What's with these alliterative titles?...anyway...

So some friends threw me sort of a birthday party today.[1] Since it's the end of the quarter, a lot of people are either gone (physically) or gone (mentally) or gone (physcially and mentally) so it wasn't a riotous occassion or anything. I personally have a 15-20 page paper due Thursday noon of which I have only 8 written so far so it's not like I had time for any sort of celebration. Then again, it's not my birthday today so it all balances out.

God DAMN it. Blogger f*cked up my post again! Why is does it always do that when I have a HOJILLION lines written down. This time, not only does it lose most of it, it replaces it with somebody else's post so I know TWO people are getting some attention on the backside from Blogger. This is unbelievable..I'll try to recover what I had in a more concise fashion...

As I was saying, friends are nice. They're good for whining to, listening to, talking to, getting bizarre stares at when you talk about dominant versus half-diminished sevenths, etc. But more than that they're probably the most accurate indicators of the image you're generating for everyone. They're the magic mirror on the wall that tells you that, no, you're definitely not anywhere being even remotely considered for being the fairest of them all but they'll tolerate you anyway. A million wonderful reasons to have friends and I come up with self-reflection. There's philosophical narcissism for ya...

So anybody who knows me (or knew me) knows I'm not a fashionable guy. That's a litote for you. I do pretty much polos and khakis and my trusty reversible belt all the time. But that's different on the East and West coast. Short of it is, I don't pay attention to how I dress or how the way I dress reflects upon me as a person in the midst of the prevailing fashion trends. I mean, I don't clash primary colors and so I end up being monochromatic or doing matching dark stuff. Not exactly a trend-setter here. I also don't mind doing weird combinations every once in a while (think micro-sueded sports jacket over tight fitted short short sleeve v neck t shirt) which may confuse the hell out of people. Understandably so.

But here on the West coast, I don't know what it is. My image has changed and I'm forced to acknowledge that it has to be because I've changed somehow. It started out as a haircut and going gay (or metrosexual rather) styles every once in a while for fun. The haircut necessitates a geling of my head-fur lest it become a tentacled mass bent on sexually abusing young anime girls. I tend to wear polos and khakis (ironed of course!) to class and am all neat about it so people have the "well dressed" image of me in the "dressed up" sense. But either the image has influenced me or I'm running away with the image, fashion has become inexplicably a bigger part of my life.

To come full circle: some gifts I got from my friends today: clothes. Back East, people wouldn't have gotten me clothes because, frankly, I wasn't the type of guy to really care. Well, Al and Lixi did get me adidas exercise pants once (and a hoodie too) to get me off khakis at least when I'm trying to imitate wushu moves and those turned out to be the most useful pants I've ever gotten. Still, nothing along the fashion lines. Yet here, I get a sweater from Express. I don't think I've even ever truly acknowledged the existence of that store. And to be honest I don't think I've ever really thought that I'd wear anything from that store (especially since I have no idea exactly what their styles look like). But now, the idea of wearing something other than polos and khakis are gaining ground in my mind. I still have not a CLUE what's fashionable and what's not but holy cow I've actually thought about Banana Republic as a store rather than as a country. For better or worse, what a change, however slight. And you know what, I love the gifts. Who (back East) would ever think that I would like clothes as gifts but my friends were right on, Express sweater and all. I guess most of my friends know me better than I know myself in some ways...

Off to a good night's sleep (I hope dearly) and continue work on the Stravinsky paper. Work can be overwhelming and at such times, it can also seem pointless. An endless flow of words from my mind to the page, all to end up as trivia in my field, helping no one specifically, or practically. Having faith in the value of your contributions in a timeless academic and cultural sense is not always easy and when you don't have that faith and nothing else to replace it with, the world gets lonely. Guess I found another reason why friends are good...

[1]Since it's not actually my birthday today. But by the time my birthday comes around, everyone will be gone back home so we decided to do it today in the midst of finals and papers. Whee.