Monday, October 29, 2001
I had wanted to say something a long time ago, but I didn't know what to say, so I didn't. But just now, as I was rifling through a folder marked "Freshman year: correspondence" I came across a note, folded into a neat little square, with "DUBE" written on the front. It was exactly a year ago that I returned to my dorm to find it taped to my door.
Jon left it there.
I'm sort of surprised I kept it, but then again, I kept a lot of things from last year.
I guess he just left a note on my door because apparently he'd had to go to Philly for cheesesteaks as part of pledging, something like that. He left his cell phone number and said to call if I got back before 1:30, and if not he'd see me before TCBY next summer.
I think I got back around 2. I remember being disappointed that I had missed him, but I was mostly impressed that he'd even remembered my room number and had bothered to track down a paper and a pen and write me a note.
The next time I saw him was at TCBY a good six and a half months later. I was back at the job I hated, and he stopped by to tell me he was disapointed to see me working there again, and told me how he was psyched he was to be working at the Weathervane. I told him maybe I'd see him around there sometime.
The next time I saw his face, it was on a poster at the mall.
It's not that we were the best of friends or anything, because I really didn't know him that well. He was just Sarah's boyfriend who would harass me at TCBY for free ice cream and came to see Guster with Zara here. They were the first people to come visit me at college, and that still means a lot to me. But that's how he was, I guess. Friendly to everyone. Probably one of the genuinely nicest people I ever knew, and I really don't like to throw around the phrase "nice guy" all that often, because most times "nice guys" really aren't. But Jon always seemed like the happiest, nicest guy. I guess he was.
I know I'm not nice enough to stop and offer help to a stranger. I tell myself people like that must be gauranteed a place in heaven. But as C.S. Lewis once wrote somewhere, if someone isn't traveling along at a rate of sixty second to a minute, it's impossibly distant, impossible to understand.
The day I found out he was missing was one of those days you feel like this can't really be life. Someone must be hiding in the background somewhere with a camera, because this has to be a movie. A really, really bad, depressing movie.
I drove home from the job I hated to a house made completely unbearable by my father's lies, with Jon's poster sitting on the seat beside me, only to find my dead cat in the road. I burst into my kitchen (decorated with streamers for my little brother's birthday) screaming all sorts of strange things about a cat in the road that couldn't be Geronimo because he was too big, but please go look, and then waving a frantic hand at the ten o'clock news, trying to explain that that was Jon, I knew him, he came to visit me, I don't understand.
When so many things go wrong all at once, I've said before, it sometimes makes it easier to divert the pain across many channels. I had to leave two days later for a couple days in Indiana and by the time I got back, the funeral was over, the headlines had slowed down a little bit and all the posters were gone from the mall. It wasn't normal, but it was sort of possible to pretend.
Sometimes, things just strike me as so unbearably unfair.
Bad job, dysfunctional father, killed cat and all, I know I've been very, very lucky in my life. Like really, really fortunate, and I don't know if I deserved any of it. And I'm very grateful for that. But I just can't shake this anger at how unfair life can be sometimes.
[03:54 AM EST] [3]
Friday, October 26, 2001
The way I work myself up into a state of complete panic about such stupid things really makes me wonder just how much of a nut-job I really am sometimes. And when they come falling into place so smoothly and with maddening simplicity, it just makes my worried thoughts all the more pointless.
It's been said that worrying is always a completely pointless emotion: anything worth worrying about is out of your hands and won't be helped by your worrying, and anything that isn't worth worrying about, well, clearly. Not worth it. (I think someone once said this more eloquently, but I, being lazy, do not care to research that for you. You got my point anyway, I hope.)
Still. It's the end of the week, and all my post-it notes are still there. I rearranged them a little, to make myself feel better, and it's not like I accomplished nothing... I just didn't accomplish anything that I'd planned to accomplish.
And I still have a 3-5 page paper to write by 5 pm tomorrow, but somehow, this doesn't phase me. I am unphasable.
(Except by large masses of post-it notes that threaten to take over my desk along with my mind and all my worldly possessions. But they too shall pass. I hope.)
Completely unrelated, but it's amazing how much some people just don't get it. At all. I want to laugh, or feel bad, but when someone keeps insisting on seeing the world through their warped, self-serving vision, even when they know, when it's been clearly pointed out and mapped for them just where they went wrong and how very wrong they went (and are), well, you catch my drift. People, I tell you.
