Tonight, college kids will pay their student ticket prices and pile into movie theatres across the country to see a movie that undoubtedly will speak to them, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
I know because I was there in their shoes on this very night five years ago, paying $8.50 for a 10 o’clock showing of my generation’s movie, Lost in Translation.
I had landed as a freshman at Northwestern University only two weeks before opening night and I felt, as most college kids feel, like I had finally arrived. This was where I was meant to be—living in my totally awesome dorm with the coolest kids in a great-but-I’ll-knock-it-anyway college town, where I could finally eat fresh sushi and drink sake while musing about politics with other young liberals (hallelujah!) who shared both my opinion that God does not hate me for my lefty persuasions as well as my use of unnecessary superlatives like the aforementioned 'coolest' and 'totally awesome.'
But college also has this way of setting off a self-referential inner-monologue that you can’t shake. Walking through a gorgeous campus with your iPod soundtrack while leaves crackle underfoot doesn’t exactly help to curb your deluded sense of grandeur either. So you walk from class to class, high off Rousseau and that cute guy from Econ who was most definitely at least a sophomore, and you ponder your depth and your Friday night plans because that sophomore-dude is most definitely going to the party in Allison Hall.
It was in this mindset that I found myself on October 3, 2003, huddled around California rolls with new friends and waiting for our showing of Lost in Translation. I had broken up with my high school boyfriend the night before and was really looking for some solid ground, something I could identify with and find strength in. That turned out, I would discover at about 10:45 PM, to be Scarlett Johansson’s underwear.
Who was this girl who--while deeply pondering her life (like me! twinsies!)--wore headphones, stared aimlessly at citi-scapes and bounced around on a bed in Tokyo in her underwear? How cool was that? I made a mental note to find grandma panties like Scarlett’s and figure out how to make them so sexy. Underwear aside, I wasn’t in Tokyo, I wasn’t going to Yale and I was not planning on majoring in philosophy like Scarlett’s character, but her brooding self-examination spoke to me. It resonated with my inner-being, and this was my movie.
Actually, it was our movie, all of us. If you weren't on mine and Scarlett's side of the equation: What will I do with my life?, then you were on Bill Murray's: What have I done with my life? Many of us bought the soundtrack, some of us bought grandma panties (not nearly as sexy as hoped), and all of us talked feverishly about what had he said to her?? That whisper! It defined us all!
But then, four years later, we finally found out what he whispered: “I have to be leaving, but I won’t let that come between us, okay?”
And that was it.
After defining ourselves by our imaginings in that veiled mysterious whisper, relishing in the indelible innocence of their impossible, fleeting relationship, and coveting the quirkiness of Japanese culture and (by God!) karaoke parties, that was it.
Sure, I was let down in other ways, like Scarlett Johansson’s creepy, Pygmalionesque post on Woody Allen’s arm and Bill Murray’s disastrous divorce and the way the soundtrack kind of got old by the next summer. But this revelation was the final straw in severing me from the movie that I thought had defined me.
So a word of warning to you 18-year-olds or other self-seekers who might line up in the coming hours for this Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist movie and hope to find yourselves in the characters' doomed innocence or eccentric, impossibly cute behavior: Don’t hang your hopes on underwear or soundtracks and record the playlist yourself.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Before you go see another quirky generational movie about being...
Friday, April 4, 2008
Your Burden to Bear
To me, this moment was as important as my first driver's license or passport. At age 11, I would have my own identification card--a weighty two-by-three inch piece of plastic marked with my own name and photo.
I stood in the steel-barred line, nervously adjusting my glasses, and considered removing them for my photo. Cold fluorescent light blanched my skin, and the unheated room seemed sterile with its white walls and concrete floors. Pounding against my rib cage, my heart struggled like a prisoner who wildly shakes iron bars to break free. I crossed my arms, certain that not even my spring jacket could hide this thumping betrayal of my nerves. A cold sweat broke out across my face, my glasses slid down my nose. I felt as if I was about to be processed rather than photographed.
"Are you excited?" my mom asked cheerfully.
I shrugged and nodded at the same time, pressing my chin against my chest and focusing my attention down at my feet. I pushed my toes up against the insides of my sneakers until they hurt, hoping that the pain might distract me from worrying about my glasses.
Ahead of me in line, older kids from the nearby high school were waiting for their turns too. They flashed bright teethy smiles at the camera and then waited as a bulky printer grinded and then sputtered their likenesses onto the card. One by one, they grabbed their cards when the machine finally spit them out, fanning them theatrically in the air to dry. After looking over one another's and laughing, they shoved the cards into their wallets and purses.
A purse. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind until now: I didn't have a purse. Where would I keep my new card?
As quickly as the problem had arose, its only solution dawned on me in a cold realization. I would have to buy a purse, of course. The "pretend" purses I had wouldn't do. Some girls in my fourth grade class already had real purses, anyway. Now, my time had come.
