"This Night is Flawless" *

New beginnings! Catch me on over here from now on: http://slightlyoutofreach.blogspot.com/
Thanks for a great 4 years!

Taylor Swift "Enchanted" *

With Love,
Melidee

Just a great figure eight or a tiny infinity *

 "La reproduction interdite" 1937 via

At the risk of sounding cliche, there's nothing like a painting by René Magritte to remind me what life is all about.

I've had the most chaotic week and I want to share it with you all as soon as life settles down which realistically will not be until after June 12 (graduation day) but hopefully I'll have time to blog this Friday in San Francisco. I cannot believe the Voxtrot concert is this Saturday already. Okay, so I really only have to make it to Friday afternoon, then I only have one presentation, one 20-pager, and 4 finals before graduation. Anyway I was writing a couple essays for Arabic and was in the mood for some John Mayer. I found myself listening to "Edge of Desire" on repeat for about 3 hours and decided that the lyrics are worth a brief shallow post. Eh, it's John Mayer. He can be so obnoxious 90% of the time and there are a million more talented artists who don't get half as much credit, but the truth is that I love the dude. I don't know how to explain in what terms necessarily but I feel like the dude and I are one and the same. We have massive God-complexes but are still so ridiculously insecure. We care so much about being validated by others yet we try so hard to make it seem like the complete opposite is true. We hide behind our big words, concepts and abstractness so no one will pinpoint and deface us. That is not to say that we are "shallow", we are just so damn self-righteous and 'losing face' is our equivalent to hell so we create a situation where we're on the defense all the time; we beat before we are beaten. It's a bad habit that gets us in trouble and will be our ultimate downfall.

Oddly enough, most of Mayer's songs are about love (mostly tragic or reverie) which is my least favorite topic/theme in the world. Actually, no, that's not true. I appreciate a good love song or romantic movie-it's just the falsity it creates that bugs me, personally. Or rather, people's unrealistic expectations. Anyway, there's something about the combination of the music -those guitar riffs (he is so passionate in concert)- the lyrics, the voice, and -if only for 3 minutes- the vulnerability it conveys. There's nothing like throwing on Continuum or Battle Studies when you're in the mood. It's exquisite. 

Young and full of running,
tell me where is that taking me
just a great figure eight
or a tiny infinity.

Love is really nothing
but a dream that keeps waking me.
For all of my trying
we still end up dying,
how can it be?

Don't say a word, just come over and lie here with me
'Cause I'm just about to set fire to everything I see.
I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe.
There, I just said it, I'm scared you'll forget about me.

So young and full of running
all the way to the edge of desire.
Steady my breathing, silently screaming
I have to have you now.

Wired and I'm tired,
Think I'll sleep in my clothes on the floor.
Or maybe this mattress will spin on its axis
and find me on yours.

Don't say a word, just come over and lie here with me
'Cause I'm just about to set fire to everything I see.
I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe.
There, I just said it, I'm scared you'll forget about me.

 via

John Mayer "Edge of Desire"* and "Gravity"

-melidee

"Bildungsroman"

