Wide Open Spaces
Well, I survived my birthday. Actually, it was a pretty fabulous celebration this year. I got to spend time with friends and family and do a little relaxing. It was soooo good to go to the wide open spaces for the weekend. I honestly don't know how people live here permanently.
Friday morning was a bit rough. Between the screaming children in the airports and having to buy a new/second ticket to get back to NYC my nerves were shot. (The second ticket was my fault – I thought I’d work the system by buying a ticket that was actually a connection through Minneapolis instead of MSP being my final destination. The problem is that when you get off the plane, they immediate cancel all other portions of your ticket regardless of whether the return flight connects through MSP.) Lesson learned.
Saturday morning, my econ professor (the one who looks like the little cartoon Calvin) sent me an email kiboshing my final research paper topic for my class on privatization. Thanks. That’s after the month of research and writing I already have into it. Grrrr...
(That's my own fault too though. I should have sought his formal approval earlier. Much earlier. The problem is I wasn’t sure I could come up with solid enough research to formulate and support my thesis until last week.)
Why do I keep doing stupid things?
After I recovered from that shock and (I admit) anger, I spent the afternoon wandering the aisles of Target with my mom and sister. That was nice. There isn't a Target in Manhattan, so I picked up all the things that I've put off buying here because it's ridiculously expensive. Quick example: Basic 4 cereal at the store across the street is $6. At Target it was $2. Ridiculous.
Saturday night as I was digging through some of my stuff in the basement storage room at my parents’ place, I made a terrible/fortuitous discovery. I was searching for a piece of luggage and stepped into the middle of the room. My socks instantly soaked up water. Argh! Last week there had been torrential rain and it must have come off the blacktop driveway and through the small window beneath the deck.
The carpeting was completely saturated. And, since basically everything I own is in boxes in that room, it was oozing with water as well. So I spent the evening unpacking boxes and boxes of books and laying them out on card tables beneath fans hoping they would dry out. Likewise, I discovered all of my photo albums among the sopping stacks.
The entire discovery was so fortunate because all of my photos (of which I literally have thousands) would have been completely destroyed. Luckily, I was able to disassemble all the albums, pull out all the photos, and spread them on the living room floor to dry. It took hours. The dog just sat around looking at me, wondering what the hell I was doing.
It's strange looking through all those old snapshots - photos of things you swore you’d never forget, that now have faded into the back of your memory. I wish I had written out those stories and tangled emotions when they were raw. Now, if I do happen to remember them, time has blurred the events and healed over the intensity of the emotions.
Although my plans for this summer have yet to be ironed out, I hope to take some time to sift through those stacks of pictures and write out as many of those stories as possible.
What’s spinning: Astrud Gilberto - "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars"
Posted by Amanda at April 22, 2003 10:49 PM
