The Big Quiet

Hello, All.

It has been a very long weekend for me, and I'm about to have a very long week (paper Wednesday, tests Thursday and Friday, on top of all the work I didn't do since last Wednesday); what this means is, I'm going to stay relatively quiet until all my tests and such are over and done with. Because I believe in, at least, a minimum contribution to the blog, I plan on recounting the events of the weekend in a serial fashion. Unless someone comes up with a really good theme, I'll probably abstain from the theme post.

As a preemptive summary, I had a very good weekend with my closest friends, and I think it did us all some good. However, what I had interpreted as my suitemates keeping a safe distance--the three of them disappeared late Wednesday evening--was, apparently, a very poorly-orchestrated secret mission which they have still not returned from. My understanding is that they, on something only marginally more substancial than a whim, drove to Kansas. The message on my cell wasn't very helpful, as it was left by Vlad, who was calling from the backseat; I could hear Alfonzo shouting obscenities in the background, and I believe I heard Chaz scream "Yee-ha!" just before the message ended. That was Friday evening.

At any rate, I guess I'll know what's going on slightly before you will.

Here's hoping it's interesting.

-Alan

Costume Week / The Fruitiest Loop

I just lost the game, but it's worth it. Those of you who have been with us since before "Video Game Week" should know that the bad motherfucker you see above is the protagonist from my favorite game ever. When I was in the 3rd grade, my mother made me a Link costume out of green felt, some cardboard, and a Conan sword. I think only one guy understood who I was supposed to be, and everyone else guessed Robin Hood or Peter Pan, or someone else who prances around in green.

It's ironic that after all the mistakes that were made, I have been wholly unable to find either a Peter Pan or a Robin Hood costume. Honestly, I've had big trouble finding anything green that wasn't also a bizarre fairy dress. I might have considered the dress, actually, if I hadn't given up crossdressing years ago. The idea still appeals to me, but I'm too conspicuously male to crossdress without it being a lifestyle decision; in short, there's just too much hair for it to be even close to tasteful.

So, when I say that I'm going to dress as Link this weekend, I mean that I plan to, if I can get my act together and assemble something by Saturday. We can strike all the time between now and Wednesday night, because I'll be doing next week's homework until Bridget gets here. Perhaps that's something we can do; maybe picking up something eccentric for her to wear, as well. Once Carl and Katherine get here (between 2 and 3:30 AM Friday morning), we're pretty much in CAKE-mode until we wake up Saturday afternoon, which gives me a couple of hours to pull off any last second miracles.

I don't really feel like this costume is going to happen, but I bought a wooden sword just in case it does.


Anecdotally, Marina caught a whiff of something on my collar at lunch; she said I smelled like Fruit Loops, whereupon I fessed up to my affair with Toucan Sam. My confession, of course, begged the question..... who's the pitcher and who's the catcher?

I'm afraid that, with Sam, I have always been and will always be the catcher. With his prominant proboscus, how could it be any other way?

-Alan

Carl and Mundy

So, while I was in the shower, I thought of a great idea for a sitcom. Here's the mini-pilot:

[int. living room] Mundy is sitting, cigar in mouth, watching television. Through the door behind him enters Carl.

CARL : Hey, Mundy!
MUNDY : Hey, Carl. How did your date go last night?
CARL : She was pretty, but she had no personality. (laugh track) Hey, what are you watching?
MUNDY : Vertigo, and Strangers On A Train is next.
CARL : Dammit, Mundy! Do you have to do a Hitchcock marathon every Saturday? There's good TV on!
MUNDY : Do not think that I am doing this for pleasure. These are psychological thrillers. I'm researching.
CARL : My ass.
(CARL walks out of room, then slowly walks back in, arms akimbo. CARL clears his throat.)
(laugh track)
(CARL clears his throat again.)
MUNDY : You should go to health services. I don't want you getting me sick.
CARL : Oh, I'm not sick. (pause) Mundy, have you seen our bathroom lately?
MUNDY : Yes, why?
CARL : It's disgusting, and I'm not the one who made it like that.
MUNDY : (rubs his forehead facetiously) Oh, oh no. I don't remember doing anything like that. It must have been my id.
CARL : (walks slowly behind where Mundy sits on the couch, punching his hand for effect) If you and your id don't get in there and clean it up, I'll give you a bruised ego.
MUNDY : 'nuff said. (stands up and rushes to the bathroom)
(CARL hops over the back of the couch, takes Mundy's seat, and changes the channel on the TV)
MUNDY : (reentering room in a rush) You mother-fucker.
CARL : You would know.

