When I left the house that evening, I looked in the mirror and noticed my mousy face, my protuding whiskers, and ferns growing from my head. My mom had asked me to trim my hair and discipline it before Spring arrived. I pleaded to keep my hair because I thought it be sexy to have long rocker hair. My mom retorted, "Hut-gnee!" I pondered dressing up, wearing a toga, wearing a tux, taking a shower, something to erect the illusion of happiness, luck, and preparedness. Last year I was very enthusiastic. This year I was less enthusiastic. I remember the two nights that Samantha and I took turns editing. I remember meeting up with her at Fort Hamilton Parkway. The sun was setting and we met for an excursion in the park. She opted to show me her family but I feared strange intimacy and acquainting family members. I remember the sun setting in the background as we watched the unfinished film. Samantha remarked that it was insufficient, that we missed many shots, that the sound is defunct. I didn't have a good feeling. The moment I gave up I realized that our shot at making top 16 would be marred. But this was obviously not obvious until Friday night when I arrived and felt my way into the auditorium. I was not as enthusiastic as a few hours ago.
One by one, films played. After the ending of each film I sank deeper into my seat. After the last film was screened I had slipped underneath my seat. I had cringed my face the entire time and wondered what James, Samantha, and Pam would say and react back in their seats. Suddenly I felt my seat become foreign to me. The seat that I was sitting on became my enemy and I was the foreigner who did not belong. I scanned the auditorium for disappointment. When the applause exploded, I heard some empty spots, some lacunas in the resounding applause. Maybe those tiny pockets of filmmakers were similarly frustrated and their dreams were thwarted. But the prizes this year were pretty awful so I didn't care too much. I had always suspected the competition to be rigged with nepotism and a disdain towards unpopular people.
I don't know why I told Pam and my other friends the situation with Xia. For six years I've stuck to her. This is the first year that I have put her aside and forgotten about her. When she showed me her secret hiding spot, twenty stories high, I knew that it was a hit or miss. Twenty stories above ground with the roar of planes landing above us, and the night wind ruffling our hair, I transcended all possibilities to be with her. I looped arms with her and beckoned her hand. At the end of the night my tongue lost its surrounding moisture and I grew weak and indifferent. She reacted to my inquiry with complete indifference. She rejected me once more and backed it up with a rather friendship-zone story that pummelled me.
Sometimes I wonder what good is it to be singing and caroling in the subway when finding the right girl or soulmate is emotionally taxing. I don't understand how a girl can compliment me on the subway platform and then disappear onto a train that kidnaps her downtown. I don't understand the logic behind smile and run. I want someone who will step up to the plate and know me. If trading numbers is a burst through the gate, I desire a girl who will launch herself through my door and take a risk.
I want to work in a bookstore where I meet hipster girls who are equally pretentious and snarky. But I might find it difficult to find an authentic girl who is conversative at heart but generously willing to give into studio art and audacious escapades.
I have to start applying for work because in a few months I will be unemployed with a degree that is unhelpful to me. I have diverged interests, abandoned sociology and taken a head-on approach and passionate rivalry with creative writing. My passion is writing even though it deprives me of sleep and it wrangles my head. Sometimes my writers' block hemorrhages me from producing compositions on time. Sometimes I wish I could stop having constipation of ideas. But I don't diarrhea either; that only gives me confusion and lack of arrangement.
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