I CRY WOLF!

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Tue, 21 May 2013 15:58:12 -0400

Walked back home today singing “Finals are ove-e-er!” in tune of Dog Days Are Over by...

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:20:32 -0400

Walked back home today singing “Finals are ove-e-er!” in tune of Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine.

Longboarding through the corridors of a school at night. An...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:58:10 -0400

Longboarding through the corridors of a school at night. An experience of the most fundamental sort.

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Thu, 16 May 2013 15:27:50 -0400

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Thu, 16 May 2013 10:41:06 -0400

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Wed, 15 May 2013 09:29:02 -0400

I leaned against the guardrail right next to her and we both gazed down through the tenebrous...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:13:00 -0400

I leaned against the guardrail right next to her and we both gazed down through the tenebrous staircase below. The school seemed quite unlike the one I’ve grown to know so well, almost as if it was an entirely different place. The nearby church glaring brightly, illuminated against the inky skyline of pine trees that spread across the horizon - the adjacent houses quiescent and dark. The building was all lifeless as I had longboarded through it’s poignant empty corridors - an experience I had asserted to be one of the most fundamental sort. Most of the people were asleep by now, I thought, either in our class or the school chapel since it was the only room with a carpet. The parallel’s classroom was still lit with several people talking in small groups. We had sat there for a while, bantering over chocolate cookies, before we had endeavored to our very last mission of defiance together. It was our last day of high school and it was rather strange - the way in which the lastness of it had managed to make the mundane so exciting.

A group of people seems to exist who invariably hate endings and, from what I acquired, it looks like they hold the majority. I, for that matter, am not one of them. It’s not like I love endings or anything - that would be plain dumb, not to mention depressing. It is only that I don’t loathe them inherently. I do appreciate change - and I’ve come to believe that it is the endings that give such a great extent of meaning to whatever thing they are an ending of. I have always cherished that feeling when you finish a great book and your throat constricts only ever so slightly and the reverie renders you entirely speechless, leaving you to stare blankly. It is only on the last page that the book is finally perceived as a whole - and it matters. Right there, right then - God, how it matters. And hence, I would argue, my monomania with closure.

A tall figure appeared in a short moment from below and beckoned for us to come. We descended the flight stairs to the middle platform where he stood and she asked “so?”
“He’s in the classroom below, they’ve gone there not to wake up the others. But we can go downstairs and into the atrium.” he replied. Our mutinous adventure was scarcely anything more than a cigarette-trip. And although I was never a smoker and nor did I appreciate the passive smoking that went along with being friends with smokers, I liked cigarette-trips. Always, the thrill if done surreptitiously and the casualness if not, the walking, the outside, the people and the conversation - I was a fan of pretty much every part of it but the cigarettes themselves. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go” she whispered as we commenced down the stairs, circling the staircase till we reached the ground floor in a ludicrously overdone attempt at stealth. We rounded the corner of a corridor that led to the other part of school and surrounded the main atrium - a vast open space with several old sculptures that had been damaged by a hailstorm a couple of years ago and the fragments of them have only been put aside to the wall of the building where their eternal place of residence was. The paved area was a rectangular surrounded by a stripe of grass at each side with some old benches, and broken only by a tall, unkept bush that broke the geometry of it at the far end.
He opened the window and we peered out of it. “But how are we gonna get back in?” she inquired. “We’ll pull one another up.”
“And he ain’t gonna see us, is he?” she asked.
“Well, no. He’s directly above us. So if we run close to the wall it ought to be alright.” he answered.
“Alrighty” I said and climbed through the half-opened window and landed on the grass with a thud. She came right after me, climbing through the window gingerly - there was something funny about her jumping the tiny height. She was wearing her superhero outfit she had prepared for the morrow’s tradition I will rather abstain from explaining. The blue symbol of flash on her t-shirt indicating her purported celerity, she lacked only the cape and the mask she had left upstairs. It was hilarious on the account of her being the slowest person anyone had ever known, but still - she knew how to make fun of herself and that requires some appreciation. We ran to the far end of the space and hid behind the tall, semi-transparent bush.

