Today was a stressful day. For quite a while this afternoon, I was fretting having to come home and write about it because I really didn't want to relive it for you in front of my computer screen. Much of what I was planning on revolved around the idea of teaching and terror as a tool to accomplish that goal... I'll leave it at that.
I hadn't slept much last night. This is an admission: I may have done a little too much blogging (re:journaling) last night. There. I said it. After class today my sole purpose in life was to get home as fast humanly and MTA-ingly possible and enact Operation: Nap Time (which was a resounding success), but I found myself falling in to my usual pattern of engaging in a little verbal horseplay on the way to fetch things out of my locker. I ended up in a conversation with Ms. Toni Ann DeNoble. She's an actor in my class, and she's spectacular.
On a quick tangent: I did the exercise in Larry's class that I had posted about
earlier this week with Toni Ann and made a comment to her about having three fully-grown imaginations. Seriously, the woman in imagining on planes of existence that only three-year-olds can fully harness, such is the power of her imagination. It's a flabbergasting thing to see. It's a little like being a ninja in ninja school and watching one of your fellow student-ninjas ninja-sword fight with her feet... and win. It's ninja-impressive.
Back to the conversation: we had gotten involved in a conversation about the concept of age and what it means to people. I found that she's of like mind with me, where it becomes an annoyance to be constantly asked, "How old are you?"
I, for my part, have a bit of fun with this, and generally don't share right away with people my true count of sun-revolutions because, to me, it becomes an instant label to be confined in. In my life, it's almost always one of the first questions asked when meeting some one. It's like being sorted for future reference. Ideas are formed and my personality gets assigned weights based on measures of other people, rather than just being allowed to have someone learn about who I am the old-fashioned way. It's almost like:
Name: Jim
Age: 34
Political: Conservative
Religion: Mormon
Marital: Married
Children: Yes
Job: Dentist
Education: College Graduate; Dental school
... and so on and so forth
And, yes, these things come up; and, yes, they do define us, but there can be certain judgements that arise when certain other factors don't add up to a person's age. There's an assessment based on someone else's standards, like when you hear that there's a woman who's thirty-six that's never been married/no kids and is a manager at a watch store in the mall in the town she grew up in. You might think to yourself, "What's wrong with her? She should be doing a lot better for herself at thirty-six." I find that it's usually people in their fifties and people younger than their early twenties that tend (to me, at least) to assign so much significance to this number. The 50+ like to remind me about how I'm not married (because that's a fail, right) and how "much more" they had accomplished by the time they were my age. By people not old enough to drink in bars, I'm, "Old-as-shit, dude.", before I get assaulted with a litany of things that this person is going to do to be in a much better place when they reach my age.
This was essentially the nature of the conversation, and how this one little piece of information can so quickly define you in the eyes of others. It's such an inconsequential thing. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and yet it becomes the heavily-guarded secret by someone like myself, and as I discovered, Toni Ann, because you want people to know who you are and what you're about before offer them a little nugget of information that can help them make a snap decision. It's like a way of respecting yourself... maybe. Besides, isn't it much more exciting what you can learn about a person when you don't ask the expected questions? Anyway, that's the philosophy behind it, and one that we both, I found, share. I was so rapt in our chat, that I opted to take the train home (which adds an extra 20 minutes on to my commute to Astoria from the Upper West Side, just so I could squeeze in about ten extra minutes of brilliant conversation with her. It was good.
I had discovered myself thinking while listening to Zarif today in
Andrei's class that I really do enjoy the faces of the people who I get to share these next three years with. I mean, they have some really excellent, look-worthy faces; and thanks to these great little accidental moments with Toni Ann, I get to appreciate what goes on behind the faces that I'm coming to adore so much.
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To continue to honor Anika's demand for "More Photos!", here's a picture of some faces back from collaboration weekend. Tonia Ann, sadly, whom this post has been titled for is not present, but you can see for yourself some of the look-worthy faces that I mentioned earlier. Aren't they a good-looking group!?!? Also, this should please Sheyenne who constantly reminds me that I don't give her the attention she deserves.
"I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery."
- Rene Descartes
Doo zee Fool!
-R
