I'm one of those people who wants to know what they should do so they can go do it. These people are the natural teacher's pets and overachievers because someone somewhere along the way figured out how to manipulate us by making us think that we should do everything we can to help out everyone we can in every organization that we can find. What blows my mind is that this is not what I have to do, it's not something like eating or breathing or singing, but rather it's something that I'm supposed to do, that I should do to be successful in life or fulfilled or something. Nobody made me be in the band, nobody made me be in SAI, no one forced me to play handbells, no one pressured me into joining a committee, no one pushed me into one organization over another. No one's making me consider my future and plan it out. It's just what I should do.
It's an interesting line between should and must. There are quite a few things that I must do now because I'm so invested in them, I don't know that I have a choice in the matter. I mean, a while ago, say three years or something like that, I'm sure I had a choice but now I'm so caught up in the workings of the organizations that if I left it'd feel like a cog was missing from the clockwork and I'd be so jealous I couldn't stand it. I'm trying to remember that I'm replaceable, because everyone is, but I love this feeling of necessity and importance. I'm in charge of things. I get to decide things and do things. I get to guide and lead and help shape and form and I love that. I'm terribly afraid that if you take away the frilly words, I just like being bossy. And I like it so much that taking away all these things that I should do would be pulling the crutch out from underneath my recently restored happiness. Admittedly, it hasn't been all that recent and the injury wasn't that bad and so the crutch should not be as necessary as it is but there you are. [Blogger's note: I promise I'll deal with things more directly in the future. I'm even getting a little confused with the extensive imagery.]
So I do all of these things and I fill up my calendar and I feel quite accomplished because I should be doing all of this. I should be living my life to the fullest because I will never have another opportunity like this again. I should be enjoying every last toll of the bell tower because it will only be around in my life for another school year. I should have meetings and plans and things because that's how I'm going to leave a mark on this wonderful place that's left such a mark on me. I should be doing all of this and I am and at the end of a busy day, I'm smiling because this is what I'm best at. I'm accomplishing things. I should be doing this.
But there are also these other things that I should be doing that I am not and the little guilt monster that lies hidden in my stomach jumps when I think about these things. I should be looking at applications. I should be writing essays. I should be asking for letters of recommendation. I should have this all figured out with a plan, because that's what you do when you're a senior, is you have a plan and you follow it through and you have a backup plan and you follow that through if you need it and at the end of the day, you're really just planning what stuff you can take with you out of your parents house because you are actually moving out because suddenly it's May and you're on the field in Kenan at graduation and the real world is actually at your door step because you cannot hide in college any longer and what are you going to do since everything you know and know well has now become obsolete knowledge because there's no more time for you here and there's going to be another freshman turned senior in your place in four years and where will you be in four years aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh breatheinbreatheoutbreatheinbreatheout. Sigh. And I know that other seniors don't have it figured out either, but you're supposed to, you know, successful people have a plan and I am a successful person and I have a plan.
I do have a plan. In my other window of Firefox there are several tabs concerning certain theological schools and I have a couple of dates boxed in on my calendar for visits to schools. I'm also finishing all those exciting education classes and student teaching in the spring, so the backup plan is in full swing as well (though I feel like you shouldn't teach in a school unless you have a passion for teaching in a school and I can't say that I've grown that yet so I shouldn't teach, right? Right). I like to daydream about staying right close to Chapel Hill because I am in no way ready to leave this place yet. I love North Carolina. I love our green state and our mountains and our beaches. I love walking in the quad listening to the music of southern accents as they float along in the general symphony of speeches that only campus affords. I'm not sure if I could be happy anywhere else. It's funny, four years ago I was looking at out-of-state colleges because I had no desire to be stuck here forever. Some things change. And even if that daydream bursts at the seams, I still have plans for other places and it'll be good to go somewhere different and experience a different life and all that jazz. The problem is, I'm happy here. I don't want anything else. I'm one of those seniors who is stolidly ignoring graduation day because I think my heart might actually break. I should move on to other things and I do have a plan for that. But this might be the first time in my life when what I should do is different from what I want to do a large, painful way.
