Almost Want to Sue Elvis

(The name of the album is actually Almost Went to See Elvis; it's a Dylan bootleg. Unfortunately, the copy I have is lettered in rather poor handwriting, so I made a fool of myself for years by misquoting it. In my mind, however, it will always remain this way.)

This weekend my parents decided that it was high time I toured Georgetown University and visited my relatives in DC, so we set out to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. The tour-lady was annoyingly normal. The longer I stood in the crowd, the more I realized that Georgetown is not the right place for me. I have no interest in working in DC or in the State Department, and my grades aren't good enough to get me in anyway. Plus, the people here are dull as hell, and less attractive.

To make matters worse, while I stood bored out of my wits in front of the lecture-lady, a girl came up to me: "I really like your shoes." I was flattered. I looked down at my maroon converse-clad feet and felt proud of my New Yorker taste. "Really? Thanks. They're new." She smiled. "I love hot pink. It makes me feel so... girly."

I wanted to slap her.

Why am I such a feminist (albeit a closeted one)? I hate 'cute' and 'girly.' And helplessness and pathetic, useless women who get upset about trivial things and can't stand by themselves, and who do things because they're supposed to, not because it means anything to them. I'm not petite, I'll never wear delicate earrings, my nails aren't neat or cherry-red, I don't read Victorian novels and sigh over tea about the lost loves of Mathilde and Osmond, and I hate my own bubbly laugh. Mostly I hate finding the things I despise most in other people in myself.

Now I'm getting all worked up. New topic. I have solomn thoughts in my head today.

After Georgetown, I went to a museum and thought about what it is to be an observer of art. I have always considered myself an intellectual, and I'm not sure exactly why; "What is an intellectual if not one who chooses knowledge over bliss?" I asked in last quarter's Letter from the Editor; at the same time, I have also expressed the opinion that an intellectual is by definition one who is capable of appreciating beauty. I believe that both of these things are true, which leads me to the conclusion that to truly understand beauty is to forsake bliss for knowledge, for art. Art over life. My oldest mantra.

And I walked the halls of this beautiful museum filled with heart-wrenching paintings and thought about my humble self besides these great works and felt insignificant, but beautiful, in an odd way, because I knew that I was capable of appreciating art, at least a little bit, at least enough to understand the worth of what was before my eyes. And at the same time the familiar feeling of drowning overcame me, and I felt pathetic, because in the midst of all this gradeur I don't know anything, I can't even begin to appreciate the emotions of the artists.

The worst part, however, was that, as the familiar, almost nostalgic ache welled up in my chest, I remembered why it is that I don't visit art museums very often. I can't take it. I can't move from one picture to the next and I hate being kicked out at closing time, but worst of all I can't face my pathetic and diminutive knowledge of art. I actually do know a bit about art, mostly from perusing my parents' picture books as a child, and have an OK hand myself (although my ink drawings tend to make people shrink away); but I realize that while I have a loose grip on literature as a whole, have become adept at understanding it, know all the big names --even in music, I'm not lost-- I don't know shit about art, relatively. And I'm terrified, in a way, of the vast world that I can't see. I am reminded of my Mexica ancestors, who believed that water ripples and snake's eyes and death screams were portals into the world of the gods and demons, and feel as though I am seeing only the surface of the water, and I fear what hides beneath, what all-consuming passion could rise within me, how easily I could abandon everything and fall into the abyss of art.

And I stayed quiet and away from my family and read Pablo Neruda's love poems in the car and realized that at heart I'm a book-person. It's true. I'm a book nerd and I always will be, and I'm not afraid any more to belong to my novels. I am enslaved, bound by the passions that burn strong in me and the fact that paperbacks have quite literally shaped the way I see things. I love music, and I love art, and I'm learning to appreciate theater, but the deepest and truest part of me is the wide-eyed little girl who read Salome in a corner and hid her tears.

I remember when I first discovered Oscar Wilde. I was in fifth grade. It was my first taste of real literature, and already I was doomed. I cried over Sibyl Vane and hated Herodias and grew to love Lady Windermere, and I realized for the first time who I truly was, what potential lay in me. In my fingertips, my eyes, my heart, a demon had awakened. I was moved immeasurably by fictional characters; there was something greater than my mundane existence, and I had to have it.

"Mom," my fifth-grade self asked timidly, "do you think I'm an intellectual?"

She looked at me for about ten seconds and then said, "No, I guess not. You're like me and your dad; you're just kind of smart."

"I see."

Later, in private, I cried, silently rocking my body, holding my knees to my already-budding chest under my thin nightgown. It was at that moment that I realized that I was lost from them forever, that I could no longer turn back.

Since that day I have always been alone.