Gack, hate clothes shopping.
...Went to a great pizza place tonight; had philly cheesesteak pizza and macaroni and cheese pizza. Both good. My brother got buffalo wing pizza. No lie.
Have been making Ananda, at her own (very silly...*g*) request, a list of M*A*S*H episodes she should try and download. I seriously must have named a good three dozen. ...But hey, eleven seasons...you run across some good ones. A lot of good ones. *g*
-Laurel
8.31.2002
8.30.2002
My last day of work today until next summer. I was thoroughly spoiled by the entire office, who have definitely developed an affection for me. *g* It has been very lucky for me that the entire division appreciates food so much--I have never gone needlessly hungry, and today was no exception: they brought in fruit, and muffins, and banana bread--which was great, because I'd hardly had any breakfast, 'cause I'd been a bit rushed. Also was given various Twinkie-type products (you know, Frosted Doughnettes, Zingers, and the like), two composition books, two gel pens, and one regular pen.
...One of the composition books has a purple marbled cover, and will probably become my own combination of Ananda's sketchbook and Dan's quote book--only Laurel-style, because I cannot draw. I can quote, as Bethie and I can attest (we took down all our English teacher's better ones--and there were many--last year)...but I can also describe, can also scratch, can also observe.
Will not, though, most likely, write all through class, as Ananda always did. First, I can't concentrate; secondly, I don't want it confiscated. I've got study hall time enough.
But will be my little subversive, Luke-Skywalker notebook (don't ask--the title was passed down to me from Ananda; she had it before me). Maybe.
Right. You want coherency, wait'll I write in the afternoon some time.
-Laurel
...One of the composition books has a purple marbled cover, and will probably become my own combination of Ananda's sketchbook and Dan's quote book--only Laurel-style, because I cannot draw. I can quote, as Bethie and I can attest (we took down all our English teacher's better ones--and there were many--last year)...but I can also describe, can also scratch, can also observe.
Will not, though, most likely, write all through class, as Ananda always did. First, I can't concentrate; secondly, I don't want it confiscated. I've got study hall time enough.
But will be my little subversive, Luke-Skywalker notebook (don't ask--the title was passed down to me from Ananda; she had it before me). Maybe.
Right. You want coherency, wait'll I write in the afternoon some time.
-Laurel
8.29.2002
Went to see the band They Might Be Giants last week (the review's late, I know; I'm sorry) as part of a free concert series. Around 2:30 I got to Bethie's, and soon after, her cousin Caitlin and Caitlin's friend Michelle came. We went and picked up Melly and Bunny, and the six of us were off, Bethie's dad as driver and parental accompaniment.
It was a merry little ride there--we listened to They Might Be Giants's CDs and talked and laughed--Caitlin and Michelle, it turns out, are very much like us, only slightly cooler. They must be college students, because not only did Bethie's dad mention something that made me think so, but they also have that...that college-student air about them that I imagine all eighteen-to-twenty-one-year-olds acquire after living on their own for some time (certainly I've seen enough of it at work with the other student helpers). Stopped off at a little place that sold subs, pizza, and Mexican food. Melly and I decided to split a chicken parmesan sub and get our own milkshakes: Melly's was black raspberry, mine loganberry. I've had loganberry soda before, and I figured the milkshake would be pretty good. We got to a booth and I took a sip. I took another.
"Melly," I said, handing the shake to her, "tell me how this differentiates from strawberry."
Melly tasted it. "I don't think it does."
"Well, they couldn't have mistaken my order," I said. "The lady at the counter said, 'This one's the loganberry one' as she handed them to us. This must be how it tastes. ...I should've stuck with creamsicle."
Oh, well. As strawberry shakes go, it was pretty good. From there, it was a short ride to the park square. We pulled into a parking garage and got out--and it was pouring. It'd been sprinkling, maybe raining, when we'd been driving just a few minutes before, but now there was just no other way to describe it.
I was so psyched. I'm not sure why, but I love being outside in summer downpours--and strong winds, as long as they aren't too cold. There was no thunder, no lightning, and it was still mid-80s at least--perfect downpour-walking conditions. I pulled up my jacket hood obediently, but eschewed Bethie's umbrella and led the group down the street, watching the rain run in rivulets across the concrete sidewalks. My jeans soaked up the rain like a sponge, wetting me through, and my windbreaker-style jacket wasn't much help, either. The wind blew my hood off, and I let it hang, laughing as I walked through the rain. ...I think the others thought I was nuts, but then, so are they: just in different ways. Anyway, when I felt rain go down my back and through the inside of my jeans, I decided to put my hood back up.
But by the time we got into the square, it wasn't raining so hard anymore, so we found "seats" on the railings of this massive stone statue-thing. It was meant to be walked along and climbed on, so we sat in the much-lighter rain, trying to make out the words of the first singer--a girl with backup band.
Bethie and I decided that the girl's genre was definitely "chick angst"--it wasn't clear whether she was trying to be more like Alanis Morrisette or Melissa Etheridge for a while (we finally decided on the latter). Personally, I would make the full title "chick angst with an intermittent feminist bent". I mean, c'mon, a song about how her childhood hero is Pippi Longstocking, one that proclaims that she [Pippi] is "the strongest girl in the world"? ...But she was over before too long, and we all went en masse to the merchandise stand to find TMBG shirts. They were all $25, but pretty cool--we bought matching ones, and plan to wear them on the first Friday of school.
Melly and Bunny, of course, decided that they needed a bathroom (they virtually always decide this when they're anywhere public and/or inconvenient) and escaped to a coffee shop across the street; the rest of us, finding our old places were taken, found new ones as close as possible to the old. A little closer, actually. Problem: They were right in front of a beam that was to light up the statue at night. We had it right in our eyes. But it was the best we could do.
The second band was kind of a jazzy bluegrass kind of thing, also with a female lead, but better than this first had been. The rain started again, not as hard as before, but persistantly. The lead launched into a long, croony-jazz version (no real sign of bluegrass at this point) of "Rain, Rain, Go Away" (an improvised mishmash, or so I assume it was, of that nursery rhyme and the rhyme "It's Raining, It's Pouring"), but it didn't help much. She went on to other songs.
That band left, and TMBG was to come on next. I don't remember how suddenly or gradually, but by now, the rain had gone from heavy rain to downpour to torrential downpour. You just don't know. No umbrella would have helped: everything was soaked, and the stone railing we sat on had gathered a good eighth-inch of water in itself, soaking the jackets we'd taken off (useless, as they were drenched and were only letting more water in), soaking everybody. Our sneakers had been squishy since we came, and now they were doubly so. It rained so hard our umbrella sprouted a leak.
Tired of sitting, half-blinded by the beam (which was steaming from the rain falling onto its hot cover) and aching to get out in the rain, I finally swung off the railing, went to its side, and pulled a Cassie Long-Braid (not to be confused with Pippi Longstocking; Cassie is a character I made up for a fanfic-in-progress). That is to say, I let my hood slide off, I threw my head back, and I stuck my arms straight up, spreading my fingers apart, and laughed as the rain streamed through, down, and over my hands, arms, and face.
I was like this for a few minutes at least. Finally I noticed the wind beginning to chill me and sat back down.
...The stage people were taking a very long time. So, of course, we started singing. We sang "Here Comes the Sun" and the other "sun" songs we could think of. We made up rainy-day versions of TMBG songs ("You're wetter than you've ever been, and now you're even wetter...and now you're even wetter...and now you're even wetter..."). We called out to a guy a ways away who was wearing what we could just barely make out as a Larry-Boy T-shirt (he didn't hear us). We resolved to go through with our pre-deluge plan to grab hands and run as far up into the crowd and around as we could when they played "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)"--it's an old camp tradition of Michelle's, I guess, and she really wanted to uphold it.
Suddenly we heard...well, a sound that could only be a speaker blowing out, and perhaps two of them. ...And that's what happened. I don't remember at what point in the singing it happened, but it did. It was 15 minutes later when the concert was finally called off.
Some people in the crowd were really mad at that, were shouting things, but what're you going to do? I mean, we gave a few cries of "Go unplugged!", but we knew it wouldn't happen. I mean, some guys were hollering, "Where's our concert? Huh?", but, you know, the tickets were free. It was inconvenient and disappointing, to be sure, but it's no skin off anyone's nose or credit card.
So, like the good little citizens we were, our group filed quietly out of the park...just as the rain slowed to a drizzle, and then to a near-sprinkle.
There was still the walk back to the parking garage, though, and we sang TMBG songs (regular version) all the way there. Very loudly, but suprisingly in tune. ...How come I can't do both in chorus?
Wet and bedraggled (just to be literary about it), we decided to go to Bethie's grandparents' house. So Bethie and Caitlin got to see their grandmother and grandfather...and the rest of us left wet-marks on their porch seats, talked, and made fun of the commercials on the small TV that was blaring in there.
Finally, after those in my class exchanged funny songs with Caitlin and Michelle (think Heywood Banks's "Toast", which was among my side's contributions, and the song "Roly-Poly Fish Heads", which was among theirs), we went to Antoinette's, this ice cream parlor/candy shop.
Holy cow.
If you ever get a shot at going there, do it. I promise, if you don't mind ingesting about 3,000 calories' worth of pure gastronomical loveliness, this is the place to be. The ice cream sundaes are huge and wonderful. I asked for whipped cream, expecting the usual poufy Reddi-Whip streamer across the top, and got the thickest, most incredible whipped cream, all over my ice cream sundae, at least a quarter-inch deep (really). I promise, for most of the sundae, I couldn't tell where the whipped cream ended and the vanilla began. I had to dig through the first to find the second. ...Also got hot fudge on it, since I was so cold, but could hardly taste it for all the vanilla-and-cream I had going. Said hot fudge was in a big pool around the bottom of the dish, swirled in with the melted vanilla. ...Luckily for the patron, you get a glass of water with your ice cream. I went through mine pretty quickly.
I got through maybe half the sundae before I forced myself to stop (was rather queasy by that point) and tried to pass it off on Melly or Bunny, who like to finish things that nobody else wants, but they were full, too, from splitting one. ...Bethie's sundae (hot fudge and pecan, or something, but I don't think she got whipped cream) was even huger than mine, but somehow she and her dad, working together, managed to finish it. I was duly impressed.
...Melly and Bunny, of course, then decided that they needed a bathroom. So I decided to show them to it--see, Bethie, Caitlin, and I had found it just after we got in, before we got the ice cream. The bathroom there is, however, a one-person thing in the restaurant's basement. You cross through the kitchen, go down the steps, turn left, and turn left again.
We'd gotten through without any trouble the first time--as Caitlin and I followed, Bethie only turned to the worker passing through and asked, "Is this the way to the bathroom?". The lady had nodded and had given us directions. Well, this time, as I confidently marched through the kitchen, Melly and Bunny in tow, another worker, who could only be described as irate, froze us right where we stood and began loudly berating me--that is to say, yelling at me (I think half the place must have turned around)--as the perceived ringleader of whatever mischief she assumed we were planning, from the kitchen's entryway.
"**Hey!** Just *what* do you think you're doing? Don't you *ever* go through this kitchen without permission!"
I stood there, eyes widened in shock. With my jeans and sneakers still waterlogged, both my T-shirts hanging limply off of me, and my hair curling up frizzily as it finally began to dry, I'm sure I looked quite the ragamuffin (and my companions looked little better), but really! "I'm sorry..." I managed to stammer. "We went through before..."
"Well, there could be somebody down there!"
...With this semi-relevant statement, she huffed away (after, if I remember correctly, one parting death glare), leaving Melly, Bunny, and I to stare at each other in indecision for a moment--has she kicked us out, or can we go?--before bolting with a clatter down the wooden stairs to the basement.
And, okay, as aformentioned, the bathroom holds only one person. We, as three intelligent seventeen-year-olds, can grasp the concept of knocking on a closed bathroom door before entering without being dressed down like children beforehand, thank you kindly. I mean, it's hard to translate the conversation to a computer screen, a week later, but...I don't know, it seemed pretty unfounded and mean at the time. ...At least I didn't cry. Under most circumstances I would have.
...Maybe the best way to describe it was in what I told Bunny outside the bathroom as Melly took her turn: "I feel like Pippin!" It expressed it all at the time--that whole Moria well-bit, especially his flinch as the stone hit the bottom.
...Fool of a Took!
Anyway, they took their turns, and we--very cautiously, somewhat dreadingly--went back through the kitchen, to our sympathetic symbiotes Bethie, Caitlin, and Michelle. We looked at the candy for a while, but I could see the kitchen-lady glaring at me (she could probably hear my explanation to Bethie of what had happened--everyone had wanted to know what the shouting was about), so I didn't touch any, since I wasn't going to buy any.
...Right. So go to Antoinette's, but take care of everything before you leave home, if at all possible.