CUT to opening theme, "You Make Me Feel So Young". The name of the show is called "Don't Mind Me".


Now, brownie points to the first person who can tell me who both of the above characters are supposed to be.

-Alan

"What? No Theme" Week

I come to you, my faithful readers, from the Olin Library, where I am frantically trying to do both yesterday's and today's homework. As you know from Chaz's post, there was a Suite 3100 lockout last night. Of course, all my books and homework were locked in my room.

So here's what happened:

I swear to you, I was just sitting down to do my homework. The film studies screening had kept me out until about 9--the film was Bringing Up Baby, which, if you were wondering, is a terrible film; directorially and cinematographically uninteresting, a nonsensical plot, and some of the most irritating dialogue I've ever come across. But I digress.

I had my Russian notebook out, and I was flipping to the right page when the fire alarm went off, so I dropped everything, grabbed my keys, then went outside. Once outside, I noticed something strange. I felt a cool oval pressed in my palm. I opened my hand to find my housekeys, which might have been useful were I anywhere else but St. Louis.

Folks, I remember it so clearly. When I walked into my room, I put my room and suite keychain right next to my housekey chain, thinking I should really move those housekeys. No reason to have those out. S'only going to cause trouble. Yet I did nothing.

Worse still, when the alarm went off, I sprung from my seat and ran to where my keys were. I held my hand out and thought Two sets of keys. Don't pick up the wrong ones! And yet, somehow, I found myself outside with the wrong set.

The mind reels.

By circumstances that I do not fully understand, my three suitemates also neglected to bring their keys along, and so we found ourselves in the mess that Chaz described for you earlier. I must say, I'm proud (if incredulous) of Chaz's valiant effort to breach the suite. I'm not entirely sure what getting on the roof of Park would have accomplished, but Chaz is a very piecemeal thinker; I'm sure he would have figured something out, had he made it.

I'm afraid that my attempts to get back in the suite were somewhat feeble in comparison. We tried the coathanger trick, which is where one straightens a coathanger, slides it under the door, and tries to hook the inside handle. My dexterity begins and ends with a Nintendo controller, so I wasn't surprised to find the "coathanger trick" nearly impossible. Alfonzo wasn't any better. Chaz chugged some liquor and left to Mission Impossible his way into the suite, which left Alfonzo, Vlad and myself to figure out some way to get inside.

As it turned out, Vlad remembered that his keys were not, in fact, in the suite, but in the room of one of his many female cohorts. Though reluctant, we convinced him that he had to retrieve his keys, and the pants they were in, from her room. He left us with a glare, as if we had exiled him to some barren tundra in northeastern Russia.

It is a shame that Alfonzo and I have such poor relations with Brody's suite; two of Brody's suitemates are up-and-coming lock-pickers. I encouraged Alfonzo to make peace and to ask for their help; he, instead, took a chair from the floor's common room, placed it in front of our door, and proceeded to glower at the knob. As if he had figured out some secret of the lock's mechanism, Alfonzo broke off a piece of the coathanger and began jamming it into the lock.

One of our floormates passed by, muttering something which sent Alfonzo chasing him down the hall with the piece of coathanger. I found him, about an hour later, passed out on his back in the middle of the Swamp. Poor guy, I don't think he's had that much physical activity since he was a kid. I bought him a gatorade and a frozen yogurt and we went back to the suite, passing the detained Chaz on the way. I propped Alfonzo against the door, then fell asleep on a couch in the floor's common room.

