Metaphor-mosis

Alas, either I've reached some point of profound clarity or it's 3:12am.

Today was a weird day. It was my last day of classes as a college undergrad. Tuesdays are generally my "fullest" days of the week since I have the most classes: Radical Philosophy, Critical Procedures (the English senior seminar), and then Advanced Poetry. For Radical, we talked about a zine a lot of friends [and fellow students in solidarity] and I were involved with...

Cover art clearly done by some sort of undiscovered genius, back cover art by Ram Dass, but I doubt that guy has any profound insights about anything.

And then went straight from there to give a presentation of my English senior paper on Franz Kafka and existential angst of the nth extreme. I received several compliments that my project was incredibly depressing, and for Kafka's sake, I couldn't be happier to hear this.

Btw, the next time you want to get thoroughly creeped the eff out enter "kafka caricature" into Google Images.

Kafka has, quite honestly, gotten me through a very difficult time this semester. To be graduating college is just as confusing and nerve-wracking and existence-questioning as Dustin Hoffman makes it out to be. So many times I felt like I'd hit a wall, was trying to climb up a wall without a foothold, was trying to climb over a wall when it had no top, was trying to tag it with a police officer standing right over my shoulder, and other wall-related metaphors; and Kafka was pretty much the only one smacking his head against the wall right beside me. Instead of pretending that remarks like, "You'll be all right" and "it'll all work out" were really what I wanted to hear from people, I was able to confront and deal with my thoughts, anxieties and emotions by channeling them into a wormhole of endless literary pessimism. So thanks, Franz!

P.S. You're hot. I'm not joking.

After that, I went to my final class at Whittier College. Evar. Which consisted of a class reading of pieces of poetry we wrote in Advanced Poetry this semester. Everyone knew everyone, everyone supported everyone, and I'm happy to report that I can say this dynamic was true of many other classes, departments and organizations I've been a part of while at Whittier.

(and to hear what's wrong with Whittier, see "The Foggy Glass" above.)

In a very real way, it feels like a significant chapter of my life is ending. Like, if my life were a movie about college, this is just about the end of the film where I would interior monologue in a journal like Lizzie Mcguire about all the things I've learned from my experiences. Less than two weeks from now, the credits will be rolling in a freeze-frame montage of all the characters in my life (I'll be caught mid-sneeze, I know it) with a little epilogue blurb about where we wound up.

I guess at this juncture I'm just wondering what my blurb's going to say. Right now I'm still in college, I'm still in my little padded nest where it's safe to say, "Yes! I'm going to write for television! Sure!" without having to put my money where my mouth is. But soon enough I'm gonna have to put money everywhere. Into rental payments, auto payments, loans, groceries, un-stretched out bras... and lord only knows where that money's going to come from. This is the part where academia shoves me out of the nest and sees how I do.

"Use your feathers!"

"I don't have any feathers! You only gave me a degree in Creative Writing and Philosophy of Film! Most people don't even consider those real majors!"

"Then flap your wings harder!"

"I'm trying!"

"What? I can't hear you!"

"I said I'm trying!"

"I still can't hear you, you're too far down!"

"What?"

"What?"

"WHAT?"

"I said, 'what?'"

"What did you say?"

"I said--"

splat.

And that's the Kafka coming through, in case you didn't notice. Drop a cockroach off the top of the Chrysler building and you get virtually the same thing.

So hey, the chapter's not over just yet. I've still got a couple weeks left of College Land, flowing with beer and acceptable excuses, before I have to face what I imagine must be the painfully confusing phase of early-adulthood. Now that I ain't got jack to do (except take two finals, find a job, find a place to live, find a way to make my life work), I'm theoretically at the peak of my college appreciation: for the first time I'm seeing just how enjoyable and finite college is AND I have the time to take bittersweet advantage of that period. Let's have fun, class of 2013.

...I don't know when this post became my "official keynote speaker" address to this year's graduating class, but I think it's important that we all be honest with ourselves: life is scary, but we get through it. In our fears and doubts we often become blind to the fact that life also happens to be interesting and rewarding in an infinite number of unforeseeable ways. If you told little first grade J-Mil... well, first, that people call her J-Mil and often legitimately do not know her first name, and second that she would one day come to replace religion with Kafka, film and feminism, she would probably ask you how many Beanie Babies she'd have by then.

At least thirty.

I could never have predicted my life as it is now. Likewise, I won't be able to predict the next 10 years, 5 years, or 6 months. I have absolutely no idea what's in store for my freeze-frame epilogue, so in the meantime, I'm just going to let the film keep playing.

...Metaphors.