יצחק מייסטר

I was checking the Friends list and thought to myself that it might be nice to write here again.

So I'm back from the NJCL convention, on account of which my LiveJournal was deleted for several weeks (though undeleted immediately before for a morning-after pill debate on cette_vie's journal), and on the whole, I think it was a valuable experience.

( this is very long )

But now I'm back in the real world, and am only now in the process of working myself out of a personal slump. Although I described myself liberally as an "antisocial ball of stress" to all and sundry who noticed my pre-convention funk, the convention actually had precious little to do with it. I'm not sure what it was (by which I mean to say I know exactly what it was and don't want to discuss it), but I've felt ridiculously unmotivated and generally far less of a person than I was a year ago. I'm definitely looking forward to getting my proverbial shit together and hauling ass over to Cambridge in three weeks or so.

On the Harvard front: the only thing left to do before Cambridge is a go is get the fricking termbill correct, and my roommate assignment may theoretically arrive today. But then again, FDO lost not one, but two of my previous housing applications, so there's no guarantee I'll know anything before Friday.

This week is basically work combined with a battery of doctor's appointments. Off to see the general practicioner on Tuesday, my optometrist on Wednesday, and the dentist on Thursday. On Friday I'll be leaving at 12 AM with my dad to drive down to Washington, DC to get my UK passport, now that his birth certificate has arrived from England. And I've almost finished settling the rest of my big-people obligations in preparation for a trip to somewhere - I'm not sure where - next week.

People in Boston: it would be nice to see you at some point if you're not overly busy.

Ta.

I'm suspending my LiveJournal until Monday, the eighth of August, because at the moment, there's too much to be done on the computer without having such an irresistable distraction as this.

I'll be on AIM from time to time, and I'll still be checking my e-mail regularly.

Photopost upon conclusion of NJCL convention!

-Isaac

SALIENT PREFATORY NOTE: Happy birthday, meretricula dear! I should have posted it yesterday.
IRRELEVANT PREFATORY LINK: Margaret Thatcher slash

While I was walking to work today, I realized the many comforting certainties that come with a life of routine. Latin School had its own particular epileptic rhythm, yes, but I actually sincerely enjoy the ebb and flow of existence right now.

( comforting things I know )

Mom is off in the Netherlands right now (as much as I love the Netherlands, I'm glad for her - she deserves her vacation), and in her absence, I've added a new ritual that's perhaps the most pleasant of all: eating breakfast with Dad. Typically, for the last three weeks Mom would shake me awake at twenty minutes of seven - enough time to dress and ablute hapazardly and forget to pack something important in my bag. But now, I'm up at twenty minutes of six (although my alarm goes off at a quarter past five), I shower, I put on coffee, fix myself some toast and fruit, and sit on the couch with Dad, drinking, eating, watching the news, and enjoying the pleasure of light conversation with him. Because Jacob has taken to incredibly erratic sleeping patterns, he's never awake before I leave for work, which lends a peaceful, beautiful intimacy to time with Dad. That sort of easy being is what I'm going to miss the most when I head across the river in September.

In a large part, though, my unusually good mood is based in my lovely evening with eala yesterday. ( our day ) In short, it completely rocked.

Pleasant surprises online as well: opening a gay hotel in the third world with thiscoinferno, thegrubbie05 and The Men Who Love Her, keyboard de-griming with cette_vie, and a challenging conversation with impensada over Darfur (which began, auspiciously enough, with my going to Hell).

All this is leading up oh-so-very nicely to next Monday, when, in the words of Dad, "[I] earn the legal right to fuck up my life". Yes, it's the Emancipation Birthday. Celebrations will probably be postponed until Mom's return from Europe (it's just not a party without pie, in my opinion). Things I plan to do:

Go to that stupid, piece of shit jewelry party at Castra and photograph all of the test prep books Ms. Bauer is too anal to let out of her sight.

