We decided last night, at about 10 pm, that a day trip was necessary. And though I can't quite do justice to all the moments, but in bullet-point form (my go-to in lazy moments), here are a few:
--A underworn-socked-light bulbed-scrubbered trip to the Target on Golf
--A lunch at the First Ever McDonalds (well, across the street from the First Ever)
--A windows-down trip up to Lincolnshire for sweet corn
--A putt-putting adventure at Par-King (most ridiculous, strangest mini golf ever)
--A lovely drive through the country-ish/north-westerly suburbish of northern Illinois
--A trip to an abandoned beach and an abandoned nuclear plant in Zion
--A discovery of a small envelope in a soda vending machine that read: OPEN ME. We did, and it was nine pennies. We put it back in case they were laced with SARS.
--A marshmallow and hot fudge creme sundae from Culver's
--A trip to the Naval Academy.
--A jingle-filled afternoon of fresh made songs about Kennilworth and Wilmette
--Oh, and making that damn good corn at the end of the day for dinner. :)
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Day Trip to Northern Illinois
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Summer in the city
Things are slow, quiet. And for the most part, that's good. After the boiling hot/smelly subway/New York chaos that was last summer, the lazy, beachy, part-time employed life is somewhat welcome for one last Summer Vacation. Not to mention, that being away from New York as long as possible is good considering who knows how long I may spend in my future there...
I spent yesterday morning with Hayley at the Farmers' Market where we bought raspberries, blueberries, and various other goodies. We subsequently packed ourselves turkey bagel sandwiches and threw on our swimsuits for a trip to beach. We basked in the sun for almost four hours, catching up, reading, plunging in the cool lake and throwing a frisbee around in the waves. It was great.
It was also nice to spend some time with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. It seems so hard--maybe at this age, or maybe forever--to keep in touch with friends. I've spent quite a few nights here saying "goodbye" to people, promising to keep in touch, and wondering if we ever will. I also keep running into friends and acquaintances on the street, half-making plans to go get dinner or a drink and seemingly never following through on the promise made. I can't help but wonder if sometimes an unreturned or unmade phone call is my fault or the fault of someone else, or if it's no one's fault and we're all so busy. But then I find myself sitting around on a sunny afternoon and thinking that it should be another day at the beach or something of the like.
There must be some delicate balance between the quiet buzz of the air conditioning in a room by one's self and the loud roar of a college party. It's just hard to find in the middle of July when it's almost 100 degrees outside, I suppose.
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, October 3, 2006
Things I've Recently Discovered:
-Baked Doritos really ARE good. (And much better for you than Sunchips!)
-My Catholic father was once Jewish and taught at Temple (I find this out after 21 years of believing my father to be an Irish Catholic!)
-Those AA batteries on the subway may not be the mischief of one irate battery-vendor, but just the discarded batteries of subway riders. (I cannot quite accept this. I prefer to think of the battery-vendor.)
-Yoga is life. (Self-explanatory.)
-I may or may not be addicted to baked potatoes.
-Alex Jamieson and her husband Morgan Spurlock (of Super-Size Me! fame) live in my 'hood. (I interviewed her for an article I'm writing.)
-I miss Evanston a lot, but I actually like New York (finally).
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.
Friday, January 6, 2006
Back to school
"There had been days and nights when the memory of their kiss had burned and burned on his lips; the day before even, on the drive to Portsmouth, the thought of her had run through him like fire; but now that she was beside him, and they were drifting forth into this unknown world, they seemed to have reached the kind of deeper nearness that a touch may sunder."
I always find myself coming back to this quote from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. There's something about her words here that just grab me. I think it's the image of fire in this impossible, maybe even unrequited, love; and the idea that sometimes we have to settle, that we can't hold onto flames.
It's been a long time since I've updated. Break ended. I miss home...a lot. It was so nice being with my family over this break and not working. I must be maturing (or maybe really boring) because I didn't argue with my parents and I wanted to stay in and be with them. There's something so reassuring after being thrown out into apartment/college/real world where you fend for yourself, essentially, to return home where your family welcomes you with hugs and maybe even some hot soup. In other break events, I probably saw more of fellow Northwesterner and Cincinnatian Grant than I did my home friends, which is strange but was fun. Fortunately, some of the home gang are considering coming up to visit Northwestern later in January.
Caught up with the Arles group in a semi-reunion over the last few days. How strange to see a group of people you could not escape for weeks in a brief moment of cake and making dinner.
