listening to music i loved when i was 15 makes me remember moments i had forgotten.

listening to the subhumans, i remembered calling my first boyfriend on the phone and making sure i had some awesome, impressive music playing in the background. not on the first track, of course; i didn't want him to think i'd just started the record when i called him. such excessive worry...when i know 7 or 8 years later that he was always chewing his lip worrying about having the right tape playing when he picked me up. hopefully not the same one from the day or week before.

i used to put so much effort into other people's opinions of me. i haven't felt like that in a long time. except recently, with all this proving i feel like i have to do right now. thesis and my academic work and my intelligence and of course there are these lame social situations i can't bear any longer. i knew there was a reason i didn't try to let people get all in my life.

maybe i should listen to music that has different connections than the misplaced anxiety of my youth (and, disappointingly enough, my present). what would be better? perhaps i could listen to nine inch nails and nirvana and think about slitting my wrists, but only reall get as far as scratching myself real bad with a thumbtack. yea. that's not quite what i'm looking for. not cheery enough.

maybe some angry riot grrl rock. that just makes me remember how sincere i was about the naive brand of feminism i was so rabid about at 14. oh me.

i hate thinking of my younger, more earnest and intent, less cynical self and thinking "how sweet!" it's so disappointing. part of me does wish i had dropped out of highschool and held on to my wide-eyed ideas about the world and how it should all be, and how it all could be.

truly, education has fucked my idealism more than all the disappointing, sobering events and people. studying history, i think, is especially bad for idealism. maybe i should find one of these sincere, dream world activists in the history department and see if i can find something there. it would sure and heck make me feel better right now.

ps. i love this spot in the library. no one on the floor below me looks up here, and i can just observe people and their weird behavior to my heart's content. i look through the little white bars and it feels like i should be taking notes on some weird bunch of animals or maybe, if it were the 1940s, a group of committed crazies in their "art" room.