2:59 p.m.||||2001-12-29
Oh my God, this has the complete makings of a nightmare. I am a total imbecile. This is virtual fucking reality. I am mesmerized by video, I can only stare at images of myself like viewing an animal at the zoo, or examining a specimen in a petri dish in the lab. Scientifically. It is shocking to witness my own mannerisms. On the other hand, in 6 minute delays, I only have to deal with a portion, little freeze-frames (Freeze-Frame!), tiny chunks. I seem almost tolerable.
Even though I don't want to, I'm going to tell a story. One time I was very angry and so I headed to the bus stop, heading for the bar. I'd been stood up: I was going to go get drunk by myself.
As I walked through my neighborhood I passed a house where a party was going on. The girl who'd stood me up was standing on the porch. She rather reluctantly called my name to get my attention. "Whassup?"(she might have said).
"I was on my way to the bar to get drunk by myself because you stood me up", I said.
Well, a party was going on, and it was intertwined with the making of a linguistic video thesis, for the graduate work of a certain person I happen to know. Who I don't like very much, she's condescending; but, she thinks I'm pretty much a jack-ass so it all works out just fine. She was getting her pals drunk on wine and then taping for ten minutes her friends forming plurals of imaginary words, to see what linguistic principles we employ in our grammer, specifically, plurals.
For example, she says "yab". I, imagining its plural, say "yabi". I wasn't the greatest at a couple of them, because I could hardly believe it was all taking place, plus I was angry that I only came to be there because if my friend hadn't called to me I would have been irate. I was the obligatory guest.
I was already kinda loaded, and I was, untrusting of the whole experiment. But I liked the plural thing and I played along, even though the whole time I was secretly huriting and fuming.
Later, we watched the video. We were all surprised at how we each manifest ourselves on the other side of the screen, and I still have to laugh. I figured I would look mean and angry, but I came out looking obedient and innocent of evil. I thought to myself, you're a total pussy. That made me angry all over again but at least I knew that on the outside, I looked like you just handed me ice cream.
She wasn't able to use our footage because we were all so obviously wasted, and in a couple frames there was a bong, and wine bottles. It was a mess.
That was really the night I learned my face can lie, even when I wish it wouldn't.