Suddenly, this card bore a much bigger burden than I had expected. The photographer called me forward, and I reeled, my future spinning before me:
When this photo snapped, the machine would cough up my own black-and-white image on a glossy canvas of plastic. Pressed into my hand, the card would demand a safe-keeping place. Hung about my shoulder, the purse would bear other responsibilities--more cards, dollar bills, and what else? I eyed my own mother's bulging purse as I pressed my feet into the two painted soles before the camera. What was in that thing? Was this overpacked fate mine as well? It seemed that within a few months time, I'd wear a diaper bag and push a stroller.
Why, God? I frantically thought as the flash went off. Why had I signed up for this card?
"Here you go!" smiled the photographer when the machine finished printing my destiny. "Have a great season!"
As my mom and I walked back to our Toyota station wagon, I carried my new weight in plastic, staring at my reflection and thinking quietly about my future.
"Do you want me to carry that for you?" my mom interrupted my thoughts.
"Oh!" I turned to her, surprised "You'll keep it for me?"
"Well, sure. You don't have to hold onto that," she said. "Just don't let me forget to give it to you when you and your friends go."
I looked back down at the card where my likeness stared wide-eyed back up at me:
CAITLIN G."Okay," I smiled, handing it over to her and thinking about another year free of my fate. "I won't forget."
PARAMOUNT'S KINGS ISLAND AMUSEMENT PARK
SEASON'S PASS 1996
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Fear and Loathing
I was never a normal child. Rather than the carefree child I should have been, I emulated something more like a worrisome grandmother who takes Lou Dobbs seriously.
I’ve whiled away days looking at old diaries, reflecting on exhausted hopes and fears, and wondering how I came to be the way I am and was. I still have no explanation for the hours I spent fretting as a young child, concerned about things like—if I lay in bed on my back, I’ll turn into a corpse; or if I don’t love my dog with diabetes enough, she’ll die; or what if I grow old and become like the Chicken Lady down the street in her dilapidated Victorian house full of chickens and their feces.
When I was in elementary school, I got a brand new diary—a plastic book stuffed just slightly with some synthetic material that softened its cover. Plastered on the front, of course, is the word “DIARY” in curvy, sophisticated letters. Below are a pair of pink and purple ballet shoes, balanced precariously on a line of unmelodious notes on a music staff. I can’t tell you when I first bought the diary because, for some reason, I tore out most of its first pages—seemingly an entire section of pink papers have gone missing in the series of pink, yellow, and then blue lined pages. So, the early years remain a mystery.
However, the plot thickens quickly from the first entry about my elementary school’s May carnival to the third entry dated January 26, 1993, which reads directly as follows:
Tonight, I was getting scared because I always—hold on. [Here, I vaguely remember hiding my diary under my pillow as my mom came in to tuck me into bed. I was very suspicious of my mother and convinced myself she was reading my introspection. Every few pages there is an entry written with forceful capital letters like, WHO IS READING THIS!! Of course, if I had any real investment in hiding the diary from Mom, I would have probably not used string to tie the key of the diary to its tiny lock for constant easy access. Anyway, as I was saying:] Sorry. Well let me get back to what I was saying. I have thought my parents steeled me away from the hospital and then pretended that I was their child. [I told you. Suspicious.] But I was also worrying about MORGAGES, TAXESS, CHECKS, BILLS! It’s just a disaster. I’ll wright back when I’ve got this all sorted out.
Well, I haven’t exactly got it all sorted it out. But I am “wrighting” back to say that at least can look back at my eight-year-old self, a gangly, freckled girl wrought with self-doubt, suspicion and fear of finances, and sympathize.
Although I eventually purged the image of my so-called mother and father ripping me away from my rightful parents--some young, good-looking and successful couple, of course--moments after my birth and wielding me home like a trophy, I didn’t get through it easily. Before I could accept my parents as my own mom and dad, I first had to believe that my dad was having an affair with his secretary, then that my mom had secret children from a previous marriage, and finally that there may be more of my siblings hidden in our barn. After several investigations, I determined that these half-siblings didn’t exist after all and that my parents have legitimately conceived and birthed me.
But old habits die hard.
J tells me that I worry about small problems as if they’re big ones, and that if I don’t have any problems, I create them.
At age ten, I started a section in another diary (I had dozens, most of them, like this one, half-full and sporadically dated) dedicated to “Child Advice.” Child advice…from a child. At the time, I saw this as my breakthrough. I, at age ten, would write and publish the first ever by-a-kid, for-a-parent book of parenting advice. I was like Jane Austen, a social iconoclast, breaking down stereotypes and an editorial pioneer, forging words into new territories.
7/18/95. Another note. Sometimes your child will lean towards you, then more towards their father. If you have a son, he’ll go toward you when he’s real young, then toward his dad when he’s probably somewhere between 5-11. Don’t be left in the ‘woman’s place!’ Are they playing baseball? Cheer ‘em on, if you can! Then when your kids are grown up, they’ll be by both of you!
