“Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.”
– Virginia Woolf
Happy independence to me…from Venice. She and Val are on their way East (though if Facebook updates are anything to go off of, they are already having a horrid time of it). Since her departure, I’ve been going through the most frightful emotional rollercoaster, best illustrated by the following series.
So. Here’s to absent friends. Whenever any of you may be.
“Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.”
– Plautus
Well, J. took the GMAT today and scored a 720 (way to go, love!), Venice is going to be interviewed by the local paper tomorrow for a petition she’s started, Lexie is engaged, Hennessy is getting married any second now, my brother Gio got an impressive scholarship to virtually any school in the US and he’ll be making a final decision about where to go by the end of the week, my father retired and has decided to move…to the States! Which makes little sense to me, I’d have picked Tuscany, personally. My mother, her Classics degree from Cambridge fresh under her belt, is in the US already going through an intense Latin program that should make her a nice candidate to teach Classical Studies Stateside.
Our family is already dreading moving. Apparently, one of the highest accolades that the kids’ school gave itself this past year was getting in fewer fights than the year before. And they chief form of entertainment was lighting fires in the school and then calling the bomb squad. Interesting. “We’re going to be the weirdos now. Don’t tell them where you’re from, where you’ve lived, or what you’ve done,” is my father’s advice, “LIE.” You know that when your pretty spectacular family, though I say so myself, is planning very hard to be inconspicuous that life is about get odd.
My whole family and I are going to be on the same continent for the first time in six years. Permanently. Bizarre!
“A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.”
– George Santayana
We here at Small Dog Syndrome got some fun emails from a previous post (the post about things one’s kids ought to know. Not the post about beating one’s kids. Very different). And so, because it’s summer and I need something to do on my lunch breaks and weekends, I think I’ll start up a bit of a series on the subject (again, about what’s one’s children out to be exposed to, not domestic violence. Just so we’re clear). Nothing formal, and certainly not organized; that’s just not the way we do things around here. Let’s think of it as an ongoing project that will intermittently interject into our regularly scheduled reading.
I’m opening this up for discussion as well, be free with your comments, accolades, scathing rebukes towards my taste, etc. And by all means, add your own suggestions! I’m looking for books, movies, TV shows, vacation spots, and the like, all I ask is that you keep it culturally-minded. Meaning while Spongebob Squarepants may have been your favorite drivel growing up, I’m looking for the quality things that you’d truly want your future spawn to know of. More importantly, why.
“A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have one friend going to study in Korea for the next few months. His wife is staying here, working, and currently performing in The King and I. Another friend is officially back from her world travels and has found a lovely house to move into in the city. Yet another friend is recovering from morphine withdrawals.* And finally yet another dear friend received and turned down the offer to be a man’s mistress.
I know SUCH fabulous people!
* Post surgery, which doesn’t sound nearly as intriguing.
“We have top men working on it right now.”
“Who?”
“Top men.”
– Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
In almost every movie there is that incredibly silly moment when the villain is confronted with the fruits of his or her destruction and, looking over the rivers of lava/ looming black hole/ annihilation of an entire civilization/ etc., murmurs in despair, “My god, what have I done?!”
I had one of those moments today. After getting all the archives into chronological order (which you’d think they’d already be in, right? Hah!), tagging them by date, pulling original photos and making notes on when/where they originally occurred in print, and hauling it one massive armload at a time to the library, I asked for the archivist. Student employees helped me carry the stacks of papers and binders and asked what I was doing. I couldn’t very well shout, “Saving history!” in the library, so I quietly whispered the tale of the iniquitous order to dispose of fifty years of information.
“He told you to shred it!” one girl squeaked in horror.
“I know,” I squeaked back.
We were all awash with the enthusiasm of the young until the archivist appeared. He looked like Eeyore the donkey in human form: droopy, awkward, exhausted, and less than thrilled to see me with my arms full of documents.
“Hi, I’m C. from the police department. We talked on the phone and–”
“Oh, right,” he sighed, “Follow me.”
The whole cavalcade meandered down some halls and through secured doors…to a lonely room, lined with shelves and piled with papers.
“Here’s a project for you,” he mumbled to what appeared to be a heinously overworked student employee, and ordered us to drop the whole pile on her (already covered) desk.
Which is when I had my cinema-villain-is-confronted-by-what-she’s-done moment. I’d committed the most rookie of cardinal sins: I’d just turned over fifty years of history to a bureaucracy!
I’ve gained all sorts of skills and experiences at this job, but law enforcement is not my calling, to say the least. But history! Oh, yes. And this project is the first thing in over a year and a half that’s come close to the things I’ve studied and feel passionate about. Certainly it’s the only thing that’s got me excited enough to annoy my co-workers with my near constant cries of, “Read this!” And now, I’ve an awful premonition that my precious bundles are only going to slowly decompose in the bowels of the library. There is no justice in the world.
“No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.”
– Sophocles
I’ve been in denial about an upcoming Tragic Event. This year as America celebrates its independence with exploding things and overeating, I’ll be not-celebrating my forced independence…from Venice. Val is done with his degree and they are moving to Kentucky on July 4th. This has been a long time coming, but of course I’ve stuck my metaphoric fingers in my ears and ignored the impending catastrophe.
