Love it when you call me Big Pop-pa
Every so often I have startling moments of clarity when I realize that my current life is so banal and I have to fight desires to sell everything, including my education, and hop a bus west towards Big Sur, California. I'm not exactly sure what I would do there other than exist, think, and write, but then I remember that I enjoy eating and traveling, and I dont write that much anyway. How long has it been since my last entry? Probably too long. I know I told myself that I'd write a little each day, but some days, the effort it takes for me to write is not worth the finished product. It's funny, you know, because I tell people that writing is my artistic medium and I'm not actually writing. Aristotle always said that reality is a product of form expressing its function. Does that mean if I don't produce writing, I cease to exist? That's a question that bodes some meandering. At this point in time, I wouldn't mind ceasing to exist.
Graduation is coming up and I feel that I'm not ready. I am ready to get out of here, I mean, but I don't feel prepared in any way for the real world, I guess. Most of my development over the last four years has not really been intellectual. I've learned a lot about people, myself, and the world, but I dont feel that I've really learned anything from class. I guess that is the real purpose of college; to make one better adapted to tolerate the world, but I wonder if I could have done the same thing without college. Certainly, I dont wish to work a McJob, but I think that I am intelligent enough to ascend great heights without a college degree. It is unfortunate that my inability to hear would probably regulate me to a printer's job, or some other deaf-related service job, but I detest blaming much on my deafness even though it does define me as a person.
In truth, all I want to do is run away to the downtown of some large city and join an artist commune. We could stay poor, and compose poetry with our bodies and our pens in the many ratty alleys that vein each metropolis. I wonder whom'd I'd end up with in this situation? I imagine her with dark hair and blue eyes, with a supple body hidden behind the loose clothes of poverty. Would we make love in the morning and then pepper each other with random poetic musings and harsh, sardonic mockery of people and society? If I wish hard enough, maybe she'll have red hair and green eyes (I know, I know), and a mind that doesn't ever stop working. I'd read her writing over lunch in some cheap coffee shop and spend time musing about the different allusions present in verse and body. So, this freckle here represents the massed diaspora of our people and the suffering they had to endure...
Ah, Big Sur. I went fishing for trout in Big Sur and came away with a soggy slice of Americana (Props to Richard Brautigan). It went well with a bit of lemon, and a rosemary/chili rub.
I feel funny complaining about my college education even as I prepare to enter two successive graduate programs. I want a Ph.D bad enough that I can taste it, but for some reason, I cannot compel myself to study hard enough to get there without much difficulty. This is Hollow Jon.
------
I am wearing my boots. This makes me happy. I am wearing old jeans and a white t-shirt. This makes me even happier. I feel like I'm back to old skool Jon. I used to be instantly recognizable by my standard outfit, which was a t-shirt with green parachute pants and heavy black boots. Granted, the outfit was practical, as I spent a lot of time riding motorcycles. I wore that ensemble often enough that people knew I was coming simply by the sounds of my boots stomping the ground.
When I came to Bumfuck, I wore the same outfit, but came to trade my boots for gym shoes, and my t-shirt for something more benefiting of my status as a frat boy. I was eventually persuaded to wear polo shirts, but I still can't look at them with a glimmer of loathing. Certainly, I look good in them, but I also look like every fucking guy on campus. I'm happy that I don't wear hats and thick leather belts, because then I'd blend in the crowd and nobody would recognize me for me. The essential Jon-ness of me would be diluted into some kind of watery normalcy and I'd probably have to sell insurance or something to earn a living.
2.5 kids. White picket fence. WASP-y wife with blonde hair and blue eyes. A SUV in the driveway. Community involvement. Voting my values.
UGH!
Someone kill me if I ever turn out like that.
------
The weather needs to warm up, like, NOW. And I'd like a red head, too, please.
Graduation is coming up and I feel that I'm not ready. I am ready to get out of here, I mean, but I don't feel prepared in any way for the real world, I guess. Most of my development over the last four years has not really been intellectual. I've learned a lot about people, myself, and the world, but I dont feel that I've really learned anything from class. I guess that is the real purpose of college; to make one better adapted to tolerate the world, but I wonder if I could have done the same thing without college. Certainly, I dont wish to work a McJob, but I think that I am intelligent enough to ascend great heights without a college degree. It is unfortunate that my inability to hear would probably regulate me to a printer's job, or some other deaf-related service job, but I detest blaming much on my deafness even though it does define me as a person.
In truth, all I want to do is run away to the downtown of some large city and join an artist commune. We could stay poor, and compose poetry with our bodies and our pens in the many ratty alleys that vein each metropolis. I wonder whom'd I'd end up with in this situation? I imagine her with dark hair and blue eyes, with a supple body hidden behind the loose clothes of poverty. Would we make love in the morning and then pepper each other with random poetic musings and harsh, sardonic mockery of people and society? If I wish hard enough, maybe she'll have red hair and green eyes (I know, I know), and a mind that doesn't ever stop working. I'd read her writing over lunch in some cheap coffee shop and spend time musing about the different allusions present in verse and body. So, this freckle here represents the massed diaspora of our people and the suffering they had to endure...
Ah, Big Sur. I went fishing for trout in Big Sur and came away with a soggy slice of Americana (Props to Richard Brautigan). It went well with a bit of lemon, and a rosemary/chili rub.
I feel funny complaining about my college education even as I prepare to enter two successive graduate programs. I want a Ph.D bad enough that I can taste it, but for some reason, I cannot compel myself to study hard enough to get there without much difficulty. This is Hollow Jon.
------
I am wearing my boots. This makes me happy. I am wearing old jeans and a white t-shirt. This makes me even happier. I feel like I'm back to old skool Jon. I used to be instantly recognizable by my standard outfit, which was a t-shirt with green parachute pants and heavy black boots. Granted, the outfit was practical, as I spent a lot of time riding motorcycles. I wore that ensemble often enough that people knew I was coming simply by the sounds of my boots stomping the ground.
When I came to Bumfuck, I wore the same outfit, but came to trade my boots for gym shoes, and my t-shirt for something more benefiting of my status as a frat boy. I was eventually persuaded to wear polo shirts, but I still can't look at them with a glimmer of loathing. Certainly, I look good in them, but I also look like every fucking guy on campus. I'm happy that I don't wear hats and thick leather belts, because then I'd blend in the crowd and nobody would recognize me for me. The essential Jon-ness of me would be diluted into some kind of watery normalcy and I'd probably have to sell insurance or something to earn a living.
2.5 kids. White picket fence. WASP-y wife with blonde hair and blue eyes. A SUV in the driveway. Community involvement. Voting my values.
UGH!
Someone kill me if I ever turn out like that.
------
The weather needs to warm up, like, NOW. And I'd like a red head, too, please.
posted by Jon at 2:46 PM
1 Comments:
1
the numbered slip in my hand
if you ever end up
in a life of
midwest suburbia
viva jon
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