When I woke up this morning, Alfonzo was gone and the door was open. I haven't seen him, Vlad or Chaz since going to sleep. If I can finish all this homework off, I should be back in the suite before they all go to bed. Maybe then I can find out what happened.

-Alan

The Stars Align

Since about mid-August, my long-time friend and confidant, Bridget Lough, has been planning to come visit me; the tickets she bought bring her in on the 26th and take her back out on the 30th. This impending visit is, at once, a source of great excitement and anxiety, but I have been looking forward to it since this Summer.

Just a few days ago, my dear friend, Carl Britt, shot me a message : "How far is Kirksville from St. Louis?"

Something you should know about Carl is that he hates acquiring information unless that information is absolutely necessary; so, when he asked about a city over 600 miles away from him, I was intrigued.

"CAKE is playing there on October 28th, and my mom keeps saying I should visit you....."

I could hardly contain my excitement. The idea of having both Carl and Bridget visit me on the same weekend.... I would feel more at home than I did when my parents visited. My friends become part of my family, and those two top the list. Furthermore, to have both of them at the same time would help them each feel more comfortable. Plus we'd drive 3 hours to see CAKE at some college out in the boonies.... my mind searched the scenario for some problem, some hitch in my getalong, something stuck in my craw... but I could find no conflicts.

Now, I change the subject only slightly. I do not know what kind of audience Suite 3100 enjoys, nor do I know how that audience may feel about Carl's posts. Many have claimed--Carl and myself included--that blogs are just a space for self-centered storytelling and futile rants; I felt that Suite 3100 had strong elements of self-centered storytelling, but a very weak representation of the blindly hateful rants which have made blogging so popular. To fill that void, I invited Carl to join the blog, though he lives roughly 550 miles away from Suite 3100.

Carl can rant. Were he older, I might suspect that Carl invented ranting; we can be sure that he, at least, reinvented it. Carl's ability to rant owes a great debt of gratitude to Carl's father, Stu, who has provided Carl with some of the most hopelessly frustrating situations he is ever likely to encounter.

For instance, one day this Summer, Carl brought three slices of pizza home from his job as a Summer Camp counselor. He set those slices on the kitchen table, then he and I went upstairs to his room. When we returned, half an hour later, we found Stu lounging at the kitchen table. He flung a pizza crust onto his plate, where two other crusts sat, then licked his fingers. Stu then instructed Carl to take the pizza box out to the garbage can on the curb.


......boom


The resulting conflict lasted at least two hours. Bridget showed up sometime between the initial argument--in which Stu, quite enfuriatingly, stayed calm--and the aftermath. I cannot describe the pure fury that was displayed that afternoon. I could not even recount, were I asked to, the number of valuable cards Carl pulled in the course of the argument (by "Cards" I mean various marks against Stu which had little or nothing to do with the argument, yet were employed to weaken his credIbility). I can only say that the whole ordeal resulted in Carl being too physically ill to go to a movie for which he had already bought a ticket; instead, he slept for three hours.

Folks, as long as I have known Carl, he has always been willing and able to roll a J; on this day, he could not steady his knowing hands, for they were filled with bile.


But I digress. Despite Carl's preternatural talent for ranting, he has certain limitations : first, as exemplified above, is that he cannot win against his father; they are very much alike, but Stu is far more experienced. Second, there are some people Carl will only rant about if he thinks they'll never hear.

The second is, of course, a natural use of ranting; sometimes we want to assert ourselves without actually asserting ourselves, so we rant to a third-party. Though I have heard many (many many many....) Carl rants about traffic, bad parking, how much he hates frat parties, breast size being inauthentically enhanced in overweight people--the list goes on and on--most of the Carl rants I am privy to are of a personal nature.

By "personal" I mean of or relating to a specific individual who has done something to piss Carl off.


So, in my very roundabout way, I return to my original topic: the weekend of October 28th, or the weekend before Halloween. It was to my great dismay that I learned that Carl had some previous engagement on that weekend and might not be able to come. Just a bad run of luck, I figured, until I learned why he could not come.

