For Those Who Are Wondering...

I decided not to go to Nebraska next year, but did take full advantage of my deferment option.

In the final analysis, it made the most sense to take some poverty-reducing measures this year, and petition for funding from every possible department in the winter.

And, perhaps, to apply to a few other programs.

Or do something entirely unacademic.

Or marry a rich man, as my grandmother always dreamed I would.

See here, Nebraska. The world is full of possibilities for me. Of all of them, you were the only one that would cost me.

Perhaps next year will find me hidden in the corn.

Perhaps not.

Commenters should feel free to offer crazy suggestions for what you think I might do with myself. The crazier the better.

I'm all ears (bad corn pun not intended, I swear).

A Letter to Jason Mraz

Jason, I remember the first time I heard you singing on the radio.

I said to my boyfriend at the time, "I really like this song. This guy has a great voice."

He said, "I think it's stupid."

It should surprise no one that he is long gone, and you still remain, a little flame warm under the skin.

It's safe to keep feeding this particular fire. We've practically met, now, pressed our palms against each other on a sidewalk in Richmond (and your palm was cool and soft). But we didn't really meet.

I was standing there with my girls, far too early for your concert, when you came out with your little guitar. Who could believe it was you, so close? We had never imagined it was possible. We didn't even have cameras.

You sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," (which is becoming a bit of a theme song for me these days) and even in the open air the notes rang like the purest of bells from your throat. But I couldn't tell you my name, or how I think we might fall in love, if we ever did meet.

There was just your palm against my palm, your palm against all the other palms of all the other strangers standing there, all the intimate skin of those dozens of hands touching and withdrawing. And how safe it is to love you, whom I can never lose, who will never remember me.

Thank you for that moment. Thank you for your song.

My (Literal) Knight in Shining Armor

I have finally recovered enough from my "fun-filled" school trip to New York City to tell you about it.

I had not been to New York since the tender age of ten. All I remembered of New York from that visit:

1. Actual homeless people
2. Dirt
3. The world's worst pizza (Pizza del Ponte) -- so bad, I still remember the name
4. Taxis are real, and yellow!
5. Seeing buildings that were featured in Ghostbusters

I hate to say it, but it appears that Rudy "Nosferatu" Giuliani really did clean things up. Although I do sincerely and honestly wonder where all the homeless people went. I sense that somehow they're not safe in homes now.

Why was I in New York City, one might ask? The choir teacher at my school, who is quite lovely, decided to take her students to a singing competition on Staten Island. I play the piano for them. Last year, she announced that we were going to New York, and I thought, "We?"

I did not precisely relish going into a large city with a batch of middle schoolers. I relished it less when I learned that I didn't really know any of the children, and would be rooming with some of them.

But I'm not one to abandon the team.

So there I was, emerging from the Lincoln Tunnel, with a strange sense that I was not actually in New York. It was like reading a novel about someone in my situation. I usually pride myself on living in the moment as much as possible, but I was floating above Manhattan. Children chattered. Buildings loomed. Nothing touched me.

At some point, I eased back into my skin. I realized that I could probably live in New York, that it was enormous and strange and full of life, but it wasn't too large for me anymore.

We went to Ground Zero and I started crying. I tend to cry at any tragedy, but being in that place had its own weight and gravity.

Everyone else's eyes were dry.

Eventually, one of the parent chaperones befriended me (we are similarly snarky), and she spent the entire evening at Medieval Times (that classic staple of New York night life) snapping photographs of hot knights in tights for me. But that wasn't enough for her. After the show, she manhandled me through the crowds of screeching school girls, and forced each of those poor, beleaguered knights to take a picture with me.

If I ever get copies as promised, perhaps I will show you. They were lovely, those men. And I will never see any of them again. And I'm fine with that, for now. It's really the first time in my life (since puberty, anyway) when I could honestly say that my desires are directed inward and not outward. There are no men looming on my horizon.

Really, it's their loss:

Somewhere on YouTube you may be able to locate a video of our choir teacher beautifully singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the stage of the Apollo Theater while another teacher performs a(miserably, intentionally poor)n interpretive dance in the background. I vehemently deny that I had anything to do with it.