There was light and sounds of hilarity emanating from the aforementioned classroom, one of those belonging to our teacher - a former cop who used make these raids on pubs and bars to catch all the minors that were drinking. He had been really friendly though, these last couple of days. I suppose that our lastness here had affected him as well. The bush was semitransparent and we could see well through it those parts of school that remained illuminated by the single classroom. Only we were invisible in the dark. He produced a lighter and lit his and her cigarette and the two red dots glowed slowly in the darkness at every intake. “You should really read Looking for Alaska after the finals. Such a good book.” I said. “Sure, is it in czech yet?” she asked. “No, but it’s an alright kind of english.” I said. “Alright, well after finals.” And yes, the finals that were yet to be taken drove me insane - I wasn’t afraid but I hated the lack of finality it was causing. I liked endings to be the endings. And this seemed like and epilogue of and epilogue - knowing it won’t be entirely over for nearly a month. “It’s weird that it’s ending” I said. “It is weird” she nodded. That’s what we would say. And it was weird.
He inhaled the cigarette smoke, he was a considerably well dressed asian fellow with hipstery glasses that had once been tortoise but seemed as good as transparent as all the paint had pealed off. ”So, Tobias. What’s it like to be leaving after eight years? Can’t quite imagine.” he asked exhaling the smoke. They were both from the parallel class meaning they had only spent four years at the school “I don’t know. Eight years is a long time when you’re nineteen. Too long. I mean… it’s closer to being a half of your life than a third. And the place becomes such a huge part of your identity. It’s difficult to grasp the finality of this. That these people won’t be your classmates and all of that.” I tried to explain, but I couldn’t. So we stood there and bantered on as they smoked their cigarette and then lit another while my mind kept drifting in and out of the conversation and to various memories - taking the entrance exams with my buddy from elementary, my first day, the movie nights and the trips to England. And I was well aware there were finals yet to be taken and the crazy last ringing celebration tomorrow, but for me - right there, right then - In the dead of the night at the far end of the large atrium - I had my final page just as the first drops of rain began to fall.

An acquaintance of mine once pointed out that it was a rather...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:46:00 -0400

An acquaintance of mine once pointed out that it was a rather typically postmodern feeling - that you are missing out on something. I could relate to that, feeling that, while I had been sitting in a classroom or watching a crappy tv show, life had happened somewhere else. Not far, but just out of my view.

And so I would argue that routine is very much like salt in a way - beneficial in modicum but lethal...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:16:00 -0400

And so I would argue that routine is very much like salt in a way - beneficial in modicum but lethal in a large amount. It sure can help one get through a lot, but when overdone you find yourself looking back on eight years of your life asking “Already?”, dubious like when you sleep in after the alarm clock has gone off and what feels like five minutes is years. And by the end you start counting - pointing out those last-time-evers. And the morrow is my last Monday in high school. Already?

Supposedly awake I saw him standing by the door of an aphotic room I failed to recognize and he...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:58:25 -0400

Supposedly awake I saw him standing by the door of an aphotic room I failed to recognize and he glanced out of the door and then back to where I lay abed. Notwithstanding my ignorance of the thing that captivated him so, I was able to discern the obvious alarm in his countenance. Then he said something - I can no longer recall the exact words as these memories are commonly of a rather liquid nature in my experience and they slip away so easily, but I think it could have been: “Someone’s coming” but I will never be quite sure, I suppose. Then he ran over to my bed, crouching and took me by the shoulders and vigorously shook my awake. I could still see his face vividly in front of mine when a transcendental effort finally reached the vocal cords and I spoke, but my mouth refused to move, still asleep, so merely an unintelligible howl split the otherwise perfect silence of my room. I sat up and prayed for the man for I knew who he was. He had been in coma for weeks now after having been hit by a car and from what I gathered the odds weren’t looking good and people started already to accept the truth of his slow demise. It freaked me out, quite frankly so I just lay there praying and ruminating the memories of him that I had until I fell asleep again.

I woke up late that morning - or later than I had intended when setting the alarm the previous night, but in that uncomfortably awkward time when, should all morning rituals be circumvented, one could still make it to school reasonably on time. But being a person very much dependant on things like a morning tea, a replacement that has recently taken the place of coffee in my life, I conjectured arrival for my next class should be considered sufficient as high school seniors are, in their last weeks of the adventure that secondary education is, allowed a certain amount of leisure about the whole attendance thing. Looking out of the window I ascertained no great change in weather outside. I had not seen the sun for weeks and still the solid grey cast over the city persisted, blurring the edges of shadows and ridding the world of colour.