There are some experiences in life which are just more valuable than others. I typically try not to espouse this view; I am content to do the things that I do, and I leave others to do whatever makes them happiest. Something that would make me very happy is to have my two best friends visit me on the same weekend, during which we would drive 200 miles to see one of our very favorite bands. I feel like that sort of adventure is worth having.I feel like that sort of thing is worth fighting for. I feel like this is the sort of once-in-a-lifetime things that your grandparents are always telling you not to pass up.

And to forgo all of that to go to some frat parties? Neither insanity nor stupidity could describe such a decision. Calling it a "bad decision" still manages to understate it.

It's just wrong.

-Alan

The Shadows

The life of a college student is a fragile thing; she who may seem mercurial at times, and content at others, may suddenly disappear from your life, taken by a sadness and a desperation she had never shared.

A friend of mine, here at WU, drank alcohol and took too many sleeping pills last night. I noticed she wasn't in Psych lecture, so I asked around and learned what had happened. It beats all. It just beats all, I tell you.

I'm worried for her. I'm worried that being in the hospital will make her sadder. I'm worried that missing school and classes will only stress her out more. I'm worried that whatever is inside of her is destroying her, or has destroyed her already. I worry about these things because, quite simply, I don't know how she is. She is both alive and conscious; I know nothing else.

I'm scared of losing her, too. I'm scared that she'll get taken away, by doctors or her parents. That fear has creeped up on me as the day progressed. I'm scared that she might take herself away; run away or, God forbid, do something more self-destructive than booze and sleeping pills.

I'm not terribly close to her. We're more than tangential friends, but we haven't really come to an understanding yet. There is something about her that appeals to me, though; some divining sense in me, telling me to dig. I want to know her better. I want to have that chance.

Sometimes the weight of our guilt is too much to carry, but there are better ways out than death. Nobody puts more pressure on college students than the students themselves; we set standards too high, expect ourselves to be the Einstien of our field while still managing to have fun. To everyone who might feel stress and pressure bearing down, please, don't hesitate to drop whatever load you carry. It is better to merely abandon your responsibilities than to abandon your life altogether.

Cross your fingers for her, will you?

-Alan

Video Game Week

I try my best not to be a snob. I try to accept the opinions of others, and to be generally supportive of those around me.

There is, however, one lapse in taste which I cannot tolerate: Zelda; if you don't like it, we have a problem.

I have, through the years, owned every Nintendo system except the new DS handheld. I used to be an avid fan of all things Nintendo, but age and wisdom have delivered me to a place where I feel no real need for games that are not part of the Zelda series. I bought the GameCube, 4 years ago, knowing that they would eventually release a Zelda game for it. I was not disappointed by the Wind Waker, which is one of my favorites from the series (cast not your stones, cel-hating fiends). Since then, there has been a lapse. The last GC Zelda game will finally come out this November.

My gamecube hasn't been completely idle; when I fall ill, I rent a game and play it for the duration of my quarantine. However, the only other game I ever bought for my GC was Super Smash Brothers Melee, and I still hold that the N64 version was better.

Still, my all-time favorite Zelda game is "The Legend of Zelda : A Link To The Past" for the SNES.



The hordes of purists may cry "Love none so much as you love the original!" and to them I cry "Nay!" Love and respect to The Legend Of Zelda, but the game is only the groundwork for the beautiful tower of games that followed. The graphics in NES Zelda were shitty, as with all NES games, and the music sounded like Teddy Ruxpin after a long night at the karaoke bar, but those were due to limitations of the era. The real downfall of the first game is the lack of story to move the action. The Zelda storylines are part of the magic of the series; without a strong storyline, Link's quest for the triforce and pursuit of Zelda becomes just a glorified Donkey Kong.

Anyone who has played or seen Zelda II : The Adventures Of Link knows that it is not even worth mentioning.