Open bank accounts with Bank of America that have nothing at all to do with those of my parents. Although I'm sure I'll get funny looks for depositing $6,000 in cash. V. sketchy.

Get my U.S. passport, again.

Get my learner's permit without my dad having to give his consent.

BUY PORN. I think. Though I'm not sure where, or how I plan to do so.

Also, as far as the dating "scene" goes, I'll magically be transformed from a socially awkward, woefully inexperienced, and unattractive member of the homogeneously slutty seventeen-and-under demographic to a naïve piece of "fresh meat" for forty-year-old perverts in the far more heterogeneously slutty eighteen-and-over demographic. At least that's what I'm inferring; thiscoinferno or the other "older men" on my f-list may correct me appropriately.

That said, I'm off to spend time with my homies Allen and Greenough, even though Morford and Lenardon are probably the ones I need to hang out with. Myth isn't going to learn itself, but grammar is sexier.

Ta, all.

Current Mood: raindrops on roses

Current Music: dum, du-dum-dum HUMS

http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=poeticoddity

Well, I'll be damned. Never saw that one coming.

I suppose it's the highest form of flattery...

And I never thought I'd get to use this particular tag again.

ADDENDUM (10:38 a.m.): SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR TO RETIRE FROM SUPREME COURT. Posted here first.

And 59,000,000 people in the country cried "Holy Shit." I'm really, really, really worried.

Ta.

This is required reading for meretricula, or anyone else who was ever interested in Lord of the Rings slash fiction. It's hysterical.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/gayfaggotinc/244326.html

Ta.

http://www.izpitera.ru/lj/tetka.swf

Simpler and more elegant than Pinguin-Smack.

Ta.

( AP grades by phone )

Wow. Huh.
Happy June the twenty-eighth.

Ta.

It's June the twenty-eighth...

I've developed an interesting inability to go to sleep before 1 in the morning of late, and with the oddness of the BLS schedule, you wouldn't think that'd be a problem. With a power nap on the train, I'm normally refreshed enough to get my "work" done in the morning.

After half an hour's wait for our FileMaker database that contains the forwarding information to do some turnover, the actual morning's forwarding can usually be taken care of before 9 AM. Which always leaves the question of how to murder the long stretch between then and noon in which there's nothing to do.

Yesterday, it was Buffy. I was watching Buffy on my laptop, at work, and no one cared. LiveJournal is fine. Facebook is fine. AIM Express is fine. In fact, virtually anything is fine.

Except a catnap.

Let's consider the benefits of napping. It refreshes the employee, giving a little more gusto to the attack on the piles of mail to forward. It conserves electricity and bandwidth - while I nap, so does the computer. And it just makes the useless parts of the day go past much faster. Nevertheless, my boss Chris tells me that it's the one thing that would get me fired on the spot if his boss Dave saw me.

Does that make any practical sense at all? It's flimsy, arbitrary, shortsighted things like this that annoy the living daylights out of me. It has already been established that I only do between 2 and 3 hours of work per day, shredding included. It has already been established that HUMS is willing to pay me for doing nothing of any value. It basically makes as much sense as a man hiding himself in a cherry tree by painting his balls red.

Argh.

Ta.

A historic ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court allows public confiscation of property for any private use.

Sheesh, this is creepy. When I agree with Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist, the apocalypse must indeed be nigh.

Honestly, I can't say that this ruling affects me directly and personally (considering I own no property subject to eminent domain, as far as I know), but the sheer idea of local and state governments being allowed to seize whatever land they want as the lackeys of private investors is a terrifying concept, especially as it applies to conservation law.

It's an interesting read, for anyone who's bored.

(Yes, my work is done for the day. What a scam.)

Buffy and work.

Best. combination. ever.

As many of you know, yesterday was summer solstice. And as some of you may have noticed, yesterday was also the full moon. It's pretty rare for those to happen at the same time, and considering I like both (in summertime, that is), I wanted to appreciate the beauty of both.

