Backdated: The weekend of my first week at UCSC

[garote]

This entry covers the first "party" I attended at UCSC. It was troubling going back through this, because it describes the beginning of what could have been a very fine relationship, which I then botched in my naïvete shortly afterwards.

Also troubling because I clearly took it very seriously on the inside, but was totally unable to communicate this seriousness to the people that mattered. In fact, since reading back over it and putting it in order requires that I partially relive it ... it's got me kind of depressed. :/

Comments

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

These sorts of feelings of regret and hindsight being 20/20 are why I rarely enjoy reading over my own journals from a long time ago. Now that I've been LJing for over five years, I sometimes get uncomfortable about how the entries hold up over time. Basically, it's evidence (for myself and others) that I make mistakes. Looking back years later, I can see what those mistakes are.

I guess over time I get more forgiving of myself too, though, realizing that I was young(er) and had less information, and that I really do my best with the resources I have--one of those resources being relative emotional maturity, which I didn't have much of when I was 19/20. :)

*babble babble* I should be working. ^_^

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

However you feel about it, it's a beautiful story (from a third-party point of view). Nice writing.

[graue.livejournal.com]

I wish I had read this before finishing my novel. It would have given me a point of reference for setting up a sex scene; mine probably sounds contrived. :)

Don't be depressed. Your love life worked out well in the end, right?

[garote]

I'm flattered that you read it - that anyone reads it, really. :)

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

I can't read neuroscience papers all day. :P

[garote]

Yes, regret. That's the word I should have come up with. After I posted that and went to bed, I drifted off to sleep imaging the scenario that I was back in 1998, asleep in the bed of my Watsonville house, and all the intervening time still existed as a memory. At first I thought about all the different things I'd say to people that I hadn't met yet - all misunderstandings and awkward social situations and drama I could have avoided - then gradually it became a scenario of me storming into the CIA and FBI offices and demanding to speak to the higher-ups, shouting that they really have to know about what's going to happen in September of 2001, and could they please, under no circumstances, allow the president to go storming into Iraq and grind our economy and worldwide image into the dirt.

:D

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

Haha. Makes your silly social mistakes look pretty minor, eh?

[garote]

[sardonic grimace] Oh my ... I hadn't considered that, but yes, YES IT DOES. :D

[thegoodreverend.livejournal.com]

I was there. You remembered everything just about as I did, but put it in a temporal frame of reference that I can appreciate, since that's my biggest issue with memory (that, and a lot of those 1998 parties have melded in my mind). At the time, I didn't know you weren't an old hand in the group, as I was pretty new there too.

Keep these coming!

[ex-zeugma416.livejournal.com]

I remember all of this like it was YESTERDAY. It's kind of incredible, this is stuff I haven't revisited for a long time. You're really making me want to go through my old journals and emails in a systematic way and assemble a "best of" document...

[garote]

Do it!!!!!!!!!!!
I'd read the hell out of it.

[ex-zeugma416.livejournal.com]

I've started! A bit earlier than these actually; after perusing my various journals, I decided a better place to start would be the day T and I signed our first lease, July 10th, 1997, and include interesting emails and letters along with the dated notebook entries (along with commentary when I wrote something really dumb). I've got some hilarious stuff about the battle between you and my sister ... right now I don't intend to post these in my journal like you have (too much work for too little reward), but for sure I'll send the individual months on to you as I finish them. I'm going to try to catch up to where you're at, and from that point on stay at a distance of about ten years, and just incorporate this activity into my life ... that feels like the perfect distance to have on autobiographical stuff. It's close enough to remember everything, but far enough away to recognize what matters and what's interesting in each entry. Thanks for prompting me to do this in my free time!

[garote]

Aww shucks! :)
Journaling loves company™