Then came Link To The Past. The graphics were just good enough, the sound was just good enough, and the story existed! I won't make a lengthy argument for this game; I'll only say that I have played this game to completion more times than any other game I own or have ever played. I've played more full games of Link to the Past than I've played full games of Mario Party. Honestly, that many times. The replay value is staggering. I never get tired of kicking Agnahim's ass, then busting Ganon's face in with that golden arrow.

I've played and beaten almost every other game in the series, excluding Majora's Mask and the Four Swords bullshit; the former because I lost interest, even though the story was spooky, and the latter because it forsakes the spirit of the series. I feel that the Zelda franchise has not been capitalized upon, like so many Nintendo staples have, and I thank God every day that you cannot play as Link in Mario Party. I was not bothered by Link's presence in the Super Smash Bros games, nor by his presence in the GC version of Soul Calibur II, because I had always wanted a chance to prove that Link can kick your favorite game's ass. Furthermore, I think it's plausible that Link would catch wind of some big cross-over fight, then decide to show up and take some names. I DO NOT think it is plausible that there could be, at any time, four Links working cooperatively, sporting different colored runics. Link is Link because he is solitary, unconnected and unattached to everyone but Zelda and Ganon, to whom he is linked by fate.

And for a parting shot, The Wind Waker is a work of genius.


May the way of the hero lead to the triforce!

-Alan

In Addition

I just thought I'd accent Carl's post with some copyrighted images.



He's right about this game. It's a bucket of fun, and it requires absolutely no thought.



He's also right about Daisy. Nothing suspect about playing as a lean red-head in short shorts. Nothing suspicious about her power move being a goddamn flower. No. Purest masculinity.

Much love, my brother.

-Alan

The Folks Back Home

What a strange twist on an old theme. I found myself, this weekend, playing host to my parents. Though they came to last year's parent weekend, I was not happy in St. Louis yet; they played host to my depression and homesickness. Come to think of it, I had just been kicked out of a relationship, so things were at an apex of suck. Point being, I spent as much time with them as I could because I wanted quite badly to go home.

Now that I'm happy, well-adjusted and, most of all, busy, I found myself spending much less time with them. What time we did spend together was dictated by me and my newfound knowledge of the city. I introduced them to my friends, something which I had been unable to do a year ago; not because my attempts were impeded but, rather, because I had no friends. Most importantly, I introduced them to Marina, and that went very well. We ate at Saleem's and Marina quite expertly controlled the conversation. The food was, of course, delicious and filled with garlic. The only downsides were the extreme delay--it took well over an hour for our food to come--and a raucous group of four at the table behind me; they were far louder than they needed to be, and some of the things I overheard were fairly offensive. Of course their food came out before ours. But, table rivalries aside, it was a great experience. My folks liked Marina and she liked my folks.

Now that I look back on it, most of the time I spent with my parents was spent eating, or going to eat. Should that worry me?

I'd say it's a shame that my parents aren't the sort you tell stories about, but that probably saved me a lot of childhood embarassment.

Finally, after carrying my camera around all weekend, I realized, as my parents walked into their hotel, that I hadn't taken any pictures. This is the only one I could get. You'll get some idea what they look like, I guess.



Thanks for a taste of home, Mom and Dad. Travel safely.

-Alan

Home And Away Week

I don't know if you'd gathered--it comes up every so often, but we're not all critical readers--but I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm from Atlanta proper, which is to say I'm within walking distance of downtown; this, as opposed to Alfonzo or Brody, who live in the 'burbs, or what they would call "Metro Atlanta".

I had, for the first time in my life, the duty of showing Atlanta to a friend from another city; in planning for the Alan Orlanski tour of Atlanta, I came across a saying about my fair city: "It's a good place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit." Aside from being a reversal of a well-known phrase, it really captures everything you need to know: at any given moment, you and the people you know are the most entertaining thing around.

