School always started the Wednesday after Labor Day. I think my college even began its term after Labor Day because we had 12.5-week semesters, rather than the more common 14-week terms, but I honestly don't completely remember. I really liked college and always looked forward to going back, so we could have started the middle of August and I would have been fine with that. Something's changed, though; my friends who are teachers or guidance counselors all go back to school the end of this week, with the students starting class Monday, a full week before Labor Day. Where did the summer go?
During times of transition I have dreams where past and present are confused. This happens to many of us, and the shape of my dreams also follows the predictable: I have to return to college or high school because someone has discovered I was missing credits for graduation, and I can no longer keep up with the classes. Or I'm back in college or high school and ready to graduate but it turns out there's one class I was registered for that I'd completely forgotten about, and I have to take a final exam in Chemistry V or something like that when I've never been to one class. Or I'm in college and it's my college but I don't know anyone. Or I'm naked and have to give an oral report.
Last night I dreamed that I was a senior in college, although I was my current age. The dream was populated with my real college classmates, all of us fortysomethings. The campus had been moved so some urban center, though, when in actuality my alma mater comprises thousands of acres in central Virginia. We are about to graduate, and are all bar-hopping. I find out that I'm going to receive some sort of award and will have to make a speech at graduation, and although I realize I should call it a night and go home to prepare I stay out with my friends. Suddenly it's the next day, after the ceremony, and I have no recollection of my speech, what I said, how it went. I don't think my lapse has to do with being drunk, because in the dream I'm not drunk. It was just some sort of blackout.
Everyone acts like I did well, that my speech was great. I'm upset because I can't recall any of it, and I rush around the town looking for someone who has recorded the ceremony. During my search I run into various friends' parents, not just college friends but parents of friends from as far back as elementary school. All ask me what I'm looking for, and when I tell them it's documentary evidence of my speech, they sigh and tell me they can't help me.
I gave myself until the end of the summer to decide what I'm going to do now that my business has been sold. I still have no idea. Clearly, the past can't help me. At least, not in my dreams.
Showing posts with label humanity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanity. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
How to Find Me
This blog is signed up for analytics, which means that I can check to see how many visitors it gets, what pages people click on, how long they stay on the site, things like that. I can also see what led people to the site, and if they came by a Google keyword search, what those keywords were. This is where things get interesting.
Most people find this blog by searching for it, which is gratifying and makes sense. However, other people find their way here by way of some interesting searches. Here are some examples. Think of it as a test: can you remember any post that would relate to the keywords?
Thomas Jefferson is hot
This really seems to be the consensus; three people came here from this search, and several more by searching "Jefferson + hot."
What not to wear
I must have used this phrase at some point, and it must be greatly sought-after advice. Twenty-eight people in the past month have visited here based on this or the related "what not to wear + over 40" search. If I dedicated this blog to fashion tips, I'd quickly become the Huffington Post for the early middle-aged.
Carol Alt + underwater
Huh?
Barnabas Collins attractive
I remain certain I didn't use these three words together in a sentence.
What period of culture is Spring and All from?
Whoever conducted this search must have clicked through pages and pages of links before stumbling here. Whoever you are, if you're still out there looking, Spring and All was first published in 1923 by Robert McAlmon's Contact Press. Modernist period, baby, modernist period.
Mary Tyler Moore + sex
That's just...I don't know how to feel about my prose satisfying that search. Enough said.
Most people find this blog by searching for it, which is gratifying and makes sense. However, other people find their way here by way of some interesting searches. Here are some examples. Think of it as a test: can you remember any post that would relate to the keywords?
Thomas Jefferson is hot
This really seems to be the consensus; three people came here from this search, and several more by searching "Jefferson + hot."
What not to wear
I must have used this phrase at some point, and it must be greatly sought-after advice. Twenty-eight people in the past month have visited here based on this or the related "what not to wear + over 40" search. If I dedicated this blog to fashion tips, I'd quickly become the Huffington Post for the early middle-aged.
