The previous post was for me and for me alone. See, I needed to do a presentation on a painting from the Art Institute today, and so I picked that one by Magritte. I thought it would have been a lot easier for me to post a link to said picture on my blog rather than attempting to go a-Googling for the picture all over again. Apologies for any bafflement. On the plus side you got some art in you.

I feel as if a lot of the posts as of late have been of something of a cursory nature. It's been a while since I've sat down and hammered out a good old fashioned ramble or rant. You know. A post that I might actually do some revisions and editing on. Fun fact for you: you're lucky if I proofread one of the posts I write at least once. This blog is kind of a rough draft sorta kinda place. (If that last sentence didn't make that apparent, I don't know what will.)

Yesterday I took the train back to Chicago. I almost wrote the train home, but that wouldn't be right; I don't regard this place as my home. I've only recently discovered that the place I call "home" is the place that I'm not at right now. When I'm in the dorms home is Iowa; when I'm Iowa home is the dorms. Make of that what you will.

The train is generally more pleasant than driving or (ten times more pleasant than) Greyhound, but there's one thing you miss when taking the train into Chicago. When you drive, you get to linger your way toward the cityscape. And so it almost seems like it's creeping up on you as you drive, which eventually results in the climactic realization that oh wow, you're actually in Chicago now.

Not so with the train. Somehow the cityscape sneaks up on you when you're in the train. You see suburbs, suburbs, suburbs, train yard, train yard, industrial zone, train yard...and then somehow there's the Sears Tower. It certainly is startling - and there's something to be said about a good startling every now and then - but for some reason it's not quite as satisfying as having the city slowly fade into your consciousness.

I am posting this here because I need to pull this up during a class and I figured making a link to right here would be the easiest way to go about doing that.

I saw a tweet about an hour ago that I can totally relate to: "The hardest part about doing something is starting it."

So true. Hence my papers piling up. Hence the readings I have to get done. Hence the reason there is a large pile of clothes lying in the center of the bedroom in my dorm. And also hence the reason why I'm feeling weird about going back to Chicago.

It's not because I dislike the city and/or the school. Nor is it because I'm insanely attached to being back home after having spent a few days here for break - as a matter of fact I'm getting a wee bit claustrophobic. I think it's just because starting things can be hard. I experience a similar feeling whenever I'm about to go on a road trip or vacation. I become reluctant to leave. It's not because I'm afraid I'll get homesick; it's just because I find standing up sometimes to be inexplicably mentally taxing.

But the weeks will blow by, this I know for sure. And then I bet you I'll be hesitant to make my way back home again.

So these were my primary intentions for Thanksgiving break:

• Take care of the four papers and/or rewrites that I have to get done by next week
• Spend quality time with family
• Spend quality time with friends
• Make progress in Super Mario 64

I've really managed to only do three of those things. And I bet you can guess which one has been getting short shrift.

The wonderful thing about being home is the opportunity to relax, sure. But one thing I've noticed is that there is a lot of distractions. My dorm is by no means spartan and/or über minimalist, but the thing I like about it is that the stuff I need to do is typically right in front of me. Not so with being at my family's house. My books for the Nat. Sci paper I need to do are sitting next to my computer acting as a sort of a visual reminder of what I need to get done. The problem is that these books are downstairs at the little workstation that I've set up. And I'm not downstairs a lot.

On my calendar I've got all the academic things I need to do all nicely lined out. So far I am about three days behind.

Stuff will get done. Eventually.

For all interested parties, here's a link to the full video of my class's student production of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. I wrote three of the plays and appeared in a few more. Fair warning: it's a big file - about 700 MB.

I'll be taking the video down in about two weeks for the sake of keeping space free on my server thingamabob.

My Too Much Light class had its first and last ever performance of 20 Plays in 40 Minutes last night. It went very well. Great crowd, both in terms of population and (more importantly) with regards to spirit and energy level. The wonderful thing about the TML-style show is that it becomes very easy to get the audience on your side. I guess it also helped that the crowd was made up almost entirely of people at least one of us knew.