I start to think about this post-college life thing and I want to do something impulsive like move to a large city and become a bartender and spend my days reading and writing and sneaking peeks at astrophysical journals. Sometimes you want to go where no one knows your name. I want to be an effing mystery for ten seconds, some enigma that no one can figure out, from the name that I use to the place I say I'm from. I want to run away and find myself and see if there's anything to me beyond the choices that I make and the plans that I lay down.
Then again, I have never been a nomad- where I'm from is who I am. I have the feeling that I'd scream North Carolina even if I went to live in Illinois or California or Alaska. There are chunks of me that are unexpected, like chocolate chips in pancakes, but all in all, you'd look at me and say, Yup, that's a pancake. Most of me is happy with that- what would I be if I wasn't this? But I have this little restless part of me that thinks that adventures are still to be had, that thinks you should run out your door without your handkerchief or walking stick because life only happens to those people who live and I want to live. But I look at me and I see a pancake. Pancakes don't have adventures. Well, Pancakes might have adventures, but he's led a much more exciting life than me. But the point is that I'm not sure that I'm suited for the outside world. I'm a church mouse. Some people are just like that.
But.
I'm not sure that I should be.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Friends Part the Next: The Epic of the Lost Key Concluded
The next day did not prove to be fruitful for the key search. Wolfie called the Methodist Church and was rewarded with a long conversation by a very kind old lady who suggested that she put the key on a key ring and get one of those key chains that lights up or something like that to assist in the finding of the key. She even called down to the maintenance man at the church to have him check the sanctuary for the key, but with no success. However, Wolfie was invited to come to look for the key herself. As the precious old lady said, "It might be worth your time to come look for yourself because I'm sure that no one would be looking for a single key. You know, it just wouldn't cross many people's minds. Even though I told John to look for a single gold colored key, you know, he was probably looking for a key ring. So just come on over, around four o'clock, and you can have a good look around yourself. I really think it would be worth your time. All right, dear, see you at four o'clock."
The conversation at Panera was much less cheerful. After a brief conversation with the burly male voice that answered the phone at the bread company ascertaining that there was not a key in either booth, she was invited to come and look for herself later in the day as well. Wolfie asked all of her friends at the planetarium, but no one had seen a key (strangely, a single silver house key had been turned into the gift shop that was dishearteningly dissimilar to the missing key and which made the ninja-like trip to the alarmed ticket office a bit pointless, though no less epic). After a long day at camp with kiddies, Wolfie trudged over to the church and had a look around herself. She left the church empty handed after a long conversation about birdhouses, brought on by the offhand comment, "I'm just going to hope that a bird took the key for its nest because that's more cheerful." Wolfie trudged down to a key-less Panera and then trudged once more down to the bus stop and back to the apartment.
She found Smalls on the couch beasting another temple in Wind Waker. Smiling apologetically, she explained that she had not found the key anywhere and sighed apologetically as she flopped down on the opposing couch next to Tiberius. Smalls was quite understanding and offered to show Wolfie how to unlock the door using the credit card and Wolfie gladly accepted, feeling that this skill, along with picking locks using hair pins, would come in handy in later life. They headed out the door, leaving Tiberius to jump up to the couch near the window to watch their progress.
Wolfie first handed over her license, since it needed to be renewed anyway. Wolfie, having both recently turned 21 and recently been mistaken for a middle schooler, was not concerned about the safety of a piece of plastic that compounded the problem by declaring that she was underage. She settled back against the black rail of the porch to watch a master at work. She exclaimed when she heard a click but was tempered in her excitement by Smalls' assurance that "That might sound like a good noise, but is, in fact not." She settled back further as Smalls demonstrated the best way to insert the plastic into the space between the door and the door frame and nodded understandingly as she watched the technique. However, the lessons progress was interrupted by the snapping of plastic. Smalls handed back Wolfie's license in two slightly bent pieces. Even in retrospect, Wolfie said that this was not a big deal at all- in fact, in removing that incriminating picture, it was probably actually a good thing. In fact, since Wolfie did not own a car, it would be months before a new license would be required.
