Slatternly Trollop or Vainglorious Jezebel

Parties here make me feel pure and bright, much like the pit parties of another freshman year. It's a much stronger sensation now because I'm more self-aware. Being bright and joyous came naturally four years ago. For me, it persists. A friend recently confided that he's admired me for that, that in some odd way, he looks up to me. He asked that I never change. Of course, there will be wholly necessary developments to change me, but I profoundly hope that this current essence remains.

Early evening, rollin' up to the party, it's exciting to be welcomed into a place where I know nearly everyone and will meet more by the time I leave. There are moments when I double up in laughter, hear stories from a dark and terrible past, learn more about people I've recently met. Last night, I sang Britney Spears and Christmas carols. Again, my fabulous contact drunk conveyed the appearance of actual intoxication, but that merely impresses the people who are new to the fact of my abstinence. A number of people have expressed their undying appreciation for me during these drunken revelries. I expect they do not remember in the morning.

By the end of the night, there's a soft point where I wander a disconnect through the party. My friends who are sad drunks are sad. My friends who are otherwise are beyond the point of conversation. I've learned not to think about pit parties during this time.

I couldn't have ever imagined what it's like to be high, and I feel even less of a familiarity with the sensation of drunkenness. It's one of the few unknowns that would be more terrifying if it was pleasant.

Woody's

Woody's is a gay bar/club in center city and the location for Mitchell's birthday party last night.

I was excited to dance. I'd never been to any sort of club in my life, Kacey had raved for years about the excellence of this particular venue, and my hair cut + hoochie dress were dying to be tried out together. The evening leading up the outing was fun as well. Jake, Austin, Bubba, Kevin, and I played chirades in my room. At one point, I suggested only literary figures, and eventually chose Tennessee Williams. To illustrate my chirade, I chose Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, one of his central plays. Unfortunately, after getting "Cat __ _ Hot ___ Roof," they persisted in naming Dr. Seuss. Realizing my mistake, I switched to "A Streetcar Named Desire," which didn't take too long for them to figure out. Unfortunately, nobody, including English major, Jake, knew the author.

From ~9-10:30, I hung out with Matt, relaying to him the lecture on the geometry of music and generally talking about the interrelationship of music, math, architecture, and linguistics. We caught fourth meal, and I had too many mozzarella sticks for going clubbing in half an hour. I arrived back in my room at 10:40, giving me roughly 10 minutes to get into my dress and put on a little make up. Luckily, I'm not actually a girl and it worked. Dress. Pants. Eyeliner. Eyeliner. Lip gloss. Go! We met in the lobby of my building and headed to the subway! Tragically, we learned a party member did not bring an ID with a birth date on it, so she had to go back and rejoin us later. Her night was generally unfortunate about being inconvenient.

Club! Coat check was mandatory, an additional $2 to the $10 cover charge. It's up some stairs in a red lit room with a raised wooden dance floor. The DJs are phenomenal. Everything was expertly done, and I immediately set to dancing. Within a minute, I'd found a dance partner, and within 5 minutes, I'd been licked and declined further dancing with that particular person. Being my first experience there or at any club, I awkwardly danced near friends for a while before setting off to dance like my enthusiastic white self. It was the least discriminatory place I'd ever been. I danced with guys and girls, old and young, black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. It was wild and also very hot. Water was $4, so I gave no damns about drinking out of the sink. Two persons expressed interest in taking me home, one female, one male. That was flattering.

Afterward, the majority of our party went to IHOP for celebratory breakfast foods. IHOP serves neither sides nor rootbeer floats, but it is possible to order a scoop of ice cream and a soda for the unreasonable price of $5.19 + the going tax rate, which was $0.38 for me. Mitchell knew the server, and being the only patrons of the establishment, we all sat together creating pornos from movie titles or sharing ones we'd already heard. It started with a mention of "Saving Ryan's Privates," and progressed to "Guy Hard," "28 Gays Later," "Bitanic," and the eventual mention of "BI-HOP." We took a cab home, being nearly 3:30 in the morning, and I slept until 11. Lovely.

Trash and Plans

Talented People

Interesting Graphic

Pseudo-Science Made Real Science
(and job that I kinda want)

Today, I stole a number of lovely things from the Tyler disposal bins, but tomorrow is the official clean out day, so tomorrow is gonna be wild. I'm going to Woody's tonight for the first time, followed by late night IHOP. Abi is going to call me tomorrow at 6:45 to see if I'm still down for swimming. That's gonna be baller. We're going to go thrifting as well, is the plan, with a late night Temple-Georgetown game I have to play for. Call time is 8:15, and we always get there 45 minutes early. :P

Exciting!