We left, then went back in to get Bunny's wallet, then left for real. The rain had picked up again, but it was a quiet drive back. I stared out the windows and thought, and nearly fell asleep. Was very clammy by this time, and eagerly awaited getting home.
Finally did, peeled off all my waterlogged clothes (which was everything I was wearing, right down to understuff, all of which had soaked right through), got my warmest pajamas, fleece bathrobe and wool socks on (my skin was freezing cold to the touch), and went to bed after talking for a bit with my aunt, who had come all the way from California. ...I did have the presence of mind to take off the bathrobe, socks, and my cloudy-faced watch (which is not waterproof) before I fell asleep, but I still woke up in a sweat at two AM, of course, and had to leave only the nightshirt.
...But, as I told Bethie in the van, amid general agreement, it was definitely the best non-concert I've ever been to.
-Laurel
It was a merry little ride there--we listened to They Might Be Giants's CDs and talked and laughed--Caitlin and Michelle, it turns out, are very much like us, only slightly cooler. They must be college students, because not only did Bethie's dad mention something that made me think so, but they also have that...that college-student air about them that I imagine all eighteen-to-twenty-one-year-olds acquire after living on their own for some time (certainly I've seen enough of it at work with the other student helpers). Stopped off at a little place that sold subs, pizza, and Mexican food. Melly and I decided to split a chicken parmesan sub and get our own milkshakes: Melly's was black raspberry, mine loganberry. I've had loganberry soda before, and I figured the milkshake would be pretty good. We got to a booth and I took a sip. I took another.
"Melly," I said, handing the shake to her, "tell me how this differentiates from strawberry."
Melly tasted it. "I don't think it does."
"Well, they couldn't have mistaken my order," I said. "The lady at the counter said, 'This one's the loganberry one' as she handed them to us. This must be how it tastes. ...I should've stuck with creamsicle."
Oh, well. As strawberry shakes go, it was pretty good. From there, it was a short ride to the park square. We pulled into a parking garage and got out--and it was pouring. It'd been sprinkling, maybe raining, when we'd been driving just a few minutes before, but now there was just no other way to describe it.
I was so psyched. I'm not sure why, but I love being outside in summer downpours--and strong winds, as long as they aren't too cold. There was no thunder, no lightning, and it was still mid-80s at least--perfect downpour-walking conditions. I pulled up my jacket hood obediently, but eschewed Bethie's umbrella and led the group down the street, watching the rain run in rivulets across the concrete sidewalks. My jeans soaked up the rain like a sponge, wetting me through, and my windbreaker-style jacket wasn't much help, either. The wind blew my hood off, and I let it hang, laughing as I walked through the rain. ...I think the others thought I was nuts, but then, so are they: just in different ways. Anyway, when I felt rain go down my back and through the inside of my jeans, I decided to put my hood back up.
But by the time we got into the square, it wasn't raining so hard anymore, so we found "seats" on the railings of this massive stone statue-thing. It was meant to be walked along and climbed on, so we sat in the much-lighter rain, trying to make out the words of the first singer--a girl with backup band.
Bethie and I decided that the girl's genre was definitely "chick angst"--it wasn't clear whether she was trying to be more like Alanis Morrisette or Melissa Etheridge for a while (we finally decided on the latter). Personally, I would make the full title "chick angst with an intermittent feminist bent". I mean, c'mon, a song about how her childhood hero is Pippi Longstocking, one that proclaims that she [Pippi] is "the strongest girl in the world"? ...But she was over before too long, and we all went en masse to the merchandise stand to find TMBG shirts. They were all $25, but pretty cool--we bought matching ones, and plan to wear them on the first Friday of school.
Melly and Bunny, of course, decided that they needed a bathroom (they virtually always decide this when they're anywhere public and/or inconvenient) and escaped to a coffee shop across the street; the rest of us, finding our old places were taken, found new ones as close as possible to the old. A little closer, actually. Problem: They were right in front of a beam that was to light up the statue at night. We had it right in our eyes. But it was the best we could do.
The second band was kind of a jazzy bluegrass kind of thing, also with a female lead, but better than this first had been. The rain started again, not as hard as before, but persistantly. The lead launched into a long, croony-jazz version (no real sign of bluegrass at this point) of "Rain, Rain, Go Away" (an improvised mishmash, or so I assume it was, of that nursery rhyme and the rhyme "It's Raining, It's Pouring"), but it didn't help much. She went on to other songs.
That band left, and TMBG was to come on next. I don't remember how suddenly or gradually, but by now, the rain had gone from heavy rain to downpour to torrential downpour. You just don't know. No umbrella would have helped: everything was soaked, and the stone railing we sat on had gathered a good eighth-inch of water in itself, soaking the jackets we'd taken off (useless, as they were drenched and were only letting more water in), soaking everybody. Our sneakers had been squishy since we came, and now they were doubly so. It rained so hard our umbrella sprouted a leak.
Tired of sitting, half-blinded by the beam (which was steaming from the rain falling onto its hot cover) and aching to get out in the rain, I finally swung off the railing, went to its side, and pulled a Cassie Long-Braid (not to be confused with Pippi Longstocking; Cassie is a character I made up for a fanfic-in-progress). That is to say, I let my hood slide off, I threw my head back, and I stuck my arms straight up, spreading my fingers apart, and laughed as the rain streamed through, down, and over my hands, arms, and face.
I was like this for a few minutes at least. Finally I noticed the wind beginning to chill me and sat back down.
...The stage people were taking a very long time. So, of course, we started singing. We sang "Here Comes the Sun" and the other "sun" songs we could think of. We made up rainy-day versions of TMBG songs ("You're wetter than you've ever been, and now you're even wetter...and now you're even wetter...and now you're even wetter..."). We called out to a guy a ways away who was wearing what we could just barely make out as a Larry-Boy T-shirt (he didn't hear us). We resolved to go through with our pre-deluge plan to grab hands and run as far up into the crowd and around as we could when they played "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)"--it's an old camp tradition of Michelle's, I guess, and she really wanted to uphold it.
Suddenly we heard...well, a sound that could only be a speaker blowing out, and perhaps two of them. ...And that's what happened. I don't remember at what point in the singing it happened, but it did. It was 15 minutes later when the concert was finally called off.
Some people in the crowd were really mad at that, were shouting things, but what're you going to do? I mean, we gave a few cries of "Go unplugged!", but we knew it wouldn't happen. I mean, some guys were hollering, "Where's our concert? Huh?", but, you know, the tickets were free. It was inconvenient and disappointing, to be sure, but it's no skin off anyone's nose or credit card.
So, like the good little citizens we were, our group filed quietly out of the park...just as the rain slowed to a drizzle, and then to a near-sprinkle.
There was still the walk back to the parking garage, though, and we sang TMBG songs (regular version) all the way there. Very loudly, but suprisingly in tune. ...How come I can't do both in chorus?
Wet and bedraggled (just to be literary about it), we decided to go to Bethie's grandparents' house. So Bethie and Caitlin got to see their grandmother and grandfather...and the rest of us left wet-marks on their porch seats, talked, and made fun of the commercials on the small TV that was blaring in there.
Finally, after those in my class exchanged funny songs with Caitlin and Michelle (think Heywood Banks's "Toast", which was among my side's contributions, and the song "Roly-Poly Fish Heads", which was among theirs), we went to Antoinette's, this ice cream parlor/candy shop.
Holy cow.
If you ever get a shot at going there, do it. I promise, if you don't mind ingesting about 3,000 calories' worth of pure gastronomical loveliness, this is the place to be. The ice cream sundaes are huge and wonderful. I asked for whipped cream, expecting the usual poufy Reddi-Whip streamer across the top, and got the thickest, most incredible whipped cream, all over my ice cream sundae, at least a quarter-inch deep (really). I promise, for most of the sundae, I couldn't tell where the whipped cream ended and the vanilla began. I had to dig through the first to find the second. ...Also got hot fudge on it, since I was so cold, but could hardly taste it for all the vanilla-and-cream I had going. Said hot fudge was in a big pool around the bottom of the dish, swirled in with the melted vanilla. ...Luckily for the patron, you get a glass of water with your ice cream. I went through mine pretty quickly.
I got through maybe half the sundae before I forced myself to stop (was rather queasy by that point) and tried to pass it off on Melly or Bunny, who like to finish things that nobody else wants, but they were full, too, from splitting one. ...Bethie's sundae (hot fudge and pecan, or something, but I don't think she got whipped cream) was even huger than mine, but somehow she and her dad, working together, managed to finish it. I was duly impressed.
...Melly and Bunny, of course, then decided that they needed a bathroom. So I decided to show them to it--see, Bethie, Caitlin, and I had found it just after we got in, before we got the ice cream. The bathroom there is, however, a one-person thing in the restaurant's basement. You cross through the kitchen, go down the steps, turn left, and turn left again.
We'd gotten through without any trouble the first time--as Caitlin and I followed, Bethie only turned to the worker passing through and asked, "Is this the way to the bathroom?". The lady had nodded and had given us directions. Well, this time, as I confidently marched through the kitchen, Melly and Bunny in tow, another worker, who could only be described as irate, froze us right where we stood and began loudly berating me--that is to say, yelling at me (I think half the place must have turned around)--as the perceived ringleader of whatever mischief she assumed we were planning, from the kitchen's entryway.
"**Hey!** Just *what* do you think you're doing? Don't you *ever* go through this kitchen without permission!"
I stood there, eyes widened in shock. With my jeans and sneakers still waterlogged, both my T-shirts hanging limply off of me, and my hair curling up frizzily as it finally began to dry, I'm sure I looked quite the ragamuffin (and my companions looked little better), but really! "I'm sorry..." I managed to stammer. "We went through before..."
"Well, there could be somebody down there!"
...With this semi-relevant statement, she huffed away (after, if I remember correctly, one parting death glare), leaving Melly, Bunny, and I to stare at each other in indecision for a moment--has she kicked us out, or can we go?--before bolting with a clatter down the wooden stairs to the basement.
And, okay, as aformentioned, the bathroom holds only one person. We, as three intelligent seventeen-year-olds, can grasp the concept of knocking on a closed bathroom door before entering without being dressed down like children beforehand, thank you kindly. I mean, it's hard to translate the conversation to a computer screen, a week later, but...I don't know, it seemed pretty unfounded and mean at the time. ...At least I didn't cry. Under most circumstances I would have.
...Maybe the best way to describe it was in what I told Bunny outside the bathroom as Melly took her turn: "I feel like Pippin!" It expressed it all at the time--that whole Moria well-bit, especially his flinch as the stone hit the bottom.
...Fool of a Took!
Anyway, they took their turns, and we--very cautiously, somewhat dreadingly--went back through the kitchen, to our sympathetic symbiotes Bethie, Caitlin, and Michelle. We looked at the candy for a while, but I could see the kitchen-lady glaring at me (she could probably hear my explanation to Bethie of what had happened--everyone had wanted to know what the shouting was about), so I didn't touch any, since I wasn't going to buy any.
...Right. So go to Antoinette's, but take care of everything before you leave home, if at all possible.
We left, then went back in to get Bunny's wallet, then left for real. The rain had picked up again, but it was a quiet drive back. I stared out the windows and thought, and nearly fell asleep. Was very clammy by this time, and eagerly awaited getting home.
Finally did, peeled off all my waterlogged clothes (which was everything I was wearing, right down to understuff, all of which had soaked right through), got my warmest pajamas, fleece bathrobe and wool socks on (my skin was freezing cold to the touch), and went to bed after talking for a bit with my aunt, who had come all the way from California. ...I did have the presence of mind to take off the bathrobe, socks, and my cloudy-faced watch (which is not waterproof) before I fell asleep, but I still woke up in a sweat at two AM, of course, and had to leave only the nightshirt.
...But, as I told Bethie in the van, amid general agreement, it was definitely the best non-concert I've ever been to.
-Laurel
8.27.2002
8.26.2002
Was looking on the website for Shipman's Unfamiliar Quotations (whoever he is) some time ago and came across several quotes from things my friends and I would recognize. Here they are:
"I can't argue with that. I don't know what you're talking about."
-Radar O'Reilly, M*A*S*H
"Is it true God answers all questions?"
"Yes...sometimes the answer is no."
-(quoted on the site as Father Mulcahy, but is actually a conversation between Sidney Freedman and Captain Chandler in "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?", M*A*S*H)
"Why don't you ask Dr. Bronowski? He knows everything.''
"Seems like that would take all the mystery out of life.''
-Monty Python skit
"And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire."
-Frodo Baggins, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (page 240)
"Three rules for managers: open up your territory; assume you will make mistakes; always complain upwards, not downwards."
-John Cleese
Was amused and impressed.
-Laurel
"I can't argue with that. I don't know what you're talking about."
-Radar O'Reilly, M*A*S*H
"Is it true God answers all questions?"
