Death of a Senior

The appearance of a Mysterious Pumpkin Pie was about the only exciting thing that has happened this week. I have no way of expressing my gratitude to the random customer who found the Regal employees so joyful as to offer us a token of her appreciation. All I know is that everyone thinks she's "a crazy woman" and that a few months ago she dropped off a chocolate cake for one of our managers. I don't care if she's nuts-O, I really just enjoyed the pie (in fact, she looked exactly like the female version of Willem Dafoe).

So I really enjoyed Death of a Salesman. Mostly because dysfunctional families tickle me (wait, The Squid and the Whale? Nah), but more so because I am constantly wary of waking up one morning and finding myself still dreaming. It's always been the eternal struggle for me-- trying to dream but also staying realistic. It may have something to do with how my parents perceive me, that I am some high-achieving individual when really I am just a "dime a dozen." Physics makes me feel this way, especially since I have no idea how to take a cross product, how to find angular momentum, or even take an integral. But I am digressing, I really just hate WebAssign and need an audience to vent to (no one reads this anyways, except maybe you Ms. Marcy).

Life these days is mostly depressing, probably because the bulk of them is spent perusing a useless site by the name of "College Confidential." The only reason I find myself reading that dumb site is because every once and awhile I find some lone straggler who thinks he has a chance at Harvard. And once he discovers he has no chance after all, he blames the colleges for propagating "unduly allotted" self-esteem. Never once does he believe himself to be a phony. That's what gets me. I fear that one day I will wake up and be oblivious to my own phoniness.

Yesterday I spent my free Sunday playing along with the Sufjan Stevens Christmas album. Surprisingly easy. Two chords is all you really need to write a song, or even one chord, really. So then I started playing the musical saw and remembered times back in the summer when I was still learning how to play, and how it used to dig imprints in my hands until I fastened a handle out of a screwdriver and learned to arc it in such a way that it didn't have to pierce through my pant leg. And so I traveled back to an old hobby and remembered how much it meant to exist apart from an acceptance letter.

And this is what I have been trying to convince myself my entire life.


The title of this blog is in no way hinting at secret intents to take my own life. Please do not think me such a martyr for senior-kind-- that would be too much to handle.

On Decision Making

Last week at Regal two customers walked up to me and bought 15 dollars worth of trans fat. I assumed they were dating, as attractive girls and guys are apt to do, but I suppose that decision had not been made yet. The boy held out a twenty dollar bill; the girl slapped it away and held out a debit card, “He already paid for dinner, please take my card.”

Oh the choices.

So now I’m responsible for the status of this relationship? What’s more, I have to challenge every belief I have been brought up on—as a woman, my mother taught me to never accept anything from men that would somehow undermine a woman’s equality (wait, was this the feminist talking or the liberal, Catholic hater talking?)

I did what any romance-minded “princess locked in a tower” would do and took the boy’s money. Well, at least I settled that question.

I used to think that I never really made any decisions. That I was sort of born with a brain and chained to a computer. But let me list all of the decisions I have made as recently as I can remember:

1) Took a weekend off work to play music, write a story, and read a book

2) Rejected all of the time I should have been using for physics to jump ahead on Death of a Salesman—and read all of it.

3) Pulled a funny prank on a friend, which might not have been so nice…

4) Turned off a really awful movie about post-modernism. What a bore.

5) Ate samosas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

6) “lost” my wallet so that I would not have money to make a run to the grocery store on my way home

7) Played “The Age of Adz” for the past two weeks

8) Took all linen off of my bed in favor of a sleeping bag. More time efficient.

9) Ordered balloons online so that I can get a head start on my favorite holiday activity—balloon animals

10) Picked up my mandolin for the first time in I don’t know how long

But what this post is really about is the aching wait until college decisions come out. I am 3/3, so what do I have to worry about? Well, failure, but as someone so truthfully pointed out in a deep psycho-analysis, I am used to “failure.” So the problem is…

…that Tulane sent me a birthday card before my grandmother did!

The day I receive some sort of real decision, I will cut my hair, go for a run, and clean my room. But until then “The Age of Adz” will be on replay.

P.S. Ms. Marcy, I still have no idea what to do for my thesis statement. But I think that is perfectly okay. Truth is I am super, super excited for this research paper and ready to challenge myself.