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Today I have been so close to crying so many times. Teariness is at least in part because I am terrified about going to Delhi on Friday. I am worried about:

*packing
*fitting in things that need to get done in the u.s. over the summer (and figuring out how to do things from abroad)
-renewing my license
-paying tuition
-setting up/paying for/keeping track of apartment things
-cleaning at the dentist's
-follow up appointment at the doctor's
*getting to my auntie's safely with no cell phone
*finding a cellphone and some sort of internet service
*disappointing my internship site
*keeping in touch
*my little brother
*getting lonely
*becoming disillusioned with Delhi
*not being missed
*regret

That list is so awful. Right now I don't want to go anywhere or do anything. That's making me feel worse, because I know I am so lucky to be able to go away for the summer and instead of being excited and appreciative I am resisting change and getting scared. I think I am going to cling to my momma at the airport on Friday, sobbing.

Mostly I have been outwardly nonchalant about my trip but inwardly freaking out. It's almost like I'm forcing myself to go at this point, since I'm freaking myself out so much. I really want to feel better because I know that I want to go. I guess I'm just feeling kind of moody anyways and then I'm additionally getting cowardly, scared of going by myself instead of with a program. It's also scary that I will go back and Delhi won't be the same. Not just Delhi changing, either, but my version of Delhi. The friends I made in Delhi won't be there with me. I'm worried that I'll be lonely. I want to have friends, of course, but I also need to have friends because I won't be able to do a lot of the things I want to just because it's not safe to be by myself in big public places. I'm worried a lot about safety. I won't have my classes and university and program center waiting for me there, either. What if I don't love Delhi without those things? I knew that last sentence was impossible as soon as I typed it, actually, but I'm still having a hard time.

I'm trying to focus on fun things (food! Bollywood! feminist publishing! auntie! salwar-kameez! Mother Dairy ice cream! nationalism! Indian optimism!) but I'm also getting bogged down by those worries. I'm being so foolish, because I had a great time for five months before, and this summer is only half that, but ohhhhhh I don't even know. Things work out! They always work out! I just want so much to feel more excited and instead I just feel anxious. From December until about a week two weeks ago all I could do was go on and on about how much I love Delhi and how much I missed it and now that I get to go back I'm being an idiot. I also need to stop comparing my last pre-trip feelings to these pre-trip feelings, because right now I'm in the "I love MN and the Midwest and suburbs and being at home so much" phase of break and eventually I'd get lonely and bored here and going to Delhi and working at Zubaan should be so great.

I hate to admit this, but I think part of my freakout is because I might not have the internet all the time like I did last time, and I'm afraid of being out of such easy contact with home and friends for a couple months, and I'm afraid other people won't mind at all. I need to remind myself that I will be busy with my internship and I always have my auntie and I can do a lot of reading instead of wasting time on the internet and that I'm just being terribly insecure. I need to keep thinking about sunshine streaming into my bathroom at my auntie's, little schoolchildren with oversized satchels, head bobbles, pure veg samosas, being busy, late dinners, AIKGA mailers, relaxed lifestyles.

I have a feeling that as soon as I have a cell phone a lot of my worries will go away. That will be a way to keep in touch (albeit limited) and it will give me a sense of safety. Hopefully my worries will go away before then, but I had better be pumped about Delhi again by then at the latest. It is one of my three homes, after all.

minnehaha falls

Last Saturday I met up with my JTwee boy, Will, at Minnehaha Falls. We saw lots of families and babies and dogs and funny giant rental Big Wheels and tricycles and other strange bicycles with names like Deuce Coupe and Single Surrey. We came up with schemes to avoid paying $16 per an hour to ride around in a silly covered bicycle wagon but never quite got our joyride. Instead we enjoyed the spray at the falls like LBJ (there's a plaque) and then wandered around by statues and posed near lime and wilderness. (Sorry this post is full of so many euphemisms, dudes. Totally unintentional.) We set up my self-timer and took a picture in the trees. Will and I ended up climbing a bit to find a good spot for our photo and I nearly got stuck on a really simple hill because I was wearing t-strap flats instead of sneakers or boots. Minnehaha Falls is nice because it's like the wilderness but fake, for city people. Most anywhere you'd need to go is paved and there are cement stairs leading from the overview bridge to the river.

(Gunnar Wennerberg statue)


(Will + lime)

(in the fake woods)

("hiking")

(self timer shot)

We worked up an appetite being fake outdoorsy (well, Will actually is outdoorsy, but our hike was fake) so we used GPS to bring us like four blocks to Punch. Technology is so good because it can bring you to delicious Neapolitan pizza in unfamiliar neighborhoods. I had margherita pizza and Will had a calzone filled with spinach, mushrooms, garlic, and ricotta. Both were real good. Like, I'm still thinking about Punch good. Is a 20 minute drive too far to go for pizza?