It's late, and I should sleep.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Four years later
I had a conversation tonight with a friend about the comparison between 9/11 and Katrina. He pointed out how Katrina has overshadowed significant rememberances for the victims of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I agreed with him that sometimes the freshest blood can be seen the best on media coverage, but doesn't, sometimes, holding up a flag stained with blood and tears become tiresome and cliche rather than a poignant statement? And, in many ways, Americans have become much more jaded as a country. Even George W.'s approval ratings have plummeted over the last two weeks.
What, he pointed out, should George W. have done to have "done more" in the south?
For me, this was W.'s one last-ditch opportunity to prove something positive about his pathetic two-term presidency. Here, he could have changed things--shown what a great addition the "Homeland Security" department was, used that second article power of his as president (not to mention those uninhibited powers granted to him following 9/11 by Congress). But instead, we sat horrified in front of our television sets for a week as bodies floated in water, as snipers shot at patients as they were evacuated from hurriance-torn hospitals, as family members turned to CNN and MSNBC and (even) FoxNews for help finding their loved ones and for information on where to go and what to do--information the government wasn't giving them.
W.'s presidency has been flanked by two disasters--9/11 and Katrina--completely different in nature, but telling of so much that has changed in the last four years. Not only do we recognize the date today and remember and mourn, but we also recognize that the world we live in today is different than that of early September of 2001. In the world we live in, planes flown into buildings and terrorist attacks are possibilities and--because of 9/11, London and several other attacks--realities.
In some ways, Katrina is not fresher blood for the media to scrounge from. Instead, it seems Katrina's flood waters washed away the contrived political jargon of neo-conservatism where patriotism and hostility are nearly one and the same. When the waters recede, somewhere in the wreckage, the ineffectiveness and ineptitude of this presidency will be left behind. And America will be reminded of how much we were promised after 9/11—-and how little we were delivered.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Baby's First All-Nighter(s)
This is going to take a while, but it's worth noting. Keep in mind, also, some of these are approximations, as my concept of time was greatly skewed.
THURSDAY:
9:30 am: I wake, shower, screw around the room.
11 am: I go to Unicorn to read.
Noon: I eat lunch with Jess.
1:30 pm: I go to Art Store to buy supplies for my Storytelling children's book project.
2:30 pm: I draw in the Common Room.
5:00 pm: I watch Burnt by the Sun with Jason and Oscar.
7:00 pm: Our Cozy Noodles by delivery arrives.
7:05 pm: I bitch out people who set shit on fire and almost catch a tree on fire, too.
7:10 pm: Hen run for drinks.
7:30 pm: Restart movie.
10:00 pm: Movie ends. Feel hella depressed try to get cheered up.
11:30 pm: Move down to Rat Trap to draw more. End up talking to Jeff for an hour instead.
FRIDAY:
12:30 am: Actually start drawing. Read and other things, too.
3:00 am: Hen run with Schenks.
3:20 am: Discuss all USSR notes with Schenks.
4:30 am: Return to drawing.
6:00 am: Go onto roof to spend some time NOT working.
7:00 am: Discover that I do not have enough white paper to print off everything for my project. Get white paper from Mike, while in 3DP, I notice Trace sitting on the couch, staring at Grant who is sleeping seemingly naked. Thoroughly weirded out.
7:10 am: Run to CVS. Buy binder.
7:20 am: Bind everything. Project done.
7:30 am: Eat the bagel that Jess and Mike picked up for me. Down two energy drinks and one Frappuccino.
7:45 am: Shatter one Lime Perrier and scream.
8:00 am: Take pictures of myself and Jess being crazy.
8:15 am: Shower.
8:40 am: Call Mom, talk too fast for her to understand me.
9:00 am: USSR final.
9:23 am: Finish USSR final?
10:00 am: Go to Unicorn with Jess.
11:00 am: Put things in storage with Jess and parents.
12:00 pm: Go with parents to study abroad office to drop off project. Now officially academically done.
12:45 pm: Go down to 3DP to say goodbye to Mike.
1:15 pm: Mike leaves.
1:30 pm: Go to Buff Joe's with Jess and some of the guys.
2:15 pm: Help Jess move her stuff outside.2:30 pm: Jess leaves.
2:58 pm: Make very sad lj entry.
3:30 pm: Start getting stuff packed.
4:00 pm: Frappuccino bought at Starbucks. Run to Hen.
5:00 pm: Start making dinner plans.
6:00 pm: Run over to Blom to find Eric and company...no success.
6:45 pm: Meet up with some of dinner crew to go to Joy Yee's.
7:30 pm: Sit down finally for some delicious dinner and smoothees.
9:00 pm: Try to pack more.
9:30 pm: Give in and sleep for a bit.
11:30 pm: Awoken by Jason and Jiwon.