( golden afternoon )

To the expressed envy of swirlycurlzz and the general apathy of nearly everyone else, my away message Monday night announced my intention to go for a midnight walk in the moonlight. I woke up at 2 AM and was grateful not to have drooled all over my computer. But last night was the night, and I was treated to ( an inoffensive disillusionment, replete with politically incorrect ethnic stereotyping. )

Between the walk and attempting to help a future classmate of mine with his graduation speech, I turned in around 2:30. The irony, I think, is that after muttered profanity and a shower, I had time to shave, get my stuff together for the day, and get out of the house ten minutes earlier than when I've slept for nine and a half.

But I think my iPod gave up the ghost this morning; it's making the metronome noise.

Damn.

Only part of post worth reading: I get paid today. Anyone want to meet me for pants shopping?

Ta.

Subantimicrobial Dose Doxycycline
What You Should Know

Weighing the Options for Non-Ablative Resurfacing
When Only Accusative Will Do

When you've been sorting mail, labeling, typing, and sticking things for nearly four hours in a row, then you kind of want to shoot something.

Especially when the only way you can properly sort the mail is hum this nonsensical psuedo-Baroque piano tune in your head that also is vaguely reminiscent of death and killing things.

Hmm.

Having shredded 12 boxes of financially-related junk mail with my co-worker, who not only looks like a Colin but is named Colin, I have discovered that pointless tasks are very Zen for me.

Also, the mice on the IBM computers here have this neat little glowy blue knob between the buttons that can scroll. Sitting at a supine angle with my legs crossed reading LiveJournal, while only having to gently wiggle a knob to scroll? Hell yes.

Oh, and because Harvard is too slow to put me on the real payroll, I'm being sublet to a temp agency, which means more W-4s and other stupid life-signing-away forms.

And I'm working illegally, since <18 year olds can't do 40 hours a week. Oh, lol.

This is not a particularly stimulating line of work.

This is ever so slightly ridiculous.

Right now I'm sitting in the basement of 219 Western Avenue in Allston, MA, mere blocks from the lovely cette_vie's house, and I've succeeded in doing absolutely no work, mostly because my boss Chris is busy updating the database. Why we come here so early when there is nothing to do, I cannot say.

When I was walking down JFK Street (slowly, because 25 minutes at my breakneck walking pace it does not take to get there), I felt someone walking behind me at about the same pace I was, which was surprising in and of itself because my leisure walking causes the_card_floozy et al. serious discomfiture), and then when I rounded the corner of 219 Western I noticed s/he was gone. Turns out this guy is my co-worker. I think his name is Colin, but I've already forgotten it, which is irritating. He looks like a Colin. He's good-looking in a reserved, unremarkable Midwestern way.

He's a little more reason for feeling faintly apprehensive about Harvard. Turns out he's a proud graduate of the Class of 2005, an English major, and fairly directionless. He's also working 40 hours a week as he tries to figure out what he wants to do. Hails from Wisconsin, used to do drama, didn't make much of the school's resources (in his own words), and now feels very bleh about life, the universe, and everything. I must remind myself: USE THE AVAILABLE RESOURCES OR HAVE NO JOB IN SPRING 2009. 'Cause this is fine for a student (a pre-student, even) with no work experience, but not for a Harvard graduate.

Oh, and I graduated, and I made money from Prize Night that I get to keep (I cash the checks today), and a bunch of other exciting posts, but I'm leaving this one work-related exclusively.

Because I've earned $12.35 already. What a country.

All that mess of yesterday is behind me now; thanks everyone for being so understanding. Honestly, I'm glad last night was the night I had to do my little blow-up/meta-analytical orgy, since there wasn't much to do except for all of the thousands of trivial things that will be around for days, though not weeks, to come.