"Yes...sometimes the answer is no."
-(quoted on the site as Father Mulcahy, but is actually a conversation between Sidney Freedman and Captain Chandler in "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?", M*A*S*H)
"Why don't you ask Dr. Bronowski? He knows everything.''
"Seems like that would take all the mystery out of life.''
-Monty Python skit
"And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire."
-Frodo Baggins, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (page 240)
"Three rules for managers: open up your territory; assume you will make mistakes; always complain upwards, not downwards."
-John Cleese
Was amused and impressed.
-Laurel
Gack. Why do I write all my melodramatic stuff in the moment, where it's sure to be sheer idiocy the next day, but unconsciously put off all the intelligent, heartfelt things I have to say, thereby losing half the topics and three-quarters of the emotional value?
...I had so much to say, and it all mattered so much, and now so little of it seems to.
-Laurel
...I had so much to say, and it all mattered so much, and now so little of it seems to.
-Laurel
8.25.2002
I get all pensive when I'm looking out a car window as we're driving down the highway.
My friends know this, because I used it in a poem for a creative writing workshop, but I was doing it on the way home from this family reunion thing (pretty fun, and the food was good). Looked at the twilight and realized that now it isn't just about Zinni anymore that I reassure myself that everyone looks up at the same sunset sky.
I guess I really hadn't realized that college for Ananda would be a lot like PA for Zinni...a new set of friends for me to hear about and keep track of (Morgan vs. Meghan, etc.!), and a set of inside jokes and moments that I'll never quite understand.
Ananda's a little easier to keep track of, though, as she's online more, and currently has all those phone cards...
But I didn't really think of that. I watched the sky, which was rainbow-colored at the horizon--starting at red right at the rim and fading up until blue. You'd think that've reminded me of U2's "Twilight", but it was "October" I thought of, and Chris Rice's "Missin' You", and that whole piano-ballad genre. But I sat there and looked out the window and thought, easily passing 20 minutes that way.
...Then my brother asked me if I remembered an old TV show, and I came back to reality, etc.
...But the idea of school just seems so unreal without everyone I've known since eighth grade...Zinni, o'course, and Ananda, and Aubrey...Bryan, Blake, and Christy...
Have the former tenth-graders, but it's rather cold comfort at the moment.
Mm, missed the entire M*A*S*H marathon today for the reunion, but it was worth it. Played with the little kids, many of whom I imagine are among my seemingly-infinite number of cousins. Very fun.
Cheerio.
-Laurel
My friends know this, because I used it in a poem for a creative writing workshop, but I was doing it on the way home from this family reunion thing (pretty fun, and the food was good). Looked at the twilight and realized that now it isn't just about Zinni anymore that I reassure myself that everyone looks up at the same sunset sky.
I guess I really hadn't realized that college for Ananda would be a lot like PA for Zinni...a new set of friends for me to hear about and keep track of (Morgan vs. Meghan, etc.!), and a set of inside jokes and moments that I'll never quite understand.
Ananda's a little easier to keep track of, though, as she's online more, and currently has all those phone cards...
But I didn't really think of that. I watched the sky, which was rainbow-colored at the horizon--starting at red right at the rim and fading up until blue. You'd think that've reminded me of U2's "Twilight", but it was "October" I thought of, and Chris Rice's "Missin' You", and that whole piano-ballad genre. But I sat there and looked out the window and thought, easily passing 20 minutes that way.
...Then my brother asked me if I remembered an old TV show, and I came back to reality, etc.
...But the idea of school just seems so unreal without everyone I've known since eighth grade...Zinni, o'course, and Ananda, and Aubrey...Bryan, Blake, and Christy...
Have the former tenth-graders, but it's rather cold comfort at the moment.
Mm, missed the entire M*A*S*H marathon today for the reunion, but it was worth it. Played with the little kids, many of whom I imagine are among my seemingly-infinite number of cousins. Very fun.
Cheerio.
-Laurel
8.23.2002
Yeah, more stuff up soon. In the meantime, goodbye to Ananda--I won't see you tomorrow, so have a wonderful time at college. All phileo, amiga mía.
(...And for another goodbye, in Quenya this time, see Topaz Meanderings. *g*)
-Laurel
(...And for another goodbye, in Quenya this time, see Topaz Meanderings. *g*)
-Laurel
8.21.2002
"You're dangerous...'cause you're honest." -U2, "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"
...Just heard that as I brought up my blog.
*sigh* What is there for me to say? I don't know. I'm done with my English project; have a mega-lot of psych still, but a week in which to do it.
I'm glad you got to talk to Blake, 'Nanda; I'd love the link to his journal. ...Piano/Keyboard is no go; I've got what they call a "triple conflict": AP stats and AP English have to stay in the blocks they're in, 'cause they're the only sessions there are...but those are the only places Piano/Keyboard can go. But I get a block of study hall every 1/3 day, which will be great with three AP classes, especially since I've got no advisement on day 4 'cause of gym.
...I wanted to be instrumentally talented, too, dang it. ::mumbles:: And, you know, having a class with Pete again wouldn't have been bad, either...
Really, I almost wish I did like Pete more, even if he's got a girlfriend. It seems so pitiful that I can't find a guy in the whole school to like. But I'm just...picky, I guess. I've talked to him, and he's not your typical guy (which I like very much), but I don't think I could see myself with him, really.
...I understand your thing about wanted to be pretty and talented, 'Nanda. You read Daphne's Applebus thing with Brie/Reûic (still to come up); you know what I want sometimes. And I think maybe it'd be easier for me to like guys if any of them would talk to me. But they're all just...so...I don't know. But they're that, whatever "that" happens to be. ::rolls eyes, both at self and guys::
At least I'm not wasting away for a guy. I'm okay with being without them. Just...it's a societal thing, too. I'm afraid of liking someone because I don't know how to be a girlfriend; I can't learn how unless I can find a guy. (I have this problem with dancing, too--I don't do it because I can't; I can't because I don't do it. Ridiculous, I'm sure, but present.)
At present, all I can do is tell myself it's okay. And draw the line between society, media, and reality. Just...usually I can deal with the things I see as fault because I can see so many with the same problem. I mean, I love Pippin and Radar on their own merits, but the fact that they're so imperfect has always made it easier for me to deal with, for example, my ungracefulness, my childish fears. ...But, crud, man, when Radar gets various girlfriends over the course of the show, you have to step back and tell yourself that his character gets written; mine gets made.
I like happy endings in TV, in movies, in books, where people get what they want in the end. But I don't know if that's true for me. It may be, but it may not be. I'm too independent, too critical, too terrified; what do I know or have ever known about love? I listen to Lily's conversations with Pilot (which, I have to say laughingly, Lily, can be fairly insane sometimes), I watch Daf and "Calypso", I think of Daf with Aubrey, I think of myself flinching every time Bryan called me "hon". I can't see myself with anyone who doesn't see certain things the way I do, anyone who doesn't understand that, after a while, love is going to be something different than what we fell for each other for. I'm not going to get married if it means divorce.
I loved the two Bridget Jones books, but I have to say that they terrify me: her being 30-some and unmarried, faced with friends who are and flaunt it, caught in an endless round of stupid boyfriends, unable to tell what she wants from what she needs, and with a family who reminds her incessantly that the clock is ticking... I don't want that. But I'm seventeen, and only one boy has ever liked me (well, one that I liked), and he grew impatient and left me for a--just guess!--pretty red-headed cheerleader who was everything Bryan wanted that I was not. ...My mom, meanwhile, got so excited when Bryan invited me bowling, thought it was a date; heck, Bryan's mom thought it was a date, but that's neither here nor there...
I just don't like anybody anymore. And sometimes I think I never really will.
...But I told myself I'd get off a good four or five minutes ago, so I must. Psychology calls.
-Laurel
...Just heard that as I brought up my blog.
*sigh* What is there for me to say? I don't know. I'm done with my English project; have a mega-lot of psych still, but a week in which to do it.
I'm glad you got to talk to Blake, 'Nanda; I'd love the link to his journal. ...Piano/Keyboard is no go; I've got what they call a "triple conflict": AP stats and AP English have to stay in the blocks they're in, 'cause they're the only sessions there are...but those are the only places Piano/Keyboard can go. But I get a block of study hall every 1/3 day, which will be great with three AP classes, especially since I've got no advisement on day 4 'cause of gym.
...I wanted to be instrumentally talented, too, dang it. ::mumbles:: And, you know, having a class with Pete again wouldn't have been bad, either...
Really, I almost wish I did like Pete more, even if he's got a girlfriend. It seems so pitiful that I can't find a guy in the whole school to like. But I'm just...picky, I guess. I've talked to him, and he's not your typical guy (which I like very much), but I don't think I could see myself with him, really.
...I understand your thing about wanted to be pretty and talented, 'Nanda. You read Daphne's Applebus thing with Brie/Reûic (still to come up); you know what I want sometimes. And I think maybe it'd be easier for me to like guys if any of them would talk to me. But they're all just...so...I don't know. But they're that, whatever "that" happens to be. ::rolls eyes, both at self and guys::
At least I'm not wasting away for a guy. I'm okay with being without them. Just...it's a societal thing, too. I'm afraid of liking someone because I don't know how to be a girlfriend; I can't learn how unless I can find a guy. (I have this problem with dancing, too--I don't do it because I can't; I can't because I don't do it. Ridiculous, I'm sure, but present.)
At present, all I can do is tell myself it's okay. And draw the line between society, media, and reality. Just...usually I can deal with the things I see as fault because I can see so many with the same problem. I mean, I love Pippin and Radar on their own merits, but the fact that they're so imperfect has always made it easier for me to deal with, for example, my ungracefulness, my childish fears. ...But, crud, man, when Radar gets various girlfriends over the course of the show, you have to step back and tell yourself that his character gets written; mine gets made.
I like happy endings in TV, in movies, in books, where people get what they want in the end. But I don't know if that's true for me. It may be, but it may not be. I'm too independent, too critical, too terrified; what do I know or have ever known about love? I listen to Lily's conversations with Pilot (which, I have to say laughingly, Lily, can be fairly insane sometimes), I watch Daf and "Calypso", I think of Daf with Aubrey, I think of myself flinching every time Bryan called me "hon". I can't see myself with anyone who doesn't see certain things the way I do, anyone who doesn't understand that, after a while, love is going to be something different than what we fell for each other for. I'm not going to get married if it means divorce.
I loved the two Bridget Jones books, but I have to say that they terrify me: her being 30-some and unmarried, faced with friends who are and flaunt it, caught in an endless round of stupid boyfriends, unable to tell what she wants from what she needs, and with a family who reminds her incessantly that the clock is ticking... I don't want that. But I'm seventeen, and only one boy has ever liked me (well, one that I liked), and he grew impatient and left me for a--just guess!--pretty red-headed cheerleader who was everything Bryan wanted that I was not. ...My mom, meanwhile, got so excited when Bryan invited me bowling, thought it was a date; heck, Bryan's mom thought it was a date, but that's neither here nor there...
I just don't like anybody anymore. And sometimes I think I never really will.
...But I told myself I'd get off a good four or five minutes ago, so I must. Psychology calls.
-Laurel
8.20.2002
Wahh, I missed International Left-Handers' Day! I thought it was today, and it was the 13th! I missed it by a whole ruddy week!
...Do you know, I can't find one lefty on M*A*S*H. I mean, c'mon, Whose Line was full of them. Drew, Colin, Brad, Steve Frost...and a few I thought I knew, but couldn't prove. On M*A*S*H, I've got no one so far. And, okay, so I haven't watched compulsively to see, either, like I used to with WL, but I've looked a few times at writings and things. Nothing, so far as I can tell.
...But that's impossible. In a main cast of ten, there must be one, right? The mathematical figure is 10% normally, but supposedly the figure jumps higher with actors. ...I'll keep checking, I suppose.
There's no chance with Radar, that much I know: his left hand is partially deformed--which has made me watch every so often, rather morbidly, for a look at it, but they're really good about hiding it, so I haven't really caught it yet.
...But it's little matter. I've got more psych I ought to do, though I'm not sure I will. Cheerio.
-Laurel
...Do you know, I can't find one lefty on M*A*S*H. I mean, c'mon, Whose Line was full of them. Drew, Colin, Brad, Steve Frost...and a few I thought I knew, but couldn't prove. On M*A*S*H, I've got no one so far. And, okay, so I haven't watched compulsively to see, either, like I used to with WL, but I've looked a few times at writings and things. Nothing, so far as I can tell.
...But that's impossible. In a main cast of ten, there must be one, right? The mathematical figure is 10% normally, but supposedly the figure jumps higher with actors. ...I'll keep checking, I suppose.
There's no chance with Radar, that much I know: his left hand is partially deformed--which has made me watch every so often, rather morbidly, for a look at it, but they're really good about hiding it, so I haven't really caught it yet.
