and so, to begin.

“A man is least himself when he speaks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.”

~Oscar Wilde

I always had a fondness for Oscar Wilde; he’s got a certain wry snarkiness that I can appreciate. A pity about his having been a rake and general scoundrel…I like to think that, otherwise, in a different time, we might have been good friends. Probably not good friends in the typical sense; he's the sort of person that I would have liked to know just for the pleasure of the verbal sparring matches, sharpening wit against wit. Most likely I would have lost a lot.

The idea behind this quote is what persuaded me to start this blog. There’s a very attractive freedom to the anonymity cyberspace affords, and the prospect of saying exactly what I think without having to consider who might be listening is pretty much too tempting to pass up. Still, it is a bit awkward, stepping onto this very public stage without being sure there's anyone in the audience to introduce myself to.

Today’s topic of note is spring break. More specifically, my own spring break and its imminent end. It only lasted a week, but there were parts of this week that felt like years. Coming home from University, even for such a short time, was like jumping off a fast-moving train into a wall of half-set Jell-o; I had to rediscover how to not have anyplace to go all day, how to have hobbies. Well, the hobbies thing didn't work out as well as all that; I'm pretty sure I don't have any, aside from sleeping and doing nothing for long periods of time. I say long periods; what they tend to be is twenty minutes or less. Unless I'm tired, sitting still makes me nervous.

On campus, I am a good student, a responsible stage manager (twice over, this semester, as I'm working on two shows at once, which is both madly exciting and entirely ridiculous--we will come back to the subject of stage management later), an animated friend and a considerate roommate. I see a great variety of similiarly busy people, most of them my age, every single day, as we go about our carefully scheduled and underrested lives.

At home, I am a novelty (which has its perks; you get spoiled when everyone's always happy to
see you. "Oh, it's been so long!"), a teller of exciting college tales, and a shameless couch potato. I reflect on this discrepancy often, wondering if it's a good thing, and what sort of an effect it's having on me and my relationships. I spend a lot of time looking at things from the outside, particularly my high school, such as it is (also a topic for a later post), and the, in some ways, much wider variety of people I associate with there.

Spring break makes me think of alleys. You get a glimpse, a slice of something apart from the routine--call it experience, a certain point of view, whatever--and then it's on to the next thing.