Last night, everything bad or unpleasant that had been dwelling on my mind broke and left me. I'm so utterly relieved.

Wrexploring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1jfa68LrRI


I walk really close to the wall when I turn a corner, which sometimes means I almost bump into people.

Finally, of the two remaining movies on my 2009 Resolution list, Colin has graciously offered his copy and couch for me to finish American History X.

Beautiful Lecture

This afternoon, I attended a joint colloquium held by the music and mathematics department on "The Geometry of Music." As far as anyone was aware, it was the first time those two departments held any formal collaboration. The lecture was hosted by Princeton composition professor, Dmitri Tymeczko. His initial intent, in first attending Harvard, was to become a student of mathematics. Eventually, he discovered music to be his true love. For a brief time, he also studied philosophy at U.C. Berkeley. Additionally, he is attractive. Surprisingly, he spoke with elegance and personality. The circular, repetitive nature of the piano keyboard he described as the Maria principle: "ti, a drink with jam and bread, and that brings us back to doe!" "What takes six weeks of education for a new musician to compose, takes similarly forty-five minutes of programming for the computer science student." This was in reference to the brutally statistical nature of creating consonance.

1. Melodies move by short distances or "conjunct melodic motion"
2. Harmonies are structurally similar
3. Chords should be intrinsically consonant
4. Limited macro harmonies, in that a composition should use between 5-8 notes within a few bars
5. a Tonal center is present

By creating a computer program to generate a random series of notes, he would then apply limitations to the series. Melodies would need to move within 2-3 notes of the original. Harmonies would stay within the same keys, major, minor, harmonics. This was the introduction for the students of music. From there, he elaborated on geometry. While notes are usually perceived as a discrete concept, a repetitive octet, they are, in fact, continuous, with infinite tones between the traditionally defined notes. Because of the repetitive nature described earlier, the tones can be displayed as a circular form. For his presentation, colorful circles would represent locations on the keyboard, then illustrating the geometric patterns between chords of a certain key. He illustrated Chopin's prelude in E minor with a hypercube of related chords. With my limited knowledge of both music and mathematics, I could not understand the full concept, let alone relate it, but I loved it. At once, he described the melody of an atonal chord as, "restless shimmering within stasis." It was a convergence of knowledge beyond anything I'd ever seen. He created three dimensional models of music that he intents to sculpt. I understood the ability of Iannis Xannakis to construct music based on architecture. I felt privileged beyond measure to witness a man use the beautiful, broken English language to convey this idea of music as mathematical notation. Linguistics. Music. Mathematics. Expression of importance, in my lifetime, occurs nearly exclusively through these systematic notations.

"You have a good memory right? Like, you remember stuff. I like that about you. When I talk to you, you remember who I'm talking about, the stories continue into each other."

I didn't realize that this was a unique thing.


During the party on Friday, I walked up to Max and TA Jeff during the last word of their conversation. Jeff was having his lady friend over that night, and Max finished with, "...she's gonna come over, suck your dick, then fall asleep on the bed together!" With that, they noticed I had been in earshot. Jeff gave a "Max, in front of Chloe?" kind of look. It was endearing to me that they felt the need to protect my innocent ears. I fear that I am giving an innocent vibe. It will eventually benefit me to not have randomly hooked up with a band guy. I've never waited for a guy, and by that measure, I've never had a guy wait for me. I've never fucked a boyfriend. I don't have sensuous sex. The guys here don't have to know that. I can evoke tenderness. It'll take some work. It will take some resistance. I'll have to finally say "no," but in return, it will be under my power to finally choose, "yes."

Last Week

It's hard to explain what happened. Nobody knew I had any sort of obligation, let alone my most important relationship. I never earned the title of girlfriend. There was no beginning. There was no anniversary to celebrate. But there is definitely an end, and I have my own sort of sadness. It comes up when they ask about my hair, when we talk about boys. They tell me, "I don't know this guy, but he's a douchebag and you're way better off without him." "He's a dumbass for dropping your gorgeous ass." I say, "But no, he really is my best friend. I'm going to see him all the time over break." Most girls tell me that's not good. That I need time away from him to get over it. Guys ask me if I'd still do stuff with him.