Last weekend they flew out to Kentucky to scope out the area for his potential job, their potential home, and potential lives. Last night, coming home from work I saw him at their flat door and asked how the trip went. Really well, apparently, because he’s got the job and plans are now in motion.
“I am honestly thrilled for you guys, but you do realize I’m never going to forgive you for taking her away,” I said despondently.
“If it wasn’t for me you’d never have even met!” he reasoned.
Which is true. We used to live in the same apartment complex a few years ago and I got to be friends with him and his flatmates. One day he said, “I think you should meet my girlfriend. You two would get along really well.” The rest is well documented history.
The Val giveth and the Val taketh away.
Peregrine is in D.C., Scarlett is in New York, Angel is in the city, Margot (who just got back from New Zealand) is probably going to head north at some point in the near future. And I’m feeling supremely stuck and left behind. I’m trying really hard to keep perspective. J. and I will be moving back East in a couple of years and Venice (and most of others listed) are already on speed-dial…but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t devastated.
“‘Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext’rous; some by features Are brought up, others by a warlike leader; Some by a place–as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash–but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.”
– Lord Byron, Don Juan canto V, st. 27
Holidays are fun, regardless of nationality. Take today: Cindo de Mayo. Some people celebrate with chips and salsa, some with a fiesta, some with mariachi bands. And some with bribery.
A certain student is banned from driving on campus. This is due in large part to him accumulating up to four tickets in one day, parking in service/handicapped stalls, trying to fight our student officers, and claiming that he never received information that three people all told him (at the same time, in the same room together). He was informed he had the ability to appeal the ban but would not be able to bring his car onto campus until a final decision had been made. He said he understood and left.
Today he came into our office, and asked for Red.
“You know about Cinco de Mayo, right?” he asked. “It’s today. So I brought you this.”
He held out a small packaged piece of tres leches cake with a meaningful expression.
“K, bye” he said quickly and hurried out.
Five minutes later we found his car in a non-student parking lot.
The real mystery here is, if he were trying to circumvent parking rules, why did he draw attention to himself by 1) attempted bribery and, 2) (and this is more perplexing) leaving his emergency lights flashing merrily away for over an hour?
How do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo? Or any holiday for that matter?
“As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old, inwardly its poetry is much deeper.”
– Goldwin Smith
Outside it’s gray and misty, but with the unmistakable green tinge of bursting leaves. Still a little hesitant, but very much there. Which invariably makes me think of London for some reason.
“It’s an area of Dublin that still has lots of character. It hasn’t been yuppified to ****.”
Lisa’s spirits started a slow slither. She was desperate to live in a place that had been yuppified to ****.
– Marian Keys, Sushi for Beginners
Every once and a while a strange urge takes hold of me, shakes me around a bit as I struggle to be free of its grasp, and and is finally, forcibly thrown off while I stagger around gasping and trying to reorient myself. It’s the (understandable but currently impractical) desire to have an upwardly-mobile-ish change to our lifestyle.
Nothing desperate, you understand. But maybe…an in-house dishwasher (that isn’t J., I mean). Or a newer flat that doesn’t have creaky floors (or my Lord and Lady Stompington above us). A second car, one that can manage the highways without 4000 rpms or a using half a tank of gas to get to the city (45 minutes away).
Now, I’m aware that I’m in one of the best phases of my life. Newly (relatively) married, no kids, no mortgages, the ability to do nearly whatever J. and I want. And yet…sometimes I have this strange desire to be just a bit further on. First house together and past renting creaky flats. First pet, instead of surreptitiously googling local breeders and the Human Society at work. First real double income paycheck, instead of single-and-very-small checks on paydays.
Again, I feel as if this an understandable feeling, but I’m constantly shocked by what will trigger the flood of longing. Today Wise and I headed out to get a cake for our monthly department birthday party. The venue was Costco, wherein I have not spent previous quality time. Oh dear.
There were boxes of strawberries that had not yet succumbed to slime and decay. There were bags of frozen chicken that contained more than two or three breasts. There were quality diamonds, iPods, lawn chairs, massive bags of chips, huge bales of toilet paper…yes, it was all very impressive. But, above all, there were SAMPLES.
Wise and I wandered the store sucking down granola, salad, juice, and finally this.
And now, suddenly, I am wrestling the desire for a Costco membership, something I will probably not need until there are more than two of us…solely because I now crave a bottle of Roasted Blackberry Chipotle Sauce. Aren’t I supposed to be craving babies or something? Why do I want a dog and fancy fruit/chili sauce instead?
“God has given you one face and you make yourself another.”
– Shakespeare
A little while ago Sav wrote a post about her foray into the au naturale world of skin care, and it got me thinking.
I remember going through the usual litany of cleansers, toners, and gadgets when I was a teenager (maybe less than some girls, since I didn’t learn how to be a girl myself until about 17). I started with Clean and Clear, moved on to Neutrogena, and then cast it ruthlessly aside for Biore, more particularly, their Pore Strips. Amazing!
But these days…a funny thing has started happening. The commercials that make me sit up and pay attention, or the things I’d want to buy, are being sold by older women. The endless parade of Disney Channel prodigies, starlets, and pop stars that probably would have sent me scampering to the chemist’s shelves for the products they were endorsing in my youth…are children, babies! I wouldn’t let them sell me cement, much less something to put on my face!
Has anyone else noticed this?
Small Dog Syndrome 