Age 10, and already I feared my own unborn Oedipus.
In my oldest diary--a blank journal stolen at age 6 from my mom's closet, I wrote in its first three pages a children's story, illustrated with a red Bic pen. A simple three-pager, it was riddled with a child's fear of abandonment and her secret desire for a pet cat rather than her moody miniature Schnauzer.
Cat and Keeteen, By Caitlin, 1991
[page 1:] I have to go to the store wiffout Cat and Keeteen.
[Here we see two cats left sitting lonely at a closed door.]
[page 2:] Mamma, I'm scaerrd abot Cat and Keeteeen. Mamma saeys, Its OK. Dont warry abot Cat and Keeteen.
[Pictured: Daughter clings to mom's hems.]
[page 3:] Yay! Cat and Keeteen!
[Here, our heroine has returned home, stick arms thrown up in the air while Cat and Keeteen jump at her feet.]
Monday, August 27, 2007
My Big White House
In August 1987, my family moved away from the pretty, curved lanes of our Wilmette neighborhood to the unknown--Lebanon, Ohio. There are few things I remember about this period of time (I was, after all, only 32 months old). Mainly, I remember the large cardboard boxes, whose rough edges, in my many attempts to make forts or climb them, managed to slice open my hands and knees many times over. I also remember a profound sense of sadness, though I couldn't quite place that description of feeling at the time. I knew things were different than they had been and that things were changing. I simply didn't like it.
Then, one night, shortly before we left, my mom took me on a walk around our neighborhood. It was one of those walks where we brought the stroller, but I would jump out and then push the contraption myself, playing Mama to my doll Baby Nikki, who was named after our six-year-old neighbor (who I revered). We trailed about the quiet black street, the decorative rocks that flanked the road catching the last orange-pink light of sunset. It had rained earlier that day, and the wetness held fast onto the light in its last moments. My mom had already explained the move to me several times, but I asked a lot about it. As we rounded onto another street, she explained again.
"We have to leave Caitlin's Big White House"--that's what I called our home--"to move into a New Big White House," she told me. The prospect that the new house would also be Big and White was somewhat reassuring, although not entirely welcoming. But it wasn't just the house I didn't want to leave--I didn't want to leave Nikki, or our other neighbors, or the garden we had, or this neighborhood. My entire world revolved around about a square mile radius around Lake Avenue and Meadowlane Road, and I wasn't about to leave it.
As I shuffled my feet along the blacktop, I spotted a different white house, not quite so big, but close enough to our home. "Couldn't we move to This Big White House?" I asked.
"No, honey," my mom said. And then she explained why, but I stopped listening because I realized that it was inevitable. We were leaving My Big White House, we were leaving my world.
Eventually, my parents closed the sale on our house, and that night we stayed in a motel near Old Orchard. We hit the road in the middle of the night--3 AM, actually--so we could be in Lebanon the next morning for my parents to finalize those papers as well. I don't remember any of this, but I do remember stopping at a Perkins somewhere in Indiana as the sun approached rising. I wore my Doctor Denton's jammies and padded around the restaurant, excited now about all the activity.
I fell asleep for the rest of the trip and woke up as we pulled into Lebanon. My eyes adjusted to the light as my neck, gone limp in sleep with my head lilting onto my right shoulder, now craned to see what was around me. As things came into focus, a large, baby blue building towered over me at the corner of what I'd later know as Broadway and Silver Streets. We continued down the town's main street, already bustling with weekend tourists, and finally made a left turn to trudge up our long, hilly driveway. There, at the top, was the New White House.
I'd like to say that it was here--where I got out of our Jeep Wagoneer, running about our huge yard, hugging the towering trees and chasing butterflies--that I fell in love with my house, that I adjusted. But I don't remember. Here, everything goes fuzzy again. My mom tells me that I cried sometimes before bed and asked when we could go back to My Big White House. I didn't understand, it seemed, that this wasn't just a long vacation where we brought all of our belongings. But, evidently, I adjusted. This New Big White House allowed for lots of Big Changes as August slipped into fall that year--a big girl bed, potty training, some light swimming lessons. And eventually, it wasn't the New Big White House, it was just My House and it was home.
I guess I write this out so that as I pack up the things around me, interview for more jobs, try to convince my parents that I haven't ruined my career future and cope with leaving behind a city, a boyfriend, and a life that I love, I can remember that it'll be okay. That there are more Big White Houses in my future.
Monday, June 4, 2007
thoughts upon graduation
I'm running on little to no sleep from the last few days, but it's important that I update now.
I'm done.
Done with college, that is.
After a website crashing, recreating it, a finished documentary, and an econ final in the last, well, three days, I'm done.