...But it's little matter. I've got more psych I ought to do, though I'm not sure I will. Cheerio.
-Laurel
8.19.2002
Spent this weekend helping out with a town fair with Leo Club--we did face painting, and Holly and I did dunking booth, and I ran the bouncy castle for a while (have decided that preteenage and early teenage children--I'd say 11-14--should definitely not be allowed on those things--it's not that the weight is too much, but they just don't get the whole concept of jumping in the middle, rather than going way in the back and corners, which tends to make the walls fall down--I explained the reasoning several times, but I may as well have been talking to a banana peel, for all they seemed to listen).
Was very fun, and I stayed at 'Nanda's for what may well be the last time 'til December, assuming we even go to her house when she comes back from her collegiate Christmas break--if we don't, it'll be even longer.
So much for our hopes for a stay-up-half-the-night-and-talk-about-every-fathomable-thing sleepover as of old. I fell asleep about 1 (maybe even earlier), Ananda at 1:30, and Daf wasn't too far behind. We didn't even talk much before then, 'cause we were watching my LotR DVD. Oh, well--at least when I got up (first as usual), there was only about half an hour before they got up, for once.
Hope I get to see her once more before she goes, ideally the day she leaves, 'cause I know Daf'll be able to be there then, and I wanted to, too. If life were truly fair, Zinni could be there, too, and it'd be the four of us together again. ...'Course, if it were truly fair, Zinni'd never've moved in the first place. So whatever. Still, my mom still has a graduation present for Ananda, so I need to get it to her at some point.
My own present to her was completely store-bought, unlike Daf's, but I think I did pretty well: a copy of Cyrano de Bergerac, which she'd liked very much when she borrowed it from me, but which she hadn't bought yet (a thousand points to me for not getting her Mere Christianity instead, as I'd considered: she'd already bought it by the time I came over with the present); along with the biggest box of Twinkies I could find (it's a Micky Dolenz thing)--let's just hope some of them make it to her dorm; she's still got almost a week!
...Have gotten my schedule for school, but will have to get it changed: they left off Piano/Keyboard, and I really want to take it. This means, however, that I will have to wade through the school telephone system, as the number provided on the sheet has eight digits and is hyphenated after the fourth one. ::shrugs stoically:: But I'll get through. It can't be too hard.
This is, though, most of the reason I haven't made my usual half-dozen calls to friends to compare; mine'll probably change some, unless they offer Piano/Keyboard third block, where my big space of free time currently is. If I can't get it, though, I think I'll just take the study hall. I've got three APs, and I could use the time.
Ideally, they'll put Piano/Keyboard first block, where I figure it's already being held, and change my AP stats class from first block to that space third block. This may or may not happen, but as I really hate the idea of having math first thing in the morning again, that's definitely what I'm rooting for.
Am listening to the mp3 "You Only Live Twice", a cheesyish-but-fun song used in the James Bond movie of the same name (sung by Nancy Sinatra, if anyone cares). Contains the lines, "You only live twice, or so it seems; one life for yourself and one for your dreams".
...I can relate!
-Laurel
Was very fun, and I stayed at 'Nanda's for what may well be the last time 'til December, assuming we even go to her house when she comes back from her collegiate Christmas break--if we don't, it'll be even longer.
So much for our hopes for a stay-up-half-the-night-and-talk-about-every-fathomable-thing sleepover as of old. I fell asleep about 1 (maybe even earlier), Ananda at 1:30, and Daf wasn't too far behind. We didn't even talk much before then, 'cause we were watching my LotR DVD. Oh, well--at least when I got up (first as usual), there was only about half an hour before they got up, for once.
Hope I get to see her once more before she goes, ideally the day she leaves, 'cause I know Daf'll be able to be there then, and I wanted to, too. If life were truly fair, Zinni could be there, too, and it'd be the four of us together again. ...'Course, if it were truly fair, Zinni'd never've moved in the first place. So whatever. Still, my mom still has a graduation present for Ananda, so I need to get it to her at some point.
My own present to her was completely store-bought, unlike Daf's, but I think I did pretty well: a copy of Cyrano de Bergerac, which she'd liked very much when she borrowed it from me, but which she hadn't bought yet (a thousand points to me for not getting her Mere Christianity instead, as I'd considered: she'd already bought it by the time I came over with the present); along with the biggest box of Twinkies I could find (it's a Micky Dolenz thing)--let's just hope some of them make it to her dorm; she's still got almost a week!
...Have gotten my schedule for school, but will have to get it changed: they left off Piano/Keyboard, and I really want to take it. This means, however, that I will have to wade through the school telephone system, as the number provided on the sheet has eight digits and is hyphenated after the fourth one. ::shrugs stoically:: But I'll get through. It can't be too hard.
This is, though, most of the reason I haven't made my usual half-dozen calls to friends to compare; mine'll probably change some, unless they offer Piano/Keyboard third block, where my big space of free time currently is. If I can't get it, though, I think I'll just take the study hall. I've got three APs, and I could use the time.
Ideally, they'll put Piano/Keyboard first block, where I figure it's already being held, and change my AP stats class from first block to that space third block. This may or may not happen, but as I really hate the idea of having math first thing in the morning again, that's definitely what I'm rooting for.
Am listening to the mp3 "You Only Live Twice", a cheesyish-but-fun song used in the James Bond movie of the same name (sung by Nancy Sinatra, if anyone cares). Contains the lines, "You only live twice, or so it seems; one life for yourself and one for your dreams".
...I can relate!
-Laurel
8.18.2002
8.15.2002
Ga-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ah!
Hate AP English questions! I'm thinking, thirty-five questions in all...no problem!...but each one is a good half-hour's worth of work. Gack, sklarnk, and every other G-rated expletive I can think of.
...But it's coming along. Six days left, only thirteen questions and two essays to do--oh, yeah, and that poem thing. Right. So only about 24 hours' worth of work, all in all, right?
...Am reading It's Not About the Bike, by Lance Armstrong. It's interesting, especially 'cause I just finished Death Be Not Proud, by John Gunther. Lance got cancer, and so did Johnny Gunther, the author's son. Different kinds, but both of them were young--Lance 25, Johnny 17--and both of them were very courageous and did agressive stuff. Lance survived. Johnny didn't. They were so alike...but then, Johnny got it in the 40s. I'm not sure if it's better yet for glioblastoma, but...
Mm. Should do more C&P, but I know I won't. Apparently inspiration only goes so far. *g*
-Laurel
Hate AP English questions! I'm thinking, thirty-five questions in all...no problem!...but each one is a good half-hour's worth of work. Gack, sklarnk, and every other G-rated expletive I can think of.
...But it's coming along. Six days left, only thirteen questions and two essays to do--oh, yeah, and that poem thing. Right. So only about 24 hours' worth of work, all in all, right?
...Am reading It's Not About the Bike, by Lance Armstrong. It's interesting, especially 'cause I just finished Death Be Not Proud, by John Gunther. Lance got cancer, and so did Johnny Gunther, the author's son. Different kinds, but both of them were young--Lance 25, Johnny 17--and both of them were very courageous and did agressive stuff. Lance survived. Johnny didn't. They were so alike...but then, Johnny got it in the 40s. I'm not sure if it's better yet for glioblastoma, but...
Mm. Should do more C&P, but I know I won't. Apparently inspiration only goes so far. *g*
-Laurel
8.14.2002
Oh, almost forgot to mention the very best part--at the seventh inning stretch, they played "God Bless America" and then "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", and for the first one, Stacie (friend who came) was the only one who sang along of all of us--she started belting it out in a loud, pretty-much-on-tune-but-rather-bouncy style...and then Bethie's dad (who, believe me, can turn almost anything into humor) joined in, using his best quasi-opera tone...and there they were, Stacie and Bethie's dad, the only people for seats around singing, and they going loud enough to be heard halfway across the stadium...and Bethie's dad's voice just...just came to a stop with a rather strangled noise (one of the higher notes, I think)...and Bethie and I just burst out laughing, and laughed for the remainder of the song, and probably partway through "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", too (which the both of them also sang).
...So much for patriotism. *g*
-Laurel
...So much for patriotism. *g*
-Laurel
Went to a baseball game tonight with Bethie and a bunch of our mutual friends, and spent the last few innings and the ride home naming every 90s fad we could think of. Sometimes this was easy--high-top LA Gears with pink shoelaces, light-up sneakers, Baby-sitters Club books. Sometimes it was hard not to go into the 80s, especially with TV.
Was very fun.
Ga-a-a-ah, but do not want to do Crime and Punishment anymore. Ah, well. Made a fair amount of headway today.
-Laurel
Was very fun.
Ga-a-a-ah, but do not want to do Crime and Punishment anymore. Ah, well. Made a fair amount of headway today.
-Laurel
8.12.2002
Found, last night, on the second disc of my LotR DVD (the one with no movie, just interviews and makings-of specials), the part from a TV special I saw months and months ago where Billy Boyd discusses, in adorably thick Scottish accent, "go'n t' the gem [gym], gettin' that 'obbit fez-ache [hobbit physique]", then bursts out laughing at his own joke. I know this means nothing to you, but it's my favorite part of everything I've ever seen him talk about, so I was very happy to find it. There are cuter actors than Billy Boyd, but I can't think of a better voice or laugh. I definitely need a screencap of him laughing like that.
...And I finally, after six months of M*A*S*H fanaticism, saw the show's pilot episode (just half an hour ago, actually). Was rather weird, inasmuch as there was no Klinger, there were several characters that didn't make it past the first ten-or-so episodes (Spearchucker, Ugly John, etc.), and Father Mulcahy was being played by somebody else (red-haired, and no glasses--very odd). But it wasn't bad. ...Am looking forward to Wednesday, though, when I finally get to see "Love Story" for the first time (am still a sucker for the Radar-centric episodes, though they're not typically my favorites).
...This has been another edition of Hey, It's Not That Interesting, But It's Not as Stupid as What I Considered Writing (today's topic was American obsession with adversity, and stayed on the blog for a fully thirty minutes before I realized just what saccharine, pseudo-philosophical crap it was--and when I say that, I mean as in "far worse than usual"--and took it down).
Cheerio.
-Laurel
...And I finally, after six months of M*A*S*H fanaticism, saw the show's pilot episode (just half an hour ago, actually). Was rather weird, inasmuch as there was no Klinger, there were several characters that didn't make it past the first ten-or-so episodes (Spearchucker, Ugly John, etc.), and Father Mulcahy was being played by somebody else (red-haired, and no glasses--very odd). But it wasn't bad. ...Am looking forward to Wednesday, though, when I finally get to see "Love Story" for the first time (am still a sucker for the Radar-centric episodes, though they're not typically my favorites).
...This has been another edition of Hey, It's Not That Interesting, But It's Not as Stupid as What I Considered Writing (today's topic was American obsession with adversity, and stayed on the blog for a fully thirty minutes before I realized just what saccharine, pseudo-philosophical crap it was--and when I say that, I mean as in "far worse than usual"--and took it down).
Cheerio.
-Laurel
8.10.2002
::squeaks::
Lily brought me back from London...
...two little books of British slang (one regular, one Cockney rhyming), a small teddy bear dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard, and--which she's going to give me when she finds it again--a magnet from a store catering entirely to left-handed people.
And she said that as she walked around, she kept wanting to show me things.
Okay, if there was ever any doubt that London headed my list of Places to See Before I Die, there isn't anymore. I am getting there, and I am getting there as soon as I can. By force, horse, or college course.
...And going to the Renaissance Festival only heightened my desire. Had $20 of my own, and could have bought a hat or something, but what I'm really holding out for is a flute, and someday I'm going to get one.
...I have dreams, I guess, dreams that I haven't counted as dreams because I've only thought of them as goals and ideals--in no particular order, these: to help everyone I can; to find a job I love; to see London, Barcelona, Dublin, and maybe Edinburgh and Athens (but definitely the first three); to become fluent in at least Spanish (though any of the following would also be great: Latin, Greek, Arabic, Quenya, Sindarin); to find a love; to have a child (well, ideally three, ideally twin girls among them); and to serve God to the best of my abilities.
...And, you know, meeting any of the following would not hurt, either: Chris Rice, Peter Furler, and/or anyone from M*A*S*H, Newsboys, Whose Line, or U2. But that's not quite as important. And, in those cases, sometimes I think that imagining might even be better.
...And of course there're things--qualities, mostly--that I'd love to have...probably the biggest ones grace and wit. The grace thing sounds funny, I know, as I favor so much the very lovable dorks Peregrin Took and Radar O'Reilly, but really, I do. And the wit goes along with it. I have a sense of humor, yes, but wit...well, in a way, that goes along with the grace. It's really mostly the faults of Cyrano de Bergerac and M*A*S*H...the idea of spontaneous, charming, dashing wit, like Cyrano's; like, to a degree, Hawkeye's--these lines out of nowhere that are so spontaneous, so great--and I realize that both of those characters are scripted, but people like Alan Alda, like Colin Mochrie can do it in real life. That's always fascinated me. I'd really love that, that kind of panache...