(driving)

After Punch we were kind of stuffed but still went to DQ because we needed somewhere to hang out. Will got a dilly bar and I made fun of him for choosing butterscotch. I got a buster bar and then we saw a baby with mullet and took a sneaky snapshot. Then we saw a strange massage chair. Then a lady with a bulldog showed up and a woman with headphones showed up and took pictures of the bulldog and then they both wore headphones and the bulldog lady gave the other lady a massage. We took secret snaps again. After that Will and I hung out in an alley behind DQ and enjoyed being Midwestern. Then hooligans showed up in the DQ parkinglot and then sped off again real quick. A bit later a fire truck and a lady on a cellphone showed up looking for the hooligans. Then squad cars started showing up (earlier some cops had been enjoying themselves a DQ so that was weird) and Will and I decided we'd had enough of DQ so we went home. It was kind of the greatest day ever.

(butterscotch)

(Will's secret snap #1: shoeless mullet baby)


(secret snap #2: bulldog, back massage)


(Midwest #1)


(Midwest #2)


(Midwest #3)

these things are related

On Thursday I wrote two songs. One is a pop-y song about cheating (sort of). I also wrote a sappy song about depression. I can't figure out rhyme. Break is weird. In August I think I am going to cut my hair very short. Maybe I'll even expose my ears.

Every once in a while (maybe every few months?) something kind of minor happens and I'll feel extraordinarily vulnerable, like I need to hide or sprint. I usually just apologize a lot or shut up or, if I've continued to think about it a lot, I do hide. I remember how insecure I am and I feel like I'm back in middle school. I feel like an idiot about that, which makes me re-think other moments where I've been an idiot, and that makes me even more self-conscious and insecure. Eventually I try to make myself get over it or I just forget for a while and that turns into a few months. Then I'm pretending to read something important while I wait alone in my car, feeling like everyone in the world must be tuned in to how pathetic I am, and I (re)realize that I am foolish and fronting and I'm back to the beginning. I should make a flow chart. I need to tattoo it on my arm or something.

I think that going away for a while and being sort of alone will be really good for me again. I think having less internet time will be good, too. I think I've mixed up caring about people/wanting to be involved in their lives and insecurity/wanting to be liked, and that makes me feel really shallow.

It's hard to want to just "be yourself" and also actually hate a lot of yourself.

jeffrey lewis and los campesinos! at the varsity theater

Wednesday night I went to see Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters and Los Campesinos! at the Varsity. I didn't take a camera along because I wanted to have fun and not worry about getting really great shots and that sort of thing. It seems like a lot of dudes go to shows just to take the best photo possible, so you can search flickr and find plenty of snaps if you feel the blog reader's need for accompanying images. I will also describe the show for you in case you're lazy like me:

The Varsity is this real swanky venue. Don't get me wrong--it's beautiful, it's just really different from Bob's Underground (home of a cute little mouse/a space that also happens to moonlight as a coffee shop) or Gardner lounge, my normal show spots. The ceilings in Gardner are so low Family Unit's juggler couldn't get a proper juggle on (back when they were a full band). What if they had brought along a unicycle?! Tragedy. Well, they'd be golden in the Varsity, where they have real high ceilings, a disco ball over the crowd, and two chandeliers over the stage. I guess what I'm getting at is the difference between what I'm used to in Grinnell and what you'll find at the Varsity is the Varsity is nice. The bar's way out of the way in the back and the room itself is all deep reds the way a classic theater would be. There is even carpet! You'd never have that in Bob's or Gardner--too many stains. Anyhow, similar to both my regular show spots, the Varsity has couches! It's kind of bizarre having fancy armchairs and couches slightly raised and bordering the room, since I was expecting more of a tiled-basement with cigarette burn flame resistant blue 80s sofas, but the lounge area housed lots of adult hipster couples comfortably and chairs around the floor with little cafe tables made a pretty good spot to wait for things to get started. I met Chris there (I'm linking White People Music because evidently I like linking in this post) and he had picked up a sweet Jeffrey Lewis comic already. (I mean, he purchased it. For a fleeting moment I saw the comic on the table and thought Jeffrey Lewis had just left out some comics as reading material. And, while Chris and I agreed that would have been really adorable, we also agreed that would be ridiculous.) So I perused Fuff #3 (the purchased comic) while Chris went on a parking meter mission and we waited for JL and his pals to open.

