Four days isn't a long time, even if the two of them spent in airport terminals and transcontinental flights feel lengthy.
I went back to my old alma mater this weekend, but without the prerequisite drunken scaling and attempted making out with of the bronze sculpture. For one thing, my knee was still slightly messed up from wiping out on my bike and I'll be damned if I get injured due to my own stupidity while on vacation.
First obstacle, my flight was delayed, so unfortunately I was unable to make it to my old employer's/textbook store in time before they closed. I had even transported a pink box of Voodoo Doughnuts for their enjoyment, as per our unofficial tradition of me going somewhere and then bringing back some sort of goody for the text department to share. I texted and called a couple of people to check in/apologize for not making it. Then I alerted whoever I could think of who was in my cell phone contact list and most likely to still be in town that I would be at Murphy's around 8:00 p.m. when I arrived at the airport.
Anyway, Green Street was pretty deserted considering it was 1) summer and b) Memorial Day weekend so anyone actually still taking class was probably home visiting family anyway. Jenna and I ate dinner at Za's for old time's sake. It was the first and last campustown place we ate at as students, not to mention a bunch of times in between that. Jenna and I then walked around the quad, tried to get into the English Building to find a bathroom, but in vain since the building was locked up and then wandered off to the Union building to use the ladies' room.
We ended up at Murphy's a bit early. The crowd was a bit thin and conversation was easy to hear despite the random spurts of blaring country music from the jukebox. The first to show up was BJ, whom I introduced to Jenna. I was amused that they had both taken Mammalology together and exchanged various biology/environmental sciences course related stories. Forrest and Mendez showed up not too long after. I had not expected to see Mendez considering he was going to school at SIUC now. They almost fooled me by saying that Steve was in town, but I probably ought to have known better considering he's in med school somewhere in the Caribbean. Sadly, I knew Danielle was in Chicago looking for a job post-graduation and Kerri was out of town until Sunday (which turned out to be later than that due to car problems), so the TIS reunion was far from complete. Honk showed up, much to my surprise considering he had said in his usually brusque, but honest way, "I don't particularly like Murphy's much and I don't know any of the people you'll be hanging out with, so I may or may not come."
It was almost like I never left, the dudes made fun of me and my somewhat squished and slightly stale donuts (I had picked them up Thursday night) yet seemed to appreciate the sugar. I ran into my friend Will(Liam) from high school newspaper and talked to him briefly before returned to the group he had come in with. Then Ben showed up and I disproved my theory that he and BJ are the same person.
In all truth, I really don't need to recap a play by play. The important part is that it really was a lot like I had put my Chambana life down like a novel with a bookmark in it and then just picked it up right where I left off. I even spent the night at Honk's, sharing a cigar with him and watching Venture Brothers after our usual constitutionals. We did joke a bit about how we're becoming old people. After breakfast and a day of Scrabble, crossword puzzles, watching House and even more Venture Brothers, I packed up my little bag and went to Jenna's for even more sugar and anime and strolling about on the quad taking random pictures of interesting things.
The weekend went by so quickly that I feel like I blinked and four years of my life evaporated. Granted, not everyone who was involved in those four years were there, but I feel at least some of the most important people were there.
Part of me wishes that I could say that I learned some sort of huge lesson this weekend... or came to terms with the baggage I carried with me to Portland or resolved some unfinished history. This wasn't one of those vacations. It wasn't meant to be. It was just a chill, lazy couple of days when I got to see some people who actually missed me. Even if I wasn't on their minds every day, it's nice to have someone glad to see you when you do turn up randomly.
What's sad is this is reading more like one of my old myspace entries, but without any mentions of angsting over exes or drinking myself sick. Granted, I felt a mild pang of wanting to try to convince Honk to come out to Portland, but hell, I've been doing that for awhile now. Besides, we're not really exes if we never dated.
But yeah... growing up. Losing touch with friends despite best efforts. Figuring out what I want before I resign myself to being an office girl for the rest of my life. I'll sort that all out as it comes.
All I know is that even though I'm slowly becoming an old lady, I'm still me no matter what time zone I'm in.
Showing posts with label growing up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing up. Show all posts
27 May 2008
29 September 2007
I am a bad daughter
This is just something I wrote, tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek concerning my relationship with my parents/writing. It's probably been done before, but I still like the idea.
Parents, do not let your children grow up to be writers. No matter how much love, money, or love thinly veiled as money you could throw at them, they will inevitably hate you. This is only because they are "supposed to" hate you. After both you and they are dead, scholars and others who you had never even passed on the street while still alive will speculate numerous abuses and neglectfulness on your part that helped fuel their self-destruction as well as their edge-of-madness brilliance. That is, if your child's work is even worth such notice at all.
You could even be supportive, understanding enough to the point of offering your home "for the time being" during their post-graduation/drop-out doldrums. Of course, this does not fuel rugged dreams of individualism or glamorous self-reliance. Doing the laundry in the basement of one's parents is hardly something to write home about, especially when still living at home. If
you ever want to see or hear from your children in their 20's to 30's, make sure the notion of writing professionally never so much as flashes through their minds at an earlier age.
Even when they're in college, expect listening to mechanized automated answering services over the actual sound of your child's voice. If you have a son, expect him to run around with loose women, drink alone and have a few experimental dalliances which may or may not result in the discovery he is homosexual or bisexual. Even if such dalliances do not occur, be certain that the scholars will speculate on that matter anyway. Do not ever expect to meet any significant others since there are many of the insignificant one-night or three-month sort, but none to take as seriously as his work. If you replace "work" with "drinking, alienating others, and not giving a shit," it makes more sense.