If it were not for sitting at John's computer, listening to the raging theater party outside my window and having just returned from Jeff Redinger's apartment where I hung out with freshman year Willardite-types, I might be able to fully appreciate and comprehend that phrase--I'm done.
But instead, I languish in the residue of heat, the drip of the Ridge and Davis air conditioners, and the darkness of this darkened room and pretend that this is not it. That this might be another beginning.
And I suppose, ultimately, it is. But how can one move forward when one is too busy looking behind her?
So I will allow myself this time to decompress, to wax nostalgic, and to do whatever it is that all graduating seniors do (drink? cry? repress?) in the next week before graduation. Perhaps I will be ready. And perhaps I won't.
But at the end, for most of my life, I will be a Northwestern graduate. So for now, I will relish in this threshold--this in-between--and wait.
Monday, April 23, 2007
VT
I find myself setting aside my homework and obsessively reading about the Virginia Tech tragedy. Since last Monday, I've been engrossed. When I first heard from a voice message from Katie Sparks, I practically sped home to turn on the television. Of course my first thoughts were of Michael, my friend from home who goes there, and I started contacting anyone who might have heard from him. Eventually, I got a hold of Brandon who had just spoken with Mike and knew he was okay.
I couldn't focus on my homework all Monday night, nor could I focus in class throughout the day on Tuesday. Instead, I looked at the facebook profiles and news on each individual victim, imagining what Northwestern's campus would be like if something like that happened here. As more details emerged about the killer's bizarre life and his gross, unfounded anger, I became so angry one day that I literally broke a spatula.
I finally received an email from Mike on Thursday, assuring me (after my panicky email from Monday afternoon) that he was okay. I was sad though. Mike and I grew apart over the last three years, and although I hear about him from friends like Nick, I miss him. I guess that's what a tragedy like this does--it puts things in perspective. Mike and I may have lost touch, but there's a part of him that will forever mean so much to me since we were so close in high school and a part of me that feels like we could as easily grow close again as we grew apart. When I heard about VT, I couldn't help but think back to my senior year when Brandon, Michael, Katie Odell and I formed one big hug on my front lawn after attending the visitations of two girls in their class who had died two days before in a car accident. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you guys," Katie said. It's four years later, but I still feel the same way.
I guess I had to get that out. I should get back to homework--a new website due on Thursday, a quiz on Tuesday, etc. etc. I tried to relax this weekend by celebrating John's early graduation, surprising him with a trip to the floatation tank center and then a crazy night of dancing at Smartbar for DJ Heather's new Om record release and birthday party. And today was gorgeous, although I spent most of it scoping out Marquette Park to find a new documentary subject (our subjects backed out yesterday, a day before our scheduled interview). We found one, thankfully, and the sun was shining.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Because I can't get enough Mary Poppins...
Here's a theory.
Remember the scene in Mary Poppins when she teaches Michael and Jane that "In every job that must be done, there's an element fun. Find the fun, and snap! The job's a game!"?
I'm pretty sure that scene ruined not just me, but my future as well.
Let's get real. There is no work being done in this scene. Mary, Michael and Jane run around the nursery, half-playing with toys and half-snapping their fingers, causing the toys to jump back into place, cupboards to shut in orderly fashion, and clothes to fly into the air, folding themselves mid-launch, and plop into dressers. I'd happily do that "job" every day.
Now, I know we're supposed to look through this scene and see the true message, but I can't. My brain remains childlishly literal: They weren't having fun while cleaning! They were just having fun!!!
That said, I seem to expect that things will simply drop into place for me. That a job will come by my door, that I will become some discovered actress/writer/illustrator/blogger/trapeze artist and things will be set. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. I'm singing showtunes and snapping my fingers when I really need to be tidying the nursery.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Senior Year
"I look back and can't remember most of my undergraduate career," Brett said over Dixie Kitchen brunch yesterday. "I mean, I know I took twelve classes, but I couldn't really tell you much about them."
After I finished my cheese grits and eggs benedict, I went home, filled up a suitcase with used textbooks and drove to Norris. I got $98.75 for roughly two dozen books that culminated most of my own twelve classes that I cannot remember either. Now I don't even have the books to prove I took them.
Though I won't admit it any other time except now, I spontaneously cry sometimes just by looking at Facebook or my room. I'll pick up my high school scrapbook and the people in the pictures look back at me from a different dimension. Some are now strangers. Some have passed on to the next life. Some, were it not for facebook, I could not tell you where they are or what they love.
And, I think, is this what becomes of the now? Four years down the road, will I look through pictures and say, I wish I still had the love we had in that relationship. I wish I knew what she was doing. I wish I had known him better.
There's so much pressure to get it right--this senior year thing. And who can?
Later that night, I met some of my favorite people for margaritas and burgers, shared some laughs, got drunk and played games, sang until my throat hurt, and had a sleepover. I may not get everything perfect, and I may keep making some of the same mistakes that I keep trying to fix, but for the meantime, I'm doing the best I can.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Nostalgia
I miss New York.
