Since I’ve been gone for over a week, this is going to serve as an all-purpose post. The reason for my absence was university life’s own particular version of March Madness: midterm exams.
This week I’ve had two actual midterm examinations, a feature story, and a quiz. In fact, I skipped school Tuesday to study for my Contemporary American Federalism test, and in the process of going over the entire semester’s reading (since I’d done almost none of it) managed to stay up until five o’clock in the morning.
My bedroom was dark when I stumbled through the doorway and fell into the blankets, but before sleep had overtaken me gray began to seep in through my window. Staying up until dawn is something I did routinely when I was on campus, and something I despised. It’s hard to fall asleep, it feels unnatural, and it assures that you’ll spend the entire day in bed. Some days last semester I didn’t wake up until the sun was going down.
Now, last year that wasn’t really my fault. Weird Roommate, with whom I normally got along, had a habit of staying up very late playing World of Warcraft on his computer, and in such close quarters the light from his monitor kept me up.
My distaste for attempting to lie down in the day acknowledged, there is something to be said for actually staying up until dawn. Remaining awake through the night and then walking in the day whose birth you’ve witnessed feels a bit like defying nature.
The one positive thing that can be said of my roommates Freshman Year is that they turned in pretty uniformly every night at twelve or one. That and that alone was nice.
Well, I’m off for Spring Break! When Peruvian Girl, who I am visiting tomorrow, asked me if I was going anywhere, I laughed and told her that I was planning a wild getaway to my grandmother’s house. It became a tradition during my first two years of college to see her at Spring Break, since my birthday and Easter typically fall around the same time that school dismisses for the holiday.
For the last two years in a row I’ve taken the train from Marble City to Native City, but this year I’ll just be driving. It makes me kind of sad; I really liked traveling by rail.
Next week, assuming the scheduling works out and she can host me, we’ll go out to dinner in honor of my upcoming 21st birthday on April 10th. I can’t believe it’s actually that close. Gosh, I feel old. Twenty-one seems like the real milestone of adulthood. Eighteen is advance notice, twenty is the alarm clock going off, and then twenty-one arrives and brings with it the genuine fact of being grown up.
In a month, I’ll be able to legally purchase alcohol, to walk into a bar and order a drink.
Not that you would know it or anything, but still. It’s pretty crazy.
Here are a couple of pictures from Western City Movie Theater so you can at last visualize some of my co-workers:
Manager on the left, Assistant Manager on the right.
Black Dress Girl
I worked from six o’clock to ten o’clock Friday night, and then Saturday didn’t work at all. The worsening economy has been felt even at the movie theater, so that prices have gone up, districts have been merged, staff have been demoted, and hours have been cut. This Saturday I’ll work from 2:30p.m. to 10:00p.m., far less than my usual ten-hour shift, but something I don’t mind too much; it’s nice to have a Saturday to myself now and again, and working ten hours at a go really isn’t that fun.
On Sunday night, my family and I went over to Italian Family’s house to have some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted in my life.
One of our neighbors is a second or third generation Italian immigrant, and from her parents Italian-American Woman learned some incredible cooking skills.
It was so good. The night was momentarily marred when Italian-American Woman’s father asked me what grade I was in (“You’re kidding,” was his response when my father told him I was a year from graduating college), but the food more than made up for it.
“Why can’t we be Italian?” I asked Thomas while stuffing my mouth with meat balls.
“I know,” he answered through the home-made pasta he was shoveling past his lips.
My parents and I had a bizarre discussion tonight. Sorry, but I warned you that this post would be all over the place.
They’re going to Cancun in three weeks for some much-needed alone time, and in light of the recent drug violence there I’ve been actively lobbying them to choose a different location.
“Why not go to Florida or California?” I asked.
“Because, we want to go to Cancun,” my mother said.
This brought us around to what would happen should they die, a thought so horrible I don’t want to conceive it.
“I mean, would we just be screwed?” I asked. “Because it would be really bad if you died, but it would be even worse if you died and we were poor.”
“Thomas and Pie wouldn’t be,” my mother said. “But you and Powell are over eighteen.”
My father rolled his eyes.
“You and Powell would have money,” he said.
“How much would we get?” I questioned, unable to restrain my curiosity. I mean, I don’t want it to happen, but you can’t blame me for wondering.
“About a grand each,” my mother said, flashing me an evil smile.
My father rolled his eyes again and then told me the actual amount.
I was a bit surprised.
“For real?” I asked.
I was going to joke, “Maybe you should go to Mexico,” but decided against it.
The actual words out of my mouth were, “It wouldn’t be worth it. It wouldn’t be worth the money.”
I meant it. No amount of cash could make that loss okay.
Then my mother hit me with a bombshell.
“BB,” she said. “We haven’t updated our will since Pie was born.”
“Well, you should probably get around to that,” I said. “She’s kind of important.”
“Would you want custody of her?”
The question caught me completely off guard.
“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t have any resources to take care of her and Thomas,” I said.
“No, you’d have resources,” she said. “We’d make sure you had resources.”
I still couldn’t make myself tell her yes, and my own hesitance disconcerted me.
True, I might have the money to care for them, but if at the age of twenty I were suddenly landed with two children, both in need of a real parent figure however much they might love me, could I handle it?
My biggest concern wasn’t the responsibilities that would be imposed on me, but rather the prospect of failing in those responsibilities toward Thomas and Pie. If I don’t even have my own life figured out yet, how could I possibly run theirs?
I’m a virgin of indefinite career trajectory who can’t cook. I can’t even cook. What would they do, eat Oodles of Noodles every day?
On the other hand, could I really send them to live with someone else? My mother’s rationale was that she didn’t want us to be separated, and I wouldn’t want that either.
God willing, it will never happen. I mean, it’s one of the things I honestly think I’d rather die than see come to pass. If that situation were laid upon me, though, how would I react?
It was a discussion that really disturbed me.
This post, by the way, was longer than upcoming ones will be. It’s just that so much time has passed I really needed to catch everyone up.
Speaking of which, you should all know that Powell has moved out.
He left about a month or two ago to live with Anne, and while I won’t say too much because it’s going to be discussed in the next post, it’s worked out well for everyone.
Alright, I’m done for tonight. It’s off for a shower and then bed.
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