Carbon dioxide is the new oxygen

I am sitting in the New York JFK airport and it is mid-day department store sketchy, so I bought Internet connection for $7.95.

Here is a conversation with Helen.

Helen: also the boy next door is BLASTING some REALLY AWESOME JAMZ
ahahhaa

Alison: hahahah
I LEFT MY HEADPHONES
AND I AM FORCED
TO LISTEN TO ThiS
JUNGLE MUSIC

Helen: OHHHH MY GOSH NO HEADPHONES!!!!
you need to buy some!
while in flight!
tax free!

Alison: i'm broke!
OH!
they provide them!

Helen: SERIOUSLY alison
headphones = carbon dioxide
or whatever we breathe

Alison: HAHA
HAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
CARBON

Helen: I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT WE BREATHE

Alison: DIOXIDE
IS
POISONOUS

Helen: AHAHAHAHAHA CRAPPP!!!
CRAP!
CRAP!
what do we breathe, then???

Alison: HAHAHAHAHAHAH
OXYGEN?!?!

Helen: OH YEAH THATS RIGHT
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

Alison: lawd
HELEN

Helen: i am SO DUMB
i am cracking up

Alison: I AM LAUGHING SO MUCH

Helen: AHAHAHAHA A GERMAN MAN IS ENJOYING IT
hahahahahhaaha
goddddddddddddd
i am so ridiculous

Prague: June 2 - June 26

I am going here this summer.

Just My Luck

Last week, a series of unlucky events plagued Maggie's days. First there was the chocolate milk vs. purse incident, then the unfortunate ordering circumstance. The list went on, and every time she related a new one I could not stop laughing. Literally, I just kept laughing.

Here's why: every one of my weeks is composed of very unlucky things. They happen so often that I don't even think of them. Last week, however, was somewhat peaceful. Things went smoothly, I didn't die of stress, I was less clumsy than usual. It was glorious.

The conclusion: I got Maggie's luck for a week. Unfortunately, she took it back Saturday night/early Sunday. I could tell because everything I touched just about broke.

Here are some unfortunate things that have happened, just today:

• I got three hours of sleep because I didn't have time to study for my LA history test, and I'm having to do it now.
  
• I tried to brush my hair with my toothbrush.
• I put my hairbrush under the faucet because I thought it was my toothbrush, even though the two are clearly different.
  
• I spent an hour reading 10 pages of my LA history book that I didn't even need to study. It's the part about colonies gaining independence. Hello, my test is about independence and beyond.
  
• People here are sneezing a lot, and listening to really bad music very loudly.
• Had an awkward run-in with an ex-writer.
• Who thinks it's a good idea to sort out their personal life in the library? I hate you.
• I had to leave the library because it was too loud. The LIBRARY. Then I went and sat in a freezing cold classroom and studied.
• I failed my Italian quiz, I know it.
• My cell phone went off in Latin. Very, very loudly. It took forever to find it, and then I pulled it out just in time for the line, "I got raging drunk with --". The guy sitting next to me laughed [at me].
• Oh hi, AT&T. Thanks for dropping my interview with the director of admissions -- twice.
• I'd forgotten what it was like to BS essays -- I haven't written any in so long!
  
• Identify and give the significance for the War in the Pacific.
• Oh hell, I've never heard of that. I'm guessing it was on the Pacific coast. Here is what I wrote: The War in the Pacific, like so many other events, caused a rift in Latin American trade. Commerce was almost brought to a halt, as in Brazil, where farmers stopped growing crops. There was little trade among the Pacific coast as well as from the Pacific coast to Europe.
• "Like so many other events"?? WHAT.
  

Updating for the sake of updating

Top songs of the week

Independent -- some rapper
Hallelujah -- Jeff Buckley
Halloweenhead -- Ryan Adams
The Mariner's Revenge Song -- The Decemberists
Mirror, Mirror -- Whiskeytown
Boyz -- M.I.A.
I Remember; Seahorse -- Devendra Banhart
Bigmouth Strikes Again -- The Smiths


Wilco is lovely because they're one of those bands you can identify on the spot because of the lead singer.

AIM log; 2:24 a.m.

Maggie: is abby asleep?
Alison: yes
Maggie: are you watching her sleep?
Alison: no weirdo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAH
so weird
Maggie:hahahah
i just thought you WOULD do that

Sometimes I wonder just what kind of vibe I give off.

Global Village: my third home

Today marks my second day in a week that I've not been able to sleep at all. It's somewhat horrible, but in some ways marvelous.

Because of not sleeping, I can say I've done a few things that I've never done before:

• Been the second customer of the day at Global Village. I was beat by just a few seconds. I've got first dibs on the corner seat, and now I can look at everything that's going on outside. Some people might call that strange; I prefer the term "involved."
  
• Walked up Hillsborough Street in the very, very early morning. It's strikingly lovely, really, when no one else is around. The campus, I mean -- not the street, though it is strange-looking. 
  
• I was one of the only people in Tompkins this morning. I bet you didn't know it smells like Pine-sol, floor wax and old vacuum cleaners at 7:04 a.m. 
  

A woman just walked in wearing a fedora. North Carolina is wonderful.

YES. They're playing Elvis Costello. I want to break out into song but that would be taking it beyond strange.

What is so funny about peace, love and understanding? Lord, the man can sing.