I'll be sitting at my computer (like on a day like today) and suddenly start thinking about walking down 7th Avenue in Park Slope and the sound and smell of crisp leaves crackling and crushing under feet and strollers. Or I'll think about what various dirty words the street vendors at the Court Street stop in Brooklyn would toss in my direction as I rushed off to class. Or I'll suddenly think of the view of the dirty canal from the F line as it slips around Red Hook. Or I can taste the chocolate shakes from the Shake Shack and hear the music in Madison Square. When the sun blinds me in Chicago, I think about the glinting light bouncing off the flying towers of New York. I can't help it.
I haven't gotten into the city (here, in Chicago) nearly as much as I'd promised I would. I really have no good excuse either other than how much I hate the El after riding the MTA subway. I am, however, going into the city on Saturday for an animation festival at the Music Box. Had it not been -30 degrees below last weekend, I was going to go bar-hopping. There's still time and plenty of city.
For now, I apply and search for jobs and torture myself by wondering where I'll be in a year. Which is why I must stop thinking and wondering and drowning in what-if's. For now, there is now.
I live in Evanston. And that's fine.
(it'd be nicer if I had my iPod...)
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Exhausted reflection
I'm not feeling particularly creative or witty in the last few days. This could be for a number of reasons:
1.) I took the LSAT on Saturday and am still slowly returning to the state of a normally-functioning human being. More on that later.
2.) This is my last week at work, and I'm depleted. Yoga is just wearing me down right now, and we all know that's not what is supposed to happen.
3.) It's cold.
4.) I don't have any sweet-looking outfits that put sass in my... well... writing.
In case you're just joining us, I've been in New York for six months now. Correction: Six months as of Saturday. I arrived to Harlem, New York on Saturday, June 10, 2006 where I spent the next three months working at TOH at T. I then moved at the end of August to Brooklyn where I have lived for the next three months and worked at YL at R. I will leave very close to exactly six months later, on Tuesday, December 12th--two days after my 22nd birthday.
While I very much hated this city for the first month or so, I've learned that I love it. My time in New York has been less of just a job stint in the city and more of a study abroad experience. This may be a little saccharine and expected, but I really do think I've matured a lot in my time here. I've discovered a lot about what I love about writing, what I hate about magazines, and who I am in general. I've also become something of a New Yorker--albeit, a New Yorker who loves Chicago more...maybe.
Strangely enough, as much about New York still remains a mystery to me (Alphabet City, Williamsburg, Queens...), I still feel like I know more about NYC than I do about Chicago. And I also hate to admit it, but I have grown to love the interconnected incestuousness of New York, complemented by all of its social circle websites that list where the latest art gallery openings and open bars are. I'm still on newsletter mailings for Chicago stuff, but when I receive the Trib's Metromix in my inbox, I roll my eyes because it's yet another week of "Best Bartender" or "Your Pics," and not the everchanging social scene of New York.
Now, I'm not complaining about my social life in Chicago versus my social life in New York (okay, maybe a little), but the vastness of New York eventually got to me. Granted, it took moving to the baby-infested borough of Brooklyn to do that. (Goddamn, I just love their rosy little faces.)
However, I've just come to realize that maybe I won't just be a Chicago bum all my life, moving from the Andersonville/Southport to Near North/Lincoln Park to the 'burbs, as I've always thought would happen. Maybe other things lie before me. And I guess that's pretty cool.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Another Month Passes
Does anyone here watch Youtube regularly? I've decided it's freaker than Facebook. If you're looking for what made me really start thinking about this, delve into the videscapades of Lonelygirl15 and Danielbeast, which are now being documented by...the New York Times?
Bizarre.
Yesterday at work, when one of those "rare" occasions of boredom passed me, I read almost my entire old livejournal...including comment posts. What really struck me was how much I posted after my freshman year of college and how many comments I received, lots from Kim, Heather, Bryan, Matt, Ryan, Jessie, Barrak, and others. I only now realize that in order to convince myself that college still existed that summer and that it hadn't had some wonderful dream, I needed to update my livejournal to stay connected (and, most likely, update facebook every other hour).
The weird thing is that now most of my lj friends either don't have accounts or don't update anymore, and well, neither do I. Sitting at work yesterday, I tried evaluating what that meant. That I'm more mature? That I have less time on my hands? That I don't need that conection to college because I know it's there? Or that I am convinced I've become detached from college in the last few months?
I feel somewhat isolated; and whether that's because I'm very different than many of my "acquaintances/friends" at Northwestern, or because I started dating my best friend (there's a fast route to self-containment), or because I up and moved to New York for six months, I don't know. Regardless, it leaves me feeling like when I go back for the last two quarters of college, I want to make the most of it, not lose touch with my friends, not let "classwork" get me down and just generally be happy.