It was at this point in the lesson that both the student and the teacher realized that the key to their relief lay on the other side of the immovable front door, both literally and figuratively. A few feet from Tiberius' faithful perch were Smalls' keys and both of their cell phones. Wolfie handed over her check card and Smalls fought the lock with renewed motivation. The oppressive heat, humidity and blood sucking insects of a late Hapel Chill summer drove the two of them to consider various other options. With locked and screened windows and a locked rear door, the only option seemed to ask the community office to let them back into the apartment. Wolfie set off down the road as Smalls had walked onto her porch barefoot. After a brief conversation with the lady in the office, she headed back to the apartment to find Smalls on the porch watching a new neighbor move in what looked like stolen paintings into her apartment from a large unmarked truck. Tiberius had abandoned the situation to hunt down a wild bone in the jungle that the living room must appear to a foot high terrier.
Smalls and Wolfie sat on the front porch shooting the breeze as package after large package was moved from the truck. The maintenance man never came, but the lady in the office came by on her way out for the evening to let them in. Grateful for the artificially cooled air, the two sunk down onto the couches and vowed never to speak of the incident again. Wolfie only gave me details under extreme duress, forcing an oath of secrecy upon me. However, it's too good of a story to keep silent. (For reals, who loses their key, knows they can't open the door with a card and then locks themselves outside without keys? Pretty intelligent and awesome people, that's who.)
Later that evening, Wolfie went to have a movie night with Sarah. On the way out of the house at the end of the night, Sarah noticed that she didn't have her keys. Her dutiful friend attempted to pick the lock with Wolfie's beaten and now unusable check card, but determined that the card was too flexible to force the lock back into its slot in the door. Wolfie was now satisfied that she was among three people in her life who were capable of unlocking doors with credit cards and considered the whole experience a combination of cursed luck and awkward happenstance. She slept well that night knowing that an extra key was being made the next day.
Of course, the next day Wolfie was greeted with a voicemail from Panera, where her key had been recovered. She gave it a place of honor on her key chain and smiled ruefully as the clerk at Wachovia mildly judged her when she showed her battered plastic. She would have you know, dear friends, that though her epic ended happily, do not allow your story to become a tragedy. Buy a large exciting key chain that lights up and practice opening your doors with those fake credit cards they send in the mail. Because clearly there are no other moral lessons to be gleaned from this story.
The end.
The conversation at Panera was much less cheerful. After a brief conversation with the burly male voice that answered the phone at the bread company ascertaining that there was not a key in either booth, she was invited to come and look for herself later in the day as well. Wolfie asked all of her friends at the planetarium, but no one had seen a key (strangely, a single silver house key had been turned into the gift shop that was dishearteningly dissimilar to the missing key and which made the ninja-like trip to the alarmed ticket office a bit pointless, though no less epic). After a long day at camp with kiddies, Wolfie trudged over to the church and had a look around herself. She left the church empty handed after a long conversation about birdhouses, brought on by the offhand comment, "I'm just going to hope that a bird took the key for its nest because that's more cheerful." Wolfie trudged down to a key-less Panera and then trudged once more down to the bus stop and back to the apartment.
She found Smalls on the couch beasting another temple in Wind Waker. Smiling apologetically, she explained that she had not found the key anywhere and sighed apologetically as she flopped down on the opposing couch next to Tiberius. Smalls was quite understanding and offered to show Wolfie how to unlock the door using the credit card and Wolfie gladly accepted, feeling that this skill, along with picking locks using hair pins, would come in handy in later life. They headed out the door, leaving Tiberius to jump up to the couch near the window to watch their progress.
