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My two halves are at war. I am a scientist and dramatist. My nature is to document every little moment, to sculpt a narrative from chaos, to distill logic from the noise of the world, to commit those moments into words before my memories turn gray. And yet since February, the recluse in me has hoarded it all inside, as if these treasures that stay in my brain will forever remain mine and mine alone.

He and I sit at the Carousel Bar in the French Quarter. The carousel spins round, one revolution every fifteen minutes, as the bartender serves two sazeracs on the counter. The canopy above is dotted with fairy lights, and I watch my reflection in the mirrored panels floating overhead, twisting like a kaleidoscope. I can't recall any of the conversation with clarity, but I remember the overwhelming hyperawareness of one's proximity--a hand on the back of my chair, a brush against my shoulder.

When we make it to the House of Blues, the smell of pot pervades in a haze. The stage is larger than I imagined, glowing blue in the darkness. Fifteen minutes until show starts, but the bouncer shrugs."It's 4/20 -- might take another 50 minutes before anything happens." I'd expected to see more gutter punks, with their grunge-punk tattered chic, like at the FKA Twigs show, but it's easy to forget that the tickets for this show were fifty bucks--especially when I won the pair of tickets for free.

I don't know any of Tyler the Creator's tracks, other than "Yonkers" and "She" from a cursory search on Youtube, but my bones move to the beat as the bodies bounce in sync all around me. I don't know the words coming out of the rapper's mouth, save the f-bombs littered indiscriminately here and there. I become one of a myriad, a myriad becoming one dark entity of limbs slinking entranced like a cobra before a spitting snake-charmer.

We talk in the car as he drives me home. I have sat here many times since that first time in February, but I feel on edge--more so than usual. Days away from the eve of my twenty-fourth year, and I remain a thirteen-year-old, watching the string of firsts play out half in terror and half in thrill. After that evening at Bacchanal when the revelations spilled out one by one, he has dealt with me as if I am a deer--slowly and patiently, no sudden movements. I have grown less anxious in his presence in the past two months, but there is something different this evening. Subtle gestures, ghost touches here and there, and I can feel it in the stilted air as we stand on the porch an hour before midnight. When I pull away from an embrace, I feel it, hear it, before I register that flutter of movement against my cheek and realize what he's done. Eighteen hours later, and I am still frozen in that moment on the porch--dazed, feverish, restless, and terrified of the uncharted territory before me.

Sort Of

Does it make you nervous
When you hear my bones
Animate my body
Without my soul?

-- "Sort Of" by Silversun Pickups

I love the guitar section in this song. These days I guess I've been listening to more alternative R&B, Trip-Hop, dream pop (? I suck at musical genres ?) but rock will always be my bread and butter.

I've been thinking about it again recently, since there's been rumors that Ai Yazawa is drawing again. It's been almost seven years since Nana went on hiatus; it would be a fitting time for her to return. I wonder if other people are like me, in that at some point in their lives, they encounter a piece of art--be it a book, a song, an album, a painting, a film--that becomes so monumental, so influential to who they are.

There are two works that have held that power over me. One was Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block. Wasteland set my words free and is solely responsible for my love of vignettes. The other was the entire series of Nana. I've written about Nana Osaki and her influence on me before on this blog. But it's funny. When I reread some chapters of Nana a few months ago, I discovered that I related to the story even more than before. I was 15 years old when I fell in love with the story about the two 20-year-old heroines in Tokyo. I'm 23, almost 24 now. As a teenager, I didn't fully grasp the decision Nana O made when she chose not to follow Ren to Tokyo. Now, I can understand the implications of choosing pride and personal career ambition over romantic love.

De5tiny

Six years ago, around this time of year, came the period of Judgement. Everything I'd worked for and accomplished in my 18 years of life, now weighed and judged by college admissions, would return to me in the form of acceptance and rejection letters.

I found out that I'd been accepted to UC Berkeley and Duke University in the same afternoon. My friends in journalism were ecstatic. My brother wrote on Facebook: "HOLY FUCK YEAH! dude we're gonna video tape dad's reaction. first, you gotta fake cry, then suddenly scream in joy. i can't wait!"

As it turned out, my parents hardly reacted. They were waiting for the big enchiladas -- Harvard, Princeton, Yale. A few days later, I was rejected from all three.

It was subtle--but I knew and felt it. Their disappointment seeped through the seams, in offhand comments that they made. Even my mother, who eventually helped convince my father to let me go to Duke over Berkeley, said something about "expecting better results." Why didn't I study harder for the SATs? Why didn't I have better scores? She said I should have taken more practice tests, and soon funneled all her energy towards my brother. And I've written here before about my struggle with convincing my father to let me attend Duke, and the ensuing stress that debilitated my freshman year.

For other people, getting into Duke might have been a victory. But it didn't feel like one to me.

Fast-foward to last night. I'm at an Irish pub in New Orleans, sitting at a table packed with Duke fans and graduates. Our contingent of Duke Blue is outnumbered by the swarm of Wisconsin red, but it doesn't matter. When Grayson Allen turns on the heat and almost single-handedly cuts down Wisconsin's lead in the second half, we roar. When the buzzer goes to zero at 68-63, we jump to our feet screaming. My Facebook feed goes nuts, my phone shakes with messages from friends and old classmates.

I think of the last time I experienced something like this, five years ago at the end of the worst academic year of my life. I'd asked myself so many times then if I'd made the wrong choice, if I should have gone to a UC instead. When we won the NCAA national championship that spring of my freshman year, the doubts didn't evaporate overnight. But something changed. I found myself standing in the middle of Cameron Indoor Stadium the night we defeated Butler, with people laughing and crying in triumph all around me, and realized just how damn lucky I was to be here.

If I could tell my 17-year-old self one thing, it would be this: Call it fate or destiny; everything works itself out in the end. And someday, it will be impossible for you to imagine being anything other than a Blue Devil.