I'm supposed to be meeting Saja here so we can work on our paper things. However, this was decided at about 2:30 a.m. and I've already finished my paper. When you don't sleep, you have a surprising amount of time to devote to things you should have done earlier. At any rate, I decided I didn't have anything better to do, might as well head to gvill and wake up -- is that the right terminology? Let's go with "stay awake."

I've decided I'm becoming a philosopher. The lists will read like the following:

Aristotle

Rene Descartes 

Thomas Aquinas

Friedrich Nietzsche

Albert Camus

Soren Kierkegaard

Alison Harman

Seems a perfectly logical sequence. I mean, all these guys probably started thinking, writing, because they were freaked out by something. Whatever it was -- religion, economics, existence, thought -- it freaked the hell out of them. They sat down, thought a bit, and started writing. 

Oh!!!!!! A Greyhound bus just passed heading to New York. That is completely amazing. I want to drop everything, buy a ticket and leave right now. Not because I don't like it here... just because I think it would be a wonderful experience. 

This must be a Scottish mix. It's now on that song about Bonnie lass. 

I'm doing this. I've started my rantings. When I talk about my fears to others, most look at me like I'm mad. But hello, I'm sure they looked at Nietzsche like he was a mad man. Hell, he probably was. 

I wonder if blogs will be the post-humus text publishers will print once we're dead. Instead of some hidden manuscript, it'll be online copy.

Earlier this week, I learned I'm not the only one who is perpetually living in fear of an imagined world. The philosophy is actually called true idealism. Just think (for really, isn't that the only thing you know you're doing?): we have no proof we're living, walking, breathing in the world we think we are. I could be {in} a world (not necessarily a world; more like a state of... being?) totally opposite from what someone else is in. I don't know how to aptly explain it.

Imagine you lose all your senses. You've got no physical sense of being. It's just you (though what is that?) and your mind. You're free to imagine the world around you, to create societies and colors and conversations, to conjure up interactions between people. It would be a real world, except it would all be ideal; what you see you're not really seeing, what you're touching is not tangible. You think it is, but what else do you have? You've got a brain and nothing else. It'd be easy to fool yourself into believing you're living in a world you've created.

My biggest fear is that this is true. 

Now all that's left for me to do is come up with proofs that the world we ALL know exists; proofs that we're all living in the same world, that it's not one person 'dreamliving' in a world and another person doing the same in something totally different. I'll work on it.

Although, I have learned one thing from Kierkegaard: truth is subjective (which goes along, scarily, with my theory). It's not what you know, but how you know it -- how you believe, your inward reflection. Not knowing gives us faith, for if we knew everything we wouldn't have to believe; we'd just have to know. And that would suck.

So perhaps I just have to have faith that this world is real, that I'm not living solely in my mind. Maybe that's the answer.

I kind of doubt it's that simple.

I'm wide awake, it's morning

"Friedmann was fascinated by Einstein's theory and threw himself into studying it with his usual intensity. 'I am an ignoramus,' he used to say. 'I don't know anything. I have to sleep less and not allow myself any distractions, because all this so-called 'life' is a complete waste of time.'"

This quote epitomizes one half of my feelings on life. It's completely absurd -- we can contribute to our given society, sure, but if society weren't here to begin with the world would be just as well off. You're thrown into needs, desires, oxygen and water. You're not given a reason. You have about 80 years, if you're lucky, to "do something" with your life. Might as well work like hell, eh?

But another part of me wants to block out the "haves" and "needs" and focus on what feels right in the moment. Or at least embrace society's chokehold and twirl it around in a waltz. I want to be carefree and superexciting. I always think of two people when contemplating this type of life: Carrie (from Sex & the City) and M.I.A. Laugh all you want, but they wear great clothes, lead great lives and, generally, are just really great.

So I could sit in the middle of these paradigms. Seems like an easy solution, and one I think most follow. However, the middle of drastically driven and drastically carefree is averagely normal, and we're back to where we started.

I could probably contemplate life for my whole lifetime. I wonder what that could contribute.

But maybe we're all going about this wrong. Maybe we're not here to make contributions. The universe is millions upon fucking millions upon millions of years old. I can't fathom it. Surely there have been societies before our known society, and in places other than Earth. They've been destroyed, recreated, reinvented, reached their peaks, destroyed. Maybe we're just here for the ride. No reason, no necessity -- just to be here.

There are some really smart old men sitting at the other table. They're throwing out Mark Twain and "arbeit mach frei," Jane Austen, the Wall Street Journal and cooling off with a nice baseball talk.

The second table in Global Village is a wonderful place to people watch.

It's also a nice place to down double espressos like it's your job, and then chase them with chai.

It's a nicer place, still, to contemplate life and blog about it.

More about Ms. Eaglin

As I lie in bed, trying to go to sleep, obviously the first thing that pops into my head is how to decline the verb "I am" -- in Latin.

"Sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt -- come on, Kiser, block that punt!"

That is how we learned the declension. Kiser was my middle school/jail.

Also, at the Latin conventions, instead of teaching us the lame song about Latin, she told us to mouth "watermelon," which apparently will blend itself in to any song you sing.

Before all the football games, she would hand out green M&M's (our school color was green) and say "fac bene" to the players who passed by. "Fac bene" means "do well" in Latin, but of course it sounds like "fuck Benny" in English.

And she knew it, too. I think that's probably 97% why she did it.