[12:21 AM EST] [3]
Friday, October 19, 2001
Though I was tempted to write an essay about why I am stressed out and all that ails me, but I thought better of it. I think I need to take more time for amusement, and so, I hereby present the story of my "Fall Break":
Right, so.
Given that we had been given a whole day (wow, a whole day! that meant all of two classes!) off, my friends and I took it upon ourselves to take advantage of our city's fine location: wedged between two much bigger, better cities (eg: New York and Washington, D.C.). So we took that fine, fine bus line known as Greyhound to our nation's capitol very, very early on Friday morning.
Realization: Nice people take Amtrak. Strange, weird, scary people take Greyhound.
Despite the fact that it was an ungodly early hour (well, 8:15, but that is freaking early, when you consider we had to get our sleepy selves to the station by 7:15 because Greyhound has a great, great policy where even if your ticket says you are leaving at a particular time, it actually has no significance whatsoever, and you really aren't gauranteed any sort of seat at all. But anyway) there was a very creepy, very weird, very curious and talkative man with far, far too many tattoos in the seat in front of me.
Early on, I made use of my sunglasses, figuring that their ability to block my eyes and thus avoid eye contact, combined with my ability to feign sleep would be enough to keep him away. But no. Oh, no. He talked anyway. A lot.
I recall comments like "If I want to give my son a tattoo, then, I'll give him one, damnit!". My friend, not realizing the powers of faked sleep, attempted to do some studying on the bus, which prompted him to ask her what it was she was reading. Psych, she told him.
"Whoa, so... you can like read minds and stuff? Weird! What am I thinking now! Tell me what am I thinking now?"
Puzzled looks in response from my friend. "I don't know what you're thinking..."
"Oh come on, you can tell me! What am I thinking??"
"I can't read minds!" she said, and then in a stroke of realization "I study PSYCH, I'm not a psychic!"
"Aw, shit. I thought you was like Dionne Warwick or somethin'....
Oh my...
--
Also falling under the "Reasons Greyhound Freaking Sucks":
After a nice day of visiting all those fabulous and free musuems and a bunch of dead president's monuments, we headed over to Georgetown for dinner at a nice Vietnamese place, which was lots of fun because they were kind enough to give us free desserts (some kind of fried bananas with ice cream -- which we didn't actually ask for, but were good all the same) 'cause they needed to make us move our seats to make room for other people. And (so fun) they set them on fire. Pyrotechnical food displays are always fun.
Anyway, by the time we left, it was about 10 pm. Ok, we figured. We'll call Greyhound and find out when the next bus leaves.
Right. So apparently, the next bus was leaving in all of 15 minutes, which we didn't exactly have, considering we were some miles from the station, and because of previously-mentioned shitty ticket policy, you really need to get there way ahead of time. And most fun of all! The next bus didn't leave until 4 am.
Four in the morning. And granted, this was our own stupid faults for not realizing sooner, and in college terms, four in the morning isn't really that early, but when you've been up since six-thirty (a time I have not woken up for since high school), walking about and experiencing your national heritige and all that crap, you're freaking tired.
On the happy side, we got to stop by GW and (I think) scare the crap out of Zara (also: shout-out to Zara's nice roommates who I met and apparently read this!). Though I feel bad we came just as she was going out and didn't call or do something nice that normal people might do ahead of time. (also note: GW really needs to beef up its security. That was just way too easy to get into.)
After our little visit, we headed over to Union Station (a much cleaner, nicer, less skechy environment than the Greyhound station down the hill) where we did the only thing we could: curled up on a bench and crashed. Or at least, I tried to. After a short while, an Amtrak cop came over and informed us we needed to sit up. Now, this is all good and well, but I was tired and alseep, and when I wake up to find a cop standing over me, looking down somewhat quizzically, I naturally get a little freaked out.
This world is a freaky place these days. I think my shouting some gutteral type sound that resembled "Huh? Wha?" (I think it was more "Huhuhgher?!?") followed by a more understandable, very loud "JESUS!" was perfectly justified. Though the cop seemed somewhat taken aback.
Anyway. It finally did reach four in the morning, and somehow (though I don't remember how exactly) I survived an excruciantingly miserable bus ride back where every moment, my leg space seemed to shrink. The black sky slowly became illuminated to a pale grey as we reached Philly, and by the time we were back at our dorms, a full 24 hours after we left, it was light again.
And I slept. And slept.
And haven't quite make it to New York yet.
