Sigh — ah, to be an undergraduate again. Perhaps these nostalgic vibes are washing over me because I happened to grab a Clemson t-shirt out of my closet this morning, but I am practically overwhelmed with longing to go back to the simpler times of classes, friends and a few drops of alcohol. I plan to attend Winthrop University this fall as a graduate non-degree-seeking student in Spanish, but I know it won't be the same. I will be rushing from campus back to work on my dinner breaks, balancing homework and play time with Abbey, attempting to banish thoughts of looming bills as I study flash cards. No more bouncing down the dorm hall hopped up on too much caffeine, pigtails bobbing from side to side (the sure sign of my hyperactivity and a looming test).
I think this was all driven home today on the way home from work for dinner. I drive through the heart of Winthrop's campus every day, watching the students talking, playing football, trying to beat the traffic lights. One girl in particular struck me today. She was wearing faded denim capri overalls, her hair twisted up in funky knots, chatting on a cell phone as she walked her dog. She seemed the epitome of carefree. You take so much for granted in college. We all had problems, and some truly do struggle personally and financially all the way through, but at least for me and my circle of friends, college was absolute fun. The opportunity to be whoever you wanted to be. And, with two people inextricably tied to my life, I will never be like that again. I love my family and would never wish it away, but I can't help but marvel at how profoundly having one shapes your every thought about the future. Everything I do impacts them, and vice versa. Which is wonderful, and yet a little bit sad. The passing of youth.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Seasonal musings
Every year about this time, or rather in March since I live in the South, I find myself quoting Wordsworth. I'm not a huge fan of the man, nor of Romantics in general (though I always thought I would be until I took an excruciatingly dull college class), but I do love just two lines from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud:" "and then my heart with pleasure fills / and dances with the daffodils"
Daffodils wear jackets of snow on the side of the road in Antrim County near Torch Lake, Mich., Saturday, April 23, 2005. (AP Photo/Traverse City Record-Eagle, Lara Neel)
Of course, I've been largely unaware of spring's arrival this year. The ever-present layer of pollen is unavoidable (very disturbing when your dust rag turns yellow), and we did have a few daffodils in our tiny garden, but when you live facing a seven-lane highway, you don't experience the aromas. I do get out about once a week to Cherry Park, which is a lovely wooded oasis, but other than some flowering trees and daffodils, not extremely full of blooms. Plus I spend most of the time in the playground with Abigail. The other day, as I drove Abbey to parents' morning out with the windows down through one of the nicer residential neighborhoods in town, I was caught off guard by the delicious blend of scents in the air: azaleas, cherry trees, wisteria. It was so refreshing -- and until then I hadn't realized I had missed it so far this year. The yards were layered in pink and white dogwoods and azaleas, and that bright, fresh green was in all the trees.
After I dropped Abbey off, I headed over to Winthrop Lake for a walk. Perhaps I'm just unused to being outside at 9 a.m., but I was amazed at the cacaphony of birds! They were absoluty rejoicing to be alive. On either side of the road, in every tree, birds were chirping and trilling their little hearts out. It raised my mood exponentially.
Toward the end of my walk, I passed a section of trees dripping with wisteria, and the perfume was heady. I immediately was taken back to my 2000 trip to Rome and the Forum, where the purple flowers dripped from a tree in front of Tito's Arch. A college friend of mine said she always associated wisteria with Faulkner, but I will always think of Italy. That scent as it drifted through the debris of ancient grandeur, over the heads of the throngs of tourists. That splash of color as is lazed down the side of a stuccoed home in Verona.
Daffodils wear jackets of snow on the side of the road in Antrim County near Torch Lake, Mich., Saturday, April 23, 2005. (AP Photo/Traverse City Record-Eagle, Lara Neel)
Of course, I've been largely unaware of spring's arrival this year. The ever-present layer of pollen is unavoidable (very disturbing when your dust rag turns yellow), and we did have a few daffodils in our tiny garden, but when you live facing a seven-lane highway, you don't experience the aromas. I do get out about once a week to Cherry Park, which is a lovely wooded oasis, but other than some flowering trees and daffodils, not extremely full of blooms. Plus I spend most of the time in the playground with Abigail. The other day, as I drove Abbey to parents' morning out with the windows down through one of the nicer residential neighborhoods in town, I was caught off guard by the delicious blend of scents in the air: azaleas, cherry trees, wisteria. It was so refreshing -- and until then I hadn't realized I had missed it so far this year. The yards were layered in pink and white dogwoods and azaleas, and that bright, fresh green was in all the trees.
After I dropped Abbey off, I headed over to Winthrop Lake for a walk. Perhaps I'm just unused to being outside at 9 a.m., but I was amazed at the cacaphony of birds! They were absoluty rejoicing to be alive. On either side of the road, in every tree, birds were chirping and trilling their little hearts out. It raised my mood exponentially.