Carol Alt + underwater
Huh?
Barnabas Collins attractive
I remain certain I didn't use these three words together in a sentence.
What period of culture is Spring and All from?
Whoever conducted this search must have clicked through pages and pages of links before stumbling here. Whoever you are, if you're still out there looking, Spring and All was first published in 1923 by Robert McAlmon's Contact Press. Modernist period, baby, modernist period.
Mary Tyler Moore + sex
That's just...I don't know how to feel about my prose satisfying that search. Enough said.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Time's Not on My Side (or yours)
Have you ever completely lost a day of your life? I lost yesterday. The entirety of it, from 9:30 in the morning until after 7 PM, was spent in a discussion/argument over something I'm not even going to explain because I'm sick of thinking about the subject. The point isn't what made me lose a day, but the fact that it was lost. Time just goes; I wake up in the morning, have some coffee, run my dog, blink and suddenly it's the middle of the afternoon.
I vividly remember childhood weeks spent in anticipation of something: Christmas, a vacation, the end of the school year. Time felt so excruciatingly slow. The days just dragged on. What I anticipated would never arrive. Now I book a vacation a couple of months in advance and suddenly find myself needing to pack my bag the night before, out of travel-sized toothpaste and shampoo. I understand that some of this might be due to the fact that I've had years of vacations, of holidays, of birthdays, and that the thrill is gone, that I'm jaded. I think there's something more at work than just the loss of the new, though.
I read once that we experience time opposite our metabolic rate. This means that when we are young, with a high metabolic rate, time appears slow to us. As we age and our metabolism slows, time is experienced as passing more and more quickly. This certainly makes as much sense as anything else. Time, after all, is a consistently measured quantity. If time itself doesn't change it must be something in us that's different.
I used to make fun of my mother for all sorts of reasons, but one reason was that if I asked her what she was up to, she'd frequently say, "Oh my, I have such a busy week. I go to the doctor Monday, and I play cards Tuesday, and on Wednesday I go to Walgreen's." What was unimaginable to me a few years ago is today a reality: I understand where she was coming from. I understand how having one thing to do can feel like a day's worth of activity, when days disappear so quickly. I understand what time really is. I understand my (and our) mortality.
I vividly remember childhood weeks spent in anticipation of something: Christmas, a vacation, the end of the school year. Time felt so excruciatingly slow. The days just dragged on. What I anticipated would never arrive. Now I book a vacation a couple of months in advance and suddenly find myself needing to pack my bag the night before, out of travel-sized toothpaste and shampoo. I understand that some of this might be due to the fact that I've had years of vacations, of holidays, of birthdays, and that the thrill is gone, that I'm jaded. I think there's something more at work than just the loss of the new, though.
I read once that we experience time opposite our metabolic rate. This means that when we are young, with a high metabolic rate, time appears slow to us. As we age and our metabolism slows, time is experienced as passing more and more quickly. This certainly makes as much sense as anything else. Time, after all, is a consistently measured quantity. If time itself doesn't change it must be something in us that's different.
I used to make fun of my mother for all sorts of reasons, but one reason was that if I asked her what she was up to, she'd frequently say, "Oh my, I have such a busy week. I go to the doctor Monday, and I play cards Tuesday, and on Wednesday I go to Walgreen's." What was unimaginable to me a few years ago is today a reality: I understand where she was coming from. I understand how having one thing to do can feel like a day's worth of activity, when days disappear so quickly. I understand what time really is. I understand my (and our) mortality.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
All Hail Barnabas Collins
Between the ages of four and six, my absolute favorite TV show was Dark Shadows. What child didn't love Dark Shadows? It had it all: werewolves, ghosts, time travel, trippy music, even a character (David Collins) who was himself a child. Of course, the real reason I loved the show was because I loved Barnabas Collins so much I wanted to be him. My prized possession was a plastic ring that came out of a cereal box, worn always on my index finger, just like Barnabas. I wanted to be a vampire, pining to be human again. I wanted to live in a gloomy mansion full of secrets.