Wolfie first handed over her license, since it needed to be renewed anyway. Wolfie, having both recently turned 21 and recently been mistaken for a middle schooler, was not concerned about the safety of a piece of plastic that compounded the problem by declaring that she was underage. She settled back against the black rail of the porch to watch a master at work. She exclaimed when she heard a click but was tempered in her excitement by Smalls' assurance that "That might sound like a good noise, but is, in fact not." She settled back further as Smalls demonstrated the best way to insert the plastic into the space between the door and the door frame and nodded understandingly as she watched the technique. However, the lessons progress was interrupted by the snapping of plastic. Smalls handed back Wolfie's license in two slightly bent pieces. Even in retrospect, Wolfie said that this was not a big deal at all- in fact, in removing that incriminating picture, it was probably actually a good thing. In fact, since Wolfie did not own a car, it would be months before a new license would be required.
It was at this point in the lesson that both the student and the teacher realized that the key to their relief lay on the other side of the immovable front door, both literally and figuratively. A few feet from Tiberius' faithful perch were Smalls' keys and both of their cell phones. Wolfie handed over her check card and Smalls fought the lock with renewed motivation. The oppressive heat, humidity and blood sucking insects of a late Hapel Chill summer drove the two of them to consider various other options. With locked and screened windows and a locked rear door, the only option seemed to ask the community office to let them back into the apartment. Wolfie set off down the road as Smalls had walked onto her porch barefoot. After a brief conversation with the lady in the office, she headed back to the apartment to find Smalls on the porch watching a new neighbor move in what looked like stolen paintings into her apartment from a large unmarked truck. Tiberius had abandoned the situation to hunt down a wild bone in the jungle that the living room must appear to a foot high terrier.
Smalls and Wolfie sat on the front porch shooting the breeze as package after large package was moved from the truck. The maintenance man never came, but the lady in the office came by on her way out for the evening to let them in. Grateful for the artificially cooled air, the two sunk down onto the couches and vowed never to speak of the incident again. Wolfie only gave me details under extreme duress, forcing an oath of secrecy upon me. However, it's too good of a story to keep silent. (For reals, who loses their key, knows they can't open the door with a card and then locks themselves outside without keys? Pretty intelligent and awesome people, that's who.)
Later that evening, Wolfie went to have a movie night with Sarah. On the way out of the house at the end of the night, Sarah noticed that she didn't have her keys. Her dutiful friend attempted to pick the lock with Wolfie's beaten and now unusable check card, but determined that the card was too flexible to force the lock back into its slot in the door. Wolfie was now satisfied that she was among three people in her life who were capable of unlocking doors with credit cards and considered the whole experience a combination of cursed luck and awkward happenstance. She slept well that night knowing that an extra key was being made the next day.
Of course, the next day Wolfie was greeted with a voicemail from Panera, where her key had been recovered. She gave it a place of honor on her key chain and smiled ruefully as the clerk at Wachovia mildly judged her when she showed her battered plastic. She would have you know, dear friends, that though her epic ended happily, do not allow your story to become a tragedy. Buy a large exciting key chain that lights up and practice opening your doors with those fake credit cards they send in the mail. Because clearly there are no other moral lessons to be gleaned from this story.
The end.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Friends Part Deux: The Epic of the Lost Key
So I have this friend named Aj Wolfie who was staying with another friend of ours for about a month this summer. The way she explained it, since she wasn't going to be staying at this place very long (which is regrettable because it was a pretty awesome place with a hedgehog [even though he didn't like Aj very much] and great decor and an awesome roommate) she decided that she would just carry the key around in her wallet instead of putting it on her key ring. In her defense, it's really hard to get those keys on a key ring. I'd avoid it if I could. Anyway.
My friend's roommate Smalls was going to be out of town for the weekend. Smalls lives far to the west, about a five hour drive from Hapel Chill, where our story takes place. Hapel Chill, it should be noted, is one of the best places on Earth, with the nicest people and most beautiful campus, not to mention promising sports seasons where they will not (pleasepleasepleaseplease) lose to their non-rivals on Wolfie's senior night football game. I should also mention that this story takes place in beautiful North Carolina. You'll appreciate how wonderful it is only after you've left it for a year or two. Now that the scene is set, we can return to our narrative.
