An Argument Against the Empirical Method
Well, I decided to finally sit down and try to write all I’ve been thinking about writing but haven’t. For an hour, this consisted of me quoting songs, movies, and obscure poetry to myself. Instance:
(AN ARGUMENT AGAINST THE EMPIRICAL METHOD
by William Stafford:
Some haystacks don’t even have any needle.)
And then I came to the realisation that I should actually write something. So I overcompensated and wrote too much about nothing in particular. Yes, I know. I’m bad at this game. But here is this oblong bit of blather and you suddenly feel compelled to read it (you know you do).
Sigh.
Let’s see… interesting things that have been happening in my life… Yesterday, I got up at bloody 4:30 in the morning to catch the only bus to Smithfield, where my best friend lives (Public transportation: one, Hannah: zero). Then Laura and I spent eight straight hours of watching movies/television, five of which were devoted to a bootleg download of Angels in America. I still have not seen the six hour. This makes me sad.
Later, as I stood at the sketchy bus stop in front of the sketchy Smithfield Motel aside the sketchy Smithfield highway (Public transportation: two, Hannah: zero), I got a call from, you guessed it, Nina Foucher! Which made me much happy. And Nina may be coming to visit Brown and crash at my house next week. Which makes me happier. And the moral of this story is that each of you should come visit Brown or something else in Providence so that you can crash on my air mattress. And make me happiest.
So anyway (classic sophisticated transition), today I somehow ended up at school (though I don’t start until this Wednesday), at freshman orientation. Fucking freshman orientation. Not that I dislike the freshman, because I don’t, but the orientation part is, well, depressing. Or maybe that’s just because I got there late, at eleven o’clock, after all the fun stuff was already over. Just in time for mass.
I started at Bay View a couple months late as a freshman, so I never made it to my own orientation and, before today, I had never experienced a mass in the actual school chapel. Indeed, I had never really been in the chapel with other people; I had a habit of going there really early in the morning or whenever I just needed some time to sit/pace/think. When you get to school as early as I do (Public transportation: three, Hannah: zero), it’s still darkish outside and the light filters very differently through the stained-glass. Only the lightest parts of the windows (hands, halos …lilies) show up really brightly and everything else is lost in the shadows. It’s really rather striking. So it was somewhat disorienting to see the chapel flooded with sunlight and swarming with freshmen and just... corrupted-like.
(In the Cathedrals of New York and Rome, there is a feeling that you should just go home, and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is.)
In other news: I’ve been walking a lot lately. For instance, I walked over two towns and a river to get to school last Monday. (Hannah: one. Public transportation: ...that’s not the point I’m trying to make, here.) Many of you have already heard the tale of my proud adventure, walking barefoot through downtown Providence. (And for those of you who haven’t, it’s not much of a story. I walked through downtown Providence without shoes. That’s about it.) But as I was walking, and siting, and thinking along our inner-city-river-that’s-really-a-creek-thank-you-Paul, I was constantly reminded of each of you by somethingorother. Which isn’t saying much, because everything bloody reminds me of you (much as I try not to dwell on it-hah), resulting in a dull, coreless haunting of everything I thought I knew. Instance: the little black book at the foot of Westminster Street (they put it out for visitors to sign) reminds me of Josh and his moleskin. How many times had I seen that little tomb before I went to Ithaca and not thought of Josh? Alas, it’s very sweat of sentiment, but it’s true. I met you all before I met you.
Only now I miss you.
And despite the fact that I hate driving and nearly killed myself and seven other people on the highway yesterday, I feel fully justified in saying:
(It's you and me until the wheels fall off.)
PS: And my screen name, due to the fickleness of AIM, is now gummiebearcommie, for those of you who have not heard.
PPS: And Happy Belated Birthday, TEDDY!
(AN ARGUMENT AGAINST THE EMPIRICAL METHOD
by William Stafford:
Some haystacks don’t even have any needle.)
And then I came to the realisation that I should actually write something. So I overcompensated and wrote too much about nothing in particular. Yes, I know. I’m bad at this game. But here is this oblong bit of blather and you suddenly feel compelled to read it (you know you do).
Sigh.
Let’s see… interesting things that have been happening in my life… Yesterday, I got up at bloody 4:30 in the morning to catch the only bus to Smithfield, where my best friend lives (Public transportation: one, Hannah: zero). Then Laura and I spent eight straight hours of watching movies/television, five of which were devoted to a bootleg download of Angels in America. I still have not seen the six hour. This makes me sad.
Later, as I stood at the sketchy bus stop in front of the sketchy Smithfield Motel aside the sketchy Smithfield highway (Public transportation: two, Hannah: zero), I got a call from, you guessed it, Nina Foucher! Which made me much happy. And Nina may be coming to visit Brown and crash at my house next week. Which makes me happier. And the moral of this story is that each of you should come visit Brown or something else in Providence so that you can crash on my air mattress. And make me happiest.
So anyway (classic sophisticated transition), today I somehow ended up at school (though I don’t start until this Wednesday), at freshman orientation. Fucking freshman orientation. Not that I dislike the freshman, because I don’t, but the orientation part is, well, depressing. Or maybe that’s just because I got there late, at eleven o’clock, after all the fun stuff was already over. Just in time for mass.
I started at Bay View a couple months late as a freshman, so I never made it to my own orientation and, before today, I had never experienced a mass in the actual school chapel. Indeed, I had never really been in the chapel with other people; I had a habit of going there really early in the morning or whenever I just needed some time to sit/pace/think. When you get to school as early as I do (Public transportation: three, Hannah: zero), it’s still darkish outside and the light filters very differently through the stained-glass. Only the lightest parts of the windows (hands, halos …lilies) show up really brightly and everything else is lost in the shadows. It’s really rather striking. So it was somewhat disorienting to see the chapel flooded with sunlight and swarming with freshmen and just... corrupted-like.
(In the Cathedrals of New York and Rome, there is a feeling that you should just go home, and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is.)
In other news: I’ve been walking a lot lately. For instance, I walked over two towns and a river to get to school last Monday. (Hannah: one. Public transportation: ...that’s not the point I’m trying to make, here.) Many of you have already heard the tale of my proud adventure, walking barefoot through downtown Providence. (And for those of you who haven’t, it’s not much of a story. I walked through downtown Providence without shoes. That’s about it.) But as I was walking, and siting, and thinking along our inner-city-river-that’s-really-a-creek-thank-you-Paul, I was constantly reminded of each of you by somethingorother. Which isn’t saying much, because everything bloody reminds me of you (much as I try not to dwell on it-hah), resulting in a dull, coreless haunting of everything I thought I knew. Instance: the little black book at the foot of Westminster Street (they put it out for visitors to sign) reminds me of Josh and his moleskin. How many times had I seen that little tomb before I went to Ithaca and not thought of Josh? Alas, it’s very sweat of sentiment, but it’s true. I met you all before I met you.
Only now I miss you.
And despite the fact that I hate driving and nearly killed myself and seven other people on the highway yesterday, I feel fully justified in saying:
(It's you and me until the wheels fall off.)
PS: And my screen name, due to the fickleness of AIM, is now gummiebearcommie, for those of you who have not heard.
PPS: And Happy Belated Birthday, TEDDY!
posted by Hannah at 8:35 PM
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