...Really, I'd love to act sometimes. I read well enough, and could do Cyrano, maybe--but my singing has always been eclipsed by people at school, and as for dancing...well, try incapable; see also the previous paragraph concerning lack of grace. Today at the Renaissance Faire there were so many people dressed in the clothes, talking like the professional players--some could do it very well. I tried, and got farther than I expected, but didn't have the look down. That isn't a dream so much as a resolution, but I still want to do it, and someday I think I will--I'll come to the Festival dressed up, I'll have read enough about Elizabethan speech to have at least a passable grasp of it...and I'll do it. It won't matter if I can sing; it won't matter if I can dance. Just to be a charming, graceful, bright peasant girl, to know the right words, and just when to laugh, smile, draw back, or come forward--to be clever, outgoing, maybe flirtatious to a slight degree...and I'd know I'd won if the players themselves had to ask me if I was one of them.
Anyway, I've got a life to live and plenty to do in it--I've been very frightened by the fact that I don't have anything big to dream...but I have dozens of small ones, and can certainly create a life for myself, with enough meaning for others, with enough meaning for me.
Tenn' enomentielva,
-Laurel
Lily brought me back from London...
...two little books of British slang (one regular, one Cockney rhyming), a small teddy bear dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard, and--which she's going to give me when she finds it again--a magnet from a store catering entirely to left-handed people.
And she said that as she walked around, she kept wanting to show me things.
Okay, if there was ever any doubt that London headed my list of Places to See Before I Die, there isn't anymore. I am getting there, and I am getting there as soon as I can. By force, horse, or college course.
...And going to the Renaissance Festival only heightened my desire. Had $20 of my own, and could have bought a hat or something, but what I'm really holding out for is a flute, and someday I'm going to get one.
...I have dreams, I guess, dreams that I haven't counted as dreams because I've only thought of them as goals and ideals--in no particular order, these: to help everyone I can; to find a job I love; to see London, Barcelona, Dublin, and maybe Edinburgh and Athens (but definitely the first three); to become fluent in at least Spanish (though any of the following would also be great: Latin, Greek, Arabic, Quenya, Sindarin); to find a love; to have a child (well, ideally three, ideally twin girls among them); and to serve God to the best of my abilities.
...And, you know, meeting any of the following would not hurt, either: Chris Rice, Peter Furler, and/or anyone from M*A*S*H, Newsboys, Whose Line, or U2. But that's not quite as important. And, in those cases, sometimes I think that imagining might even be better.
...And of course there're things--qualities, mostly--that I'd love to have...probably the biggest ones grace and wit. The grace thing sounds funny, I know, as I favor so much the very lovable dorks Peregrin Took and Radar O'Reilly, but really, I do. And the wit goes along with it. I have a sense of humor, yes, but wit...well, in a way, that goes along with the grace. It's really mostly the faults of Cyrano de Bergerac and M*A*S*H...the idea of spontaneous, charming, dashing wit, like Cyrano's; like, to a degree, Hawkeye's--these lines out of nowhere that are so spontaneous, so great--and I realize that both of those characters are scripted, but people like Alan Alda, like Colin Mochrie can do it in real life. That's always fascinated me. I'd really love that, that kind of panache...
...Really, I'd love to act sometimes. I read well enough, and could do Cyrano, maybe--but my singing has always been eclipsed by people at school, and as for dancing...well, try incapable; see also the previous paragraph concerning lack of grace. Today at the Renaissance Faire there were so many people dressed in the clothes, talking like the professional players--some could do it very well. I tried, and got farther than I expected, but didn't have the look down. That isn't a dream so much as a resolution, but I still want to do it, and someday I think I will--I'll come to the Festival dressed up, I'll have read enough about Elizabethan speech to have at least a passable grasp of it...and I'll do it. It won't matter if I can sing; it won't matter if I can dance. Just to be a charming, graceful, bright peasant girl, to know the right words, and just when to laugh, smile, draw back, or come forward--to be clever, outgoing, maybe flirtatious to a slight degree...and I'd know I'd won if the players themselves had to ask me if I was one of them.
Anyway, I've got a life to live and plenty to do in it--I've been very frightened by the fact that I don't have anything big to dream...but I have dozens of small ones, and can certainly create a life for myself, with enough meaning for others, with enough meaning for me.
Tenn' enomentielva,
-Laurel
8.07.2002
Did not do any C&P questions. Stayed online instead and placed holds on seven different books I've been wanting to read, which just are not at my local branch. I've got 'em coming in from all over the county. If all goes well, I hope to be holding within a week the following: The Valley of Fear, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, and His Last Bow, all by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Diary of a Teenage Girl, by Melody Carlson (the book I meant to get when I grabbed her Alison ones by mistake); The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis; A Child Called 'It', by Dave Pelzer; and It's Not About the Bike, by Lance Armstrong (this last is the trickiest, 'cause almost all of them are checked out, and I'm fifth on the hold list). Considered taking out a few more (several of them M*A*S*H-related), but restrained myself--seven will be quite enough to keep me busy for three weeks, when put up against the summer projects I already have. Besides, how much in fines do I want to pay if we (as usual) return them late?
But really am going now (r-i-i-ight...).
-Laurel
But really am going now (r-i-i-ight...).
-Laurel
Lalala...got Lord of the Rings today on DVD, and spent much of the afternoon in a Middle-Earth-induced state of excited dreaminess. Especially when we got it, and I'm finally in the car, holding it in my hands...just in ecstacy. Laughing as I'm whispering, trying (and failing) to get some sort of voice going, joking, It's mine...my own...my pre-cious-s-s...
...Cannot, however, get it to play in Spanish, try though I have.
Definitely wait for it in November, though, if you can stand it--the November one has, among other things, 30 minutes' worth of deleted scenes, including one of Merry and Pippin singing on the table at the Prancing Pony, and of Gimli's "request" of Galadriel. ...But this version is pretty darn cool in itself. It's got me practically aching for Two Towers...oh, gosh, four and a half months! At least I've got this to watch in the meantime...
Also watched Spy Kids (we rented it), which was pretty cool.
Hemmm, what shall I do now? ...Crime and Punishment questions, if I've a scrap of sense in my head, but I really don't want to...
...Don't want to do the questions, that is--I do want sense in my head.
-Laurel
...Cannot, however, get it to play in Spanish, try though I have.
Definitely wait for it in November, though, if you can stand it--the November one has, among other things, 30 minutes' worth of deleted scenes, including one of Merry and Pippin singing on the table at the Prancing Pony, and of Gimli's "request" of Galadriel. ...But this version is pretty darn cool in itself. It's got me practically aching for Two Towers...oh, gosh, four and a half months! At least I've got this to watch in the meantime...
Also watched Spy Kids (we rented it), which was pretty cool.
Hemmm, what shall I do now? ...Crime and Punishment questions, if I've a scrap of sense in my head, but I really don't want to...
...Don't want to do the questions, that is--I do want sense in my head.
-Laurel
8.06.2002
::pants:: Have found it. Took me long enough because I was looking for it written out. Eventually I gave it up and found it as a series of sound clips (which I knew would be easier) and typed it over myself. Guess it isn't so much like the other quote, but I've always liked it...about Radar not sure why he doesn't see girls the same way all the guys he knows do...which has always been something I've related to; I see so few guys as good-looking, have so few crushes, and think so little about anything above kissing that Radar's worry that he wasn't normal really did strike a chord with me. Hawkeye's answer, which I count as probably the best of the several Hawkeye-Radar exchanges across the seasons, went as follows...
"Look, everybody's different, Radar. You're here with a bunch of guys you'll probably never see again--you don't have to try to be like them. ...You know, most people act crazy when they're out of town. But you're different. You always take a little bit of Iowa with you wherever you go. That's nice--don't try to change that. Someday you'll meet somebody that you'd like to introduce to your mom. And instead of taking advantage of her, you'll offer her a gift you've been working on all your life...yourself."
...Right; just wanted to get that cleared up. It's better actually seen acted, but...whatever. Was supposed to be off some time ago, so...
-Laurel
"Look, everybody's different, Radar. You're here with a bunch of guys you'll probably never see again--you don't have to try to be like them. ...You know, most people act crazy when they're out of town. But you're different. You always take a little bit of Iowa with you wherever you go. That's nice--don't try to change that. Someday you'll meet somebody that you'd like to introduce to your mom. And instead of taking advantage of her, you'll offer her a gift you've been working on all your life...yourself."
...Right; just wanted to get that cleared up. It's better actually seen acted, but...whatever. Was supposed to be off some time ago, so...
-Laurel
::silly grin:: Have found a way. Looked up more M*A*S*H stuff. Found out that Gary Burghoff (who my dad now says does not have enough relation to us to even be considered relation, dang it) was, even before M*A*S*H, the lead in "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown". Was very impressed by that, and am wondering whether it was him on the record of it that we used to hear in music class in fourth grade. ...Grasping at the few memories I have of fourth grade music class, I'm actually almost ready to conclude that it was. It had that kind of sound...
...Suddenly the teacher's rosy compliments on my reading of Charlie Brown himself that year (specifically the "peanut butter" monologue) seem even more significant...::very wide and silly grin::
I don't care what my dad says. I say it's genetic. *g* Distantly but somehow genetic. ...That, and my tendency to totally overanalyze characters. You should hear him go on about Radar in the 30th anniversary thing I taped. Ananda has...but he does it in other spots, too. It's cool, but it's like, sheesh...reminds me of...well, *me*! ...And, to be fair, there are dozens of M*A*S*H fans who do the very same thing, but...
Also found a lovely quote from Alan Alda, who plays Hawkeye...
Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself.
...The last line, incidentally--and I'm not just saying this; I read this quote before the Charlie Brown thing--sounds so much like a thing Hawkeye says to Radar...something about love that sticks in my head a lot. Let me see if I can find it...
::pause for online search::
-Laurel
...Suddenly the teacher's rosy compliments on my reading of Charlie Brown himself that year (specifically the "peanut butter" monologue) seem even more significant...::very wide and silly grin::
I don't care what my dad says. I say it's genetic. *g* Distantly but somehow genetic. ...That, and my tendency to totally overanalyze characters. You should hear him go on about Radar in the 30th anniversary thing I taped. Ananda has...but he does it in other spots, too. It's cool, but it's like, sheesh...reminds me of...well, *me*! ...And, to be fair, there are dozens of M*A*S*H fans who do the very same thing, but...
Also found a lovely quote from Alan Alda, who plays Hawkeye...
Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself.
...The last line, incidentally--and I'm not just saying this; I read this quote before the Charlie Brown thing--sounds so much like a thing Hawkeye says to Radar...something about love that sticks in my head a lot. Let me see if I can find it...
::pause for online search::
-Laurel
Goodness, what have I done to us all?
...Well, nothing, I imagine--just brought insecurity to the surface, as though we ever needed any more of that.
This was supposed to be a perfunctory apology for the last entry--I hate my inherent tendency to grovel for pity, to act like I'm the first to experience everything--but, really, it does bother me. The only thing I have that approaches a dream is to run off and go on some missionary trip to Africa (I sound so much like you, Ananda...like you back in ninth grade, when I was so much more apt to want to save America first...)--and that's more a daydream. ...Had I been brought up in a family like Megan's, like Jessica's, I don't know if it wouldn't be a real one. Just...I waited for five years to get permission to go downtown on a church thing, downtown to help fix houses. And even then, the only reason I really got to go was that we didn't ask my dad--I filled out the paperwork, my mom signed it. ...But even my mom didn't want me on the Mexico trip. Jessica's sister, meanwhile, is, if I'm not mistaken, currently in Ecuador, doing the kind of things I've always wanted to do.
It's the kind of thing Bethie and I talked about on Friday night--'cause she's worlds more stifled than I am--for some of the things in our lives, it's not necessarily that we want to and can't. It's almost worse: that even if we wanted to, we couldn't.
Just...I don't know. My parents talk about how smart I was when I was little, how talented. They have four years of elementary school, pre-this-district, to remember--years when I could read four grades ahead and spell down most of the kids at school. And before that, they have when I was two and three, how bright they say I was, how they didn't know because they thought all kids could do this-and-this-and-this that early...
...And now here I am, and as proud as they say they are of me, sometimes I get the feeling they look at what I've done and think, that's it? Well, not my mom, so much, but I think my dad must. He was the one who always thought I was going to be a famous writer and do all these things...but he never understood, and still won't understand...I don't want to be rich, I don't want to be famous. The ideas scare me to death. That's half of what drove me toward teaching, twisted though that sounds...because it doesn't pay. ...Unless you're a professor, which is of course what my dad immediately suggested.