Honestly, I haven't had this much fun doing a show since my last performance with The Baker's Dozen. Like the mime shows, TML succeeds in creating this sense of togetherness for both the audience and the performers. Everybody feels like they're a part of one group having a weird, goofy and fun as hell party.

One last thing: one of the plays in our show was titled A Pointilist Portrait of Chicago. As you can guess it was meant to mimic the pointist style of painting - specifically of the sort seen in the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Today I went to the Art Institute. In Humanities we have to each give a presentation regarding one of the paintings there, so I took this evening as an opportunity to try to figure out what one I wanted to do.

While walking through the Impressionist wing of the building I ran into a girl who had just performed with me in the TML student show just the night before. We chatted, talked about how crazy the coincidence was. I mentioned something about uploading the show to the internet. A few things were said about the oddness that is the modern wing of the Art Institute. And then we said our see-you-laters.

I walked into the next room and took a left. And there it was: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The painting that inspired a play in our show just the night before. A play that the girl I'd just run into - no less than ten feet away from the painting - had just performed in.

What an odd world we live in.

Some Links

Many of these are from my Twitter feed, but there's still some new stuff so as not to disappoint those of you who follow it.

• I have learned that occasionally my Facebook friends will behave as if they're members of some sort of bizarre comedy team.
• Usually I'm wary whenever someone says "Best [THING] ever," but, well, best homework ever? Yeah, I think I can agree with that.
• The New York Times ran a super interesting article about how a ventriloquist managed to become the third highest grossing comedian in the United States.
• Cosby on a treadmill. 'Nuff said.

Something that filled me with both a sense of wonder and melancholy: an imagining of an alternate history in which The Beatles get back together in the 1970s.

Just a couple of hours ago we did our first-ever real performance of Endgame for a number of folks. The show overall went well and got a great reception from the audience, but there was one goof. One of our actors forgot one of his lines, which resulted in a minute long pause. Because the script format would probably be a better venue of telling this story than that of narrative:

[MINUTE LONG PAUSE]

AUBIN: Say something!

[BEAT]

MATT: There's nothing to say.

[30 SECOND LONG PAUSE]

All the while I was cooped up in a trashcan. I appreciated their replies to one another - they fit the context of the play very nicely - but damn if it wasn't the most helpless I've ever felt onstage.

As I'd said, the audience really enjoyed the show. However there's something about the schmoozing process that tends to take place afterwards - we bow, the audience applauds, we go into the audience to chat with friends, everyone goes "good job" - that makes me feel terribly awkward. Often times after a performance I am very tired; often times there is nothing more I'd like than to lie down and take a nap. But I realize the importance of chatting with the audience afterwards. It's a far more meaningful way of saying thank you than the bow that takes place at curtain call. If only it wasn't so awkward for me.

Last night I didn't have rehearsal. That made it my first night off in what feels like a long, long time, even though it'd only probably been a week.

I spent that night doing pretty mundane things. I picked up a book from the library. I got groceries. I cleaned up the place. I scratched a few things off of my to-do list, which is piling up and piling up and piling up and is inevitably going to collapse like a tower of Jenga bricks if I don't manage to pull the right thing out at just the right time. And I felt really good that night. "Wow," I was thinking. "I have a night free to do all this stuff. Isn't this great?"

And then the other part of my conscious stepped in. "No," it said. "It isn't great. You are enjoying doing some really tiresome stuff. Is this all you have to look forward to? Is this the 'peak' of your life?"

There's that longstanding quote about the mind being a good servant but a terrible master that I've come to understand more and more as I mature. And the more I mature the more I realize when my mind is acting up on me - when what's going on in there might not have the validity that it thinks that it does. I think that was one of those moments. But still, I was concerned - was that going to be the peak of my day? - so I sat down and finished watching The State on DVD, something I've been meaning to do since August. That too was satisfying, albeit in a very different and far lazier sort of way.

That moment - when I was enjoying myself whilst doing the most humdrum things - is probably the closest in my 20 years of living that I've ever felt like a grownup. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't like I had that moment and I went, "Woah! I'm a grownup!" - I doubt more and more every day that such an epiphany will ever come to me in a simple single lightbulb moment - but during that point in time that I think Csikszentmihalyi would call a flow state, I felt far older than I ever had before.

