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.

I Still Love You, Brian Krakow

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.

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?

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?

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.