Let him get after my brother. He's the one who wants everything, who jokes about all the companies he'll own. If my brother was a straight-A student, I think he'dve given up on me long ago. I wish he would.
I want to do something that makes some sort of difference. But I'm on the verge of cursing a society where money still is the only thing that buys a cause. Outside of missionary work, if you want any sort of big impact, you need to be in power. And I don't want power.
...I don't even want anyone to remember I made the impact.
Which I suppose is why I can't pick a dream--because all my dreams paint themselves into corners. Either they pay too much, or they mean too much, or they don't mean enough.
"I wish reality was more than the ending-point of all my dreams."
-Laurel
...Well, nothing, I imagine--just brought insecurity to the surface, as though we ever needed any more of that.
This was supposed to be a perfunctory apology for the last entry--I hate my inherent tendency to grovel for pity, to act like I'm the first to experience everything--but, really, it does bother me. The only thing I have that approaches a dream is to run off and go on some missionary trip to Africa (I sound so much like you, Ananda...like you back in ninth grade, when I was so much more apt to want to save America first...)--and that's more a daydream. ...Had I been brought up in a family like Megan's, like Jessica's, I don't know if it wouldn't be a real one. Just...I waited for five years to get permission to go downtown on a church thing, downtown to help fix houses. And even then, the only reason I really got to go was that we didn't ask my dad--I filled out the paperwork, my mom signed it. ...But even my mom didn't want me on the Mexico trip. Jessica's sister, meanwhile, is, if I'm not mistaken, currently in Ecuador, doing the kind of things I've always wanted to do.
It's the kind of thing Bethie and I talked about on Friday night--'cause she's worlds more stifled than I am--for some of the things in our lives, it's not necessarily that we want to and can't. It's almost worse: that even if we wanted to, we couldn't.
Just...I don't know. My parents talk about how smart I was when I was little, how talented. They have four years of elementary school, pre-this-district, to remember--years when I could read four grades ahead and spell down most of the kids at school. And before that, they have when I was two and three, how bright they say I was, how they didn't know because they thought all kids could do this-and-this-and-this that early...
...And now here I am, and as proud as they say they are of me, sometimes I get the feeling they look at what I've done and think, that's it? Well, not my mom, so much, but I think my dad must. He was the one who always thought I was going to be a famous writer and do all these things...but he never understood, and still won't understand...I don't want to be rich, I don't want to be famous. The ideas scare me to death. That's half of what drove me toward teaching, twisted though that sounds...because it doesn't pay. ...Unless you're a professor, which is of course what my dad immediately suggested.
Let him get after my brother. He's the one who wants everything, who jokes about all the companies he'll own. If my brother was a straight-A student, I think he'dve given up on me long ago. I wish he would.
I want to do something that makes some sort of difference. But I'm on the verge of cursing a society where money still is the only thing that buys a cause. Outside of missionary work, if you want any sort of big impact, you need to be in power. And I don't want power.
...I don't even want anyone to remember I made the impact.
Which I suppose is why I can't pick a dream--because all my dreams paint themselves into corners. Either they pay too much, or they mean too much, or they don't mean enough.
"I wish reality was more than the ending-point of all my dreams."
-Laurel
8.05.2002
I have no dreams.
This is a startling point driven home to me on Saturday night when my mom asked me whether I did.
I don't. No dream for a career, no dream for a marriage, nothing. Everything I've ever wanted will only tie me down in a different way, keep me from doing something else. Keep me from doing what I want, I've always thought...but what do I even want?
No expectations. I feel like a seventeen-year-old failure. And all the I-know-what-you-means and the you're-very-talenteds in the world wouldn't help.
I only want to serve God, but have no idea how, and know full well that when it comes down to leaps of faith and fulfilling my parents' expectations, the odds are in my parents' favor, and it's my fault alone. If I ever wanted to do anything besides English, I doubt I'd dare.
I hate being a boring, obedient child, made and broken by the books I've read all my life. They make me want to save the world...and they're exactly what's stopping me. Cause and lack of effect coincided.
-Laurel
This is a startling point driven home to me on Saturday night when my mom asked me whether I did.
I don't. No dream for a career, no dream for a marriage, nothing. Everything I've ever wanted will only tie me down in a different way, keep me from doing something else. Keep me from doing what I want, I've always thought...but what do I even want?
No expectations. I feel like a seventeen-year-old failure. And all the I-know-what-you-means and the you're-very-talenteds in the world wouldn't help.
I only want to serve God, but have no idea how, and know full well that when it comes down to leaps of faith and fulfilling my parents' expectations, the odds are in my parents' favor, and it's my fault alone. If I ever wanted to do anything besides English, I doubt I'd dare.
I hate being a boring, obedient child, made and broken by the books I've read all my life. They make me want to save the world...and they're exactly what's stopping me. Cause and lack of effect coincided.
-Laurel
8.03.2002
Last night was one for the Merry and Pippin files, surely. Especially since Bethie's the original Merry (I dubbed her Merry and myself Pippin back in the ninth grade, when I read LotR the first time, and it does sort of fit)...
Went to this college thing last night with Bethie--the college I work at. I won't be going, because they don't have the program I want (English lit, most likely), but Bethie's thinking about their engineering-type stuff, so off we went.
See, it's a bunch of workshops, and lots of time to wander around campus. Since I know it so well by now, Bethie and I skipped the long official tour, and I gave her my own, engineering-specific tour. ...Bethie is even more claustrophobic than I am. We did not use the elevators. None of them. And I was glad.
That part was easy and fun. The informative presentation was fun. Getting dinner was easy and fun (and delicious).
The problems began after dinner. Well, only one problem, but the point was this: we needed an alarm clock. The housing we got did not have one. (All right, so I can understand it not having a bathroom. But no clock?) Well, Bethie had brought a travel alarm clock, which was good, because I hadn't...but when we went to set it, we couldn't get it to work (it was sort of ancient-looking anyway). We called Bethie's dad (via pay phone--the rooms' phone wasn't hooked up, either, for semi-obvious reasons) to ask him how to do it. We told him what the little silver hand was doing. ...He informed us that it was broken, in that case.
Look, we needed an alarm clock. We could not get up in time to shower and have sessions if we did not. And missing sessions would be very bad. But we had $30 when we combined all our money. "Okay," I said, "we'll go to the campus bookstore and buy one. I think they sell alarm clocks, and it's right nearby."
And so they do, and so it was...but the thing was now closed (it hadn't been so that afternoon!). It was about 6:45, and the next big obligatory group thing started at 7:15. "Okay," I said, "we'll find the tunnel grocery store. I think it was by engineering. Remember how we went in the tunnel down there?" ...The college has a tunnel system leading between buildings, as well as the aboveground stuff. The tunnels house a campus laundromat of sorts, a post office, and a grocery store. I didn't know whether they sold alarm clocks there, but I figured we could find out.
So off we went to engineering, which is a ways down campus from the bookstore--as well as a ways from the gym where we had to be at 7:15. It didn't take me long to realize that I was wrong. Bethie, however, had no more idea than I, and she seemed fine with whatever I did (I'm the one who knew my way around campus), so...
"Well," I said, "there were murals down there, remember? Maybe it's by the art department." At this point, actually, I was beginning to think that maybe they were more towards where we'd checked in, but that seemed crazy. Why would we have been in the tunnels there? Where would we have gotten in?
The problem: Because of the construction (see previous post for more on engineering, the tunnel, the construction, the elevators, and all), there are precious few ways out of engineering, and all of them deposit you on the far side of campus. Had I so much as a scrap of sense in my head at that point, I would have gone back through the tunnel-part to liberal arts (back the way we'd come) and out again, 'cause that was a good way to the art building. But as it was (and it was now probably 7:00), we were on the far side, and it would take a good five minutes at least to get there.
"Well," Bethie and I said, "the last big group thing started fifteen minutes late anyway [I mean, you try getting 250-or-so high schoolers into a gym at one specific time]. We've got 'til 7:30, or 7:25 at least." So off we went toward the art building.
...And found ourselves in an entirely wrong place. Science, I think. In any case, not art.
...But I knew now where art was (sort of), so we went down that way. On our way, we found a big campus map posted up behind a big plastic screen. It was going for 7:10 at this point, I'm guessing. We decided to get to the map and locate the store that way, to see how close we were. If we were close, then, we figured, crud with the group session (which was a student panel answering questions); we'd buy the clock first.
"Here's where we should be," I said, and placed my right finger on the spot, which was towards the left of the map. I looked on the map's key again. "And here's where we are," I said, putting my left finger on the star that showed our location.
My arms were crossed. The tunnel store was across campus from us...near where we'd checked in. And it was 7:10.
"Crud," I said.
Then we both burst out laughing.
"This is definitely one for the Merry and Pippin files," I said, still laughing.
"Oh, definitely," Bethie replied. (Not that we have a Merry and Pippin file, mind you, but if we did...)
And then the second thing--"You know, I have more adventures on this campus..."
We had one last shot--to go into the building where my parents and I work and grab a clock from one of their offices (I figured my mom's at least would go off). This was, of course, assuming the building was unlocked, as well as the offices. About a thirty-to-one shot at least, but, hey, all the people working this thing were people from my building. Maybe they'd left it open in case they needed something. And besides, it was only 7:15. People in there work that late all the time.
...But not tonight. Locked, all three doors.
We went to the gym. It was 7:20. Late in theory, but it'd taken 10 minutes for the last one to start.
...The program had started. Right on time, it looked like.
But we made our way in (trying not to realize that dozens of people nearby were probably staring at us), got some water (did I mention that it was 90-degree heat, and that the gym is not air-conditioned?), and sat down.
I had one last thought while we sat there sweating: my parents had taken a group of parents on a tour of downtown while we went to group stuff. If we caught them a good 45 minutes before our housing was locked (meaning we'd be locked out if we weren't inside), they'd probably have time to drive home, get my alarm clock, and bring it back.
But that was a last resort (mainly because I wasn't sure they would do it). Well, actually, the real last resorts were these: a) to sleep in shifts, each of us getting three and a half hours; or b) to do a literal leap of faith and sleep without any alarm, hoping by divine providence to awaken at 6:30 (that was the time we figured we'd need to shower, dress, and get across campus to breakfast by 7:30), despite going to bed between 11 and midnight after a day of nonstop walking (we were both sore from the waists down, not to mention tired).
But in any case, after the student panel presentation, we skipped the social stuff for that night (we aren't so very social anyway) and tried to fix the alarm clock. It didn't work. Bethie proved masterful at disassembling old alarm clocks, but we couldn't get it to work. My parents would come back in an hour, so we decided to get some ice cream and walk across campus (for something like the sixth time that night, between tour, meals, and store search) to where my parents would be. We figured this would take about an hour, and it did (especially since, in the dark, I went to the wrong building the first time round).
My parents' bus arrived twenty minutes late, which was definitely too late for my alarm-clock-snatching plan. But I figured they'd have a solution, and that, if we were really lucky, the two of us could go back to my house for the night (air conditioning!) and come back in the morning in time for our sessions. We explained our problem.
We got reproached by my mother for skipping out on the social activities ("have fun because I said so"?) for something so "easy"--in her mind, we couldn't possibly both sleep in late. However, we did get my parents' cell phone, and they said they'd call us at 6:30 the next morning (that is, this morning). No further offer was made.
When they left, it was about 10:35--too late, more or less, to see anything on campus we cared to see. So we walked back toward the dorms. I half-laughed, exhaling briefly and quickly through my nose. "'A beautiful, restful night!' said Merry." I said, using the sarcastic-Merry tone that I used when I read the line aloud (you know, during those times that I read Two Towers aloud to nobody in particular).
"Huh?" asked Bethie.
"It's from Lord of the Rings," I explained. "Merry says it sarcastically after the whole camp wakes up and all this stuff's happening. 'A beautiful, restful night!' said Merry. 'Some folk have wonderful luck. He did not want to go to sleep, and he wanted to ride with Gandalf--and there he goes! Instead of being turned into a stone himself to stand forever as a warning.'"
By all rights, Bethie may as well have smacked me into reality at that point--it was an LotR tangent, with only the first sentence applying to the situation (the rest is about Pippin, who ended up indirectly getting what he wanted after looking in the Stone of Orthanc and causing a heck of a lot of trouble), but all she said was, "Ah."
We went back, found the shower rooms, and figured we'd get it over with--alone in the one bathroom, I fought back the urge to (of course!) start singing the bath song from LotR, but I have to say that, after drinking something like four bottles of water, walking around campus for half-hours and hours at a time, in 90-degree heat, I now fully understand the happiness of "the bath at close of day", as the song puts it.
