For thematic equivalence to my night, listen to this while you read. Start reading at “Yo.”:
“You don’t know who I am, that’s why it’s OK that I tell you this.”
If I had a nickel for all the times this had happened to me, I’d have one bright and shiny Jefferson nickel. Is Jefferson on the nickel? Regardless of how simple it would be to Wikipedia-query the answer to this, I’m self-SOPA-ing myself to protest my own reservations about internet piracy.
“K.”
“My friend thinks you’re really cute but she’s too scared to talk to you. You’ve seen her before.”
I’m not even going to mess around with setting up a nickel precedent for this one because I’m going to go ahead and guess this won’t become a regular nickel-reception occurrence. EL OH EL.
“I have?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Well, cool.”
“She’s going to come over here.”
(That’s what he said.)
“Alright.”
So I stand awkwardly in the same place, planning possible escape plans in case she is Marlon Brando. I think one of my greatest fears is that I will be hit on by the Ghost of Marlon Brando. He would give me an offer… ok I’m done, sorry.
“Hello.”
“Hi. My name is Brad.”
(If normally my interactions with women are like Sisyphus at the bottom of the hill sizing up the boulder, fully aware of the impossibility of pushing it to the top, and not entirely sure he even wants to give it a push, this time it’s like Sisyphus standing on the top of the hill, leaning against the boulder and asking Jupiter what else “that bitch” has in store.)
“Hi, my name is ______.”
This is both to protect identities and also because the first time someone tells me their name means absolutely nothing. I have the short-term memory of an Alzheimer’s patient or someone suffering from Aphasia.
“What are you thinking about studying?”
I know a lot of people hate these conversations but they’re as close as I can get to home turf, because with enough effort I can draw all conversations into ones thematically aligned with the corpus of Alain Badiou. It’s my own conversational game. The other one is deciding whether or not people would be included on my team of zombie-killers.
“Oh, I don’t really know, but I think contemporary continental philosophy is what I’m most interested in.”
Yes. I am that guy. The key test in all these conversations is if there is any response here that denotes I can keep going. Because I’m going to keep thinking about Badiou anyways. At least sometimes I can say crazy things about being with a greater/lesser degrees of one-sidedness to it.
“Oh me too!”
Hold. the. phone.
And then I got to discuss the ability of mathematics to speak the true language of being, the relative importance and twoobishness of Descartes, whether the Communist revolution was coming (though this was probably another conversation) and a bunch of other things I don’t really member. But then there was external interference. Before I know it I’m talking about whiteness studies with an African studies major, which, honestly, I didn’t know existed at Harvard, but it’s a positive development at least, right? The more the merrier.
Does Santa Claus ever say that?
“I love your glasses,” says some other girl, walking by. Around me the continuous thump of Top-50 rap makes holding my attention on anything for more than fifteen seconds even more difficult than it usually is. I find that I continuously make eye contact with people I’m not talking to at parties, usually to test my own ability to see, but other times just because it’s a true sociological fact that if you look at someone and they make eye-contact with you, you have to look back in a little while to make sure they aren’t still looking at you. But the problem, here, is that people think I’m constantly bored of them, which, sometimes, is also true, but usually isn’t.
Is there a fear of being in crowded parties with men who are larger than you? Self-SOPA.
I go downstairs to where dancing is happening. There are no lights except black lights. A gloom hangs over the whole room, and I can’t help thinking this would be the perfect basement for a fight club. But when girls with too much makeup dance down here, they look like the walking dead (and the men’s faces already look like the walking dead because the only emotion I can read on them is absolute sex-focused concentration) so I start to get a little freaked out. I check my text messages and lean against a wall. “No, I’m just standing here awkwardly. Yeah. I’m not waiting for anyone.”
Pretty soon I’m back upstairs. Girl who thinks I’m really cute apparently felt the same way about another guy. Girl who liked my glasses is on drink #toomany. That’s what happens when you look like an Urban Outfitters Muppet. You’re fishing with a broken reel. Some dude at the top of the stairs looks at me:
“You are too hipster.”
