The Stars Align, An Active Account
To anyone who comes here to read about my life, I'm really very sorry about the dead air. I'm slowly making my way over this week's hurdles, and I'm almost halfway through the thick of it. Soon, I'll be back to posting qith some regularity, and, hopefull, Chaz and Vlad will be back to make their contributions. Surely, they will have some interesting stories to tell.
Last Wednesday, I set out for the St. Louis Lambert airport to pick up Bridget Lough. Bridget, like myself, is from Atlanta; as a result of this, stood by the wrong terminal for nearly twenty minutes before realizing that she would be flying in from Minnesota, where she goes to school. What's worse, I was waiting for the wrong airline. Her flight was slightly delayed, so none of my mistakes mattered. Still, it's funny the sorts of mistakes an seemingly intelligent mind can make.
We came back to campus and I fed her, then introduced her to the Dauten club. She was well recieved, but overwhelmed by the manner in which the denizens of Dauten interact; the impact of meeting 8 new people in a half-hour period, then trying to understand as many as five conversations occurring simultaneously... I can understand why she was overwhelmed. In fact, seeing my friends as Bridget saw them, that night, made me wonder how I ever managed to not be overwhelmed.
I took her to meet my old RA, Rose. Because Rose was not in her room, we went up onto the roof of Beaumont. We stood up there and talked about my friends, talked about Bridget's girlfriend, talked about Carl, plans for the weekend. As we left the roof, we checked and found Rose in her room. There was a brief introduction and chat, but I needed sleep.
I took her back to the suite, and we had what she called "a sleepover"; I had not thought of it as such until she said this. The sleeping arrangements for the weekend had been a not insignificant source of stress in the weeks prior. We talked until, roughly, 1:30, at which point I fell asleep quietly, albeit uncomfortably, on the floor.
Thursday: Woke up, went to classes, then had Bridget come and visit me at my internship (rats and pigeons. I feel like I've alluded to this before, but I really should post some pictures). Bridget and I have always related to each other through science, both literally and metaphorically. Explaining the details of the experiment to her felt, in many ways, like a rite of passage. Being the pompous ass that I am, there are many areas in which I have felt superior to Bridget; science has never been one of them, and so she occupies a mentor's position in my mind. I was proud, strangely.
We returned to the suite and napped, then went out to climb trees. It feels strange, all of this. Climbing trees had always been one of Bridget's wishes while we were dating, though, to my knowledge, we never did go climbing until now. We scaled a tree which I had been previously afraid to explore. I had a little trouble getting down and thought that I might have to drop, but I worked my way back to a stable position and managed to find my way down (with her guideance, of course. She's something of an authority on climbing trees. It reminds me of stories of my mother as a child; she climbed so incessantly that my grandparents called her "Monk").
From a ginko tree outside the library, I called Carl to ask where in the country he was. "70 miles outside Chattanooga" he told me. I expected him to be much closer, so I asked what took so long. He said "We had to make a stop, first". I asked what for. He said "To purchase marijuana". I asked him if his sister wasn't sitting right next to him, and he said she was.
"Oh...... Excellent."
We dined with Marina, her suitemates, Marion and Patricia, Larkin and her boy, Kay, and a number of other people who arrived on the scene as we ate. The rest of the night was to be spent waiting for Carl. He arrived around 1, and immediately told me I needed to shave. We put Katherine's things in Marina's suite, then the hometown four (Myself, Bridget, Carl and Katherine) took a drive. In the course of this drive, we coined a new euphemism, which I will use for the duration of my account. We checked out the things that Carl got at Old Navy. I opened the Old Navy bag, unzipped one of the things in the bag, then stuffed broken up pieces of something else in the bag into the thing that I pulled out of the thing that I unzipped. God bless Old Navy.
And weed.
Our meanderings took us to a 7-11, where I was the only person to get something. We attempted to find a QuikTrip, but somehow failed to do so. We came back to the suite and talked, then all fell asleep the instant I put "Waking Life" into the DVD player. We woke up at 6 am, and we delivered Katherine to Marina's suite. We returned to the suite so I could get my precious 100 minutes of sleep.