SATURDAY:
Midnight: Up and moving again. Packing. Realize my luggage is missing. Make plans to go to beach.
1:00 am: Plan to beach canceled with JP's goodbye visit.
2:15 am: Schenks stops by, John stops by, many others follow in Jason's wake.
4:00 am: Jeff stops by. Decision to go to White Hen made.
4:30 am: Hen run.
5:00 am: Climb onto roof one last time.
6:30 am: After deciding to really get to packing, I sit with the hybrid, Jaff Schedinger for an hour and a half talking.
8:00 am: Really get packing.
8:30 am: Shower.
9:00 am: Screw around because sleeping at this point is a bad idea, even though I'm done packing.
11:00 am: Parents come, lots and lots and lots of loading of car to bring things to storage begins.
3:00 pm: Best/worst decision ever. I drive someone else's car to take Brett to drop a chair off in storage. Parking a car has never been so difficult.
11:00 am -- 5:00 pm: Lots of goodbyes and surrealness.
5:00 pm: Final checking out of Willard.
5:15 pm: Last moment standing in lobby, staring at mailroom and thinking about the last two years.
5:20 pm: Dinner with parents at Clarke's.
6:15 pm: Hit the road. Asleep before my parents turn west onto Davis. Literally.
9:45 pm (est): Wake up. Drink water. Fall asleep again.
SUNDAY:
1:45 am: Arrive in Ohio. Ask my mom, tiredly, "Can we move everything out of the car tomorrow?" My mom replies, "Jesus, CC!" and I think she's mad that I suggested it, but instead she thinks I am nuts for even considering moving things that night.
1:55 am: Already in my own bed. Passed out.
2:45 pm: Wake up. Begin living, kinda. Screw around all day, get dinner at Bravo with parents, get ice cream, screw around until...
7:00 pm: I pass out again.
10:00 pm: I wake up and think to myself, Shit. I might have finally slept TOO much. I watch a thunderstorm, talk with friends online, until...
MONDAY:
2:23 am: When I realize, yes, I did sleep too much and I should be asleep by now.
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.
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
So You're Not an Arts and Sciences Major Anymore?
If this brochure (see subject heading) is published anywhere, then someone please pick it up for me.
Did you notice that I just used the proper if-then sentence structure?
That's because I have to do so.
That's because I'm now in Medill.
And that's all I've got for now. :)
Sunday, January 30, 2005
First times
I dropped a class, for the first time ever. I've never felt so morally and academically conflicted. I had fallen way behind in my reading for the class, had not memorized my sonnet for the week, and knew the class was not going to serve me any purpose in my newly (almost, after I turn in the paperwork this week) declared major. Setting aside my closet-workaholic ethics and moral dilemmas, I focused on the above reasonings and pressed "drop" right next to "English Literary Traditions 210-1."
And thus, no Caesar, I am not an English Lit major.Jess and I had a magical evening of romance together last night. We did our date right, on a whim and in search of a hamburger. Our hamburger quest led us to Southport Ave., Cullen's Grille (God love them for their orgasmic onion rings), the Music Box Theatre (for a visually-stimulating French movie event through the film Notre Musique), and Julius Meinl's, a Viennese Kaffeehaus with the most decadent of decadent raspberry-mango-white chocolate tortes my tongue has ever caressed.
We had moving conversations on the El ride home, interesting pick-up lines from 30 year old men at the bars of Southport, and crashed back at our room pre-midnight. Tate came and whisked my lover away from me, and after reconciling my evening to a night of a Porter and Seinfeld alone, I was pleasantly surprised by a visit from JP. After some nice conversation, JP exited and I wandered down the hall to waste a good three hours before finally falling asleep around 4:30 am.
I was awoken this morning by the rude, bitter USPS man who pulled more-or-less the "you're a privileged white girl at Northwestern" bullshit on me and I went back to bed angry to have dreams about singing Backstreet Boys in bed.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Nyquil is my lover; Dayquil is my muse
This medicated state I'm in is the most wonderful and bizarre thing. I went to bed last night around 12:15 and got up at 9:50. I showered, got ready, and then collapsed in fetal position on my bed.
Needless to say, I decided not to go to my first class of the day.
I have had bizarre dreams too. Two nights ago, the dream I had takes the cake of all bizarre dreams:
I had gone to a circus and/or amusement park-ish place with JP, where we ran into John and Brett, who had been kind enough to save us some seats in the big tent at the circus. Brett suggested we all take a ride on the log chute water-ride and of course, we were all up for it.