I have General Hospital to thank for my discovery of Dark Shadows. My mother was hooked on GH, and every day at 3 PM I'd sit with her and watch it. In those days the entire soap took place on the 7th Floor Nurses' Station of a hospital in an unnamed city, the drama revolving around the sexual tension between doctors and nurses. In 1967, Dark Shadows came on immediately after, at 3:30. Although I sat through all the trials and tribulations of Jessie Brewer and Dr. Steve Hardy, my mother had no interest in Collinswood, and abandoned the TV to me.
I was extremely upset at the prospect of going off to kindergarten, not because I wanted to be at home with my mother all day, but because I was afraid I'd get home too late to see Dark Shadows. I remember my mother joyfully telling me that the schedule had been changed, and my show would be running at 4 PM. In fact, this late-day scheduling was the key to the show's success. By 4 PM mothers all over the country had left their seats in front of the TV to begin preparing dinner; during its entire run (1966-1971), Dark Shadows was the most popular daytime program with people under the age of 25.
I eventually matured, as will happen. The Brady Bunch became my favorite show, and I began wearing rings on my ring finger. Looking back, my childhood love for Barnabas is easy to understand. The human world, filled with drama and tears and the sexual tension of the 7th Floor Nurses' Station, was impossible for me to fully comprehend and was a world I observed from the outside. I also pined to be human, and didn't know how I would ever accomplish that goal.
Until the day she died, my mother's favorite entertainments involved doctors having affairs with nurses. I now realize that my love of Interview With the Vampire is just an extension of my love for Barnabas. The story is the same: a scorned lover makes someone a vampire, and then that person spends eternity wishing for nothing more than the human touch. My favorite entertainments haven't changed because every time I think I've accomplished my goal, every time I think I've entered the adult world, I suddenly notice a ring on my index finger and know that I still haven't unlocked all the secrets hidden in this gloomy mansion.
I have General Hospital to thank for my discovery of Dark Shadows. My mother was hooked on GH, and every day at 3 PM I'd sit with her and watch it. In those days the entire soap took place on the 7th Floor Nurses' Station of a hospital in an unnamed city, the drama revolving around the sexual tension between doctors and nurses. In 1967, Dark Shadows came on immediately after, at 3:30. Although I sat through all the trials and tribulations of Jessie Brewer and Dr. Steve Hardy, my mother had no interest in Collinswood, and abandoned the TV to me.
I was extremely upset at the prospect of going off to kindergarten, not because I wanted to be at home with my mother all day, but because I was afraid I'd get home too late to see Dark Shadows. I remember my mother joyfully telling me that the schedule had been changed, and my show would be running at 4 PM. In fact, this late-day scheduling was the key to the show's success. By 4 PM mothers all over the country had left their seats in front of the TV to begin preparing dinner; during its entire run (1966-1971), Dark Shadows was the most popular daytime program with people under the age of 25.
I eventually matured, as will happen. The Brady Bunch became my favorite show, and I began wearing rings on my ring finger. Looking back, my childhood love for Barnabas is easy to understand. The human world, filled with drama and tears and the sexual tension of the 7th Floor Nurses' Station, was impossible for me to fully comprehend and was a world I observed from the outside. I also pined to be human, and didn't know how I would ever accomplish that goal.
Until the day she died, my mother's favorite entertainments involved doctors having affairs with nurses. I now realize that my love of Interview With the Vampire is just an extension of my love for Barnabas. The story is the same: a scorned lover makes someone a vampire, and then that person spends eternity wishing for nothing more than the human touch. My favorite entertainments haven't changed because every time I think I've accomplished my goal, every time I think I've entered the adult world, I suddenly notice a ring on my index finger and know that I still haven't unlocked all the secrets hidden in this gloomy mansion.
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