December 01, 2003

Intensity, Turkey, and Consumerism

This year's Thanksgiving holiday had to be one of the most intense ever! Not going back home for the first time ever; staying in the dorms and cooking turkey (well I didn't cook, Lizzy did, but I was a nuisance and got in the way); and just being around in Berkeley when no one else was all contributed to the aforementioned intensity. But, what do you mean by intense? Well, I don't know—it just was. Some things defy articulation. But that won't stop me from trying to explain.

Most of Thanksgiving Day was spent stumbling around attempting to cook for residents. To tell you the truth, I don't know how it even happened. The turkey was actually cooked. The food was actually good. And I was actually present. These things rarely correlate with one another. The day seems like a blur now. What's funny is that this was actually my first Thanksgiving where I had turkey at all. My family never celebrated Thanksgiving and I usually never acknowledged it for anything more than a four-day weekend. So I guess now I can say I have had turkey on Thanksgiving in the true American sense. Of course, that implies that American refers to eating turkey off a paper plate, drinking Martinelli, and sitting in Ida Sproul Main Lounge, while watching MTV, with three hall staff, and about fifteen people I don't know. Wow, I make it sound like a homeless shelter or something. It really wasn't that bad.

Friday (the biggest shopping day of the year!) I suffered a major disappointment when I failed to wake up for the 5 am Best Buy trip that I had been looking forward to for months now. In an angry state of rebellion, I decided to just go and waste the money I had initially allocated for some cool new electronic toy on some completely useless, perfunctory items, like clothes. Now some people may disagree with this (and they would be wrong in doing so), but I'm of the strong opinion that clothes are completely useless. Not that I'm advocating nudity—it's too cold for that here. But clothing is a necessity in the same way food is a necessity. You need it to survive. You know, food, shelter, warmth—that kind of stuff.

Clothing, however, no matter how hard you try to make it, is not cool. No pleasure is derived from buying a new sweater. Not in the same way as buying a cool new gadget. Case in point: what's cooler? Buying an awesome new electronic item that has features that you don't even know how to use, or buying an overpriced pair of worn-in jeans that look as if though the have been abused by small child with a pair of Crayola scissors from trendy and potentially racist store, all in the name of the style? Wow, sweet! I just paid $80 for a pair of faded and torn pants! I could of done this myself with a bottle of bleach and a Swiss Army knife, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that it has a tiny label that no one can read that makes me cool and popular and rich. Okay—enough knocking the designer clothes. I wear them too. But I never, ever, ever will claim that shopping for clothes is anything but a chore.

Anyway, shopping done and money wasted, albeit on nonsense, the break began to wind to a rather unexpected close. But this is when things got really intense! My staff and I (those that were around) watched episodes of The X-Files from Season 1 and it was actually a very weirdly emotional night for me. I never realized how much I'm attached to that show. Like emotionally attached. I was really obsessed for a very long time with it, and anytime I watch an episode, especially an earlier one that are all SO DAMN GOOD, it puts me in a weird, pseudo-nostalgic state. Anyway, that's about as far as I can explain it—perhaps you get a sense of the intensity now? Then again, perhaps not. In any case, another semester is winding to a close, and I am just beginning to realize that with it comes the end of college. Only got three semesters left. On a more pressing note, it sucks how the break went by so fast and finals are coming and I have projects and . . . .