For Christmas, my baby sister and husband purchased the My So-Called Life DVD box set, which I have finally gotten around to watching. Apparently, at once point I declared this to be my favorite television show, hence the gift.
I do love it. Even though I wasn't really anything like Angela as a teenager (excepting the flannel, which--give me credit--I am woman enough to admit to), there was something so universal about her longing and awkwardness that made me believe, at the time, that I practically was Angela.
In retrospect, I think I understand what I really liked about the show back then. Brian Krakow. Why, in my life, did I never have a curly-haired nerd on a bicycle living next door? Believe me, I would not have been mooning over Jordan Catalano if I'd had Brian in front of me. I hope.
Random factoid: Devon Gummersall, who played Brian, guest-starred on one of my other favorite angsty television shows, Roswell. He married one of the actresses from that show, Majandra Delfino. (Steve, are you reading this? Brian Krakow married Maria!)
So, well, I guess he's unavailable. Which frankly sucks.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
To Nebraska or Not To Nebraska
So, I got accepted into graduate school.
Because such things are normally meant for public consumption, here is my pro/con list for attending the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in pursuit of a Ph.D. in poetry writing (highly useful) in the fall:
Pro:
1. I could leave Culpeper
2. I could leave teaching middle school
3. I could leave Culpeper (did I say that twice?)
4. I would be around actual smart people
5. I like corn
6. I would end up with a doctorate
7. I could work on my writing
8. I have friends in Denver and in Iowa I could harass
9. Jude says there are sweet pancake possibilities in Nebraska
Con:
1. I am currently and would likely be unfunded...again (and, no, I don't have a trust fund)
2. The professor I wrote to made it sound like it's extremely hard to get funding after the first year
3. My family is in Pennsylvania and North Carolina
4. I've never been to Nebraska
5. I hate being poor
It is the official Month of Internal Conflict in my life.
My thought right now is to defer my admission until next fall, and hold a lot of bake sales in the meantime. I feel confident that my constant companion, Radar the Dog, would rather be in a location with sidewalks and the potential for finding empty beer bottles by the roadside to lick, but he doesn't really get a vote.
I am wondering:
1. How does one beg for funding?
2. Do you know anyone who is independently wealthy and wants to support a nice girl who wants to be a writer?
Because such things are normally meant for public consumption, here is my pro/con list for attending the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in pursuit of a Ph.D. in poetry writing (highly useful) in the fall:
Pro:
1. I could leave Culpeper
2. I could leave teaching middle school
3. I could leave Culpeper (did I say that twice?)
4. I would be around actual smart people
5. I like corn
6. I would end up with a doctorate
7. I could work on my writing
8. I have friends in Denver and in Iowa I could harass
9. Jude says there are sweet pancake possibilities in Nebraska
Con:
1. I am currently and would likely be unfunded...again (and, no, I don't have a trust fund)
2. The professor I wrote to made it sound like it's extremely hard to get funding after the first year
3. My family is in Pennsylvania and North Carolina
4. I've never been to Nebraska
5. I hate being poor
It is the official Month of Internal Conflict in my life.
My thought right now is to defer my admission until next fall, and hold a lot of bake sales in the meantime. I feel confident that my constant companion, Radar the Dog, would rather be in a location with sidewalks and the potential for finding empty beer bottles by the roadside to lick, but he doesn't really get a vote.
I am wondering:
1. How does one beg for funding?
2. Do you know anyone who is independently wealthy and wants to support a nice girl who wants to be a writer?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Judgement Call
Hypothetical unrequited love story:
1. Man clearly states to woman that he doesn't want to be her boyfriend.
2. Man continues to call every night. Woman reiterates to herself regularly that the man doesn't love her. He's just her friend. She knows she should learn to love him less, but he's wonderful. He's a miracle to her.
3. This can end, she surmises, in three ways: A. He loves her one day (unlikely) B. They find other people to talk to and grow apart (likely, painful) C. It goes on like this forever (impossible).
4. She decides that when he meets a woman he might want to love, she'll leave. Better one enormous heartache than a hundred small ones.
5. Time passes.
6. Physical distance and disease and sadness. Ugly words are spoken on both sides.
7. He tells her he's in love (not with her) and asks to take a break from her until the summer. But she's been accepted into a doctoral program in Nebraska (he doesn't know) and by summer she'll likely be gone.
8. She tells him she doesn't want to talk to him anymore.
Did she do the right thing? Where should the line be drawn between being selfish and self-preserving?
1. Man clearly states to woman that he doesn't want to be her boyfriend.
2. Man continues to call every night. Woman reiterates to herself regularly that the man doesn't love her. He's just her friend. She knows she should learn to love him less, but he's wonderful. He's a miracle to her.
3. This can end, she surmises, in three ways: A. He loves her one day (unlikely) B. They find other people to talk to and grow apart (likely, painful) C. It goes on like this forever (impossible).
4. She decides that when he meets a woman he might want to love, she'll leave. Better one enormous heartache than a hundred small ones.
