Thurs...

Thurs. night i went to the bang on a can all-stars with philip glass. i felt a bit decieved because there were absolutely no cans involved. about an hour before i went, i ate half a pot cookie ... because the last time i ate a whole one i was GONE .. i mean, vegetable gone. all i could do was drool on myself :P. but i guess i again underestimated the power of the cookie, because even with only half i was wasted by the time i walked into the gigantic castle of an auditorium. it really is like a castle, heres a pic: (i apologize for not knowing how to do the cut tag thingie)

i wandered around the mazes of hallways and masses of people for what seemed like hours. eventually i found my seat, which had this view:

however, the seats were TINY, it was like they tried to cram as many possible seats into this gigantic room, and in order to fit i had to sit with my legs spread (no perverted comments!), and even then the chair in front of me dug painfully into my knees. To make matters worse, on one side of me was a very old woman, who was friendly but seemed annoyed that one of my legs had to take up almost all of her leg room as well as mine. on the other side was a family, the father sitting next to me and was a complete asshole. to add to the problem .. i was really out of place, everyone else there were the aristocats of boulder county, rich people and families trying to culturally enrich their gifted children. being packed into a painful seat with so many people hovering over each other while being stoned out of my mind was not good for my social anxiety one bit. For a little while i tried to force myself to stay there, to put up with the awfulness in order to grow within myself, perhaps conquer my anxiety. But, eventually (in other words, 15 minutes :P) i said screw it, i want to be able to enjoy this. so i climbed up another twofloors to the back row, which was empty. it was still a tight fit, but at least i could stick my legs over the seat in front of me. and at least i could be relatively alone. i spent some time just soaking in the beauty of the architecture, the play of light and shadow was incredible. when the music started, i just closed my eyes and thought. i dont remember what i thought about, but i remember wishing i had a pen to write down all the thoughts down. philip glass makes for excellent thinking music. some of the songs were so intensely emotional and erratic, and i let myself ride on the rollercoaster of emotion. one song in particular, the pianist did a whole lot of "banging" ... it reminded me of the song i wrote called "the storm" on the piano when i was about 7 ... smashing all the keys down like crazy ... of course it was terrible. but this had some sense to it ... like co-ordinated 5 year old mozartswhapping at their instruments in a temper tantrum. i really got into it, and was just about to burst through the ice of torment - but then it ended.
i found the formalness of the whole thing quite amusing. after every song, the performers all stopped and took several dramatic bows, and the clapping went on for 10 minutes. for every song!
I suppose i should stop here before i ruin everybodys night with my horridly long posts, which im sure are boring as hell to everyone but me. Before i peace out tho, i just gotta recommend the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries." It may or may not be playing wherever you are. I suggest checking tho. Its the story of the early years of Ernesto Che Guevara, and his adventures on an 8000 mile roadtrip on a motorcycle through latin america, and sets the stage and gives the inspiration for his revolutionary years to come. Of course, if it isnt around you can always read the book

In my 2nd cl...

In my 2nd class today - Indigenous Approaches to Sustainability (which sounds like it should be an awesome class, but drones on for 3 hours and we are all miserable, not to mention the course is extremely disorganized and 99% of our assignments are not on the syllabus, and the requirement for our projects are vague and missing things - like the fact you have to include a paper!) grrr. that class pisses me off so bad.anyways, what i was getting at - during our 5 minute break i was smokin a cig, and it started snowing. it had been raining pretty hard all day. so i went and stood under the 1-inch ledge with a kid from my class, who is fucking HOT. But i never was really interested in him because he seemed like an arrogant prick, tho some of the things he has said in class have intrigued me somewhat, like "Does it even really matter (or is it too late) if we try to save the Earth? Why not just let ourselves run amok and kill ourselves off?" Which are some of the thoughts i have, tho there is the other side always debating with myself of course, that we need to at least make it possible for the earth to heal itself after humans are gone ..So, here we are, huddled under the weenie ledge, making small talk ... get to talking about where we are from ... he's from Mass, i tell him i went to a theraputic lockdown boarding school in west stockbridge .. and his eyes pop out of his head. "You didnt, by any chance, go to DeSisto, did you?" he asks. Now MY eyes pop out of my head - "Yup" ... He almost falls down -"Holy shit, i graduated from there!"BOOM - instant bond. It was like an adopted child finally meeting their real parents for the first time. Running into someone randomly, in Boulder of all places, who went through that hellish ordeal which is impossible to try to explain to anyone who hasnt been there, was the most miraculous thing. All of a sudden he stopped being an arrogant prick and became soft and vulnerable, a companion, someone who could undertand, a friend.

I just g...

I just got home from my Tibetian Buddhism class, in which we took a field trip to the shrine room of the Shambhala Center. It was gorgeous - its so strange how ignorant prejudice can turn to awe with just a little understanding. We sat on meditation cushions facing the main shrine (there were at least 4 other minor shrines in the room - including, much to my delight, one dedicated to Wrathfullness (which has a slightly different meaning than we tend to think of it, it isnt a negative thing), which was dark and had a golden skull implanted in it). We recited a chant, which was really long, at least 10 pages, and is recited for the purpose of helping to relieve materialism. It was written by a Tibetian who came to the West after he was exiled from Tibet, and was horribly dissapointed to find how caught up in materialism and ego Americans were. I had a tough time, stumbling over the words and growing impatient after about, heh, 2 pages. At one point we did a HUM chant, which gradually increased in speed until it all blended together and then we sat in meditation for a few minutes. At that point, my perspective shifted. Im not sure exactly how, and my stumbling over words didnt improve one bit, but a tremendous feeling of peace and compassion washed over me. When we finished, I was a bit suprised to learn that my experience was shared by virtually everyone in the room. Everyone had stumbled over the words. And everyone had felt a change come about after the HUM chant.
I dont really know what to make of it, and i dont even know why im posting about it on here, so ill just let it be as it is.
Also, I rode in the car of a boy i have a little crush on, there and back. He dropped me off right outside my apartment. He is so gentle and sweet, i liked him a little more than i did yesterday :P However, I was tired and out of it, so i hope i didnt make too much of a fool of myself.
One last thing - my grandfather, who i called Bompa, died last night. I am rather relieved. He has been on his deathbed for about 4 years now, everyone was just holding their breath and waiting. I do feel a little bad about my grandmother tho, she is an incredible woman, she has more energy than a 10 year old on speed. Most of her friends have died off, and tending to her dying husband was all she really had left. Two years ago, I told her i wanted to transcribe the story of her life (she partied with Ernest Hemingway, as an example), but i havent written or called or spoken to her at all since then.