If Heaven Was a Brown Paper Bag

The girl that I'm seeing calls me at two in the morning (I think you're supposed to write numbers up to 'ten' in letter form). We talk nonsense. I'm not sure if she's checking up on me or if she has something to say. Either way, I'm glad to hear her voice after the night I've had. This feels like a crutch. Or as Leonard Cohen puts it, "looks like freedom but it feels like death, it's something in between I guess." I guess it could be worse.

She says, "I'm sorry." I ask, "what for?" She says, "Nothing; I was trying to be nice." This reminds me of Snatch.
Turkish: I'm sorry Mickey
Mickey: Did ya do it? Then why are ya sorry?

Why do we apologize for things we never expect to take the blame for? Like at funerals. Did ya do it? Then why are you sorry? There needs to be a new form of condolence. Something like "I empathize with the fact that your father felt he was no longer a contributing member of society and made a point to emphasize that idea all over your parents' bedroom wall." Or, "It's truly a shame that your grandmother survived concentration camps and cancer but not the flight of stairs leading up to the second floor of your house." It just feels like apologizing for something you're not responsible for is a bit patronizing.

Her: What's the point of drinking if you experience the moment but have no recollection of it?
Me: It's the not recollecting. That's the point.

So much for being serious.

Whoring It Out For Yale

Not to delve too much into my life - after all, it's not that interesting - but I feel like I should preface this with at least some kind of explanation. The little passage that follows was originally written as a personal statement for my Hail Mary application to Yale Law after spending my first year in a school that, to put it fairly, wasn't as prestigious. It was essentially the product of no sleep, lack of inspiration, and that completely spent feeling (of the razzled hair variety) one experiences after staring at a blank sheet for several hours without actually writing anything down.

I was always very interested in how this little piece became what it was, considering its prospects before its inception. But it's not all that surprising. It just reminds me of Chris Gardner (The Pursuit of Happyness); if human poverty can create its opposite, then why can't poverty of inspiration?

I just sat down and started writing, and this is what came out (I called it "250" b/c that's how many words they wanted. It also happens to be the address of my current school; go figure):

250

In my first year of law school I made the mistake of falling in love with a girl who, it turns out, was looking for something completely different than I was. I wanted someone who would be my other half; she wanted a ride to Ikea. It just wasn’t meant to be. I blame the breakup, however, mostly on myself. While we were dating, my friends would always tell me that she was out of my league and eventually, I started to believe them. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

After we broke up - or to be more precise, after she had to block my phone calls - I, in an especially morbid mood, was scrutinizing Pieter Brueghel’s The Tower of Babel and it dawned on me that (to quote Robert Creeley),

life was after all
like that. You are

in love. You stand
in the woods, with
a horse, bleeding.
The story is true.

But the painting made me wonder further. If the God of Babel is the ultimate Father, does that mean our own fathers want to see us wallow in mediocrity? No, that wasn't it. What lesson does the Bible teach us then? To me it’s clear: You have to make your own bricks.

And all that made me think of what my eighth-grade English teacher told me once about life, when she had taken off her teacher's hat for a moment. She said, it’s the people that you love who will always try to drag you down. It’s true.

Consider this my Tower of Babel.

Obviously I didn't get in. But I think it might've had more to do with my scholastic performance than with anything I might have put in the application.

I took an especial interest in this piece b/c to me it felt like the purest form of outlet than any other form I experimented with (other than song, but that's a whole different sort of expression). Better than long prose or any type of poetic forms I've fiddled with. I don't even know what to call this, honestly; Biographical Block, maybe? Not even so much as an appropriate name but just b/c I love alliteration. I don't know. After all, isn't all art biography; even when it's not? I guess we can save that for another day. But for now, the calling beckons.

ta ta,

-Q.