Toward the end of my walk, I passed a section of trees dripping with wisteria, and the perfume was heady. I immediately was taken back to my 2000 trip to Rome and the Forum, where the purple flowers dripped from a tree in front of Tito's Arch. A college friend of mine said she always associated wisteria with Faulkner, but I will always think of Italy. That scent as it drifted through the debris of ancient grandeur, over the heads of the throngs of tourists. That splash of color as is lazed down the side of a stuccoed home in Verona.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Kodak moments
Since I have very few close friends where I live to show off my daughter to, I figured I should put some pictures on here so you can all ooh and ahh.
sitnspin
Originally uploaded by HFBW.
Abigail and mom at Pensacola Beach, March 2005. Not exactly beach weather, but Abbey still loved the sand.
Abigail loves to give "checkups," so she got a doctor kit for Easter.
The fam, Easter 2005.
Friday, April 15, 2005
A fine 20th century education
I am currently witness to the nauseating roller coaster that is the modern job search. As I watch my husband struggle to find employment, I have realized that my circle of friends' costly college educations of the 1990s did not prepare us in the slightest for the economic world we entered upon graduation. I don't fault professors for this. We entered school in 1995 as 18-year-olds steeped in experiences of our parents and older siblings, examples of how to succeed in a world where you looked for jobs in the newspaper and could somewhat count on keeping as long as they were white collar. The Internet was barely more than a toy for computer geeks, and "outsourcing" had yet to be coined. When we graduated in 1999, we entered a world where job boards were posted on the Internet, where you had to be specialized within an inch of your life to get noticed, and where jobs that seem impossible to outsource, i.e. English editing, go to the lowest Asian bidder. Our professors couldn't have seen this coming a mile away -- we certainly didn't.
And so now my husband is being low-balled for freelance jobs by Indians and Malaysians. Not that I fault them, either, they likely speak better English than many Americans. But how on earth is anyone supposed to get noticed on a Web site that spans thousands of profiles and several continents? And how can graduates network when their professors are still stymied in academia and don't know people in the working world that understand the current dynamics? We're almost too educated for our own good in this country: Thousands of M.A.s and PhDs lost in a sea of freelancers or waiting tables. As a friend recently pointed out, the service and construction industries are the biggest growth sectors in the fabulous Bush recovery.
It almost makes you long for the days of growing up with no greater expectations than doing what your father did before you.
Almost.
And so now my husband is being low-balled for freelance jobs by Indians and Malaysians. Not that I fault them, either, they likely speak better English than many Americans. But how on earth is anyone supposed to get noticed on a Web site that spans thousands of profiles and several continents? And how can graduates network when their professors are still stymied in academia and don't know people in the working world that understand the current dynamics? We're almost too educated for our own good in this country: Thousands of M.A.s and PhDs lost in a sea of freelancers or waiting tables. As a friend recently pointed out, the service and construction industries are the biggest growth sectors in the fabulous Bush recovery.
It almost makes you long for the days of growing up with no greater expectations than doing what your father did before you.
Almost.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
As the miles tick by
Well, after my nostalgic overdose on memories of I-55, my trip through the Southeast on I-85 and I-65 was rather disappointing. I'm sure the hills and plentiful trees (and soon kudzu) hide many interesting roadside quirks, but I simply didn't see as much as in the Midwest. When we drive Southern backroads, it's a feast for the eyes, but the interstates are dull -- other than dodging speeding traffic around Atlanta.
There were a few images that captured my imagination, though.
One that I must return to is the Dwarf House in Newnan, Ga. It's a perfectly normal Chick-fil-A with a small tudor house stuck on the front. We didn't notice this anomaly until we'd already promise Abigail some time at the Burger King playground (yes, my sheltered child has now had french fries -- something like five times over the whole trip). But I became obsessed with the neighboring eatery. Was it a miniature house for children to play in? Was it simply a playground with a fancy facade? Were gnome statues involved? I now know where we'll be stopping the next time we head to Mom's. And it most definitely won't be the Burger King, where termites promptely swarmed the moment Abigail crawled into the playground.
Another perplexing sight came toward the end of our epic 10 hour journey (during which Abigail was supernaturally calm, playing quitely with toys in the back seat -- the entire time). In Dixonville, Fla., which doesn't even qualify as a hamlet or crossroads, there was a fire hydrant on the side of Fla. 89, surrounded by pine trees and nothing else for miles other than a small water tower. And this hydrant was gushing at full blast. There were no people in sight, no explanation for why this hydrant would have been uncapped. Not even signs of a car running off the road to hit it. How long did this hydrant keep spewing water? How many thousands of gallons were wasted? How many other people passed by and were as bemused as I was?
And somewhere in north Georgia, a beautifully brutal image: A huge hardwood tree uprooted in the middle of a rolling green field, clumps of bright orange clay clinging to its massive roots, below it a jagged hole. A bloody gash in the earth.
There were a few images that captured my imagination, though.
One that I must return to is the Dwarf House in Newnan, Ga. It's a perfectly normal Chick-fil-A with a small tudor house stuck on the front. We didn't notice this anomaly until we'd already promise Abigail some time at the Burger King playground (yes, my sheltered child has now had french fries -- something like five times over the whole trip). But I became obsessed with the neighboring eatery. Was it a miniature house for children to play in? Was it simply a playground with a fancy facade? Were gnome statues involved? I now know where we'll be stopping the next time we head to Mom's. And it most definitely won't be the Burger King, where termites promptely swarmed the moment Abigail crawled into the playground.