Jeffrey Lewis is pretty much the sweetest and cutest and most fun ever. His singsong-ery manages to make sad or depressing or kind of awful things really appealing. Maybe appealing isn't the right word, but something like that is. The Jitters were great, too. The girl on mini piano (I think her name was Helen) reminded me of my friend Claire a whole lot because she sort of hunched up her shoulders a little bit while she sang. Mostly she had this specific Claire expression (like she has a funny secret), and on top of that she seemed excited and fun. JL and the Jitters played a few songs and some were fast and some of them were big and some of them were ballads but all of them were great. And there were lots o' videos. I especially liked "The History of Communism: Part Three (Russia)" because Chris and I had just been talking about Russkiland and how crazy it is. I tried to chant "USSR" as they prepared but I think Chris thought I was chanting "USA" because he kept saying things like "Better DEAD than RED." At one point JL played a sweet, simple song about friends and atheism and sort of sad things--it's one of his songs that sounds a little like Kimya Dawson's stuff. I don't know the name of that song or really very many of his songs because I mostly bought my ticket to see Los Campesinos! and so initially Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters were just an added bonus. (I do know they played "Banned from the Roxy," at least.) It's kind of funny that I hadn't planned to see those kids as much as Los Campesinos! because it turned out I liked them best. I am starting to think that 54% of the time the best band opens.

Maybe it's just because JL and the Jitters opened and they seem so sweet and really excited and earnest about music (and that's probably because JL's songs seem to be more about messages through lyrics rather than sound), but Los Campesinos! sounded just like they do on their recordings, which was good, but they also seemed a little...high school or something? I like their recordings because I like certain aspects of high school mentalities (the pop-y music parts, mostly), but it's also kind of like LC figured out all of the hip things to do in a band (tight t-shirts, violin, glockenspiel) and then put together as many of their friends as they could get away with and then got hyped a lot (Pitchfork) based on their recordings (and probably also because they're from Wales and have nice accents even when they sing) so now hipsters want to see them and so they get to perform. The girls were wearing tights with just the right amount of holes in them and it was way too hot for tights, which always makes me suspicious. They put on a good show, I guess, but I didn't feel like they were really into what they were doing--more like into being rock stars? They definitely throw out a lot of energy, but it seems to be more about showmanship and a punk rock-esque attitude than a real commitment to music. But like I said, I could be over analyzing because it's kind of impossible to be as sweet as JL and the Jitters. Los Campesinos! did start their set with an inter-group call-and-response type count off and I liked that a lot. More people stood up once they started and a few even danced a little (evidently people in MPLS don't really dance at shows?) so that's a plus for LC, too. Oh! and lol, their drummer looked like Minkus from Boy Meets World, but older, shirtless, and, to quote Chris, "buff." I tried to find a good Boy Meets World era picture of the actor but evidently he's on that WB drama One Tree Hill now and the Lee Norris fansite I found requires registration to get to the gallery and that is creepy and further than I'm willing to go to help you figure out that allusion.

I ALMOST FORGOT THE BEST THING: we met the legendary KDIC Flock of Seagulls haircut guy at the show! He's a Grinnell alum and he runs a big music blog so he goes to shows a lot and we saw him between Jeffrey Lewis' set and Los Campesinos!. I recognized him from a Grinnell magazine article/the 80s KDIC staff photo so Chris and I went up to him to confirm his identity. I would link to his fancy blog here but I am afraid he'd find this post and read my review of the show and think Grinnellians are kind of dumb now. I'm not going to tag Los Campesinos! for this post, either, in case they do things like google themselves. I don't want to make them feel bad. . . And now I feel bad. I just remembered one of the LC girls was standing next to me during Jeffrey Lewis' set and when some of the songs would pick up I would dance a lot and she would hipster shuffle a bit and that seemed nice of her, given the lack of dancing in the crowd. I don't mean to be negative because I had a really fun night! It was just different than I expected.

jeopardy

I am home and watching Jeopardy. There is a contestant who is one of those really calm, relaxed, together-seeming people. She also has a voice that's light and sort of scratchy, like maybe she smoked a lot in her youth and has learned from her wild days and now has things figured out. I imagine she has a library and maybe a small cocker spaniel. I want her to be my aunt. I also want to be one of those sorts of warm, comforting, calm people someday, but I think it's against my nature to be so mellow.

There's also a girl who is really great at the game but always picks 1600 to start each category in Double Jeopardy. She's really young and bright but seems kind of manic when she chooses 1600 each time. (She just won.)

I should try to learn more about psychoanalysis. I didn't know the question to a really simple answer.

(These photos are from Grinnell. Downtown and somebody's cigarette sculpture outside Bucksbaum.)