With Smalls far away, Wolfie had no way to get to church on Sunday morning. She bribed her former roommate, C-Stine, with a free breakfast if she would come retrieve Wolfie from her momentary lodgings. C-Stine complied and the two set off in C-stine's borrowed car, since her usual car, Rafiki, was in the shop after having bested a contest with a sleek black wimpy car that didn't pay attention to the important things in life, such as stop lights. They drove to Panera for a quick bagel and then C-Stine dropped Wolfie off atUniversity Presbyterian University Lutheran University Baptist a Methodist Church. Wolfie remembers really enjoying the service, though she thought it was a little awkward coming in because she entered the church from the back instead of her normal front seat. She also had to climb over someone to help usher, but it all worked out in the end.
After the service, Wolfie went to meet her friend, Mary Jane, a red head, for brunch. Mary Jane was in town for the afternoon before heading down the road to meet her contra dancing partner and as she and Wolfie hadn't seen each other in a while, they walked down to Panera and had a good long chat in a booth across from where Wolfie had sat earlier that morning with C-Stine.
Wolfie then had to go to work at the planetarium because apparently weekend shifts are hard to fill in the summer in a college town and Mary Jane came along, having to wait a few hours before she could head out of town. Wolfie was helping a new tech train and spend most of her time before the shows started walking around the building pointing out random quirks and secret passageways. The afternoon shows went well and Wolfie clocked out to go meet her friend, Hermione, to watch a musical at her apartment. On her way out the door, she remembered hearing a metallic clink as something fell to the floor from the table in the student area, but she thought nothing of it.
Hermione had a genius plan which included Squirt, Red Vines, Reeses Pieces and Double Stuff Oreos and pizza. The musical, an online masterpiece of a sequel, often took a while to load, so even though they started the musical around 6, it was 11:30 before they finished the package of their favorite way to say Red Wines in a German accent and were heading back to Wolfie's apartment, since she had to teach a camp the next day. Wolfie picked up her bag at an odd angle in the darkened hallway, but the trip to the car and then to Wolfie's home was successful.
Outside the door, Wolfie fumbled in her bag while Hermione waited to see her safely in the house. In searching for her key, she discovered a hole in the lining of her bag and that her wallet had been left open since her second trip to Panera. Figuring that the key was in the lining of her bag, she motioned for Hermione to go home and sat down on her darkened front steps to search through her bag.
Five dimes, an empty purse and fifteen minutes later, Wolfie called Hermione back. She remembered the clinking noise and hypothesized that her missing key was at the planetarium. Hermione drove her over there and together they searched the darkened halls and hidden passageways of the planetarium for the missing key. The metallic noise, upon closer inspection, was a drill bit. Unsuccessful in their endeavors, Wolfie placed a few phone calls to C-Stine and Smalls to see what they could come up with. Smalls was helpful- she provided a phone number for maintenance but also suggested that the door was easily unlocked using a credit card. Armed with the erstwhile keys, Hermione and Wolfie headed back once again to Wolfie's apartment while C-Stine searched her car for the key with the aid of a flashlight.
Many attempts and that's what she said jokes, not to mention a few exclamations of Alohamora, were wasted on the recalcitrant door. The maintenance man was phoned and the two friends retreated from blood-thirst mosquitoes into the safety of Hermione's car where they listened to wonderful music and jumped for the car door handles every time someone pulled into the parking lot in front of Wolfie's apartment, which was more frequently than expected for approaching two in the morning on a summer Monday. The maintenance man finally arrived in a beat up red pickup truck and let Wolfie into her apartment for the night. She bid her good friend Hermione farewell and thanks and fell almost immediately asleep, determined to search for the key more thoroughly on the morrow.
... To be continued.