Another perplexing sight came toward the end of our epic 10 hour journey (during which Abigail was supernaturally calm, playing quitely with toys in the back seat -- the entire time). In Dixonville, Fla., which doesn't even qualify as a hamlet or crossroads, there was a fire hydrant on the side of Fla. 89, surrounded by pine trees and nothing else for miles other than a small water tower. And this hydrant was gushing at full blast. There were no people in sight, no explanation for why this hydrant would have been uncapped. Not even signs of a car running off the road to hit it. How long did this hydrant keep spewing water? How many thousands of gallons were wasted? How many other people passed by and were as bemused as I was?
And somewhere in north Georgia, a beautifully brutal image: A huge hardwood tree uprooted in the middle of a rolling green field, clumps of bright orange clay clinging to its massive roots, below it a jagged hole. A bloody gash in the earth.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Taking off the blinders
I am about to escape the daily doldrums for a bit of spring weather and mothering in Florida. Probably the biggest thing I'm hoping for out of the experience is to relax and open my mind up to observations again. I have travel journals full of the things, but somehow I don't get much beyond the piles of waiting laundry and Abigail's cute antics to really look at the greater world around me. I haven't been hiking in years, and I feel a definite lack from just getting away from the rush of the world. So hopefully I'll find that soon, during the many hours on the interstate looking for landmarks and the shorter hour on back roads in Alabama. Brad and I will talk about them, I know, and hopefully I can get some time to put pen to paper as well (or cursor to screen).
I have always loved road trips. I still remember the homemade milestones as we drove down Interstate 55 between Chicago and St. Louis. There's something about driving for miles upon miles through flat cornfields that makes images almost iconic. There's the house on the left heading South with the swans in the small pond out front. Right up against the frontage road, not really even a farm. Just out there. There's the two-story brick farmhouse a bit further down on the right that never looked inhabited, like something out of a gothic novel -- or the house in "Santa Mouse." As a small child, one of my favorites was the hog farm with the cheery sunburst painted on the side of a shed, depicting free-range pigs and the slogan "Start Your Day With Pork!" After that came the tent company, with it's slogan spelled out word by word in tents "Tents -- Make -- Sense." Then the smokestacks signaling our approach to Springfield -- I always feel grimy, as if covered in a layer of soot, when I think of Springfield. And finally the flat flood plains of the Mississippi, veering away from the manmade canals, watching the Arch move along the horizon on the right, never really getting bigger, like an oasis shimmering in the Midwestern fields.
And the cornfields. Stretching along the shoulder of the road, alternating with soybeans. As a child, I didn't know of sinister subsidies or the insidious nature of corn syrup in the American diet. I just knew that when you let your eyes relax, the flashing lines of the furrows looked like running legs.
I haven't lived in the Midwest for almost 14 years, yet it tugs on my memory and my heart as home.
I have always loved road trips. I still remember the homemade milestones as we drove down Interstate 55 between Chicago and St. Louis. There's something about driving for miles upon miles through flat cornfields that makes images almost iconic. There's the house on the left heading South with the swans in the small pond out front. Right up against the frontage road, not really even a farm. Just out there. There's the two-story brick farmhouse a bit further down on the right that never looked inhabited, like something out of a gothic novel -- or the house in "Santa Mouse." As a small child, one of my favorites was the hog farm with the cheery sunburst painted on the side of a shed, depicting free-range pigs and the slogan "Start Your Day With Pork!" After that came the tent company, with it's slogan spelled out word by word in tents "Tents -- Make -- Sense." Then the smokestacks signaling our approach to Springfield -- I always feel grimy, as if covered in a layer of soot, when I think of Springfield. And finally the flat flood plains of the Mississippi, veering away from the manmade canals, watching the Arch move along the horizon on the right, never really getting bigger, like an oasis shimmering in the Midwestern fields.
And the cornfields. Stretching along the shoulder of the road, alternating with soybeans. As a child, I didn't know of sinister subsidies or the insidious nature of corn syrup in the American diet. I just knew that when you let your eyes relax, the flashing lines of the furrows looked like running legs.
I haven't lived in the Midwest for almost 14 years, yet it tugs on my memory and my heart as home.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Les moments commencent
Okay, so I tried to start this how long ago? At least I've now figured out how to type in a box. ... I may work with computers, but heck if I understand the things.
I can't promise that this journal will contain anything earthshattering. I'll likely talk about my daughter, interesting things in the news, views on literature, asides on what I see as general stupidity as it surfaces throughout society. In theory I'm a well-educated college valedictorian, so we'll see if I can get the ol' gray matter churning again.
Stay tuned ...
I can't promise that this journal will contain anything earthshattering. I'll likely talk about my daughter, interesting things in the news, views on literature, asides on what I see as general stupidity as it surfaces throughout society. In theory I'm a well-educated college valedictorian, so we'll see if I can get the ol' gray matter churning again.
Stay tuned ...
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Welcome to my odditorium, a collection of curiosities made up of snippets about my life and occasional machinations on deeper subjects.
