Chocolate Milk w/ Hot Cocoa & Cream

The dishwasher is running, it’s an oddly pleasant sound. Muted enough to be ambient, but loud enough to add an underlying rhythm to my thoughts. Whitenoise kind of, but not so creepy. “Let’s get ourselves into the writing mood” as I cleared the commons area table for my MacBook and light a candle for some soft light. The off-campus housing provided a comfortable dorm-esque environment. Our dorm has a kitchenette which runs along the wall straight ahead of my makeshift desk in the commons. A New Mexico mug of chocolate milk on my right, the warm smell of Hot Cocoa & Cream radiate from the candle on my left, the small green numbers shine 8:35 straight ahead. “I have a couple of hours still. What are we doing today?” as I review the guidelines for paper four. 

Essentials

1.  “…capturing a dialogue that you either participated in or observed first hand.”

I groan “We don’t all have interesting lives. What can I write about? I’ve never enjoyed writing about personal experiences. I’m not sure why, but I don’t enjoy writing about myself. I think it’s because I’m not self-absorbed.” I’m taken back has trying to spearhead a way out of this. “Writing about yourself isn’t inherently self-absorbed, but, I don’t understand the unwavering demand for it. Perhaps its a case of personal isolationism, but I don’t feel like sharing one’s personal experiences or perspectives is something that should be freely gifted, especially in an environment where one risks being evaluated for it. In a public and social setting, a  common and agreeable behavior is to be desired. I feel it could be a bit imposing to push one’s own experiences into a discussion with others who weren’t present and may be unable to relate, it brings up the opportunity where many misunderstandings and unintended consequences could arise. There is always a time and place where viewing other perspectives and experiences can be educational and personally enriching, however, it does not hold a place with the newly acquainted,” pausing to take a sip of the velvety-smooth beverage, “perhaps it’s my upbringing. I do feel that most people don’t accurately interpret what I mean though, this social concept. The general idea is that social interactions should be pleasant, as conflict and negativity do no one any good. To avoid such incidents, one should try to converse able commonly-shared topics, interests, and knowledge. One should always be humble, and one should strive to be a neutral party. Even if unintentional, pride and arrogance can sometimes still be detected when one feels to need to share intimate personal details (especially when out of relevancy).” Dogs barking nearby reach our 8th-floor window, Monica (my dog) yaps in response, “there, there dog calm down” I call as I get up to soothe her. The hard plastic chairs in the commons can get a bit uncomfortable after a while as well, so it’s nice to have a little stretch. 9:04 glows in dark of the room, “we’ve still got some time.”

The electric tea kettle glows blue, it’s pretty cool, as it boils, the dog has curled into a tight circle, and everything has quieted down. “Maybe it’s too quiet… I’ll put on some study beats.” the most popular of course being the lo-fi one from ChilledCow. “We’ve got some nice calm music, now let’s do this.” as I get seated and try to overview my paper “What to write. Indecisiveness has always been a trial for me. But more so, this writing about personal experiences. Here’s another thing, I feel like learning random excerpts from one’s life should be reserved for genuine connections, and not freely offered in light conversation with people who one may not consider companions. This allows for a truly more meaningful experience when one does decide to share intimate or personal details and stories from one’s life. These stories are inherently important as they help shape our personality and reasoning, they valuable and should be earned. The defining drive to share such moments with another should be based on the mutual want to become closer friends and not for selfish reasons. One should always ask themself before sharing life experiences, what do I hope to gain from this? If one wishes to be impressive, boast accomplishments, belittle, or gain sympathy one should hold their tongue. This puts the other person in a position that they either have to concede to the other person’s desires or risk causing a conflict which is an uncomfortable situation, and they may feel pressured into sharing personal experiences as well before becoming comfortable just yet. Additionally, this could cause an ill-taste associated with the experience which may push once close companions away which is surely not desired. To be brief, enjoy your companion’s company and engage in equally enriching conversation. There are many things to discuss that don’t require demanding viewership of places you weren’t present.” 