It isn't like small, semi-rural towns, where all there is to do on weekends is hang out in parking lots. When you spend time with friends, you go out and you do things, like get stoned and eat at the Waffle House, or go mini-golfing, or play air hockey. I know that anybody reading this is probably gathering a pretty low standard of fun from my hometown, but that just means you've missed the point. You don't go putt-putting by yourself, and you sure as hell don't get stoned and go to Waffle House by yourself (note, if you do, tell someone and they will help you). You go with your friends, or just people you know. Sometimes you go with people you don't know, or a mixture. Sometimes you run into people you know, and the people you were with merge with the new group, or people switch from one group to another. The most entertaining thing, at any given moment, is the person sitting next to you.

So what do I miss? My friends. The gang, the posse, the layabout squad, etc. Up here, in St. Louis, people know me as Alan, as Alan J. Orlanski, sometimes as just Orlanski. Sometimes I'm lumped in with the people around me, so I become Chaz and Alan, or Alan and Marina; but there's one combo, one duo, one powerhouse of loafing that just cannot be beat.

Alan and Carl. We aren't out to get you. We aren't out to get anything. Most of the time, we're not even out.

I swear to you, ever since I met Carl, I've spent more time sitting than I had in the previous 16 years of my life. That's just a statistic, though. The best way to describe Carl is to say he was my first real male friend. I had had male friends before, but it was different for two reasons : 1. They were boys. 2. The friendships were independant of gender. I would have been friends with all the same people up until Carl, had I been a girl.

Carl and I relate to each other through our impoverished masculinity. From 7th grade to 10th grade, I was taught to believe that one should relate, whenever possible, through emotions and tenderness. My Junior High spent a lot of time indoctrinating us with that concept; I realize, in hindsight, that my school is a hippie-liberal school run by squishy women. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this, nor is there anything wrong with hippie-liberal squishiness. My problem was that I was relating to people in a very feminine way, because that is what I had been taught to do. My male peers took the emotional communication theory less to heart, and I came out of 10th grade a fairly confused, feminine fellow.

Carl came the next Fall and we met in Jazz band, though it took time for me to get used to him. I remember, sometime in October 2002, he called me (quite unexpectedly) and asked if I wanted to go see Red Dragon with him. I thought him very inappropriate and too forthcoming. I, over the years, had been taught to be cagey and slow-moving; I had forgotten the days of my youth, where you simply pick up the phone and call who you want to hang out with. I thought, to myself, "But I hardly know him." I see now that I was thinking like a girl.

"Alan and Carl" became a recognizable social unit far before we became comfortable with it. It was an easy pair to make; we both played trumpet, both wore hawaiian shirts, were both social failures on a large scale, AND we hung out a lot. Who wouldn't have lumped us together?

I'm kinda glossing through the details, at this point. There came a certain stage in our friendship where things just started falling together in a zipper-like fashion. Carl's house became, over time, the default location; I compared his house to mine, and realized that his house has everything my house has, only bigger or somehow better. This is fortunate, because Carl is too lazy to have driven to my house all those times. No one can say for sure whether my constant presence in Carl's house was what made his family like me so much, or whether his family's affection for me was why I was there whenever possible, but the answer likely falls somewhere between the two.

Stu and Lucy, and his sister, Katherine; they are like extended family. I've eaten many dinners with them, celebrated birthdays, gone on vacation...I have the information necessary to get into the house when they aren't home, and I have on more than one occasion. They say that you can't choose your family; the Britt's have shown me just what would happen if you could.

Listen to me, being such a modern-day ingrate. Keep in my that exaltation of Carl and the Britts is not meant to suggest a dissatisfaction with my own family. I come from a good home, but a very different one. Perhaps a detailed discussion of that for some other time.



Anyway, here's a drawing of Carl and his girlfriend, Kelsea. It was not until Kelsea drew this and sent it to me that I realized how to properly spell "Kelsea". At any rate, as an homage to her, I will go back and change all my misspellings, and deny they ever happened.

-------

Ah, yes. Something I like about St. Louis.... I hope that any St. Louis enthusiasts who might read this will forgive me for not going on at length here. I'm quite fond of the distance between things here. One of Atlanta's convenient aspects is that almost everything is within 5 to 15 minutes of where you are. Given that, I rarely have to make long trips, or even trips of a medium length. Furthermore, I can be frivolous and careless with my travels, because if I forget to do something, I'm always right around the corner from it.

