insomnia!

so i tried to go to sleep early tonight, at 10, but instead i'm blogging at midnight. we can see just how successful that endeavor turned out. anyway, i've been watching csi and doing crossword puzzles for the last two hours. yes, at the same time. i'm getting to be able to finish 75% of the ny times crosswords. that's a C average. working toward a B, but right now i'll settle. i keep having weird dreams. i should try that valerian root supplement and hopefully that'll help. it just get so loud sometimes which is the monkey wrench tossed in to mess up my sleep. did you know that it only takes 7 minutes to fall asleep. the act of falling asleep is actually quite fast. getting to that stage is the long part. oh well, hopefully this time it works.

american idol

Okay, so admittedly, the first episode of American Idol was pretty amusing and entertaining, but how many season's into it are we now? I mean eight seasons of finding the next American superstar just isn't enough. On top of that there's all the other talent contests on primetime TV. Honestly, with all the Michael Jordans, Angelina Jolies, and Brad Pitts to idolize, you'd think we'd have our heads filled to exploding with fantasies about them. It just made me think (and thinking is good because hero worship reveals a lack of intellectual examination) that we idolize and hero-ize them because there's so much we don't know about them. Well that was obvious. But think about it, why do we not idolize our friends or our family in the same way we idolize celebrities. We even go as far as idolizing fictional characters like Superman, Batman, or Gil Grissom and the rest of the CSI team (guilty as charged). But why? Because there's so much mystery to them, so much background about them that we don't know. It's like putting candy in front of a child and telling him not to eat it. These people are dangled in front of our noses and we're dared not to try to know them, to dig into their past, into their interests, their love lives. This aura of mystery surrounding these people is what gets to us eventually because by nature, human beings need connection. We form or seek to form connections with people, to get to know who they are an in turn letting them know who we are. I think it's this drive that causes us to be fascinated with celebrity figures and superstars because we fantasize about knowing them, connecting with them. So what's the moral of this rant? I don't know, just an intellectual investigation of idol worship. It's one of those phoenomenons that happen and no one wonders why it happens. Well, I wondered why.

"If man could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate."
Elbert Hubbard

lack of insight

boredom reigns!! i haven't had many insightful moments worthy of blogging about for the last couple weeks so here's to nothing! *raises champagne glass* well, i suppose there is some news deserving of a mention: 1) got sick. yay! 2) had several interviews. even bigger yay!! 3) getting a wii, possibly. okay, so i'm not so sure about the last one, but it's been "weighing heavily" on my mind. we'll see, but it just might be that i vaccilate back and forth over it, decide not to buy it, and then just buy it on an impulse. that's the most weighty decision i've had to face lately. hopefully that will change if i get hired. then it's which location, salary, benefits, my 401k and ira, blah blah blah. then i officially get to enter into post-college, working world. i get to commute!! but i also get more money. so that's a bonus. but i will have to reschedule my other activities like going to the gym, hanging out with sisters, cooking, shopping, cleaning, and the stuff that falls under the category: nothing. i'm actually quite excited about all that. let's just hope i get the job first.

Self defining consumerism

Jack: I would flip through catalogs and wonder "what kind of dining set defines me as a person?"

What defines me as a person? What defines any of us. Yes we all have our personality and odd quirks, but recent apartment decorating and various mall adventures has led to the conclusion of consumerism. That's right folks, good old buying and acquiring of stuff that we don't need (and some that we do). Like most people, we own things that are just "so us." The more we see what style those things are, the more we buy things similar to them and we acquire a look, a feel. We have to buy things that make us feel like us. I went shopping for a pair of sunglasses. Initially I had wanted Oakleys, but they just weren't me. Well, damn, who am I? Apparently, I'm a pair of Ray Bans that aren't too long or too skinny but just square enough to sit above my cheeks. And I thought I had moved away from being stuck on one brand, or any brand for that matter. I never thought of myself as playing into the whole young, working, money earning and spending consumer. It's just like that quote says, what kind of (fill in the blank) defines me as a person? How do I express my quirkiness and personality through the stuff I own? How does the stuff I own eventually mold me into a certain type of person with a certain style that I'm too blind to see and can't break out of even if I do se it? What about the books I read? Do I really enjoy reading them or do I just do it purely out of an expectation of me because that's just "who I am?" Even our activities and hobbies get definied by the things we purchase because of the associations that go with it. I bought a corkscrew because the old one broke, so now I'm a wine expert. Well, that's a bad example becuae I do find great enjoyment out of tasting wine and being a sort of oneophile. Ok, but my point is made. Well, what's next? A car? Well, I'd better make sure I buy one that's cool lest I give the impression that I'm not. Or even better, I better be cool so the cool car I buy is a reflection of that; coolness personified.