If you have a daughter, expect about the same thing. She will take up smoking as a teenager, but not really be addicted since she only does it socially to be "connected with the other artist-types who have no time to bother with cooking to the point where they solely sustain themselves on coffee or tea and cigarettes with a bit of drinking and pot smoking if they need to "balance" their stimulant diet with occasional sleep(ing around). It goes without saying that she will never bring home "a nice boy" because she knows none. In fact, her relationships, should she choose to become "involved" will be tumultuous and occasionally violent (on her part, resulting in flying half-empty bottles of vodka) and she will learn to hate any man who so much as looks at her. Do not be surprised if she realizes she is a lesbian.
After awhile, the binaries will not apply to your children. Boys in tight jeans and long hair, girls with close crops and large overcoats, they switch clothes as often as they switch beds.
"But what of the writing?" you may ask. After moving across country to get away from you and the monotonous bourgeois ideals of your society, they will have to support themselves somehow so as to raise the shackles of middle-class obligation from their wrists. Rejection letter after rejection letter will arrive. A few acceptances with drastic editorial changes will come rarely, but the "published" work will still feel unfinished and ultimately unsatisfying, especially considering the meager scraps awarded for all the toil which went in it.
Sometimes the writer will be discouraged, allowing his or her creative mind to be stifled so as not to go completely mad in their banal day job. After this full-out dejection, they will drink themselves into a stupor to the point where "maybe in a few months, I could be promoted to assistant manager" will be a comforting thought. Then they will stay out less, stop hanging out with their compatriots who resent them for "selling out" (but still anxiously wait the checks from their parents to clear at the bank so they can go pay off their bar tabs). Even worse yet, they may decide that existence is no longer an option and that razorblades, pills and guns are cheaper than playing out the farce of their life. More often than not though, your children will probably fall into a monotonous routine of work, eating and sleeping.
Perhaps then, they will finally come home for Christmas with a nice man or woman they met from work or on some random mundane chance meeting, buy a house and settle down somewhere outside the city they had hoped would foster their creativity. Even if they still write and somehow eventually sustain themselves with it, they will have become exactly like you. In the end, isn't that the greatest tragedy of all?
Parents, do not let your children grow up to be writers. No matter how much love, money, or love thinly veiled as money you could throw at them, they will inevitably hate you. This is only because they are "supposed to" hate you. After both you and they are dead, scholars and others who you had never even passed on the street while still alive will speculate numerous abuses and neglectfulness on your part that helped fuel their self-destruction as well as their edge-of-madness brilliance. That is, if your child's work is even worth such notice at all.
You could even be supportive, understanding enough to the point of offering your home "for the time being" during their post-graduation/drop-out doldrums. Of course, this does not fuel rugged dreams of individualism or glamorous self-reliance. Doing the laundry in the basement of one's parents is hardly something to write home about, especially when still living at home. If
you ever want to see or hear from your children in their 20's to 30's, make sure the notion of writing professionally never so much as flashes through their minds at an earlier age.
Even when they're in college, expect listening to mechanized automated answering services over the actual sound of your child's voice. If you have a son, expect him to run around with loose women, drink alone and have a few experimental dalliances which may or may not result in the discovery he is homosexual or bisexual. Even if such dalliances do not occur, be certain that the scholars will speculate on that matter anyway. Do not ever expect to meet any significant others since there are many of the insignificant one-night or three-month sort, but none to take as seriously as his work. If you replace "work" with "drinking, alienating others, and not giving a shit," it makes more sense.
If you have a daughter, expect about the same thing. She will take up smoking as a teenager, but not really be addicted since she only does it socially to be "connected with the other artist-types who have no time to bother with cooking to the point where they solely sustain themselves on coffee or tea and cigarettes with a bit of drinking and pot smoking if they need to "balance" their stimulant diet with occasional sleep(ing around). It goes without saying that she will never bring home "a nice boy" because she knows none. In fact, her relationships, should she choose to become "involved" will be tumultuous and occasionally violent (on her part, resulting in flying half-empty bottles of vodka) and she will learn to hate any man who so much as looks at her. Do not be surprised if she realizes she is a lesbian.
After awhile, the binaries will not apply to your children. Boys in tight jeans and long hair, girls with close crops and large overcoats, they switch clothes as often as they switch beds.
"But what of the writing?" you may ask. After moving across country to get away from you and the monotonous bourgeois ideals of your society, they will have to support themselves somehow so as to raise the shackles of middle-class obligation from their wrists. Rejection letter after rejection letter will arrive. A few acceptances with drastic editorial changes will come rarely, but the "published" work will still feel unfinished and ultimately unsatisfying, especially considering the meager scraps awarded for all the toil which went in it.
Sometimes the writer will be discouraged, allowing his or her creative mind to be stifled so as not to go completely mad in their banal day job. After this full-out dejection, they will drink themselves into a stupor to the point where "maybe in a few months, I could be promoted to assistant manager" will be a comforting thought. Then they will stay out less, stop hanging out with their compatriots who resent them for "selling out" (but still anxiously wait the checks from their parents to clear at the bank so they can go pay off their bar tabs). Even worse yet, they may decide that existence is no longer an option and that razorblades, pills and guns are cheaper than playing out the farce of their life. More often than not though, your children will probably fall into a monotonous routine of work, eating and sleeping.
Perhaps then, they will finally come home for Christmas with a nice man or woman they met from work or on some random mundane chance meeting, buy a house and settle down somewhere outside the city they had hoped would foster their creativity. Even if they still write and somehow eventually sustain themselves with it, they will have become exactly like you. In the end, isn't that the greatest tragedy of all?
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