Please God, Not Beiber

So Justin Beiber's gone insane and everyone's surprised. The reaction went something like this:

NEWS

Justin Beiber did something stupid today because he's twenty years old, and thus, an idiot. 

VIEWERS

How dare he be an idiot?! There was once a period when he wasn't an idiot! It's as if constantly watching his every move during his fragile adolescence has in some way warped his mind! I feel personally slighted! 

NEWS

In other news, here's a list of the Top Ten Best Times Hugh Grant Stuttered in an Amusing Fashion. Oh, the nostalgia. 

VIEWERS

If Notting Hill isn't on this list there's no hope for this fucking planet. 

And so on and so forth. 

It occurs to me I should probably watch the news a tad more often. Being of the useless millennial generation, I admit I'm a bit more inclined to watch The Daily Show and read Cracked, but surely there must be something that hasn't been transformed into a social media vehicle. At the same time, my level of concern for the antics of pop figures I didn't care about when they initially rose to fame is pretty minimal. I just feel I'm missing out on this great outrage. Like when Miley Cyrus discovered sex and everyone went nuts. 

It is interesting to note that the coverage of Justin Beiber's fall from pop star grace has focused almost entirely on his delinquent actions, whereas the coverage of Miley has focused on her sexuality. Could this be, perhaps, because we expect young men to discover sexuality, but we're still surprised when young women find it? Pictures of Justin have seen him shirtless and tattooed and clearly trying just as hard to be a sexual icon as Miley. Why is that not as shocking? Why do men fall from grace with their actions, but women fall from grace with their sexuality? 

Perhaps, I'm over analyzing. Or, perhaps I'm not analyzing enough. This millennial generation only ever goes two ways - we either overreact, or fail to react enough. The same could probably be said of the generation before us, and probably was. We have a habit of declaring the new generation is the most important generation ever, and then promptly telling them they'll amount to nothing. I wonder if we'll ever realize how much we repeat ourselves? 

I have to go to Spanish class. Perhaps I'll ask someone there. 

In Motion

I spend a lot of time walking.

During the day I'll walk to school or work. I'll walk to meet a friend, or to get coffee. At night, I like to go walking with my ipod. The music is important, and a fairly good indicator of my mood, but it's the motion that's vital. Being still is problematic.

I've always been a walker. In high school I'd walk the same route around my neighborhood every night, generally listening to Keane, or the Doctor Who soundtrack. Occasionally, I'd mix it up with some Beatles or Amy Winehouse. I think I also listened to a lot of Queen. I'd walk the same streets every night, literally wandering in a circle. Surprisingly for someone with as minuscule an attention span as myself, the walk never bored me. I looked forward to it, and after a while, I needed it. I'm not sure why. Maybe the repetition comforted me. Maybe the act of walking and mentally reciting the lyrics to Under the Iron Sea was some sort of adolescent meditation. Maybe walking alone in the dark made me feel more interesting and mysterious. Maybe it was just nice.

It's interesting. I used to be able to churn these things out in minutes. Stream of consciousness writing is easy, or at least, it was. I haven't done this in a while, and since then, the entire universe seems to have become exponentially more complicated. My life has always been sort of narrative, in a way. It wasn't exactly complex, unless I made it complex. I had a tendency to blow things out of proportion. I was often anxious about inane things. I didn't feel my life was worth living unless it was dramatic and impressive.

Since I last wrote, I've seen and done a lot of strange things. I am both entirely different and exactly the same. I'm so far removed from that person in the RSR booth rambling about haunted doors and Eric Roberts. A part of me is glad for that. The other part hopes she isn't gone.

I've always said the world is very strange.