Are moments like these the beginnings of adulthood in its most mundane sense? Or perhaps they're simply hindsight moments, as if the transition has already occurred and you're just beginning to notice it? Frankly I'm not sure if I feel like answering those questions now. I've still got a disc of The State to finish and their brand of immature humor is a perfect foil to these semi-existential moments.

Over the past few days I've discovered a wonderful punk-pioneer turned sorta-kinda-folk-singer named Jonathan Richman. Unfortunately no time to do a full post about how awesome this guy is, but if you'd like a good glimpse at his style, check out one of his earlier songs called I'm A Little Dinosaur and another song of his about a life-changing experience he had in Bermuda. It's great stuff - funny without being jokey or annoying, and it totally bears repeat listens.

A brief post for you: I made another video for YouTube. This time I added subtitles to a pre-existing video.

For the past two months I've been saying to myself: "I am going to do NaNoWriMo. I am going to do NaNoWriMo." I've outlined some of the plot elements I'd like to touch upon; I've calculated how many words I'd have to write per day to meet 50,000 words by the end of the month; I've read a few books and articles that basically amount to pep-talks for writers. And you know what? I don't think I'm going to do it this November.

There's just way too much stuff going on. I would really like to do it, yeah; but I like to keep my writing mostly enjoyable. (Note that operative word: mostly. I realize that there's at least one point in the writing process where everything is frustrating at the least and damn near apocalyptic at the worst.) If I were to do NaNoWriMo this month, I'm pretty sure that the part of my brain that regulates how stressed I am would overheat. With Shimer, Endgame, and my class with the Neos - not to mention the beginnings of my mandatory semester project - my cup already runneth over.

But I'm not saying that I'm not going to do NaNoWriMo at all. All I said was: "I don't think I'm going to do it this November." I'm feeling like attempting to write a novel in a month's time might be a task better suited for winter break.

Just discovered that another family member passed away this year. My aunt - Auntie Em - died sometime recently. I realize that sounds rather vague, "sometime recently," but I think that this post goes on, you'll come to realize that vagueness and unclarity is one of the major tenants of this particular story.

Before I go any further, let me make clear that I'm referring to an aunt of mine that I'm relatively certain none of my peers have met. I know that a few of you know Aunt Debbie, an aunt on my mom's side, and I feel like it'd probably be a good idea to make it clear that she's alive and well. In fact, she may be reading this blog right now. Hi, Aunt Debbie! Just letting the world know you're not dead. Anyway, I'm glad I got that out of the way.

The story goes like this: in the months leading up to her death, Auntie Em was in the process of getting divorced from my uncle. During this time two things happened: 1) she moved into a relative's house, and 2) she was diagnosed with cancer. The former was made public while the latter was not. Most of us got news of her cancer not long after she died. "Most of us" includes my uncle, whom she did not officially get divorced from before dying. This throws a whole new legal wrench into the proceedings that I can't really fathom the consequences of.

Because Auntie Em lived in Florida, I was never terribly close to her. I can say a few things I know about her, though. She used to be a high school special ed teacher. I think that's how she met my uncle, who used to be a science teacher. She really liked to read.

I'm not sure whether she wanted us to call her Auntie Em or if it was something my parents thought would be cute. For a long time I didn't realize her name was an homage to The Wizard of Oz. For a longer time I thought her name was actually Anteeyem, just one word, no space in between the two.

I didn't know her very well. My mom expressed a similar sentiment when she called me this weekend to let me know what'd happened. "I was just thinking to myself, 'I haven't talked to her in a while - I ought to send her a note.'" A few days later she got the news that made that notion somewhat irrelevant.

Typically when someone you know says that a friend or relative of theirs died, you say something like, "I'm so sorry." And then they reply, "Thanks." But if you were to say the same thing to me - "I'm so sorry," I would probably furrow my brow and think about it. And I think I'd probably go, "Yeah, me too."