...Got back, read Fellowship until midnight (yes, it's an obsession--and a lovely one at that), went to bed. I let Bethie turn the phone on before she went to sleep a bit later, so we could have every possible minute before the charge ran out (and we didn't know when that'd be).
It worked--we were woken up at about 6:30 (I think the charge was almost gone--my dad kept breaking up)--though we'd also both woken up around 3:15 that morning to a scream. We think it may have been Bethie's--that's how I remember it happening; Bethie doesn't remember screaming, but that still doesn't rule it out, as she's a sleepwalker anyway, and does plenty of things in her sleep without realizing it. In any case, I couldn't have dreamed it, 'cause she woke up after it, too. (Well, we have had the same dream once, but I doubt it happened again...and it wasn't on the same night when it happened last time, anyway: Bethie told me the dream, and I was startled because I'd had the same one just a couple of weeks before--we could both describe it down to fine details--it was weird. Cool, but weird.) As I remember it, I woke up to Bethie screaming, said, "Bethie!", and she woke up. Ask her, I guess, for her own account.
Anyway, today went fine, only one or two little hitches (like going the wrong place for breakfast the first time), so no more--I've written quite enough already.
-Laurel
...
Went to this college thing last night with Bethie--the college I work at. I won't be going, because they don't have the program I want (English lit, most likely), but Bethie's thinking about their engineering-type stuff, so off we went.
See, it's a bunch of workshops, and lots of time to wander around campus. Since I know it so well by now, Bethie and I skipped the long official tour, and I gave her my own, engineering-specific tour. ...Bethie is even more claustrophobic than I am. We did not use the elevators. None of them. And I was glad.
That part was easy and fun. The informative presentation was fun. Getting dinner was easy and fun (and delicious).
The problems began after dinner. Well, only one problem, but the point was this: we needed an alarm clock. The housing we got did not have one. (All right, so I can understand it not having a bathroom. But no clock?) Well, Bethie had brought a travel alarm clock, which was good, because I hadn't...but when we went to set it, we couldn't get it to work (it was sort of ancient-looking anyway). We called Bethie's dad (via pay phone--the rooms' phone wasn't hooked up, either, for semi-obvious reasons) to ask him how to do it. We told him what the little silver hand was doing. ...He informed us that it was broken, in that case.
Look, we needed an alarm clock. We could not get up in time to shower and have sessions if we did not. And missing sessions would be very bad. But we had $30 when we combined all our money. "Okay," I said, "we'll go to the campus bookstore and buy one. I think they sell alarm clocks, and it's right nearby."
And so they do, and so it was...but the thing was now closed (it hadn't been so that afternoon!). It was about 6:45, and the next big obligatory group thing started at 7:15. "Okay," I said, "we'll find the tunnel grocery store. I think it was by engineering. Remember how we went in the tunnel down there?" ...The college has a tunnel system leading between buildings, as well as the aboveground stuff. The tunnels house a campus laundromat of sorts, a post office, and a grocery store. I didn't know whether they sold alarm clocks there, but I figured we could find out.
So off we went to engineering, which is a ways down campus from the bookstore--as well as a ways from the gym where we had to be at 7:15. It didn't take me long to realize that I was wrong. Bethie, however, had no more idea than I, and she seemed fine with whatever I did (I'm the one who knew my way around campus), so...
"Well," I said, "there were murals down there, remember? Maybe it's by the art department." At this point, actually, I was beginning to think that maybe they were more towards where we'd checked in, but that seemed crazy. Why would we have been in the tunnels there? Where would we have gotten in?
The problem: Because of the construction (see previous post for more on engineering, the tunnel, the construction, the elevators, and all), there are precious few ways out of engineering, and all of them deposit you on the far side of campus. Had I so much as a scrap of sense in my head at that point, I would have gone back through the tunnel-part to liberal arts (back the way we'd come) and out again, 'cause that was a good way to the art building. But as it was (and it was now probably 7:00), we were on the far side, and it would take a good five minutes at least to get there.
"Well," Bethie and I said, "the last big group thing started fifteen minutes late anyway [I mean, you try getting 250-or-so high schoolers into a gym at one specific time]. We've got 'til 7:30, or 7:25 at least." So off we went toward the art building.
...And found ourselves in an entirely wrong place. Science, I think. In any case, not art.
...But I knew now where art was (sort of), so we went down that way. On our way, we found a big campus map posted up behind a big plastic screen. It was going for 7:10 at this point, I'm guessing. We decided to get to the map and locate the store that way, to see how close we were. If we were close, then, we figured, crud with the group session (which was a student panel answering questions); we'd buy the clock first.
"Here's where we should be," I said, and placed my right finger on the spot, which was towards the left of the map. I looked on the map's key again. "And here's where we are," I said, putting my left finger on the star that showed our location.
My arms were crossed. The tunnel store was across campus from us...near where we'd checked in. And it was 7:10.
"Crud," I said.
Then we both burst out laughing.
"This is definitely one for the Merry and Pippin files," I said, still laughing.
"Oh, definitely," Bethie replied. (Not that we have a Merry and Pippin file, mind you, but if we did...)
And then the second thing--"You know, I have more adventures on this campus..."
We had one last shot--to go into the building where my parents and I work and grab a clock from one of their offices (I figured my mom's at least would go off). This was, of course, assuming the building was unlocked, as well as the offices. About a thirty-to-one shot at least, but, hey, all the people working this thing were people from my building. Maybe they'd left it open in case they needed something. And besides, it was only 7:15. People in there work that late all the time.
...But not tonight. Locked, all three doors.
We went to the gym. It was 7:20. Late in theory, but it'd taken 10 minutes for the last one to start.
...The program had started. Right on time, it looked like.
But we made our way in (trying not to realize that dozens of people nearby were probably staring at us), got some water (did I mention that it was 90-degree heat, and that the gym is not air-conditioned?), and sat down.
I had one last thought while we sat there sweating: my parents had taken a group of parents on a tour of downtown while we went to group stuff. If we caught them a good 45 minutes before our housing was locked (meaning we'd be locked out if we weren't inside), they'd probably have time to drive home, get my alarm clock, and bring it back.
But that was a last resort (mainly because I wasn't sure they would do it). Well, actually, the real last resorts were these: a) to sleep in shifts, each of us getting three and a half hours; or b) to do a literal leap of faith and sleep without any alarm, hoping by divine providence to awaken at 6:30 (that was the time we figured we'd need to shower, dress, and get across campus to breakfast by 7:30), despite going to bed between 11 and midnight after a day of nonstop walking (we were both sore from the waists down, not to mention tired).
But in any case, after the student panel presentation, we skipped the social stuff for that night (we aren't so very social anyway) and tried to fix the alarm clock. It didn't work. Bethie proved masterful at disassembling old alarm clocks, but we couldn't get it to work. My parents would come back in an hour, so we decided to get some ice cream and walk across campus (for something like the sixth time that night, between tour, meals, and store search) to where my parents would be. We figured this would take about an hour, and it did (especially since, in the dark, I went to the wrong building the first time round).
My parents' bus arrived twenty minutes late, which was definitely too late for my alarm-clock-snatching plan. But I figured they'd have a solution, and that, if we were really lucky, the two of us could go back to my house for the night (air conditioning!) and come back in the morning in time for our sessions. We explained our problem.
We got reproached by my mother for skipping out on the social activities ("have fun because I said so"?) for something so "easy"--in her mind, we couldn't possibly both sleep in late. However, we did get my parents' cell phone, and they said they'd call us at 6:30 the next morning (that is, this morning). No further offer was made.
When they left, it was about 10:35--too late, more or less, to see anything on campus we cared to see. So we walked back toward the dorms. I half-laughed, exhaling briefly and quickly through my nose. "'A beautiful, restful night!' said Merry." I said, using the sarcastic-Merry tone that I used when I read the line aloud (you know, during those times that I read Two Towers aloud to nobody in particular).
"Huh?" asked Bethie.
"It's from Lord of the Rings," I explained. "Merry says it sarcastically after the whole camp wakes up and all this stuff's happening. 'A beautiful, restful night!' said Merry. 'Some folk have wonderful luck. He did not want to go to sleep, and he wanted to ride with Gandalf--and there he goes! Instead of being turned into a stone himself to stand forever as a warning.'"
By all rights, Bethie may as well have smacked me into reality at that point--it was an LotR tangent, with only the first sentence applying to the situation (the rest is about Pippin, who ended up indirectly getting what he wanted after looking in the Stone of Orthanc and causing a heck of a lot of trouble), but all she said was, "Ah."
We went back, found the shower rooms, and figured we'd get it over with--alone in the one bathroom, I fought back the urge to (of course!) start singing the bath song from LotR, but I have to say that, after drinking something like four bottles of water, walking around campus for half-hours and hours at a time, in 90-degree heat, I now fully understand the happiness of "the bath at close of day", as the song puts it.
...Got back, read Fellowship until midnight (yes, it's an obsession--and a lovely one at that), went to bed. I let Bethie turn the phone on before she went to sleep a bit later, so we could have every possible minute before the charge ran out (and we didn't know when that'd be).
It worked--we were woken up at about 6:30 (I think the charge was almost gone--my dad kept breaking up)--though we'd also both woken up around 3:15 that morning to a scream. We think it may have been Bethie's--that's how I remember it happening; Bethie doesn't remember screaming, but that still doesn't rule it out, as she's a sleepwalker anyway, and does plenty of things in her sleep without realizing it. In any case, I couldn't have dreamed it, 'cause she woke up after it, too. (Well, we have had the same dream once, but I doubt it happened again...and it wasn't on the same night when it happened last time, anyway: Bethie told me the dream, and I was startled because I'd had the same one just a couple of weeks before--we could both describe it down to fine details--it was weird. Cool, but weird.) As I remember it, I woke up to Bethie screaming, said, "Bethie!", and she woke up. Ask her, I guess, for her own account.
Anyway, today went fine, only one or two little hitches (like going the wrong place for breakfast the first time), so no more--I've written quite enough already.
-Laurel
...
8.01.2002
Am very happy to be back home. Got trapped in an elevator today at work, sort of.
See, there's a bunch of construction going on on campus (hey, sounds kind of like school!), and so I was sent to the Engineering Tech offices with a file to drop off. But the thing was, I couldn't just go to the building, because the construction was barring about all but one of the doors. So I was told to go to the Liberal Arts building, take the elevator by Criminal Justice down one floor to the basement, go through the tunnel, take the elevator up three floors, then find the office on that floor.
Okay, I thought. Do hate elevators--maybe I should take the stairs--but nah, it won't be that bad.
Well, got to Criminal Justice fine, found the elevator fine, and pressed the button. It opened right away--and right away my heart pretty much sank into where my stomach had once been. (My stomach was now in my shoes.) See, as I say, I hate elevators. I'm mildly claustrophobic, and besides that, my dad got stuck in an elevator on campus once and was in there for something like half an hour or something. But I have gotten used to most campus elevators because they are brightly lit and are fairly new, and are silvery, which somehow feels less confining to me.
...Most campus elevators are like that. But not this one. This one was the worst kind of elevator--circa 1970, dimly lit, old metal buttons that only light up in the middle, creaky, slow, and black instead of silver. I did not want to get in. But I didn't listen, and walked in, figuring it was stupid to be afraid. "Let's get this over with," I think I remember saying under my breath.
I surveyed the buttons and pressed the one marked B. B for basement, I reasoned. I mean, besides the numbers, there was also an A, but that didn't look right--if I remember, it had a star by it, as though to indicate the main floor, and I was supposed to go down to the basement.
The first sign of trouble came as I watched the elevator indicate after going down one floor that we were now at floor A, then going down again to get to B, like I wanted (oh, yeah--did I mention that, for another reason I'm not sure of, elevators are infinitely scarier to me when I'm going down?). My fleeting thought as I watched the letters change was hey, wasn't I only supposed to go down one floor? Doesn't B make two floors?
But I got to B. I knew that most of the time, elevators that old take a bit of time to open. So I waited.
Nothing.
I surveyed the buttons again and pressed the "open door" button.
Nothing.
No longer quite so able to keep back panic (when I panic about being in a closed space, I start to look around), I glanced at the elevator's ceiling, then back to the display area (which still said B), and waited.
Nothing. I pressed the "open door" button again. Nothing.
...I say that I'm "mildly claustrophobic" in the sense that only some closed-in things scare me. Plastic tubes on playground sets, for example, have never scared me. Hiding in laundry baskets, with clothes on top of my head, or in closed cardboard boxes, has never scared me. Elevators, though, scare me very much. It's taken me some years to get used to the ones in my parents' building. And here I was in this one. It was dim, and the walls were black, and I was alone. And it was an elevator in the far corner of the building, where, in the summer when classes weren't going on (well, not crime and justice classes, anyway), was rarely used.
