Just Jump

Orientation starts tomorrow, and I am completely terrified. I'm not entirely sure what I'm terrified of, but here are a few possibilities:

Maybe I'll hate it. Maybe I'll realize that I had no good reason to apply to law school and I really am here on a two-year whim and I should have put more effort into this decision.

Maybe I'll say something horrible. I wouldn't put it past me. When I get nervous, sometimes my tact-dar, not great to begin with, goes completely haywire. Heaven help me.

Maybe I'll say something stupid (not horrible, just unintelligent) to or in front of someone important. Like a professor. Or the dean. Or a cute boy.

Maybe I just won't make friends. And my old friends will ditch me, and I'll be living in this beautiful apartment (it's really phenomenal) all alone, like Roderick Usher...or something.

Maybe I just won't do the work. I could become paralyzed at any moment. I could not show up to orientation and just stay in my bed trembling for the next month. I probably won't, but it doesn't seem as out-of-the-question as it once did.

But more likely, it will be good. Orientation won't be great; I can't imagine how it could be. But it will be fine, and then class will start, and I'll be stressed out. And then hopefully in a month or so, I'll look at my life and realize it's pretty good...that I'm spending a lot of my time and mental power on interesting and important philosophical and cultural issues. That's kind of what I'm hoping for. Wish me luck.

Unrequited Love (the blog post!)

But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
—Abraham Cowley

All right, I admit it: I took that from the Wikipedia entry, /Unrequited_love. So sue me.

Unrequited love is, like, one of the big emotions, right? Shakespeare! Dante! Hugo! Et cetera! They all took on unrequited love, holding it up as one of the most all-consuming, powerful feelings a person can have. Woe unto the man or woman struck with this affliction, for it can inspire you to great achievement, but all the while it tears out your heart. This is the reaction we have to unrequited love.

...OR IS IT?

What was the last reaction you had to someone who loved in vain? Was it, "Oh God, I'm so, so sorry for your suffering."? Was it, "Take this burning passion and sublimate it! Let it drive you."? Or was it, "Yeah, that sucks. But at least you know: He's married/gay/straight/not into you. Now get over him."? I'm betting on that one.

To everyone's credit, that is the healthiest response, getting over him. But I wonder why we believe this to be so overwhelmingly possible today, to the point where it's considered a sign of immaturity not to get over your crush? When did we delegitimize unrequited love? I don't think the feeling has gotten any less potent in the last 500 years (although I'd imagine the selective pressure for genes that help you get over crushes would be strong).

Kudos, then, to Barry McCrea. When I read this essay he wrote for Sex Week at Yale, I found it enormously refreshing. I haven't looked at it since it was published a year or two ago, but it's stuck with me throughout. (Looking at it again, now, I realize exactly how much it's stuck with me...and I again doubt Ms. Viswanathan's guilt. Anyway.) He acknowledges how bad it can be—see the friend who lost her job—without dismissing or demeaning it. I especially like his point that unrequited love takes you outside yourself...even though I'm not sure I agree with it. Yes, there is an external object, but your internal interpretation of this person is really the fixation, no?

In any case, I'd like to put in my vote for "unrequited love is serious shit." Sure, call it a silly crush. Dismiss it. Laugh about it. That's all necessary to save face. But if it persists and grows, know you're far from the first to have felt this way. Is it unhealthy? Hells, yeah. But your fellow invalids have a long history of producing great poetry and art. You're in good company, you pathetic puppy dog.

Falling in Love with Love

A recent conversation prompted me to wonder: When did we start to hate love? I mean, we all want love for ourselves, but at what point did an affectionate, happy couple stop evoking "aw"s and start evoking "ugh"s? And when did the announcement of an engagement stop being cause for joy and start being cause for whispers about how long it will last. I mean, I suppose it started when we saw which people were getting engaged right out of college and noticed that a fair percentage of them were passionate but fickle people who shouldn't be putting a down payment on an apartment, much less getting hitched. Not all of them...but a fair percentage. I remember, when I was young, I used to watch romantic comedies where the woman eventually had to choose between love and career. And I always thought, "Just go for love; that's what will make you happy!" And in the end, she always did. Now I'd think, "If you have a great career opportunity, for god's sake, take it!" If the guy's good for you, he'll urge you to make the same choice.

Maybe young people have always been cynical about love. Really, it's usually little kids and old people who smile at happy couples. Maybe they have a better perspective on life and know what's really important. Or maybe it's just that most little kids I see have married parents and most old people I see found a life partner. So not only do they not have anything to be jealous of, they may have forgotten how frequently love spectacularly flops. Or not-so-spectacularly flops.

Something about Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach rings pretty true. Twenty-somethings, to say nothing of teenagers, can be insecure and fucked up. Sure, there are some great couples out there. I'm proud to say I know a few. I'm less thrilled to say they're disproportionately religious Christians. Doesn't bode well for me and most of my friends.

But enough with the moping: All but one of the UU apps are in, and that's exciting. I had lunch with Brad and his UU school buddy Nick today. Nick was talking about a case going on somewhere he works (worked? I don't remember). Even though it was in an area of UU I'm not too into, it was pretty spectacular. The evolution of the UU has left some crazy-ass loopholes, and people in the know are far better at exploiting them than your average feller. So average fellers get screwed. With so much emphasis on companies and people who are tacitly evil, it's sometimes easy to forget how many companies and people are explicitly evil. During those times, I like to think of my old landlord. Ah, me.

Back to work post-vacation tomorrow. It was nice to spend time at Slave again.

The Rock of the Dome

I've become mildly obsessed with the idea of shaving my head. No, don't worry, I probably won't do it. People have been reminding me that my hair's my best feature for about ten years, now, and I'm not that self defeating. A little self-defeating, sure. But not that self-defeating.

In any case, I'm not sure whether it's my undiagnosed (but unquestionably existent) trichotillomania, whether it's a symptom of a general disgust with the body, or whether it's just a cry for sensation—I'm sure those three are all related anyway. But still, every time I feel the weight of my hair, or the itch of my dandruffy scalp or the faint presence of the buildup of oils and junk from conditioners galore...I just think of how glorious it would be to be free. To turn this bizarre stretch of skin into normal skin. To expose it to all of the elements: sun, wind, water, a rough towel.

Of course then I'd be stuck with a bald head, which isn't so bad in itself—I'd enjoy the freedom from hair for a good long while—but it does mean I'd either have to keep it bald or wait for it to grow in. And then I'd have short hair. Blech. I'd have over a year of hair that doesn't even hang down from my head. I really don't think that's my look.

Maybe I could invest in some ultra-exclusive scalp treatment, where they could make my hair stick out and just go over every inch with some tool that treats my scalp with heat and rubbing and a little UV. That could be really good.