For the meantime, however, I'm here in New York and I am enjoying it. I'm not out doing some of the crazy things that some of my friends are this summer, but that's okay because I needed to have this "unpaid internship" experience. I do love the feeling of getting off the subway at Rock Center and weaving through crowds on Sixth Avenue. I feel part of something much bigger than myself, and we all know that's a good feeling. I am looking forward to the magazine internship switch from T to YL in the coming weeks. Something fresh is in order for the fall.
To those of you from home who may or may not read this, thanks for inquiring about my house and my family. My parents put the house on the market about ten days ago and are hoping to sell soon. This will be a big process as we have loads of antique furniture which will probably not fit either spacially or decoratively in whatever house my parents buy. Yeah, it's stressful on my family and on me (it's hard to be in New York, uprooted from Northwestern, and know that at the same time, your home is being sold), but I guess this is all part of growing up.
As usual, I've wasted the morning and early afternoon hours of my Friday lounging around, exploring ridiculous websites and watching TV, so I should go venture into the city and do something fun.
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Here I am, again.
I don't really use this anymore, but in a recent riveting evening of journal-comparison with J, I realized that it's pretty useful since it promises not to get lost in your closet or crash with your computer.
With that in mind, I'm updating.
I'm home for the second time after completing the six hour drive to/from Chicago for the third time in one week. (Talk about numbers and figures.) I find myself here, knowing that I won't sleep in my bed in Evanston until January and that I will, in two nights, be sleeping in New York...where I will be for six months.
I'm unnerved. Okay, no. I'm so upset and anxious that I cried for a long, long time Saturday night and then got drunk and cried more.
But I'm excited, too. I think.
This summer will be something entirely new. In some sense, even going to France last year, I've known what each summer after college would bring for me. I look back at my entries from this time of the year in my livejournal and I see similar themes. I'm moving out of the dorm and I'm getting ready to go home. Last year, when I went to France, I knew what to expect of the south of France. I had been there before, and besides, I'd spend the last month of summer at home again.
This year is different.I've never been to New York. Ever. Except on some bridge. Don't know which one.
I'll be living in a one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend and best friend all summer. We will each work all the time and have no money, except enough to buy cheap wine and drink it in bed while watching DVDs on my new computer...cause apparently that's the plan.
That sounds so...adult.
Then I remember that I'm twenty-one and this is a time that things begin to happen in life. And now they are, in fact, happening. And...that's fine.
Friday, March 31, 2006
21 and still going
Somewhere in the last few years, I've grown up.
Not completely, thank God, but I've definitely done some growing.
Perhaps I realized this when I received an email from my mom while in Paris that encouraged me to go participate in the student riots outside Les Invalides by hurdling into them with my new camera. Did she realize journalists were beaten during these things? Does she remember that two years ago she warned me about talking to strangers on the El?
It's funny that I will be gone fall quarter senior year. I think when I come back, I will feel as if I am already done with school and my last two quarters will be a last traipse about Northwestern.
It's funny how little I talk with some people and how much time I spend alone these days. I'm not depressed. I just finally have discovered how much I like being alone.
It's a good feeling, this feeling inside of me.
Thursday, February 9, 2006
funny
A year ago today, I was officially accepted into Medill.
Two years ago today, I bought John and Brett for a date at the Willard Date Auction. I'm still waiting on it.
Two years ago today, Josh and Andy bought me for my Choose Your Own Adventure Date. They're still waiting on it.
Today...I am thinking about my future.
Maybe it's not journalism, I realize, sitting in the Uptown Snack Shop. I've become painfully aware of my bourgeois college existence while sitting in this tin and wood-paneled lunchette, listening to the regulars greet one another and wax nostalgic. The Shop is closing in two weeks, and these are its last days. I'm in the prime spot in the shop--the last booth in the L-shaped layout. "It's the big guys picking on the little guys, again," Karen, my waitress, tells me. I feel like hugging her, but feel so insincere scribbling down what she has said as she walks away. I glance up at the El as its 12:50 to 95th/Dan Ryan leaves the Lawrence stop and barrels by on its way to Wilson. A 20-something like myself walks by, in one hand a coffee cup from Borders and in the other, a cell phone pressed against his cheek. Disgusted with him, I look back at the shop where Johnny, a long-bearded wild-eyed 70-something, is standing up from his booth and declaring, "There's only one thing I like about Starbucks coffee--and that's its name! I don't like one other thing about it. Not one thing!" And again I'm compelled to write. Maybe it is journalism. I still don't know.
Today...I am thinking about my future.
Last summer I was in France, and for spring break, I will be there again. John and I will share a room in Paris, and probably stretch the bounds of getting-along to their limits. I will not be in France this summer. As I type, I should probably be writing more cover letters for internships that will occupy my time this summer. I might be in New York. I might be in L.A. I might be in D.C. I don't know yet, and I won't know for quite a while. I cross my fingers for New York and imagine a hot summer.
Today...I am thinking about my future.