I considered pressing the "call for help" button, but wasn't sure which one it was. Besides, I didn't really want to wait. Whenever I'm trapped anywhere (and it's happened at least four times that I can think of), my first instinct is not to wait, not to plan, not even to pray, but just to get the crap out of there, by whatever means necessary. My immediate concern was that I'd pressed the "open door" button too soon the first time and had trapped myself between floors. So that's sort of what I acted on.
As far as I'm concerned, this elevator could have starred in a horror movie, but it did have two things going for it, the first one being that, unlike the newer elevators on campus, the doors on this one could be pulled open by the occupant. I didn't actually know this, though. Having reached panic, I had tried blindly to open the doors because I couldn't stand being closed in. I have practically no fingernails, you realize, but I still tried to stick them into the crack between the two sides of the door. To my surprise and temporarily relief, I could push the doors apart. At least, I figured, now I could see where I was, and whether I was between floors. I mean, that's how it is in the movies, right?
Hollywood lies. I got the doors open and was confronted with a wall. Made of darkish-silver metal. Completely smooth.
Casting one more panicked glance around the elevator, already starting to wonder how long it'd be before anyone found me, and whether anyone could hear me if I screamed (I'd forgotten, in my mania, that Maureen, who'd sent me with the file, had been concerned that I wouldn't get there; she literally said she'd phone if she didn't hear from me by eleven. I would not have, at least, been left there to die), I--thank God--hit upon the second thing that the elevator had going for it: the display, which I'd already stared at a dozen times, ten of those times in panic--it was now that I suddenly realized something it had already told me: I'd gone down two floors instead of one. The lady who'd given Maureen the directions had been specific--not just to take the elevator to the basement, but to take the elevator down one floor to the basement. The metal wall had already tipped me off that it wasn't the basement--but now it hit me that maybe it'd work to try another floor. In any case, I couldn't go anywhere down here, and was scared half out of my senses--I had little to lose.
So, still not quite trusting the A button (look where the B one had gotten me!), I pressed 2 at random, watched the doors close, and--to my relief--felt the elevator rise. At least now I was going up, in the general direction of the offices.
I waited a moment in suspense as we got to two...and the doors opened.
In one step I was in the hallway on floor 2, leaning against the wall, my arms still wrapped around the file I'd been sent with. The elevator doors closed nearby as I exhaled shakily. For approximately half a second I considered getting back in and trying A, now that I was one floor above where I'd started.
No *way*, I mouthed. I didn't care what the file held, or what anyone would think--if there wasn't a staircase to the basement, I wasn't going. I'd march right back to admissions and tell them I wasn't going back. Why the crap hadn't I taken the stairs in the first place? Well, because the lady had been so specific about the elevator--as I well remember, recalling how as soon as Maureen had said "elevator?" to the lady, I, from my seat, had quietly moaned in dismay. Dang it, I'd had a bad feeling about the elevator from second one. When I first heard, on my way over, and before I got in--three times I'd wanted to take the stairs, and I'd taken the ruddy elevator anyway...
...And it had been the tunnel that Maureen was worried about sending me to. But anyway, I found the stairs, found the tunnel (it was on A, dang it), crossed through effortlessly, took stairs up to the third level, and found the office. I handed over the file, and the lady there called Maureen to tell her I'd made it and asked if I should wait for the file to be processed and given back, or whether I could just go. I could just go, so I went back into the reception area, took a sour gummy worm from a dish of free ones, and left.
The problem was this: I couldn't get back to the main liberal arts door without using that accursed elevator--at least, no other way that I knew of--and in my panic to avoid the elevator (I still felt like gelatin), I forgot about the tunnel and lost my way getting back. Whether I ever went back through the tunnel, I still don't know. I just wandered around, going upstairs and downstairs, looking for an exit. Goodness only knows which building I was in--engineering, liberal arts, or otherwise--when I finally found a door that wasn't marked off with construction tape. "I don't care where I am!" I remember saying aloud. "Just get me out of here, and I'll find my way back; campus is only so big!" So I schlepped on out of there.
...And found myself all the way across campus from the admissions building, in a place so remote that on the first day, when I'd taken a tour of the campus and had written myself directions to all the buildings, the notation I had by the one I was now right by had been: Good *luck!* Go left of everywhere...
But I made my merry way on back in the 90-degree heat, getting back to the office at 11:10, infinitely glad to be there. I told Maureen what had happened, because I was ten minutes later than I should ever have been, considering the time of the call from engineering. She was sorry, but it wasn't her fault.
Just this morning, running another errand across campus (one that did not involve elevators!), I'd said to myself, it'd be great if all my job was being a runner, instead of mostly office work. And I think that, now that I know to stay away from the evil liberal arts death-boxes, that's still pretty true.
But I'd never been so happy to see envelope-stuffing work in all my life.
*
In other, happier news, I have a M*A*S*H fic up on fanfiction.net called "Be Happy"; it's set in 1975, so you're gonna wanna read Beth Mott's long M*A*S*H fic first (or at least part of it) if you want to get all of it (it's at http://www.geocities.com/beth_mott/reunion.html).
Am going to get offline soon and read.
-Laurel
See, there's a bunch of construction going on on campus (hey, sounds kind of like school!), and so I was sent to the Engineering Tech offices with a file to drop off. But the thing was, I couldn't just go to the building, because the construction was barring about all but one of the doors. So I was told to go to the Liberal Arts building, take the elevator by Criminal Justice down one floor to the basement, go through the tunnel, take the elevator up three floors, then find the office on that floor.
Okay, I thought. Do hate elevators--maybe I should take the stairs--but nah, it won't be that bad.
Well, got to Criminal Justice fine, found the elevator fine, and pressed the button. It opened right away--and right away my heart pretty much sank into where my stomach had once been. (My stomach was now in my shoes.) See, as I say, I hate elevators. I'm mildly claustrophobic, and besides that, my dad got stuck in an elevator on campus once and was in there for something like half an hour or something. But I have gotten used to most campus elevators because they are brightly lit and are fairly new, and are silvery, which somehow feels less confining to me.
...Most campus elevators are like that. But not this one. This one was the worst kind of elevator--circa 1970, dimly lit, old metal buttons that only light up in the middle, creaky, slow, and black instead of silver. I did not want to get in. But I didn't listen, and walked in, figuring it was stupid to be afraid. "Let's get this over with," I think I remember saying under my breath.
I surveyed the buttons and pressed the one marked B. B for basement, I reasoned. I mean, besides the numbers, there was also an A, but that didn't look right--if I remember, it had a star by it, as though to indicate the main floor, and I was supposed to go down to the basement.
The first sign of trouble came as I watched the elevator indicate after going down one floor that we were now at floor A, then going down again to get to B, like I wanted (oh, yeah--did I mention that, for another reason I'm not sure of, elevators are infinitely scarier to me when I'm going down?). My fleeting thought as I watched the letters change was hey, wasn't I only supposed to go down one floor? Doesn't B make two floors?
But I got to B. I knew that most of the time, elevators that old take a bit of time to open. So I waited.
Nothing.
I surveyed the buttons again and pressed the "open door" button.
Nothing.
No longer quite so able to keep back panic (when I panic about being in a closed space, I start to look around), I glanced at the elevator's ceiling, then back to the display area (which still said B), and waited.
Nothing. I pressed the "open door" button again. Nothing.
...I say that I'm "mildly claustrophobic" in the sense that only some closed-in things scare me. Plastic tubes on playground sets, for example, have never scared me. Hiding in laundry baskets, with clothes on top of my head, or in closed cardboard boxes, has never scared me. Elevators, though, scare me very much. It's taken me some years to get used to the ones in my parents' building. And here I was in this one. It was dim, and the walls were black, and I was alone. And it was an elevator in the far corner of the building, where, in the summer when classes weren't going on (well, not crime and justice classes, anyway), was rarely used.
I considered pressing the "call for help" button, but wasn't sure which one it was. Besides, I didn't really want to wait. Whenever I'm trapped anywhere (and it's happened at least four times that I can think of), my first instinct is not to wait, not to plan, not even to pray, but just to get the crap out of there, by whatever means necessary. My immediate concern was that I'd pressed the "open door" button too soon the first time and had trapped myself between floors. So that's sort of what I acted on.
As far as I'm concerned, this elevator could have starred in a horror movie, but it did have two things going for it, the first one being that, unlike the newer elevators on campus, the doors on this one could be pulled open by the occupant. I didn't actually know this, though. Having reached panic, I had tried blindly to open the doors because I couldn't stand being closed in. I have practically no fingernails, you realize, but I still tried to stick them into the crack between the two sides of the door. To my surprise and temporarily relief, I could push the doors apart. At least, I figured, now I could see where I was, and whether I was between floors. I mean, that's how it is in the movies, right?
Hollywood lies. I got the doors open and was confronted with a wall. Made of darkish-silver metal. Completely smooth.
Casting one more panicked glance around the elevator, already starting to wonder how long it'd be before anyone found me, and whether anyone could hear me if I screamed (I'd forgotten, in my mania, that Maureen, who'd sent me with the file, had been concerned that I wouldn't get there; she literally said she'd phone if she didn't hear from me by eleven. I would not have, at least, been left there to die), I--thank God--hit upon the second thing that the elevator had going for it: the display, which I'd already stared at a dozen times, ten of those times in panic--it was now that I suddenly realized something it had already told me: I'd gone down two floors instead of one. The lady who'd given Maureen the directions had been specific--not just to take the elevator to the basement, but to take the elevator down one floor to the basement. The metal wall had already tipped me off that it wasn't the basement--but now it hit me that maybe it'd work to try another floor. In any case, I couldn't go anywhere down here, and was scared half out of my senses--I had little to lose.
So, still not quite trusting the A button (look where the B one had gotten me!), I pressed 2 at random, watched the doors close, and--to my relief--felt the elevator rise. At least now I was going up, in the general direction of the offices.
I waited a moment in suspense as we got to two...and the doors opened.
In one step I was in the hallway on floor 2, leaning against the wall, my arms still wrapped around the file I'd been sent with. The elevator doors closed nearby as I exhaled shakily. For approximately half a second I considered getting back in and trying A, now that I was one floor above where I'd started.
No *way*, I mouthed. I didn't care what the file held, or what anyone would think--if there wasn't a staircase to the basement, I wasn't going. I'd march right back to admissions and tell them I wasn't going back. Why the crap hadn't I taken the stairs in the first place? Well, because the lady had been so specific about the elevator--as I well remember, recalling how as soon as Maureen had said "elevator?" to the lady, I, from my seat, had quietly moaned in dismay. Dang it, I'd had a bad feeling about the elevator from second one. When I first heard, on my way over, and before I got in--three times I'd wanted to take the stairs, and I'd taken the ruddy elevator anyway...
...And it had been the tunnel that Maureen was worried about sending me to. But anyway, I found the stairs, found the tunnel (it was on A, dang it), crossed through effortlessly, took stairs up to the third level, and found the office. I handed over the file, and the lady there called Maureen to tell her I'd made it and asked if I should wait for the file to be processed and given back, or whether I could just go. I could just go, so I went back into the reception area, took a sour gummy worm from a dish of free ones, and left.
The problem was this: I couldn't get back to the main liberal arts door without using that accursed elevator--at least, no other way that I knew of--and in my panic to avoid the elevator (I still felt like gelatin), I forgot about the tunnel and lost my way getting back. Whether I ever went back through the tunnel, I still don't know. I just wandered around, going upstairs and downstairs, looking for an exit. Goodness only knows which building I was in--engineering, liberal arts, or otherwise--when I finally found a door that wasn't marked off with construction tape. "I don't care where I am!" I remember saying aloud. "Just get me out of here, and I'll find my way back; campus is only so big!" So I schlepped on out of there.
...And found myself all the way across campus from the admissions building, in a place so remote that on the first day, when I'd taken a tour of the campus and had written myself directions to all the buildings, the notation I had by the one I was now right by had been: Good *luck!* Go left of everywhere...
But I made my merry way on back in the 90-degree heat, getting back to the office at 11:10, infinitely glad to be there. I told Maureen what had happened, because I was ten minutes later than I should ever have been, considering the time of the call from engineering. She was sorry, but it wasn't her fault.
Just this morning, running another errand across campus (one that did not involve elevators!), I'd said to myself, it'd be great if all my job was being a runner, instead of mostly office work. And I think that, now that I know to stay away from the evil liberal arts death-boxes, that's still pretty true.
But I'd never been so happy to see envelope-stuffing work in all my life.
*
In other, happier news, I have a M*A*S*H fic up on fanfiction.net called "Be Happy"; it's set in 1975, so you're gonna wanna read Beth Mott's long M*A*S*H fic first (or at least part of it) if you want to get all of it (it's at http://www.geocities.com/beth_mott/reunion.html).
Am going to get offline soon and read.
-Laurel