I’ll forgo describing most of October in detail as I might have otherwise and just give you the highlights.
In the beginning of October, just after the English Society’s initiation, I discovered a plethora of false friends who just hung around me in the hopes of free booze. I next realized that I’ve never had the girl that I have ever pursued and that I’ve always been someone else’s second or third pick myself. Pretty much that entire first week served to reinforce the knowledge of what disgusting, pathetic, and petty creatures we humans are. Soon, the campus brought in therapy dogs for the students and dear God did I need them! Even so, I had a rough time coping with my betrayed trust. Despite immersing myself in creative writing and music and exercise, which usually works, I found myself physically restraining myself from flying into fits of rage and self-loathing after an even closer friend stabbed me in the back. While I would like to say that these emotions weren’t my own fault, I was the one who had decided to trust the bastard who abused a secret that I had told him. He used it so that he could get the girl that I was pursuing and then estrange me from what “friends” I had by twisting the secret and telling it to everyone and their second cousin. Revealing it to the wrong person was my fault, even if the resulting despicable conniving was not.
Anyhow, after several days, absurd amounts of time in the gym, listening to scores of enraged music, a maniacal bike ride that should have killed me, some blood, and a dozen shattered chopsticks later, I sort of kind of not really got over it. I supposed that I had hoped for too much from people when I should have stuck to what I had grown up believing. I should have remembered to think that people cannot be trusted and that they are always looking out for themselves. Eh. C’est la vie.
Later, I was introduced to the glories of the school’s TV talk show “Yak Back” where they had me shadow the sound board and camera operators. They were discussing a woman in London who had married herself for one segment. When one of the program’s guests didn’t show, I became an emergency “Yakker” and they had me propose to myself on camera. On public television. Yeah. That happened. Well, I shouldn’t be too worried. Contrary to my expectations, this seems to be a joke show as we just make fun of silly people in sensational tabloid stories. Instead of a program like Wolf Blitzer’s, imagine something more along the lines of the Colbert Report. My job for the third segment, while they were discussing an Australian who had murdered and cooked his girlfriend, was put into the credits as “Official Cat Wrangler” because, yes, the show’s host brought his kitten to the show and it wouldn’t stay on his lap or shoulder. It was adorable.
My happiness high was then killed the moment I realized that I had to attend another visiting author’s book reading that night. The other two that I had wanted to sleep through weren’t encouraging. However, I was captivated by Kent Wascom and his reading from “The Blood of Heaven.” Between the venue’s more intimate atmosphere, Wascom’s superior and almost poetically gothic writing style, and his references to Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” in his upcoming book’s prologue, I found the whole experience to be wonderful! I even managed to get a signed copy of the book and chat with the amiable and enthusiastic author. He seemed to appreciate that someone had identified his Poe reference. As an amateur author myself, I knew the excited gleam in his eyes accompanied by the barely restrained dancing and jumping for joy. That look comes from a reader understanding what you had tried to convey or reference, but were unsure whether it had come across or not. This was his inscription:
“To Matt, for seeing to the dark kernel of Poe in the reading!”
Well, it was more like a whole ear of corn, as his reference almost directly paralleled or copied the original imagery, but there was nuance and I was proud to recognize it and ecstatic to see how my recognition gratified Mr. Wascom. I know that it is brief and almost meaningless. It has no consequence and for some reason it made me supremely happy. I went to bed with the book beside my head and with the grin of a satisfied puppy on my face.
Soon after, I drove some friends to the Holyoak mall, questing for Halloween junk (the best kind of junk, mind you!) where, due to my personal errands, we separated. Once I got the mundane stuff over with, I could not find the others for love nor money, as they kept flitting from store to store faster than I could keep up, as girls do. I decided “Screw it, I’ll browse some clothes.” I haven’t actually gone clothes shopping for pleasure in years. Sure, I got the essentials and stuff to go with my suits for boarding school, but I hadn’t gone and bought clothes just because they appealed to me since my sophomore year. Well, long story short, I got clothes that I loved (and were cheap) and they all came together to look like a goth’s outfit and I hadn’t even intended it. Here I am wearing suits just because I like them each week and then I appear in all black with a zip-up hoodie with fake-leather highlights, fingerless black sailing gloves (so warm and useful!), and a beanie with the Scout Regiment emblem from “Attack on Titan” printed on it. What a strange transition…
Speaking of strange, once we got back from the mall, one of the guys, Pat MacFee, decided to grab his ukulele because the dorms were almost empty for Columbus weekend and there were few people to bother. He started playing, both of us sang, and the night turned into a massive jam session revolving around songs by Katy Perry and Taking Back Sunday. I love these guys! I couldn’t help thinking as Pat and I finished the last harmony in “MakeDamnSure.” I’m not a great singer and the matter was worsened by my unfamiliarity with the songs, but it was hilarious! The sight of two muscular guys singing Katy Perry stuff and playing emo-rock on the ukulele earned looks from passersby that ranged from appreciative to thoroughly confused and they were priceless.
To cap it all off, I went to the cinema to review “Dracula Untold” for the school newspaper. What threw me for a loop was how I had to cross out the lines that I had prepared regarding how terrible the film was. I couldn’t keep them because the film was actually kind of good. It wasn’t great, but I expected a complete flop, considering Hollywood’s history of botching “Dracula” remakes or any vampire movie in the last eight years.
I guess that my point is that, while October in many ways was one of the worst months that I’ve ever had since elementary school, many of my expectations were faulty or entirely wrong. I’m usually a good judge of character and I was wrong. I thought that the school TV show would have serious content. I was mistaken. I expected that Kent Wascom’s reading would bore me to tears when I entered and I felt giddy as a schoolboy when I left. I believed that I would always be a straight shooter and, between the new fashion and my tastes in music, I think that I’m turning into an emo (help me). I suppose that I have become too ingrained and comfortable in the parameters that I have set on my life and the categories that I put everything into. I thought that I was accepting and non-judgmental, but these incidents demonstrate that, while I’m not branding people with harsh terms at the get-go, I have allowed myself to be guided by prejudices and expectations. Perhaps I am not so adept at reading people as I thought and perhaps I should just expect that life will throw the unexpected at me, as cliché as that sounds. Live and learn, right? I don’t think that I or anyone can totally overcome our biases and prevent ourselves from assuming. However, maybe I needed this month to remind me that I should be more conscious of what conclusions my brain is drawing before I act on them.
I hope that everything is fine and dandy in your lives! I realize that I forgot to mention this since starting at UMass, but please leave comments and criticisms for what in the blog I could improve, be it writing style, photos, or anything. Have a great week and enjoy Veterans’ Day. I know that the hardcore drinkers here will.