My friend's roommate Smalls was going to be out of town for the weekend. Smalls lives far to the west, about a five hour drive from Hapel Chill, where our story takes place. Hapel Chill, it should be noted, is one of the best places on Earth, with the nicest people and most beautiful campus, not to mention promising sports seasons where they will not (pleasepleasepleaseplease) lose to their non-rivals on Wolfie's senior night football game. I should also mention that this story takes place in beautiful North Carolina. You'll appreciate how wonderful it is only after you've left it for a year or two. Now that the scene is set, we can return to our narrative.
With Smalls far away, Wolfie had no way to get to church on Sunday morning. She bribed her former roommate, C-Stine, with a free breakfast if she would come retrieve Wolfie from her momentary lodgings. C-Stine complied and the two set off in C-stine's borrowed car, since her usual car, Rafiki, was in the shop after having bested a contest with a sleek black wimpy car that didn't pay attention to the important things in life, such as stop lights. They drove to Panera for a quick bagel and then C-Stine dropped Wolfie off at
After the service, Wolfie went to meet her friend, Mary Jane, a red head, for brunch. Mary Jane was in town for the afternoon before heading down the road to meet her contra dancing partner and as she and Wolfie hadn't seen each other in a while, they walked down to Panera and had a good long chat in a booth across from where Wolfie had sat earlier that morning with C-Stine.
Wolfie then had to go to work at the planetarium because apparently weekend shifts are hard to fill in the summer in a college town and Mary Jane came along, having to wait a few hours before she could head out of town. Wolfie was helping a new tech train and spend most of her time before the shows started walking around the building pointing out random quirks and secret passageways. The afternoon shows went well and Wolfie clocked out to go meet her friend, Hermione, to watch a musical at her apartment. On her way out the door, she remembered hearing a metallic clink as something fell to the floor from the table in the student area, but she thought nothing of it.
Hermione had a genius plan which included Squirt, Red Vines, Reeses Pieces and Double Stuff Oreos and pizza. The musical, an online masterpiece of a sequel, often took a while to load, so even though they started the musical around 6, it was 11:30 before they finished the package of their favorite way to say Red Wines in a German accent and were heading back to Wolfie's apartment, since she had to teach a camp the next day. Wolfie picked up her bag at an odd angle in the darkened hallway, but the trip to the car and then to Wolfie's home was successful.
Outside the door, Wolfie fumbled in her bag while Hermione waited to see her safely in the house. In searching for her key, she discovered a hole in the lining of her bag and that her wallet had been left open since her second trip to Panera. Figuring that the key was in the lining of her bag, she motioned for Hermione to go home and sat down on her darkened front steps to search through her bag.
Five dimes, an empty purse and fifteen minutes later, Wolfie called Hermione back. She remembered the clinking noise and hypothesized that her missing key was at the planetarium. Hermione drove her over there and together they searched the darkened halls and hidden passageways of the planetarium for the missing key. The metallic noise, upon closer inspection, was a drill bit. Unsuccessful in their endeavors, Wolfie placed a few phone calls to C-Stine and Smalls to see what they could come up with. Smalls was helpful- she provided a phone number for maintenance but also suggested that the door was easily unlocked using a credit card. Armed with the erstwhile keys, Hermione and Wolfie headed back once again to Wolfie's apartment while C-Stine searched her car for the key with the aid of a flashlight.
Many attempts and that's what she said jokes, not to mention a few exclamations of Alohamora, were wasted on the recalcitrant door. The maintenance man was phoned and the two friends retreated from blood-thirst mosquitoes into the safety of Hermione's car where they listened to wonderful music and jumped for the car door handles every time someone pulled into the parking lot in front of Wolfie's apartment, which was more frequently than expected for approaching two in the morning on a summer Monday. The maintenance man finally arrived in a beat up red pickup truck and let Wolfie into her apartment for the night. She bid her good friend Hermione farewell and thanks and fell almost immediately asleep, determined to search for the key more thoroughly on the morrow.
... To be continued.
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