the second half of while inebriated just to stick it to The Man.
I recently got a new cell phone. My family has this plan where we get a new cell phone every two years at some kind of discounted price --obviously this hasn’t been explained to me very well, nor for that matter am I all that interested in learning the ins and outs of my family’s cell phone plan. Needless to say, my two years was up about a year and a half ago so I figured it was time to get a new phone.
What didn’t occur to me at the time was that getting a new phone meant that I’d have to transfer all of the numbers out of my old phone. This wasn’t any big hassle since I only had about thirty or so numbers saved, but an interesting side-effect of this process was that it let me know who I was still honestly friends with.
You can look at the numbers in your phone every once in a while and think “oh, I should give them a call” or “I wonder how they’re doing” or “gee, we haven’t talked in a while”. But it isn’t until you look at that same number and say “hey, am I ever going to talk to this person again” that you start to consider whether or not that person is still your friend. Needless to say there were a few people that didn’t make the cut. And a few that made the cut that probably shouldn’t have.
Part of me feels bad about this. It’s not an easy thing to think about someone who used to be your friend and then discover that you don’t really care about them any more. Granted, discover might not be the best word here since, at least on some level you already knew it, but there are things that you know and then there’s things that you know. And secondly, saying that you don’t care about them anymore might be a bit harsh. But let’s be honest…if you really cared about them, the way that you used to, then you’d probably still need that number.
It’s a strange thing I suppose, letting go of friends. But there comes that point, we’ve all felt it, where a friendship no longer feels like a friendship. It feels strained, like something you have to work for. And it isn’t as though you’re trying to hold onto something that’s already gone. It’s more than that. It’s like you’re looking for something that doesn’t even exist any more. And the two of you talk and through the talking it’s like saying “Look, look here it is. I’ve found it. I’ve found our friendship.”
But there’s nothing there. You know it. And they know it. So why do we still try? Depressing isn’t it?
See you all again in 1974...