The last day I had seen the sun must have been Wednesday 20th of March. It was a pleasant kind of day, the likes of which make you believe that spring is truly on it’s way - to such an extent even that I felt compelled to put The First Days of Spring to my iPod. While walking home from school across the new park by the post office I ran into a couple of friends so we hung out for a while at the edge of the park and I only left when the time finally pressed on. There was this exhibition we were doing with architecture prep. class at nearby Trmalova vila - a smallish house built by a czech epitome of a modern architect and that day was the opening. The object of exhibition being our projects from last year which, despite my constant claiming of otherwise, seemed to someone as worthy of display.

It had been two weeks ago and two weeks of high school remained. I have long since given up on the idea of my last days of classes being something particularly exceptional and these days ran by so swiftly, with most of my time being divided between school, work and reading. Nothing much happened, to be honest, but songs by Radical Face and John Green novels. And days like these it was easy to slip into that state of loneliness and self pitty. But what a lie - what a dreadful idea it is to assume that my life’s sole purpose is my own entertainment. What a perpetual epiphany it is to count my blessings everytime anew and how thankful I was that cloudy day for all the things that I had been given and with what eagerness then I should pray for others to be blessed as well.

"For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:57:18 -0400

“For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.”

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Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:21:43 -0400

There was little to be said for the glass of whiskey on the table in front of me....

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 16:09:00 -0400

There was little to be said for the glass of whiskey on the table in front of me. The poignant cellar room filled with the ever present deluge of fume and the hilarity which invariably culminates in ravages and poorly made decisions. Yes, there was some vague sense of amity about the liquor and what it held, I thought, but then the subtle thread of my reverie got severed and I remained staring blankly at the opposite wall. The clarity came swiftly and stabbed into my skull. It was not a joyful discovery, but the kind of which is well to be done - where ignorance seems lethal. I scanned their faces briefly and, at last, pushed the unmitigated glass across the table surreptitiously. I ruminated the idea for a bit - yes, of course - a faint solipsism made a good case of defense here: I could never know what is on their minds - I wouldn’t. But the edge was there, visible now more then ever. It was either the world in the context of the book or the book in the context of the world. The past dismantled in my mind and rearranged itself. I went through all of the memories and found myself overcome with gratitude for every failure and rejection, that had previously ruined my days. No, there was no voice sweet enough and no face pretty enough to make me give this up. But why does it only seem so difficult to remember. What a distracting thing must life bring, since they are everywhere and yet they so often go unnoticed - the reminders that man lives for an audience of one.

I miss England.

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:36:37 -0400

I miss England.

"תמשל"

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:05:00 -0400

“תמשל”

She seemed a bit like Cathy, I thought as I walked across that sleeping part of town. Well, not...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:33:01 -0500

She seemed a bit like Cathy, I thought as I walked across that sleeping part of town. Well, not really. She wasn’t, I reasoned - and it was bitter to think she was. The notion was merely brought about by the book I read on the bus and admittedly encouraged by the indignation I carried with me everywhere. I should have let go of that a long time ago, I concluded. I was just passing through a street that lead up the hill when an apparition of a man brought be out of my reverie. I stopped by the bar at the corner of the street and inspected him briefly. He was a human-shaped tree who made a habit of scaring the hell out of me on a fairly regular basis. I commenced walking again and checked my watch to avert my gaze from the man. It was the 32nd of February. Apparently. God, how fitting it seems, I thought. He nodded as we walked on. “So how come nothing ever happens?” I asked finally after a moment of silence. “What do you mean?” He responded. I remained quiet for a bit and then he went on. “A lot is happening, you just never see it.” He said inaudibly. “Remember back when you were a kid? You spent most of the days imagining what it’s going to be like to the age you are now.” He explained. “And now you either think back to those times or do the very same.” He was right - he had a tendency of being right. “Well, yes. But now, it just seems like I’m waiting for things to happen.” I replied. “Yes, but there is life in the meantime and stars in the sky.” he finished. Yeah, I thought, it’s been a while since I stared at the stars.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!Going to see Mumford and Sons tonight!

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 09:06:25 -0500

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Going to see Mumford and Sons tonight!

"It’s the first day of spring and my life is starting over again."

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:14:25 -0500

“It’s the first day of spring and my life is starting over again.”

I have recently made a decision to give up both coffee and alcohol completely. Wish me luck.

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 05:42:20 -0500

I have recently made a decision to give up both coffee and alcohol completely. Wish me luck.

"I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot."

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 05:38:40 -0500

“I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.”

- Holden Caulfield