Insomnia

Well... I can't fall asleep. I think it's a combination of an uncomfortable bed and an overactive head. The fun thing about being a student is that during the school year, my brain is going constantly, trying to keep up with 22-24 units of course material and homework. By the time, I get to my bed, I am so exhausted, I usually fall asleep somewhere inbetween taking my pants off and lifting my leg onto the first rung of the bunkbed ladder. But, come May 2nd, my academic activity level plunges so low that little stalagtites start to form on the underside of my brainstem. All the sudden, no homework, no classes, no fiftymillion performances—nothing. My brain, thereforre, much like a goldfish that is plunged into its tank without floating in the little baggy to adjust, can't handle the transition. So here I am. It's 3:13 am and my brain is ticking away; suspended tonality, chord plurality, and the lyrics to songs I was supposed to memorize weeks before won't stop running through my head. For some reason, I can't stop thinking about the florentine camerata, a theater group in Renaissance Italy, out of which the stile recitativo and what came to be known as Opera formed. Why, do you ask, is this screaming through my head at this ungodly hour? Because it was the fourth question on my World Theater final, and my brain is still in study mode, even though school has been out for a month. So, here I am. I got up a few minutes ago and ate some pasta that Joel made for dinner. I didn't really want the pasta, I just wanted the savory chicken. Oh, chicken, chicken! Wherefore art thou chicken? Deny thy feathers and refuse thy beak. Or if thou wilt not, be sworn to my tummy and no longer be in the bowl. I figure that maybe eating will divert my bodies attention to my stomach rather than my brain. And boy, do I appreciate some good chicken. Wash it down with a glass of milk and I'm ready for bed. So, now I bid you farewell. I shall return to bed, with thoughts of Italian Theater and shakespearean chicken breast floating in my head. Soon I will have to wake, and endure a four hour drive to LA for a theater arts conference. Wish me luck. Hopefully, a little activity will help my brain swim around in cold waters, with no little plastic bag to aid the transition.

The Concept of Home

It seems like, in college, our concept of home becomes less solid than before. During the school year, our families learn, sometimes with great difficulty, to live without us. And when we return, the process of unlearning the rythms and movements of a home that is one person less full begins. It seems, though, that we, students I mean, don't have a place any longer. Our house seems much less as ours. Instead, it seems as though we are a guest in our one house. In short, our dwelling becomes a house, and not a home; our concept of home becomes, well, a concept and no longer a reality. But when is it that we find that feeling of home again. Is it when we live with our roommates, and begin to make that situation a family instead of a group of acquaintances and friends? Is it when we move out on our own and have our own house, when does that house become a home? Is it when we move in with a girl? Is it when we get married? Or is it when the union of two souls births, out of abundance of love, another being to become a recepticle of this superabundance of passion? Only time will tell, because I haven't been able to call any house home for years. When my parent's divorced, home became less than a concept, it became a memory—a memory colored with joy and great sadness. I've come to believe that home is a place where love unifies. For this reason, I think home is the place where a love is shared fully, without division, without summers off. Home is that one thing that is constant, that is why it is such a comfort. When work sucks and school blows and your social life does a little of both, home is still home. Home is love—unified, centralized, uncompromised. Home is a location and an emotion compressed into one idea. So when we find people, a place, and an emotion, then put them together all at once, that is home. Whether that means, to you, a family of blood or a family of friends, home is that place.