However, as we got up to leave the tent, the entire amusement park was besieged by these...critters?... who were attacking us. Kevin "Chops" Brown suddenly appeared, told us he works at the park and he knew the only safe way out was by the log chute. As we ran ahead to catch the log chute and jumped in, Kevin yelled to us: Just so you know, Jenny Tison is at the bottom of the hill dressed up like XZibit!!
And suddenly we were flying down the waterchute and sure enough, there was JT rapping and in the guise of a black man at the bottom. She was there to distract the invaders, apparently. We were all waving to her when suddenly the critter-like things ran out from underneath the waterfall and we were attacked.
I woke up.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
I'm really happy I interviewed Natalia Singer. I really can't describe just how happy I am. Aside from the kindness of Kim to give me a chance to write something in Play, Natalia was just...amazing...and everything I could hope to emanate. Her vibrant personality, impracticality and uncontrollable enthusiasm gives me hope.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
This Stuff
I expected college to be a lot like a series of monologues, where each individual would get a moment of self-declaration and in that moment, we completely mature, learn, and grow. But that hasn't happened and I don't think it will any time soon.
Instead, "College," the theater show, is set on a stage that has been designed as a cest pool of competition, gossip and hormones, where, we the players ("college students") port North Face fleece, Nalgenes, and five-hundred pages of reading for each week, and off stage right, parents and authority figures tell us to function.
"College" should really be a musical instead. Oh, wait. Waa Mu definitely already did that. But they didn't have a musical scene in a library--and that needs to happen.
Last night I was lying in bed thinking about all the things that had happened to me in a week's time. I'm positive nothing happened to me during the entire LENGTH of summer that compared in terms of dramatic interest. More dramas should be set on college campuses.
I've been cryptic lately with everybody. I apologize.
My backyard is big with big trees, divided in half by a white fence that runs the width of the green space. Stretching away from our back door and porch, there is a patio, a walkway to our pool, the white wooden fence, and then another stretch of lawn where our barn flanks the right side and my old wooden swingset flanks the left.
When I was seven, I'd run the entire backyard in circles. I'd start at the backdoor's steps, run crosswise toward my swingset, climb the swingset and jump down, run the width of the yard to the barn, turn, follow the white fence down toward the big tree with the old swing (where I once fell and scraped open my chin), around the pool (keeping my distance from the edge like Mom asked me to), and then leap over the lavender bushes.
Once, as I tried to jump those bunches of lavender in one leap, I thought to myself (as I fell into the grass and proceeded to roll down the hill toward the patio in one motion), "Someday, I'll look back and think about this and I'll know I was really lucky."
And I was right. I do look back. And I was lucky. Everything was simple, and even though I knew it, I couldn't appreciate it.
I think I'm going to jump in leaves later this week and maybe run around campus. I think I'd smile if I saw someone else doing it in between classes or at night on their way to the library, so maybe I should go for it
Friday, June 11, 2004
Being Cliché
I'm getting all sentimental. That sucks.
I just got off the phone from an hour and a half long conversation with Brandon. Before that, I was with my parents moving around storage and we drove around looking at the old "familiar" sights of Wilmette.
Yesterday involved:
One last final
Packing
Burning CDs, a lot
Goodbyes
Dinner at Panera
Running in the rain with John down Sherman
Slideshows and pizza
Dance parties
Naps at midnight
More packing
Quietly spending last nights with friends
Stayed up last night with John til 4 am talking about our coming summers. Lil Jess came in shortly thereafter and we reviewed our short college experiences til 5. What stereotypical last-few-nights talks, but I think they had to happen.
Outside my window, cars nearly ram into one another in efforts to get parking spots near the dorms. It's chaos.
So many people left today. How can it be that I feel like I still JUST got to college and yet I have such a connection with a still unfamiliar place?
I was still just getting to know so many people and I don't want summer to interrupt. I'm, of course, anxious to get home and try to settle back into my old skin, but I don't know if that's going to be completely possible.
Sorry to make this cliche end-of-my-freshman-year-at-college entry, but I think...it had to happen. :)
Sunday, May 16, 2004
And then there was the time...
After a rather lethargic late lunch at Panera and a coffee-stop at Unicorn, I decided that there comes a time when one must face the facts and go home and take a nap. However, my plans would soon be thwarted by one 30-something flamboyantly gay man and one 20-something ethnically and handsomely ambiguous gentleman.
Walking along Sherman, the two men stopped me in the street, the flamboyantly gay man, who we'll call Charlie, demanding a "woman's opinion" on his ethnically-ambiguous friend's (Rufio's) hair. "How high is too high?...I'm talking height here. Not volume. REAL height!"