Now for the keeping of the regular journal part. Abed at an ungodly hour (thanks to [Bad username: <lj user=], mr_skimpole, selonmiller), I rose only five hours later to find the house in an uproar, since Dad couldn't figure out how to install the air conditioners with the new windows we had put in back in March and the only possible way he could think of dealing with it was growling about everyone else's mess. Although a whole shitload of indignity and a few hours later, my parts of the house were clean as a whistle.

I amscrayed out, though, to meet cette_vie to pay a visit to a friend of hers in Somerville. Aladdin was fun, but I wasn't sure what to make of the very hippie commune-like living space (eclectic, a bit dirty, with lots of alcohol in the kitchen). Or rather, I was sure what to make of it, but was too polite/freaked out to say anything. I felt a special kinship with the black cat that coughed like a sixty-five-year-old with emphysema and had gunky eyes. We made it to Harvard Square station on time, though, and sat through Coxian Practice Number Two.

I like the new training method, I really do, and the material we were being quizzed on was stuff I knew very well. (Think vocabulary. Derivatives I botched enough to forfeit the right to pwnage.) Four hours of practice, though, gets fairly exhausting, but the unpleasant end — a massive loss to the Novice team during a quick-study Morford round on Heracles, followed by some lower national semifinals questions — provided an important lesson in Certamen: momentum builds. Possunt quia posse videntur is the name of the game. Myth questions for next time make me antsy.

Also, there's prom to deal with. meretricula, it starts at 6:30, so I'll probably come to pick you up around 6:00 on Tuesday. Which means I have to get a corsage and try and look presentable and all that jazz. It seems like a bit much bother, and there's no legal way for me to overcome the awkwardness of a dance, and a school dance at that. Hopefully, something will slide gracefully out of place and I'll let myself have a good time.

With that, my battery is at 9 percent and I still need to burn a copy of the AP Writing magazine files for eala. 'Night, all.

Ta.

Is anyone interested in organizing a trip to Montréal the third or fourth week in August this summer with me?

Advantages are as follows:

Getting to say "I went to a foreign country" without necessarily having to pay for a plane

Actually seeing what all the fuss over this "Canada" place is about

Friendly, impassive natives (except for all of the French-speakers)

Breaking out of the "family vacation" mould that's cast about most every high-schooler I know

Everything's legal at age 18

You snobby, snobby people who disdained Spanish as vulgar, Italian as oversimplified, and German as "ugly" can put your BLS French skills to embarrassingly ineffective use.

Transportation is cheaper than dirt with carpool (and a bus ride, at $70ish round-trip, is more than tolerable). All in all, we could probably have a completely unproductive orgy of spending and unsupervised immaturity.

Any takers?

Current Mood: numbercrunchy

Current Music: prokofiev in the background

Dad, Jacob, and I just came back from Harvard Square (very disappointing lunch at Bertucci's; Dad should have learned by now), and guess what two items show up in the mail?

1. A check from the city of Boston for $75. The reason? "2005 BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL PRI". I'm seriously, seriously hoping that this isn't the sum total of my Prize Night earnings, but then again, you never know. Either way, there's enough money here for some badly needed new pants, and maybe some Starbucks in with the bargain.

2. A hilarious handwritten note from Harvard Athletic Services. Text reproduced below as follows:
( what was she smoking? )

Yeah. I don't get it either.

On the plus side (for those of you who don't see me on a daily basis), I actually have a summer job sorting mail at Harvard Mail Services, which is only three blocks away from the lovely cette_vie's house. So there's time for a quickie when she's photorespirating. So I work for twelve 40-hour weeks at $10 an hour, and I make three times as much money as Harvard demands I make over the summer for financial aid purposes, which basically translates to plenty of savings and some disposable income that isn't derived from parents. Not such a bad thing.

But now, studying for Certamen practice. Perhaps more later.

Ta.

What I Learned From Watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

The girls' locker room is a terrible place to randomly change clothing, especially when it's half-dark, no one is around, and you're a nobody blonde extra.