I didn't know I could be this doused in...contentment? So comfortable. So happy.
Doused isn't really the right word to describe it, because if I were doused, then I would be miserable. Julie can tell you all about that.
Sunday, August 7, 2005
A Little Memory
When I was little, I used to do these things I called "Moon Dances."
When there was a full moon in the summer, I'd get dressed up. "Dressed up" usually meant wearing my white slips that were meant to be worn under dresses, which I thought were really sophisticated without dresses over them. I'd also put on make-up, very exciting at the age of six or seven.
Once I was all dressed up, I would have my parents light all the candles on the porch. I'd choose a CD I wanted to dance to and turn the speakers of our living room stereo to face outside. My favorite CD's to play were either Pavarotti's Greatest Hits, Nat King Cole or Ray Charles.
Once it was all ready, I'd dance all night--on the patio, on the porch--and I'd run--up the walkway to the pool, around the pool and into the "back-backyard." I'd jump on my swingset and twist in between the bars and swing. In the moonlight, with my sophisticated white slip, I probably looked much like a streak of white searing across the dark smoky green of the yard.
I think that's nice. I hope that these types of things don't die with age.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Little girls get bigger everyday
Two years ago I went to France with my fellow recently graduated friends and my teacher and/or best adult friend Linn King. We were there not long, but the experience changed me.
I came back, feeling bogged down by everything in Ohio. I was just where I was before I had left--a graduate of LHS, a girl with a boyfriend, an geographical-emotional nomad without a home base, a soon-to-be Wildcat (and what did that mean at the time? Nothing.), just a somebody who felt stuck.
France had opened up my eyes in a short amount of time. I realized how capable I was on my own--without my mom, my dad, my boyfriend, even my friends. Suddenly I was back where I had been before, and everybody expected me to rely on them again...and I couldn't.
For that reason, partially, Northwestern was an amazing escape and new discovery.
I was immediately swooned into the green campus, the gorgeous lakefill, Evanston in its north shore glory, my friends and their amazing talents, my professors who blew me away, and of course, Chicago. Here I was, this individual. Totally on my own. Nobody to rely on, even if I wanted to rely on somebody.
Coming back to Ohio was hell.
I say this with some hesitation, as I have some great friends here...and some particularly wonderful ones who have been nothing short of perfect in the last year or two. ...I think they know who they are.
But, let's set the rest of the bullshit aside. There are some people here in Lebanon who fucking suck. I'm pretty sure Lebanon must be a epicenter for lame-ass, back-stabbing, fair-weather, and generally mediocre and relatively uninteresting individuals. ...I think they know who they are too.
If that's just how it is here, there's nothing I want more than to just get back to this life I have started for myself. Where things were new, just starting, with all sorts of hopes for an amazing future for both me and one shared with my incredible friends. There was, and it goes without saying that there still is, so so SO much to look forward to.
Thus, when I got back to school for my sophomore year and was given one final reason to forget about home, I was more excited than ever to immerse myself in everything Northwestern, Evanston and Chicago. I'm pretty sure judging by this journal, and even moreso the personal changes I see within myself over the last year, I did just that.
I spent more time in the city, more time with new people, more time trying new things, and more time just discovering anything and everything in this past year than I ever have before. Not at any particular moment this year, but somewhere along the way, the realization seeped into me that... I am, in fact, done with home.
And no longer is this idea one that is just 'Home isn't home anymore,' or 'I feel out of place at home;' but rather, it is a full sentence; a complete idea: I am done with home.
It seems appropriate, then, that I should come full circle, leaving for France only days after returning 'home.'
To me, this trip is not just another study abroad, or chance to drink wine at age 20, or opportunity to see another half of the globe. This trip is, in part, an exercise of my newly-found individuality. I'm getting to stretch my limbs and say, 'Here I am,' to nobody but myself and whatever part of France is listening...and understands English.
I'm growing up, and that's kind of weird. But it's these steps along the way, and taking them slowly, that makes the growing all worthwhile.
PS. I'm going to miss you guys. A lot. (And most of you I already do miss a lot and am just itching for September already.)
Friday, May 27, 2005
Half-Way
I went to bed last night at 6:30 am.
Not because I was writing papers.
Not because I was reading.
Not because I was studying for an exam.
Just because I wanted to.
Just because I stayed outside Willard to talk to friends.
Just because I climbed up on the roof and watched the sun rise with a friend.
Just because.
An incoming freshman's mother emailed me about Willard because she saw my picture up as being a fireside chair on the website. I emailed her back, two weeks late, with every intent of making a short email explaining that she should email current fireside chairs and just say that Willard is pretty-cool-I-guess.
As I got writing, I found myself writing her an epic of an email, professing my love for a dorm that is full of people with such passion for life and enthusiasm to do the more unusual and most amazing things. I am so lucky, I realized, to be living here. I am lucky that for two years of my college experience, I've gotten to know the people I think are the most amazing people on this campus.