Hot Cocoa & Cream comes in a dusty brown jar, semi-opaque when lit. The toasted marshmallow light flickers, as the wax-liquid sways lightly with the vibrations in the room. The layers of wax viewable from the outside, open flame being the lightest, melted wax in the middle, and solid wax the darkest. I stare down at the keyboard of my laptop, play around the brightness slider on the touch bar. 9:50 glowing green in the dark. “I sound petty, don’t I? I don’t mean too, there are always different views of everything, and every situation is different. To be truthful, I love reading biographies and memoir. People’s journeys are interesting to hear, I do enjoy them. There’s so much to learn, and I think it’s really important to be able to see things from all different experiences and walks of life. I think my biggest dilemma is that I also see people so often imposing their views without consideration on others, boasting, attempting to come across as cool, interesting, and impressive. Or people who try to take advantage of others’ empathy with dramatized renditions. These negative experiences have overcast a cold, chilled, frozen, icy, stone, piercing, dark, frosted, cold, coold–what setting is the AC at?” I rarely feel cold here in Hawaii, but it’s getting later into the night, the stars are out, cars are slowing, and the full gust from the air conditioning is more than adequate. With the lights off and little moonlight from the one window in the commons area, I like to watch the amber glow of the candle on my hands cupped above it. I feel lightly toasted, it reminds me of back home in Montana. Cold and cool light and colors cast from the bluing snow in the evening, contrasted by the soft autumn-like colors of the fire. Laying in front of the fire, with a mug of hot cocoa & cream. The smell of the candle is eerily close. I put on an old grey shirt from my high school, “didn’t I get this in when I was like what, 15? Why am I so short still?” with a groan.

Lofi-study beats are mostly continuous, you don’t notice it changing most the time. Occasionally though it does have an almost pause, a moment of silence, before transitioning to a new track. The clock in the microwave straight ahead reads in glowing green, 10:11, with only a single police siren wailing in the distance, this just happened. “Okay boy, we’ve got this going on” dreadfully reads my notes, ramblings thus far, and my Grammarly score of 86 “this is not good. Dialog, dialog, personal experience, what is the (this a capital) Truth that we musth speaketh of.”

Essentials

1.  “…capturing a dialogue that you either participated in or observed first hand.”
2. dialogue dialogue,
3. characters in 3D, yeah yeah,
4. The dialogue should make a point that’s important to you. 

“You! That’s me! What is important to me? Well, this is for me. This social-isolationism–That’s the wrong word for that, let me google something…” inserting description of a young racially ambiguous male searching the web in a dark room here “I think a healthier sounding word would be socially guarded. That too sounds a bit, drab? As one does enjoy light-hearted and pleasant conversation, but the defining characteristic is the reservation to interject too personal of stories or experiences, per se.” 10:36 glares through the night at me to wrap this up “Through this internal dialog, I think I’ve gotten somewhere. I mean, we’ve gotten somewhere, a conversation with you, dear reader. I think as we read, we all have an internal conversation with the author… or is that just me? Here, I’ll give you an example.”

I’m sitting on the small grey, fake-leather couch in the commons area. The AC I mentioned before is just above it, so this is the coldest place in the dorm. It was a long day after school, I’ve got my University of Hawaii sweatshirt on, laying back across the sofa. It’s a bit small, so your legs hang off at about the knee-level. One opens the Kindle app because “the future is now, thanks to science!” and ebooks. We’re reading Roman Fever, by Edith Warton, and we’ve just reached the end of the highly amusing story with the final quote:

Mrs. Ansley was again silent. At length she took a step toward the door of the terrace, and turned back, facing her companion. 

“I had Barbara,” she said, and began to move ahead of Mrs. Slade toward the stairway.

The internal crowd goes roaring, party horn sound. “Damn Warton, that was brutal haha.”

“It’s fun, I think we all do this. Anyway, I hope over our conversation I was able to share with you my feelings about this whole thing. Starting from a slightly petty rant, I hope a considerable perspective about the true value of meaningful connections and the effort to keep them genuine and intimate.”

Works cited:

 Wharton, E. Roman Fever. 1934.