5. Time passes.
6. Physical distance and disease and sadness. Ugly words are spoken on both sides.
7. He tells her he's in love (not with her) and asks to take a break from her until the summer. But she's been accepted into a doctoral program in Nebraska (he doesn't know) and by summer she'll likely be gone.
8. She tells him she doesn't want to talk to him anymore.
Did she do the right thing? Where should the line be drawn between being selfish and self-preserving?
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Kite Crasher
Unlike recent Sundays, I did not stay in bed and take lengthy naps for the majority of the day. Instead, I roused my friend and coworker Package (not her real name, but a pointless nickname that we actually use), and dragged her to the gym with me.
Going to the gym is a habit with us now. I'm generally one to venture into the world by myself, but going to the gym with an associate has had definite advantages. Mostly, I'd feel like a sissy if I quit while doing something difficult. After a month of mutually imposed torture, we're both looking quite fabulous.
I noticed at some point that a decent wind was blowing over the landscape of Culpeper. It made me think of my kite.
I've had this kite for over five years and never opened it. It was an impulse purchase. I'll admit it: I bought it because it's a unicorn. There. I said it. I'm not into unicorns like I was when I was eight and hoped I might one day grow a horn, but it was so novel that I had to have it.
I also strongly associate kites with my father, in the same way that I also think of him in association with zoos, badminton, and sawdust.
I know why I haven't tried to fly my kite. I presumed that I would need help, particularly due to my status as one of the vertically challenged. But there I was this afternoon, unrolling my unicorn's wings and legs, bending its wires according to the diagram. Assembly complete (and this, on its own, is quite a feat), I ventured out into the backyard. I held the kite aloft and waited for the wind.
There was one pristine instant, after several (dozen) tries, in which the unicorn, legs hanging with eerie limpness, ascended into the air, whipping back and forth. This moment lasted for about five seconds, before my unicorn took a nose-dive onto the thickening green of the lawn. Eventually I had to admit defeat and go back inside.
In a way, I wish that this were a story about my success in flight. In another way, I'm even more glad that it's a story about my contentedness in crashing.
Going to the gym is a habit with us now. I'm generally one to venture into the world by myself, but going to the gym with an associate has had definite advantages. Mostly, I'd feel like a sissy if I quit while doing something difficult. After a month of mutually imposed torture, we're both looking quite fabulous.
I noticed at some point that a decent wind was blowing over the landscape of Culpeper. It made me think of my kite.
I've had this kite for over five years and never opened it. It was an impulse purchase. I'll admit it: I bought it because it's a unicorn. There. I said it. I'm not into unicorns like I was when I was eight and hoped I might one day grow a horn, but it was so novel that I had to have it.
I also strongly associate kites with my father, in the same way that I also think of him in association with zoos, badminton, and sawdust.
I know why I haven't tried to fly my kite. I presumed that I would need help, particularly due to my status as one of the vertically challenged. But there I was this afternoon, unrolling my unicorn's wings and legs, bending its wires according to the diagram. Assembly complete (and this, on its own, is quite a feat), I ventured out into the backyard. I held the kite aloft and waited for the wind.
There was one pristine instant, after several (dozen) tries, in which the unicorn, legs hanging with eerie limpness, ascended into the air, whipping back and forth. This moment lasted for about five seconds, before my unicorn took a nose-dive onto the thickening green of the lawn. Eventually I had to admit defeat and go back inside.
In a way, I wish that this were a story about my success in flight. In another way, I'm even more glad that it's a story about my contentedness in crashing.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Left Behind
Because one must have something to do after the landfill--and after the sweet high school boy who helped me stack my recyclable cardboard and asked if I needed any help, which I didn't--Radar and I packed ourselves into the car and went to the park. He enjoys the children, the smells, the geese, and what the geese leave behind.
While navigating the pine trees and fallen branches, I found two clam shells, pearl-side-up, in the grass. I had never noticed this in prior visits to the lake, but as we continued to walk, we found shells everywhere. Since I feel confident that clams cannot climb the kinds of hills on which we found the shells, I presume birds have been lifting them out of the water, dropping them, and eating the soft parts out. I don't know why it felt so foreign to find them, but I was transported to some other place entirely. Given how things have been recently, it was lovely to forget where I was or ought to be for a moment.
Although I know that technically it's the remnant of something that lived once, its shining bones, I stuffed a shell in my pocket and took it home, where it now sits beside me, glimmering and welcome.
While navigating the pine trees and fallen branches, I found two clam shells, pearl-side-up, in the grass. I had never noticed this in prior visits to the lake, but as we continued to walk, we found shells everywhere. Since I feel confident that clams cannot climb the kinds of hills on which we found the shells, I presume birds have been lifting them out of the water, dropping them, and eating the soft parts out. I don't know why it felt so foreign to find them, but I was transported to some other place entirely. Given how things have been recently, it was lovely to forget where I was or ought to be for a moment.
Although I know that technically it's the remnant of something that lived once, its shining bones, I stuffed a shell in my pocket and took it home, where it now sits beside me, glimmering and welcome.
Adios, Amigo
Having just kicked yet another man out of my life who viewed me as one of his closest friends, I will now celebrate by visiting the landfill.
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