Homecoming

I just spent a weekend at my alma mater. This has been happening once a year lately, when a bunch of alums from my, let's say, vintage converge on the campus and behave as badly as possible. I manage to go through most of life as a responsible and mature woman, meeting my obligations, safe to invite to events. Why is it that I drive five and a half hours, go through the campus gates, get out of my car, and am suddenly an 18 year-old again?

This phenomenon is not unique to my campus or age group. I watch this same thing every June in my hometown, when middle-aged graduates of the local college take over my neighborhood for their alumni weekend. They tailgate, take over the neighborhood bars, march hungover down the street in a parade; they leave the campus as much of a mess as we must have left our campus on Sunday. Homecoming weekend here is even more of a boozefest each fall, when the Lafayette/Lehigh football game leads hundreds of people who should know better to get day drunk.

In my real life I spend my weekends participating in activities that don't feature quantities of alcohol. In my real life, I don't go to a dining hall for a "breakfast" that consists of half a pound of bacon, steam table eggs, grits, and, in order to pretend I'm healthy, one piece of fruit. In my real life I don't follow that up with a lunch that consists of grilled cheese, corn pudding, and dessert, then begin happy hour at 3 PM. In my real life, when I go listen to a band, I don't join the people rushing the stage to dance behind the band, only to repeatedly be chased off said stage by campus security.

I did learn an important lesson this weekend, though: no matter how stupid I may act, there's always someone else about whom I can say, "At least I'm not that girl." At least I'm not that girl who tore apart her banquet centerpiece and threw the boxwoods at the band, soaking the guitarist. At least I'm not that girl who put pieces of her centerpiece in her hair, leaving her looking much like Pocahontas. At least I wasn't having sex with my date and calling it dancing. Yes, true, I didn't have a date, but still, I wasn't that girl. I was not the girl wearing a gown more fit for a beauty pageant and spilling out of it. I was not the girl who attempted to run a lap around the indoor track suspended above the dance floor and who was chased down by security, although that girl was from my group.

I was plenty of things. I was a grown-up behaving like a child. I was having fun. The only thing I wasn't, was that girl.

St. Pat's Trivia

I don't have a drop of Irish in my blood, but as it turns out my ancestors made an important contribution to the way St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in the United States. Back in Ireland, for centuries March 17 was a holy feast day. People would attend Mass in the morning, then go home and celebrate. Until the 1970s pubs were even closed, hard as that is for Americans to believe. Because March 17 always falls during Lent, Bishops would waive the stricture against meat, and celebrants would consume the traditional feast of Irish bacon and cabbage.

Early Irish immigrants to the US were either upper middle-class or in fact wealthy, but the potato famine brought wave after wave of poor Irish to our shores. Many of them congregated on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where they lived in a ghetto neighboring the Jewish and Italian ghettos. Discrimination kept them poor, and their poverty meant that they couldn't afford the luxury of bacon. The immigrants took a cue from their Jewish neighbors and discovered corned beef, a cheap alternative to bacon. And so we have my great-grandparents, living in poverty somewhere around Hester Street, to thank for today's preponderance of corned beef and cabbage. Sometimes cliches are true: we are all a little bit Irish today.

While I'm on the topic I have one final bit of St. Paddy's trivia. The color normally associated with Saint Patrick is blue. The wearing of green began a couple hundred years ago in the US, and was a show of solidarity with the Irish struggle for independence from England. OK, one last note of trivia and then I'm really done: Saint Patrick was undoubtedly an important guy, but he couldn't have driven all the snakes from Ireland, because Ireland never had any snakes to begin with. The terrain doesn't support them. Happy green drinking to all!

My First Inaugural

No, I'm not in DC today braving the cold and the crowds. I'm here at home, where I can DVR the processions, skip ahead to the actual swearing-in and speech at my leisure, and stay warm all day. That's fine with me. I've actually attended an inauguration before, and while it was interesting, once was enough for this lifetime.

A friend in college had a father who was some sort of lawyer who did something or other for the Republican party. I don't know if he donated, fundraised, or defended them, but at any rate he had some sort of pull. She had tickets to Reagan's second inaugural, it was Winter Term and I was sitting around working on my honors project, so with nothing better to do I went up to DC to attend with her and another college friend.

Whatever her father did left us with pretty good "seats" for the swearing-in, but because it was freezing the outdoor events were moved indoors and the ceremony took place in the Capitol rotunda. Our good "seats" were in a rented space with free food and drinks and monitors to watch the proceedings. That was fine with me. It really was freezing. After about 15 minutes milling about with the others gathered in the banquet hall, it became clear that I was surrounded by....people who had voted for Reagan. In November, 1984 I cast the first ballot of my life, for Mondale/Ferraro. Yes, I was one of the five Pennsylvanians who voted Democratic that year. "If not us, who? If not now, when?" blah, blah, blah. The neatly dressed crowed went wild. I had another drink. He kept talking about freezing government spending so that everyone becomes more responsible or some other such nonsense. I kept drinking and kept my mouth shut.

After the open bar closed it was time to go back to Alexandria, take a long nap, and get ready for the ball. That's right, I even got to attend an inaugural ball. My friend's parents were attending one of the big balls, where Reagan himself would appear for a few minutes, but we had tickets to one of the lesser state balls, probably Virginia's since that's where her father lived. The ball had some name, but I don't remember it. Here's what you do at an inaugural ball when you're 21 years old and have nothing at stake: you dance to Motown and get incredibly drunk. Andrew Jackson's celebration featured a mob of his "common" supporters storming the White House for free punch. The Republican equivalent of this is young women in pearls and young men who look like they should be in the military, but are not, drinking up everything at the open bar. When the ball is over you and your friends and some random young legislative aides head down to Georgetown and drink some more. When the bars close you take a cab home and pass out in your dress.

I'll be just fine on my couch today, and attending a meeting rather than a ball tonight. I won't miss the pearls or the legislative aides. Feeling part of history is so much easier when you're sober.

Promises I Can Keep

It's resolution time, which means it's time for everyone to promise themselves to do various things they have no intention of actually doing. Why be hard on yourself? Follow my example and make some resolutions that are easy to keep.

In 2009, I will smoke and drink more. I was not drunk nearly often enough in 2008, nor did I manage to kill myself by smoking. I tried to quit and had a bad reaction to Wellbutrin. In 2009, I will not try to quit.

Next year, I will eat more red meat, cheese, chips, and candy. I will eat less salad and fruit. I will drink more coffee and Diet Pepsi, and less water. I will gain 25 pounds.

I will stop exercising entirely. That includes walking. My dog will have to start walking himself; I'll be spending more time on the couch.

I will watch more television, and worse television. I will begin watching The Hills, and every other "scripted reality" program developed by MTV. I will watch at least 10 hours of the Lifetime Movie Channel every week.

I will stop reading poetry, history, and novels and will focus my energies entirely on US and OK magazines. In fact, I will not read anything that has a title that is longer than two letters.

I will not get a job.

I will not write my book.

I will not cook more often, nor will I stay in more often.

I will not plant a garden.

I will not clean more often, or more effectively.

I hate washing my car. I only did it twice in 2008, and I resolve to stop washing my car entirely in 2009.

I will not be nicer to people, particularly to people I don't even like. I promise to be as catty as I want to be.

Finally, I adamantly resolve that I will in no way become a "better" person in the coming year. I instead promise to remain just as I am.

Happy New Year!