127 Hours.

Aron Ralston was 28 years old in May of 2003, hiking Blue John Canyon in Utah when a boulder became dislodged and crushed his right forearm, pinning it against the wall of the canyon. He stayed trapped in the narrow crevice for five days. 127 hours-- until finally, in order to get out alive, he cut his arm off with a dull pocket-knife.

I was 12 when this happened. "Holy shit," my dad told me when I got home from school one day. "A hiker in Utah cut off his own fucking arm with a knife. A fucking pocket knife! His arm was trapped under a boulder. So he cut it off. Can you believe that?" I couldn't.

After seeing the film 127 Hours today, I can. James Franco plays Ralston, a mountaineering adrenaline junkie with the knowledge and the balls to bear out most of his daring adventures. But, like most of what happens to us in life, a stupid, simple slip of his foot ended the life he had lived up until that moment. In the course of probably 30 seconds, Ralston found himself in a narrow chasm with a 400 pound rock on top of his right arm.

127 Hours could have been claustrophobic. Dull. Slow-moving. Torturous. But it wasn't--it was one of the most compelling movies I've ever seen in my life. The camera was constantly moving, cutting back to images, flashbacks, fantasies. We saw Ralston's thoughts, his memories, his desires. Counterposed with the fast-pace journey of his brain was the slow turn of days into nights as Ralston tried every escape method he could with painstaking concentration.

After spending 75 minutes or so with Ralston, watching him narrate the occurrence on his Camcorder, mentally beat himself up for not telling anyone where he was going, attempt to erode the rock with his knife and drink his own urine, I was ready for him to cut his arm off. There was no other way to get out alive. I could see it, and so could Franco, as he bent his arm backward against the boulder and broke it. In a five minute sequence, he tied a hand crafted tourniquet around his bicep, jammed his pocketknife into his arm and began to saw.

I don't know that anyone can perceive desperation and willpower until they've seen this movie. As stupid and arrogant and dangerous as it is to not tell anyone where you're going, one has to admire someone like Aron Ralston. Holy shit.

waking up

Nothing stays the same, and yet everything here is almost as I left it. My kitchen looks like it did in 1998 when we first moved into this house, but I opened my silverware drawer today and found we have a new divider. My bathroom has had the same shower curtain for years, but it was completely bare because my parents were showing our house to prospective buyers. My cats are getting old and my parents' friends are getting sick. And my friends are still goofy and dumb, but they've changed too, marked by the dark approachment of adulthood and independence.

This past summer was a standstill for me. Things were hot and simple and fun but I felt like I was missing so much of my life in D.C. And when I came back in the fall, people had changed and I guess I had too. It's hard to know where I am and what I want. I feel like a ball rolling toward an undetermined destination without a conscious mind. Sometimes I open my eyes and it's like I've been on autopilot for the last couple of weeks and my life has been cycling without me. Like I've been watching myself go through motions, watching myself fuck things up, watching myself be selfish, mean, careless.

But other times I feel good, like I'm doing things right, different, better. Like I'm meeting the world rather than waiting for it.

My life is different now: different than it was two years ago, last year, last summer. I have to find a way to be okay with it.

climbing with no harness

I sense that we are

Losing our ground.

I’m trying not to fall but

I am constantly grabbing a stone

That is slipping.

I am smoking with asthma

I am drinking with a sick liver

I am buying furry cat upon furry cat—

And sneezing all the while.

I sense that our tongues are drying.

I talk for hours to my bedroom wall.

What a pleasant companion it is:

Stuck holding the floor and the ceiling together

Forced, then, to listen to my incessant chatter,

My insecure wonderings,

My silly questions—

Such silly questions.

I hear the creaking of a door closing,

Anticipating the wind in my face when it is finally

Shut.

Cool party. Like, what's your major?

The Saturday of Halloween weekend is the prime night to get ridiculously drunk. At my college, this is the night when frat parties are the perfect location to let loose, and abandon those inhibitions--and maybe a few articles of clothing. All are eager to gulp down free jungle juice--a hideous and deadly combination of Everclear and some variation of fruit punch--and cat piss that passes for beer. I wish I could say I was above this American Pie aspect of a college career, but I usually enjoy going to frat parties. They're fun and stupid, and technically free. So, why not?
American University is a dry campus. Thus our frat houses aren't on campus. Thus the way to get to these parties is through a ride system. This means a mass of people wait in a designated area, just hoping to be the apple of some frat bro's eye. Unsurprisingly, girls have an easier time with the transportation. But, with a 60-40 ratio of women to men, there are usually tons of cute girls waiting for a ride, and the brothers in charge of prioritizing pretty much have your night in their hands. So, basically, if you are a female and you'd like to get a ride to a frat party, and you don't happen to have any sort of connection, you're going to have to talk to one of these dudes in order to distinguish yourself from the pack as being desirable enough to get first ride.
There are some girls who are masters at this, my roommate being one of them. It is incredibly impressive to watch. They go up to these guys and just start talking to them, smiling widely and joking with them. Making their mark in the frat hierarchy. Last night was no exception. I watched girl after girl approach the guy who seemed to be in charge--a short Jewish dude wearing a red-velour pimp suit with zebra trimming, who used his pimp cane to point at groups. A guy who I therefore, unfortunately for me, could not take seriously enough to converse with.
But I realized, standing out in that cold parking lot and watching these girls, that I just can't really do it at all. I just cannot bring myself to attempt to befriend someone simply for the purposes of getting a ride to a sweaty party. I can't try to smile and giggle with someone who doesn't seem terribly interesting--a pimp suit? Really?--and who I don't particularly care about. It feels cheap and annoying to me, and I feel fake whenever I try. Also, I'm kind of bad at it. Since I don't see the conversation going beyond, "Can, like, me and my hot friends get a ride," and "Yeah, totally," I'm not too invested in a blossoming friendship. And why should I be?
I want to spend my time talking to people that matter to me. I just don't see the point in talking to douche-bags in pimp suits who would probably rather not be talking to me unless I seem like a promising attendee. And apparently my bright smile and sparkling wit are on permanent mute when I'm standing in a cold-ass parking lot, trying not to roll my eyes. I just don't feel like being charming, so I'm unsurprised when frat boys are less than enthusiastic about my intended arrival. This is clearly my own fault: I understand the system perfectly and I still ignore it.
But I just can't muster up the energy or gusto to extend my half of the conversation beyond, "So, how do you like Greek life?" I guess my secret misanthropy is out to ruin my good, clean, fraternal fun. Oh, well.