Today is a "Berlin, Without Return" and "Steven" kind of day. I am extremely homesick, only I have no idea what "home" means. Although this blog is for me to express what I am feeling, I am not interested in sharing intimate details of my life. However, you must trust me when I say that I have no "home". And though I've never known this "home" concept that most people seem to have made for themselves, I've at least known that wherever my family-my mother, father, sister and brother-is, that is home. Lately, however, I've begun to question this interpretation--not because I have suddenly stopped holding my family in such high regards, quite the opposite actually, but because I do not want to make them suffer. I am an extremely miserable and awkward person. I hate having my family worry about me; this 'moving back home' post college thing feels like a recipe for disaster because my parents will be everyday witnesses to my misery. I fear pushing them away as a defense mechanism, which is the complete opposite of what I want. Some people say that what I'm actually doing is crying for help, but I sit and think, "help with what exactly?" I mean, really, every one of my heroes has gone, is going through or will go through exactly what I am going through. In Emersonian thought, I believe that this is the necessary misery as a precursor to the non-conformism I will struggle with my entire life. I just don't understand why no one else cares! Why do people only care for their own well being? I mean, I suppose that according to Adam Smith, this is exactly what we are supposed to do in order to have a maximized efficient society, however, all it seems to bring is a dystopian numbness that, either, everyone sees and chooses to ignore, or everyone really is that oblivious to. I feel really stupid so can some please explain to me why I should care for the following things (and teach me how to care for them while we're at it)? Vegas, clubbing, drinking (hammered and pretentious drinking, good old fashion I get), conspicuous consumption: cars, phones, cheap tacky clothes passed off as "fashion", Disneyland, office jobs/corporate world, stepping on others to get to the top, Lady Gaga, love proverbs, being 'cool', trying to prove to others that you don't care when all that effort really just shows how much you do (we ALL do), being not so originally "original", putting others down, telling other people's secrets, acting like a grown-up. Shit, I know I'm guilty of some of these things, namely trying to be "original" and gossiping and it makes me sick to my stomach because I am disgusted with myself. I just don't understand it and it kills me because after all this schooling, I hate when I don't understand stuff. As an almost official social scientist who has studying the intricacies of this unjust world for the past 4 years, I realized this weekend that what's missing in my life is a good dose of literature and philosophy. I was rereading Hesse's Peter Camenzind and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling this weekend and was filled with a type of nostalgia that can only be brought on by something you've never lived, only read about. Then as I was catching up on The Economist, I came across an article on a Picasso exhibit and the painting they used for the article was a portrait of Gertrude Stein so then I started thinking about Matisse, Picasso, Hemingway, and of course, Virginia Woolf. Of course, this is a minuscule listing of all the great masters and I began realizing how much wonderful literature and art there is out there waiting to be discovered. I used to read so much in high school, mostly due to the AP English courses I took, and, God, I loved all the meticulous works of art that drove me absolutely insane with ideas. I've decided that I must learn German well enough to read my favorite literature in original German texts. Maybe I'll have my roommate teach me, she speaks alemán.  Maybe I'll find a good school out in Berlin, or maybe I'll make my fantasy of a Prague Spring come true. One day it will happen, I know. First, I need to be somewhere in Latin America or the Middle East. I fear, though, that this is all talk. What if I end up living with my parents, working a financially comfortable and incredibly miserable office job? What if I end up pushing everyone out of my life? What if, for fear of this life, I end up settling for a family and a stable life? I fear I would end up dying extremely young. Do you ever feel that way? I hate it but I do, all too often. Anyway, the point of this sloppy rant is to say that all I can do at this point is to delve myself in bildungsroman (bildungsromen as plural? I kid!), art and music of the brilliant people I am so lucky to 'know'. I can only hope that their lifelong work contains the secrets to keep me going. Maybe they'll show me the path "home". Or maybe they'll let me know what I already know, that home is in me. Mind over matter. Maybe the piano lessons I'll be taking over the summer will offer me another form of relief & release (finally, it's been a childhood dream!). I feel, though, that my family will end up being the "icy heights that contain all reason". I'll soon realize this, however, I'm still in the medial chapters of this bildungsroman that is my life. Ramesh, I know the feeling conveyed in "Steven" all too well and although it seems that people end up settling back into the expected life, I have never been able to resettle. Coming back from Chile was extremely difficult; so was El Salvador. I've never fully been able to let go of that addicting romanticized fantasy of leaving this place for good. I think you haven't as well. At least, that's what I get from "Berlin, Without Return"; How do you deal with staying connected with your family? I fear cutting them off for the sake of my silly fantasy. Although, I guess in the age of Skype, it should be less of a problem. I don't know, it just feels odd. I don't want to miss Steven, I want to be with him. Tell me, is the beauty of it in actually having to leave him? Is the nostalgia the point of it all? Oh and "Warmest Part of the Winter" has been my ridiculously morbid comfort lately and, as ridiculously beautiful as the song is, I am scared. I should really just get through this last quarter of college, I am such an idiot sometimes.

All the stuff mentioned above.

-melidee