This is the end of the first installment.
-Alan
Last Wednesday, I set out for the St. Louis Lambert airport to pick up Bridget Lough. Bridget, like myself, is from Atlanta; as a result of this, stood by the wrong terminal for nearly twenty minutes before realizing that she would be flying in from Minnesota, where she goes to school. What's worse, I was waiting for the wrong airline. Her flight was slightly delayed, so none of my mistakes mattered. Still, it's funny the sorts of mistakes an seemingly intelligent mind can make.
We came back to campus and I fed her, then introduced her to the Dauten club. She was well recieved, but overwhelmed by the manner in which the denizens of Dauten interact; the impact of meeting 8 new people in a half-hour period, then trying to understand as many as five conversations occurring simultaneously... I can understand why she was overwhelmed. In fact, seeing my friends as Bridget saw them, that night, made me wonder how I ever managed to not be overwhelmed.
I took her to meet my old RA, Rose. Because Rose was not in her room, we went up onto the roof of Beaumont. We stood up there and talked about my friends, talked about Bridget's girlfriend, talked about Carl, plans for the weekend. As we left the roof, we checked and found Rose in her room. There was a brief introduction and chat, but I needed sleep.
I took her back to the suite, and we had what she called "a sleepover"; I had not thought of it as such until she said this. The sleeping arrangements for the weekend had been a not insignificant source of stress in the weeks prior. We talked until, roughly, 1:30, at which point I fell asleep quietly, albeit uncomfortably, on the floor.
Thursday: Woke up, went to classes, then had Bridget come and visit me at my internship (rats and pigeons. I feel like I've alluded to this before, but I really should post some pictures). Bridget and I have always related to each other through science, both literally and metaphorically. Explaining the details of the experiment to her felt, in many ways, like a rite of passage. Being the pompous ass that I am, there are many areas in which I have felt superior to Bridget; science has never been one of them, and so she occupies a mentor's position in my mind. I was proud, strangely.
We returned to the suite and napped, then went out to climb trees. It feels strange, all of this. Climbing trees had always been one of Bridget's wishes while we were dating, though, to my knowledge, we never did go climbing until now. We scaled a tree which I had been previously afraid to explore. I had a little trouble getting down and thought that I might have to drop, but I worked my way back to a stable position and managed to find my way down (with her guideance, of course. She's something of an authority on climbing trees. It reminds me of stories of my mother as a child; she climbed so incessantly that my grandparents called her "Monk").
From a ginko tree outside the library, I called Carl to ask where in the country he was. "70 miles outside Chattanooga" he told me. I expected him to be much closer, so I asked what took so long. He said "We had to make a stop, first". I asked what for. He said "To purchase marijuana". I asked him if his sister wasn't sitting right next to him, and he said she was.
"Oh...... Excellent."
We dined with Marina, her suitemates, Marion and Patricia, Larkin and her boy, Kay, and a number of other people who arrived on the scene as we ate. The rest of the night was to be spent waiting for Carl. He arrived around 1, and immediately told me I needed to shave. We put Katherine's things in Marina's suite, then the hometown four (Myself, Bridget, Carl and Katherine) took a drive. In the course of this drive, we coined a new euphemism, which I will use for the duration of my account. We checked out the things that Carl got at Old Navy. I opened the Old Navy bag, unzipped one of the things in the bag, then stuffed broken up pieces of something else in the bag into the thing that I pulled out of the thing that I unzipped. God bless Old Navy.
And weed.
Our meanderings took us to a 7-11, where I was the only person to get something. We attempted to find a QuikTrip, but somehow failed to do so. We came back to the suite and talked, then all fell asleep the instant I put "Waking Life" into the DVD player. We woke up at 6 am, and we delivered Katherine to Marina's suite. We returned to the suite so I could get my precious 100 minutes of sleep.
This is the end of the first installment.
-Alan
posted by Alan Orlanski at 1:19 PM
1 Comments:
"Being the pompous ass that I am"
hehehe
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