[12:36 AM EST] [5]
Tuesday, October 16, 2001
My mom came to visit me on Thursday. She was heading down to Maryland for the weekend, to visit her college roomate who's twin sons were having their bar-mizfah(s?) this weekend. Philadelphia is (sort of) en route to Baltimore, so we had dinner.
I feel sort of guilty, only seeing my mom for six hours in as many weeks, and I sort of feel like I should've spent this weekend (our "fall break" — a misnomer if there ever was one, but more on this another time — was this weekend) going to visit home, but I guess, with my mother here, and five sevenths of my family no longer at said home, it would be a little pointless.
She arrived at her hotel just as my English class let out. It's sometimes a little weird when two different spheres of your existance — at least, spheres so completely different as home and school — meet together in the same place at the same time. I'm never quite sure what to anticipate with those things. I'm always afraid the combination self that I'll come up with for the moment won't quite seem true enough to anyone.
It's not like I consciously create different identies (if they even count as real "identities" which I'm not sure they do) — they just sort of happen. Different wines bring out different flavors in foods. It's that way with people too, I guess. (Or something.)
But anyway, as it turns out, sometimes these identies aren't so different. Or maybe they just blend better than I thought. I don't know. But anyway, it was good to see her.
I've been trying — and not terribly successfully, I suppose — to keep better tabs on everyone this year. I call home more often and write emails and I don't think more than a week has gone by this year when I haven't had some form of contact with someone in my family. But some things, you really can't get across the lines of an email or telephone.
(Sometimes, I wonder if I'm destined to be one of those people always wishing they were at a place and time just passed, or not quite there yet, but never satisfied with where they are. I don't want to be that way, but it seems so inevitable sometimes.)
It's good to see people in person, potential clashing of spheres and all.
[12:39 AM EST] [3]
Wednesday, October 3, 2001
Caroline's Paper-Writing Advice
1. Locate the assignment, read it over.
Of course, this will probably take you no more than an hour, maybe two. Maybe your teacher gave a handout with explicit directions, maybe she didn't. Maybe you're positive you know everything on that assignment, but it's always best to spend at least 45 minutes rifilng through papers and checking under your bed for it, just in case. It'll give you a starting place for step two, which is of course...
2. Clean your room.
Start by straightening out your desk, throwing out papers that have been collecting since 1992, then work your way to doing the laundry, bleaching your shower, mopping the floor, scrubbing the toilets. If it weren't for papers, I don't think any of these things would ever get cleaned in my place.
In doing all of that, you're sure to turn up some old letters or photographs or other memorabilia from friends of the past, and you know if you don't do something now, you never will so...
3. Catch up on your correspondence.
I mean, really, which is more important, friends, or a degree? You've been letting these relationships slide far too much. It's time to get your priorities straight. Make sure you check everyone's away messages while you're at it. Now might be a good time to organize your buddy list as well. Anyway, writing all those e-mails will help sharpen your writing skills which is definately important practice for that paper.
Anyway, after all this talk of priorities, you're probably in a good position to move onto the next step, which involves some real, hard, strenous work:
4. Make an outline.
Of course, you know basically nothing about your topic, so this is a good time to get a bunch books you have no intention of opening, so you need to...
5. Make a trip to the library.
Wow, there are a lot of books in the library. Find some cozy area to curl up with a stack of books and just ponder the sheer number of books there are there. Now's also a great time to watch other people study. Wow, they look like they're working hard. Makes me tired just thinking about it. (Which brings me to the next step...)
6. Take a nap.
At this point, it's looking like you're going to need to pull an all-nighter to finish this paper. It's a good idea to rest up. When you wake up, you'll feel really energized and all ready for Step 7:
7.Write the first paragraph.
(7a. Write a body paragraph.)
Wow again! That was impressive, that paragraph there. Or maybe it sucks. Either way, now would definately be a good time to take time out and reflect on it which happens to be Step 8...
8. Update your web page.
Then, repeat steps 1-6, stepping over Step 4 and moving onto 7a on the second time through. At this rate, you'll have that paper done in no time! Way to go tiger! (And for those of you who haven't quite finished yet, there's also...
9. Panic, scream, cry, rely heavily on b.s. and include phrases like "It is in this way that the paradoxically tangent relationship between the author and his postmodern audience is subtly revealed..." And make sure your shoelaces are tied as you sprint across campus to turn in your slightly-overdue work.)
Also see A B Students Guide to Paper Writing for supplementary advice.
[05:10 PM EST] [9]