NYC

I went to New York, where the people are deliciously vulgar--you motherfuckin' bitch, fuck that, cocksucker can eat shit--and the streets are piled with natives running their routes like trained hamsters,or else tourists biting the apple, and everyone is walking on top of each other, avoiding the dirty bums who look you straight in the eye and know you, and the buildings are tall, but it's really the multimedia screens in Times Square that engulf you with their impossible neonety and moving advertisements screeching at you to buy clothes and watch television, a nightmarish prophecy that only Aldous Huxley could have dreamed up, and there's dirt, dirt, dirt, and New York City doesn't have any alleys, so the trash bags are on the streets and a certain smell takes over, a rich, ripe, real smell, it's sentient, it smells like humans, the waste that we make, the waste that we are, and there are still more people pushing you, God, there must be a million, jillion people on this street, everyone in the whole world is on 43rd street with you and they're all a thrumming, throbbing mass trying to cross the street onto their important lives.

When the sun goes down in New York City, life is different. The dark lets the dirt and smell live peacefully unnoticed, and the tourists with children retire to their overpriced hotel rooms. The energy levels from a boisterous nightmare to a quiet excitement, a slow and steady rhythm. Because it's cool, it's sweet, so sweet to be in a city at night and to feel the dark lift your feet. People laugh more at night, because they're done with work, and it's time to feel good, to feel like you're actually thrumming with this strange pulse instead of fighting against it.

I won't ever live in New York City. But I may go back.

things that are true

I think you take naps with finesse and
When your teeth click in your dreams I imagine you're eating
Something absolutely delicious.
Your vocabulary impresses me
And your memory
Selective as it is
Is quite astounding too.
You have bizarre theories
About bodies and people
And you like girls
A lot.
You don't like admitting when you're wrong
But you like being challenged.
I think you're a little mysterious
And you hold back a lot from me.
But that's okay, I don't really mind.
I like telling secrets in the dark with you
And I like cooking with you
Even though you won't let me do much
Wise; I cut my thumb wide open when slicing a pepper, and I'm
Klutzy with onions.
You say you're proud of me and I can't imagine why but
I'm glad.
And one time you told me you wanted to memorize me
And that you'd gotten my hands down pretty well.
Your hair looks funny when you wake up in the morning
And your forehead has indents in it because you sit around
With your eyebrows raised
Quizzical of the world.

you are not intelligent. you are not post-postmodern. you just suck.

Modern art is a horrendous exercise in self-importance. Yes. Yes, that it what I wrote. That is absolutely what I believe. Not enough people say it. This is because we are intimidated by conceptual art. It makes us nervous. We see the lone chair, or the wrinkled paper, or the cheese grater. We panic. What does a cut up piece of rope mean and why is it in a museum? I must not get it, we think to ourselves. But wait. Wait. The artist has so kindly included a statement.

"This work, which I call "Dirty Small Piece of Rope," signifies our increasing disconnect from humanity in this technological world. The rope, representative of ancient strength and fortitude, has been cut to signify its unimportance as we move into the Age of the iPod. It is now only a reminder of the way the world used to be, simple and straightforward--the rope that ties to our former identity as a people has been destroyed, never to be functional again."

Oh, is that what it meant? That's funny, I thought it was just a dirty small piece of rope. I never knew it could have so many complex implications. But that...wow. That's...thats deep. I mean, it sounds good doesn't it? And we all want to be thought of as intelligent, cultured people, and so we accept these ready-made explanations of this "art." We have become afraid of voicing, or even thinking, our own opinions.  In this exchange, we give up our own creativity and imagination. This is gross. This is beyond gross. Why should I let this schmuck tell me that a used tampon should represent woman's fear of menopause?

Fuck that. I call bullshit on the tampon, the rope, the chair, the cheese grater, the piece of paper, and all of this other shit that you found in your house. It means nothing to me. It means nothing to anyone, except no one will ever say that. Which is irritating and sad.

And for the record Jeff Koons, three basketballs floating in a tank of water is also really not art, and also do not represent "death, the ultimate state of being." It is just a representation of your extreme suckage.