St. Louis requires more thought and planning. If you want to go to Waffle House, you've got to drive for at least half an hour, so you'd better save your trip until you need those hashbrowns most. The closest Chick-Fil-A is Alfonzo's hangout; Westfield West County. Even Target is about 10 minutes away, so you'd better have a damn good reason to go.

This sounds like a complaint, and from most other people it would be. I, on the other hand, appreciate the experience of asking everyone you know if they want to come along, then piling into a car and driving there, making stops at all the places in-between which are too inconveinient to put off to another time. When we want to go on a pilgrimage from Atlanta, we have to go to Tennessee for fireworks, or The SC for vacation (Carolina, Carolina, here we coooooome). A useful pilgrimage from St. Louis can be done inside 2 hours, which is valuable for a college student who has no free time to speak of.

Speaking of no free time, I've got to keep cramming Russian before my test tomorrow. Thank God I'm taking it pass/fail, or else I might actually be worried.

I'm sorry if this post has hurt your eyes. It has hurt my fingers just as much.

-Alan

In The Best Of All Worlds

To begin, it should be understood that I am in the last leg of one of the best weekends of my life. The perfect blend of activity, intimacy, adventure, loafing and excess. In a car stuffed with friends, old and new, we made a pilgrimage to Westfield Shoppingtown in West County, where we had Alfonzo show us around. It really is a fantastic mall, though I wouldn't want to live there. We made our way back to school, with many detours, and ending the day with a fantastic party in Dauten 23. Short Island Iced Tea, how I love you. Peppermint schapps, as well. Beer tastes just as much like urine as it used to. I woke, this morning, with crusty eyes and dry lips, curled into a smile. The only downside to this weekend is the homework fallout I've left for myself; a pile which, as I type, is being put off further.

And still, in all of this, I think of home. Both nights, this weekend, Carl's dad, Stu, has appeared in my dreams. Friday night, I spotted him through a window of my old school; he had fallen asleep while preparing his curriculum. I glanced only briefly before moving on, finding two members of the class of 2005 wearing pumpkins on their heads and moaning ominously.

Saturday night, I found myself in a very busy airport, standing with friends of mine, though I cannot remember who. I spotted, through the crowd, Stu, with a surprised look on his face. I made my way through the crowd, then brought him back to introduce him to my friends.

Stu isn't one of the most important characters from my hometown, but he is a character I take for granted when I am home. He's an anchor, in a lot of ways; a dot on the map, to which many I love are attached. In that way, a dream about him reminds me of all those others I left in Atlanta.

It brings to mind my trip to California last Spring Break. I was having the time of my life, exploring in a way I had never done before, nor even dreamed of. Still, when I looked into the strange and foriegn faces around me, I could not stop seeing my friends and family. A woman much like my mother rollerblading through Golden Gate park, the spitting image of Carl's girlfriend, Kelci, on the ferry to Alcatraz, or Carl's mother, Lucy, serving me spinach and artichoke dip in Sausalito. All these things served to remind me that, though I was at the peak of my happiness, things would have been made perfect if everyone I know was there with me.

This, I think, is the tragedy of making friends and exploring the world. The more people you meet and the more places you go, the more you have to leave behind. This is why, as long as I am alive and able, I will live my life by tracing larger and larger circles around the planet. I'll get to see everyone I've ever known, and still go someplace new, only to add that new place to the cycle before choosing a new one. I think that is the only way I can be perfectly happy.

I'd call it homesickness, but I'm happy where I am. I wish I could take where I am and where I come from and put them together, but I cannot. I resign to living life where I am, for the moment, until I can return home and live it there again.


In the spirit of this post, this week's theme post will be "one thing we miss about being home, along with one thing we love about being here". The theme will start, as it has thus far, on Monday morning. That gives Alfonzo time to get his favorite movie in.

-Alan