There's something about the culmination of a relatively disappointing last few weeks with finding new amazing people who refresh you when you begin to feel burnt out that is incredible. I have my oldest, newest, closest and best friends here around me, and I feel so lucky.
From running into the lake, to pudding wrestling; from winter quarter dance parties, to spring quarter euchre; from White Hen runs, to wine cleaning parties; from late nights talking in the Mouse Trap, to early mornings watching the sun rise; from throwing things from windows, to sneaking on roofs; from breaking into SAGA, to breaking into attics; from Quad parties, to Franzia/drum corps parties; from sitting by the radiator with honeynut cheerios, to cheesy movies on tiny futons; from knocking on walls to communicate with friends through rooms, to AIM'ing people next door; from extreme billards, to ultimate frisbee; from late night trips to the beach, to romps in the snow; from long ass dorm meetings, to crazy ass central meetings; from the first awkward New Student Week dance party I attended, to the first NSW dance party I helped organize; from the first nerves that exploded in hello, to the ones that blew up in a hug; from smoking cigars outside Willard, to driving with friends with my feet out the window; from the very moment I stepped into this dorm and saw people I knew in line to get their keys with me (Paul Bryan from Preview NU and Grant from Cincy), from the moment I stepped into my tiny ass crotch room freshman year and Jess and I made it work, from the moment I first felt at home and then had to leave it before coming home again, and even right now, thinking that I will be somewhere else next year, I wax nostalgic and feel honored to have shared my first two years of college with these amazing people.
I didn't intend for this to be my "Holy Shit! I'm Almost Half-Way Done With School!" entry, but it might have ended up being that.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
A Thought From Lake Michigan
The trick is that you take your hands and make a frame through which to see the world. Survey the entire horizon through that frame, slowly. In each crest and fold and dip and wave of life in front of you, there is a place that is yours. All you have to do is step through that frame and claim it.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Trees
"I don't want to be a flower," I told my mom as I slid into the station wagon's passenger seat. "I want to be a tree."
My mom smiled and her eyes flashed as she looked at me. "What do you mean?"
That day in my third grade class, Mrs. Perkins had told me I could be a flower.
The specifications of why I could be a flower now escape me. I think it involved something about being pretty or smart or really standing out. Standing out--like a flower? Flowers never struck me as really standing out.
"But I wanna be a tree."
"But flowers are prettier."
I let myself go labeled as a flower, if just briefly, and sat thinking seriously about the foliage matter at hand for the rest of the day. It wasn't until this moment pulling away from Lebanon's Louisa Wright Elementary that I voiced it again.
My mom was quiet and then looked at me as we sat at the stop sign by IGA. She reached her hand around me, running her fingers through my hair. "There's no reason you can't be a tree," she told me.
She was right. There wasn't a reason I couldn't be a tree, if I wanted. Flowers were pretty, sure, but that wasn't for me... to stand around, looking pretty or just doing what everybody else in the grass was doing.
And I guess I never have.
Saturday, May 7, 2005
Hometown Proud
Taken on the surface, small towns are wonderful places.
All is lush green here in Lebanon in May. Lush green spotted with the maroon and white uniforms smudged brown with dirt after a long day of softball. These little maroon and white troops stand in disarray outside the Dairy Queen, flanked by their moms wearing matching two-toned baseball shirts and their dads sporting half-shaven greasy faces that still reek of beer and sweat.
I wonder how I spent 16 years of my life in this one place, doing exactly what these people are doing.
Wearing my maroon and white tennis sweats, standing in line at Dairy Queen, a boyfriend at my side and the keys to my Beetle swinging off my finger.Running about town with John Mayer, Third Eye Blind or Eagle Eye Cherry blasting in the CD player, the sun blinding against the glass-washed windows of the bank and Trish down at the shop on Broadway inquiring after my parents. Swinging on the swingsets down at Harmon Park and going on walks on the golf course late at night.
Did I really do this for 16 years?
The other thing about being home is that there are so few people your age there. You suddenly realize you were unaware of the absence of the 18-23 year-olds in town during the schoolyear. But now that you're back, you notice that they're not around.
The only people around are aged up to 17 or are parents... and that's when it hit me.
Everything is maroon and white here in Lebanon. Everything moves together quietly, even if under the surface there is turbulence, toward some common goal of a town with a purpose. When everyone knows who you are, it's hard not to be part of this community.
Yet, here I am, twenty years old and on my own, essentially. I've been given this opportunity to throw off school colors and punch my fists in the air while breaking free. I don't have to identify with anyone but myself right now, and that's pretty awesome.Somewhere down the line, I might end up in another Lebanon, U.S.A. and I'll port my own child's school colors and stand in line with him at the Dairy Queen. Who knows? But for now, I'm throwing punches at the world and refusing to get tied down in a city where I remain nameless and a campus where, I assume, I remain mostly a mystery.