I could've gone home with anybody on Friday. Though, to avoid dumb mistakes, I've sworn celibacy into the new year.

Last Nights

Friday night was the formal band party at the Maggot House. Tina lent me her "freak 'em dress;" Shay did my hair and makeup; Katy lent me her pearl earrings. I felt pretty as a politician's wife. Girls complimented my hair with warm words. Guy complimented my look with their eyes. Poppa Max told me to go break some hearts, I was lookin' so fine. Katy, Kat, and I hung out during the preparations process, reading Cosmo, talkin' 'bout boys. We eventually went with the unanimous decision to roll out in jeans and hoodies 'cuz it was so cold and windy that night. Upon arriving at the party, John D. scorned the lack of fancy, but soon relented once us ladies squashed up in the bathroom to strip down to our lil' dresses. As this night was a "fuck boys, I just wanna dance" kinda night, we were pumpin' the hip-hop jams. A few of us danced, but only during "Roses" was there a large chorus. Being at the Maggot House, there were a number of non-band kids present unaware that I don't drink. Dancing as I was, dressed as I was, there were some strong indicators that I was drunk. However, in reality, myself being a sober fox, I caught a number of guys staring and took notes on who ogles the drunk chicks. At one point, a kid passed out near the bathroom and started throwing up. John D., like a drunk child-ape, danced around hollering, "Look at this kid puking! Look at the kid throwing up!" I told him to shut up and helped move this kid into the bathroom. He almost pulled the porcelain top off the toilet onto himself, but I grabbed it before anything shattered, including his nose. The other guy helping me commended the catch and was surprised to find I was sober. After that, I wandered aimlessly through the party. I introduced Kira and Gab to a whole bunch of people no one involved will remember, but otherwise the night was over for me.

~~~~~

Yesterday, Matt came with me to the Divine Lorraine to help me film/stencil/fight off crack heads. He came over around 2, so I could have company while cutting out the stencil of Divine on the body of Jesus. (Of course, wanting a larger stencil but only having cardboard, I stupidly forgot how much I hate cardboard as a medium.) This abandoned hotel is two subway stops away, but eff paying for that, so we walked. To note, we saw a hot pink stretch Hummer on the way there. A garish contrast to the dilapidated elegance we were about to see. After circling the building for a way in, we discovered a wrenched open door that required a bit of maneuvering to get in. Being my lithe-self, I managed it pretty easily, but Matt is tall and geometric and almost got stuck. The door that we entered through was immediately adjacent to the basement, so that was our first, horrifying stop. While it would probably would have been perfectly quaint if well lit, the flashlight we brought was not sufficient to dispel my slight fears of humanoid, Quarantine-esque mutants. Not wanting to carry around my stencil for the rest of our exploration, I sprayed it near the doorway and abandoned the cardboard to its fate. The first floor still retained a lot of elegance. While it was also the most trash-bedecked, there was evidence of crown molding and columns, the two pink marble staircases arch up on the North and South sides of the building. For the entirety of our adventure, we elected to use the South side staircase, and for good measure, as we later found out. Once we were ready to start heading upstairs, I took a moment to film some of the original architecture while Matt investigated some other section. Once I put down the camera, I noticed my shadow was cast unusually dark across the room. I turned to my right as Matt entered the room and noticed my shadow hadn't moved. Within that very short, very terrifying moment, my shadow vanished out of sight. Less than a moment later, I was calm again, realizing it was just the benevolent resident homeless person. He told us it was fine if we took pictures, though that moment of horror was perhaps influenced by my thoughts of basement dwelling creatures. Every floor held new works of graffiti. There were more interesting things on the outer balconies, but as it got colder and darker, we more hurriedly took to the stairs rather than leisurely looking at bad tags and mediocre pieces. It was interesting to note that there was not a single other piece of stencil work in the building. While I recognize it's mostly a white thing, I thought it would be more prolific. Finally, we reached the top floor, home to an enormous atrium. I went out onto the balcony and took pictures of the city. It didn't take long for us to find roof access, the first time I'd roof'd it in Philadelphia. It was unbelievable. I was more fearless than Matt, but that also came with me almost stumbling backwards on a very slanted eave. There was more excellent graffiti on the roof than there had been anywhere else thus far. I freehanded a mark for myself, but Matt and I agreed to come back when he had planned out something for him to write. Part of it came with sadness and being alive and higher than the rooftops and losing the feeling of something important, but I wrote "invincible summer" and meant it.