On Looking Away

In a bout of good taste and romantic idiocy, I bought Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs last month. I really like it, and throughout recent weeks I've been trying desperately to relate to it. Here's an example of what I mean: Start this song, which is the first on the album. The first split second you hear a single word, stop it.

That is the amount of that album I should be allowed to listen to. That is the amount I should even be able to fantasize being able to understand. No Bell Bottom Blues, no jealousy, no sense of loss. I'm Not Anyone's. When I do let these false sentiments stew, they boil up beyond any reasonable expectations; they lose focus. They do more than Keep On Growing, they grow without sunlight or water (maybe some dirt) into something unrecognizable and false.

I take steps back regularly to assess the great divide between how I'm feeling and what any reasonable person would be thinking. I just don't know what the difference between petty fantastical infatuation and genuine affection is. Worse: maybe I do, but I'm scared to say so.

I know I'm just an introspective snubby fellow who didn't pick up on cues then and shouldn't extrapolate now, but it's really, really frustrating when the few people I actually feel drawn to are just so unreceptive. At this point, I feel like asking is a waste of time, but it feels defeatist to just back away now.

Okay, you can finish the song, if you liked it. Or read this, since I put a lot of effort into it.

On Soft Hands

I really enjoyed this ACC Women's Tournament. I liked the trip up, when I got to see Megamind, which was surprisingly funny. I liked the first game, in which an arena of elementary school kids yelled and cheered for whichever side was winning. I liked buying a game I've been meaning to play. I liked the first night, when I saw The King's Speech.

I liked the second game, in which we upset Maryland (who might have lost sleep the night before). I liked taking with me those several dozen GT banners and tossing them out to super-excited kids behind us, doubling our team's crowd size. I liked Free Fryday. I liked going to the "Friendliest" part of Greensboro and spending way too much time messing around with puppets. I liked swapping interesting YouTube videos and was strangely okay with the tamest group of drunks I've ever seen.

I liked being the only band to play at Fanfest and getting T-shirts for it. I liked spending a few hours with not one person noticing a large stuffed snake in my pants. I liked keeping a close game with Duke and severely influencing their ability to play with puppet distractions.

I liked cheering hard and being appreciated for it. I liked heading home watching Scott Pilgrim. I liked when people liked that movie.

And seriously, that's it. A lot of cool and interesting things happened on this trip that I'd like to not quickly forget, so they go here. Lots of other pressing matters still linger over my head at the moment, but this is something best posted quickly afterwards.

On Justified Inebriation

Hello, my name is Ross Llewallyn. I'm currently a student at Georgia Tech, but my home is in East Cobb, where I grew up and went to school. This is my first letter to a representative, so you might guess that the issue I'm writing about is an important one to me. It's important, however, for reasons beyond imbibing alcohol purchased on Sundays.

Yes, I want the prohibition of selling alcohol on Sundays to be brought to local authority and eventually repealed from our community.

But let me be clear: I do not drink alcohol. I have no desire to do so, much less purchase it on any day of the week. Yet I care about this issue because it represents what I consider to be a violation of the separation of church and state. Residual "blue laws", with their origins in Christian principles, should be replaced with universal, secular ones.

I hope that my message and potentially different grounding on this issue demonstrates the multifaceted reasoning as to why this must go local and be repealed.

Thank you,
Ross Llewallyn

On Jet

Jet's first song on their album Shine On is titled "L'esprit de l'escalier". Only today do I decide to look up just what that means. It's a very interesting phrase that revolves around thinking of a great punchline far too late. This is done in the music in the sense that this track is a short sample of the last song on the album. Maybe it's backwards, I don't know.

But leave it to the French to coin a phrase that means this oddly specific scenario. Somehow I find it resonating with me, though a specific example of me experiencing this I just can't find. I think it's on a much more grandiose level. Superficially, when trying to impress, I fancy myself as being quit-witted, verbose, if vapid. For real decisions or discussions I'm a very slow, methodical person.

So perhaps this phrase applies to me not in the quick "punchline" sense, but in the slowest sense. It's almost as if I've turned the phrase over upon itself. Heck, maybe everyone can relate to this phrase, and it's not special to me at all. That's likely.

There's more to this, I know. I'm sure I'll be thinking about it.

On Head & Shoulders

I've got a pretty strong running streak of uninteresting Valentine's Days. Really, I don't get too bothered by the holiday. It's not as if this day is a special marker to breach to ensure happiness. It doesn't hurt any more than any other day, which may be more than I'd like to admit.

The effect it has on others does get to me, however. I used to have potential commiserators, but they're being swooped up right quick.

As usual, I chickened out from asking the tough question on an otherwise upbeat evening. Some part of me wants to cling to this stable position I've got. The other part is this no-consequences, tell-all side that likes to take a backseat in truly stressful situations.

She's going to France for the summer. Is that why? If she was back home, would it be that different? Probably. Being far away from home has a... "liberating" sensation. It's good to leave ties behind and not create ones before you go.

I've experienced that before...

But she's someone I can talk to, someone with which I feel like I'm always on the same level. I get that with some people, but then there are other, smaller things. There are also things I don't know, but for once, I feel like finding out.

People don't often click for me, and she did. This isn't a move a make often. I can count on my hand the number of times. What I'm saying is that I'm serious. This is more than something of annoyance, some nagging responsibility across the pond.

I wonder what she'd think if she read this. It's so silly of me to pine here, alone, hoping for chance to turn in my favor. But if I ask, that somehow makes me weak, desperate. Bit late for that, I guess.

I play such stupid games with myself.