Oh thanks, you noticed my glasses too.
“Do you mean that in a disparaging or complimentary fashion?”
I swear I actually conversationally used the word “disparaging,” probably for the first time in my whole life.
“I have to say the former, dude.”
Cool, dude, cool. You look like a Hansen roadie or a reject from the first season of the Real World or the protagonist of a bad Adventure Novel but I’m not going to say these things to your face. Courtesy is underrated in person, but on the internet I’m definitely going to compensate for your dickery.
“Oh, uh. Thanks, I guess.”
“Yeah, have a good night man.”
“You too!”
But of course that guy found me again later, to reinforce the fact that he had broken the secret Hipster Rosetta Stone. Zubat-ing the shit out of a conversation I was in (where you arrive in someone else’s conversation and leech out life from it by laughing at jokes you aren’t a part of).
“Would it be rude if I see how many hipster stereotypes you meet?”
“NO WAY!”
(obviously, fucksacks)
“Do you own a fixie?”
Damn. Got me there. You will be a more formidable enemy than I realized. And lest there be any debate on the subject, I have drawn my Schmittian lines: you are an enemy. But I love my red fixie…
“Yes.”
“Would you rather be drinking PBR right now?”
Ok, this is not even a question of hipster-dom or lacks-thereof. PBR is unquestionably a slightly better beer than Keystone Light. This is not a question of opinion, it’s a truth in the Badiouan sense. And I will maintain fidelity to that truth.
“Yes.”
“I should stop this.”
(No…)
“I think it’s great.”
So to keep a long story short he had to leave and I ended the night the way so many others end: sitting the Kong. Kevin sat us down in a corner spot (Thanks Kevin), and we feasted on 1) Vegetable Fried Rice and 2) Scallion Pancakes. That’s the only thing anyone should ever eat at night, because while the Kong is relatively uninspiring during the daytime hours, you feel like Hemingway when you’re crapulously shoveling it down your throat. I switched tables to say hello to another group of friends, and Seng brought me a fortunate cookie (Thanks Seng).
If you have three fortune cookies in one night, do you keep the first, the last, all or none? I’m unsure about the rules, but number three was clearly the best.
“You will find success in your professional life.” FUCK YEAH!
I woke up today in order to bring my course registration to the course registration building.
“We have a quick survey for you.”
The beginning of all bad conversations.
“Ok.”
I can never say no. And, here, I mean this literally, because I functionally cannot turn in my registration without finishing the survey.
“What are you thinking of concentrating in?”
“Social studies.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, no.”
But clearly he wanted something else, and he looked so displeased, and I thought about how annoyed I would be running this survey too. I will throw you a bone. Looking at the sheet, I see Anthropology as the #2 item on the list.
“And maybe anthropology…?”
“Social anthropology?”
Uh… I think so? What does that even mean? Is there another kind?
“Yes. That one.”
“Thanks so much.”
That’s the end? The survey is just to ask me if I have thought about what my major should be? That’s not a survey. That’s a question. A survey has to at least involve two questions. You could have just called it a brief question. And why am I humming the lyrics to Yonkers right now?
So I leave, but I have a realization: Wait. It’s the morning (it’s 2:45 pm). So I go to the coffee shop:
“Can I get an iced Americano?”
“We don’t have iced drinks anymore.”
…anymore? … forever?
“Oh. Well, I will take, um… a coffee?”
And so with my hot coffee (I hate hot coffee) steaming in my hand (I didn’t get a brown-hand-saver-device because I’m punishing myself for buying a hot coffee), I walk back to my room. It only cost a dollar, at least. I will punish myself by reading Agamben:
“The exception is that which cannot be included in the whole of that which it is a member and cannot be a member of the whole of which it is always already excluded.” (HS 25)
That’s a real sentence.
My name is Brad, I’m just living the bare(bear) life in as many possible ways as I can.
