How Do You Wake Someone Up From Inside a Dream?

I have reached a point in my life where I think about nothing but music. I don't feel as though that's an exaggerated statement. Besides doing things like making shopping lists and the scattered moments I can actually focus on readings and research and essay planning (which are very few and very far between), I don't think there is a moment in the day when I am not thinking or talking about music: whether it's the music itself, the people who make it, the industry, getting a job in the industry, or planning for Coachella or other hypothetical concerts this summer, I have a one-track mind these days. I've stopped spending money on anything that's not food or music-related. Music has been occupying a large percentage of my brain since I was thirteen, so maybe this isn't a wholly new development, but I literally cannot spend more than two consecutive minutes being bothered with anything else. Even when I'm flying into rages about university, which is happening on at least a weekly basis again, I soothe the rants by thinking about music.

In itself, this isn't a bad thing. I think in the long run, it's actually a great thing. But the problem is how it's juxtaposed with university. I have two modes: being ridiculously happy when thinking about music, and being ridiculously upset when I think about university. Today marked the halfway point of my last semester. Somehow I am not overjoyed. Those six weeks and those two exams, which admittedly are after a nice month at home with a trip to California dedicated to music, feel like the rest of my life. The other problem is that because the music world, or the side of the music world I'm interested in, is so white-hot right now, I spend all of my time keeping up with it and critiquing it, and very little time keeping up with what I should have a grasp on for my law seminar, which is kicking my ass. Last night I should have been reading Schechter v. United States, but instead read about ten different articles on ticket scalping and ways the industry could prevent it. Today in class, I went into a rage-panic when I saw everyone else had plans and research for their essays already done, whereas I don't even know what I'm even writing about yet. The panic wasn't even about whether or not I could write a decent essay for a decent grade: it was over the fact that I have to bother to put in the time to get it done. But then I thought of a goofy photo of The Strokes I saw this morning, and I felt better. "Lotus Flower" and its accompanying awkwardly hilarious video (released today), which I watched on my iPod during out 15-minute class break, also helped.

I feel like I'm having some sort of midlife crisis at age 21. Yes, so I've felt this way since fall 2008--it's not depression, a) because I think I'm incapable of being depressed outside of temporarily when caused by specific factors, b) because I know what's causing it and I know I will feel much better once it's over, c) because I still get enjoyment, embarrassing amounts of enjoyment, out of very specific things. But the difference now is that I'm doing things like spending wild amounts of money shipping myself to California to bake in the sun and mud for three days with my favorite bands, and I almost did something else just as crazy and both academically and financially ill-advised before I had something of a reality check. I'm thinking these things are the equivalent of the flashy red convertible cliche. I'm also contemplating my own mortality a lot more than I used to. Not in a doomed, neurotic sort of way, really. I just feel like I've wasted so much time in the past few years doing things I should have never even started that I wonder how much time is left to get to the good part. That, and I'm extra-careful these days when crossing the street and going down stairs, because if I die before March 21 without hearing Angles, I...I don't know what. Thank God it's coming out before I next have to get on a plane.

It's just that I feel like a whole continent could be blasted off the face of the earth by a meteor and I would still only really think about Radiohead and The Black Keys and Mumford and Sons and The Kings of Leon and Arcade Fire, and above all, The Strokes. Today I read an article reviewing and describing The Strokes' highly anticipated new album, and I don't know if I've ever felt that dizzy just reading words before. When the single played on radio the first time a week and a half ago, I screamed and my housemates came rushing in, thinking we were being robbed again. I already mentioned that I watched "Lotus Flower" for the first time on my iPod in our class break today. I was grinning like such an idiot that my professor asked me what I was doing, for fuck's sake, and I started explaining and we got into talking about what I want to do in the industry a bit. You could tell he was surprised I could be that animated and engaged, because I spend most of that class hiding. Even when I'm trying to get myself to do my work, all that float through my head are various song lyrics about how you don't want to be doing something you have to, or how much it sucks to be stuck somewhere bad, or escaping. And then my mind drifts off into ideas on how to revolutionize the live-music ticket industry. Or how to finagle a job out of people I want to work for. Or how close I am to just packing up and going home six weeks early and a degree short.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. I'm trying to say that in the past, I've always said I've given up on uni and that I wasn't going to care anymore. Usually I say that, and yet I still get into some small panic about grades at some point along the line. But this time I think I'm serious--I get into rages about the time wasted, not the worry over how it will affect my degree or what my instructors will think of me (hey, it's anonymous anyway!). The only other time this has happened was exams last year, when I really didn't prepare that much and actually didn't even technically complete one of my exams, and I still managed to get a 2.1 on all of them. I don't know if I can pull that off again, especially with this law class. But we'll see.

I know that this is such a non-issue, such a first-world, white privileged girl problem. I think I can hate my experience and regret my decisions while still being grateful for being able to have them. I blame myself first and foremost anyway, for not letting myself think that what I was most interested in was "legit" enough to want to pursue until it was too late to stop the train I already got on. All I want is to explain myself, why I've had such a miserable time. I think I want people to understand why I've not just looooooooved the college experience like all my high school friends seem to. I want to make sure everyone knows I'm not just trying to be contrarian or unique, that I have reasons for all my still-probably-unjustified whining. So I think, once all my actual work is done, in the interim between exams and graduation, that I will try to write an essay. A proper one. A hopefully-not-so-rambly one. I don't even care if no one reads it. I just want it...formally documented for my own purposes, lest I ever forget how I felt at this time in my life, even if I do end up looking back on it with some degree of fondness in the future (hah).

In the meantime, I will be trying to survive by clinging to music. As much as it's always been my favorite thing, the thing always on my mind, it is now my life. It's my security blanket that I'm clinging to to make it through these last six weeks. Roll on, 2011, best music year in the history of my life. You're all I've got til August.