Slightly concerned that I was being hit on in some strange-conspicuous manner and eager to leave as quickly as possible, I quickly offered my advice that as long as the hair fits the personality, all is well.
"Okay, great! Thanks!" Charlie chortled. He reached out, grabbed my hand, and suddenly, I find myself being spun and danced around like an awkwardly-positioned mannequin holding an iced latte, purse, and textbooks. I laughed uncomfortably as the people eating outside Camilles sat by and watched.
"There, I just did that to see your smile, because I JUST KNEW it was beautiful!!" Charlie beamed at me. At this point, I was really ready to go and my latte was beginning to brim over and spill onto my hand.
"Thanks for being such a sport," he smiled, reaching out his hand once more. When I shook it, I didn't realize I would be forfeiting my own hand for another five minutes.
"Look at her handshake!!" Charlie grabbed Rufio's shoulder. "Isn't it INTERESTING??" During the next five minutes, my hand was passed between Charlie and Rufio, as they told me all about...me. A little sidewalk-offered palm reading.
"He knows ALL about this stuff," Charlie oozed, hiking his thumb at Rufio.
"I spent two years living in the mountains," Rufio offered.
Oh, that explains it, I thought.
"You know, monks and Nepal and all that junk," Charlie teased Rufio, handing my palm over to him.
Rufio squinted as my reddened palm, "Oh...Your heartline is short." Rufio's laments seeped through his eyes as he stared apologetically at me. "Your lovelife is unstable, is it not?"
Whose isn't? I thought. But, being the kind Ohio girl I am, I uttered instead, "I guess so."
"Yeah I can see that here," Rufio bit his lip. A moment's contemplation and, "Oh! Her lifeline is split in half." He turned to Charlie, concerned. Obviously this split-lifeline would prove some sort of problem for me. The people at Camille's sat on the edges of their seats, waiting to hear exactly what sort of problem it was.
"You live two lives," Rufio sternly and solemnly judged. The sentence was passed. I imagined myself donning a black leather suit, climbing the walls of Kresge, crawling the perimeter of Tech, and tormenting drunk Northwestern students at the rock during all hours of the night, screaming animalistic shrieks of terror.
"Yeah, I guess I do," I agreed with Rufio.
Abruptly, Charlie seized my hand, bent my fingers back and pronounced me to be as stubborn as they come and that was that. I didn't get a chance to voice my opinion on that judgement.
With that, Charlie asked me judge Rufio's mountainbred accuracy on the scale from Bruce Willis to Mohawk, short to tall hair, one to ten. I gave them a hearty "six or seven," wistfully recalling my nights in the bushes around Tech, black leather sticking to my sweaty legs.
And with Charlie's last confiscation of my hand, "a twirl to the left and-uh twirl to the right," I was on my way, having entertained not only the people lunching at Camille's, but passerbys as well, including my subtly-handsome-quiet-boy Geo Sci TA. I waved goodbye to Charlie and Rufio for maybe not the last time. Who knows, maybe it lies in my future to cross paths with them once more?
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Thursday, April 1, 2004
April Fool's
I didn't want realism anyway; I wanted things to be highly coloured, simple in outline, without ambiguity, which is what most children want when it comes to the stories of their parents. They want a postcard." --Margaret Atwood
My parents were engaged today, 21 years ago. My dad hasn't changed his style. Of course he'd propose on April Fool's Day. Oh, Dad. My mom sent an email completely reliving the moment and their celebration dinner that night at The Casbah, down on Clark. Sometimes I forget my parents preceded me. I love being reminded by them that they did. I love knowing that even in this area, my parents were here. It gives me even more reassurance that I'm not out of my element, being six hours away from home. Even Bennison's, where they bought their wedding cake, and Seville Flowers on Sherman, where they got their flowers for both their wedding and my baptism, are just a hop down the street. I love knowing this. I want to go to my old neighborhood and walk around. I clearly remember the stones that lined the street. I bumped into one when learning how to ride my bike--light lavender, a plastic basket adorned with a yellow and purple flower, and training wheels. I also remember them from Halloween, when I wore a dirnel, not that I knew what it was then. I held onto my sister's hand and jumped up on them as she swung me up by my arm. That night, I shoved my arm into a paper grocery bag, got it cut close to the armpit from trying to reach into the bottom. I managed to pull out M&M's. They came in boxes then. Dark brown boxes that had the logo printed diagonally across the length of it. My dad said he'd eat all my candy. I didn't realize he was joking, and ate as quickly as I could from my own bag. Everything fades from there into the burnt, scratched and tarnished wood table where I sat at the head, kneeling so I could reach it.