July 25, 2003
Farewell Columbus, See You Soon Northwestern
Today is my last day in Columbus for a while.
So if I am ever going to be insightful or demonstrate any kind of depth, now would be the time. Leaving your hometown, what provides better revelations?
So we both knew it was not going to happen. What were we going to do? Shit happens.
Ohh I am in a funk. Half of my funk I am not allowed to write about, though I broke the rules right there too. Fuck it. I am temporarily going to be a college girl, testing my limits and breaking rules is what I am supposed to be all about. If you buy the hype. Maybe I should, I buy everything else. Just look at my vast shoe collection.
I will not go away angry.
I will not go away angry about things that no one should get angry about.
I will not write angry letters until my anger has simmered for at least a day.
I just hope that I will get out of my funk extremely soon, I am supposed to have dinner with some of my nearest and dearest tonight and I want to be joyful. I want to laugh and smile. I want everyone else to laugh and smile. At the very least I do not want to make a miserable evening.
So far one of the biggest perks of my day was going to Office Max and loading up on my favorite pens. I even got my packing done, I had horrible images of me packing at midnight or just carrying clothes in garbage bags or something.
It was the first time I packed myself 100%. Usually my mom helps me because I am generally hopeless. This time she just kept on running through check lists with me, occasionally reminding me of one particularly large item or another I had forgotten. That would be followed with a grown and serious contemplation of how necessary beach towels or alarm clocks or whatever else was. Towels take up so much room! As do dictionaries and thesauruses!
God knows why, but I am a little peeved I have to bring a dictionary and thesaurus. It will be endlessly useful, I am sure, but with an internet connection my life and my writing (which are really one in the same) depend on m-w.com.
Ohhh and I do not enjoy being the servant girl or errand girl or whatever other duties have been laid on my shoulders in these last days of mine by my parents. I was being useless and watching TV when my dad asked me when I planned on doing the scrapbook for my grandparent's wedding anniversary. Quick behind the scenes tidbit: I almost typed his parent's instead of my grandparent's. If that does not speak volumes about my temprament I do not know what does.
The way I see it, he volunteered for the project. I do not even mean to be bitchy in saying this, it did not even occur to me that I should be doing anything with the scrapbook. It was his deal. I do have another scrapbook for my grandfather I am supposed to be working on, but who are we kidding, that will NEVER get done.
Anyway, I worked on that for about a half hour. Sticking photo corners on pictures gets old really fast. I am not a scrapbooking kind of girl. Years from now I will kick my own ass in the ground for not having pictures of people or events, especially not pictures of me, but for now I am happy to not have my own pictures to organize. No need for me to scrapbook.
Trying to take my picture could be an extreme sport. It takes cunning. So far I have not become violent but if I were a celebrity, I am sure I would not be unlike Sean Penn, hitting photographers and what not. Bastards deserve it, this face is not meant to be captured on film.
Part of one of the many reasons why I never put my diary up for review is I know one of the complaints will be the lack of pictures of myself. That is on purpose and it is not going to change anytime in the near future. There would also be a complaint about the lack of cast page and a billion other things.
I like this how it is (mostly).
My anxiety for Northwestern is starting to set in again. Hopefully I will find a few people that I can happily spend time with. A male people would not be the world's worst thing, either. My underwear collection says I am ready, but I think that is the only indication. One of my goals there is to be lighter and brighter.
And to write like a maniac, perhaps producing a piece or two worthy of showing to other people.
Time for a lighter anecdote that I should have written about yesterday.
I was working and one of the guys from my Chemistry class said hi to me (he works in the snackbar). No big deal. Then he comes back and walks in because he says he has never seen the place before. He started telling me about how he told off a telemarketer for the New York Times, specifically about how some of the columnists are disrespectful to the president, etc. Even more specifically, Maureen Dowd.
"Maureen Dowd?!" I said to him. "I LOVE MAUREEN DOWD! I save some of her columns!" Then I ran over to my purse where I keep my written journal and quickly flipped to her recent Op-Ed on Clarence Thomas. I showed it to the guy for proof, he was slightly disgusted, then continued on about how he was the big bad republican against the telemarketer.
I forgot to swoon.
When I went out to my car to drive home, I found a note on my car. At first all I saw was "sucks" and I wondered who felt so motivated to tell me I sucked on my car. I am used to and have come to expect the guestbook abuse, but this whole car note thing was new. Then I got closer and saw it said "Maureen Dowd Sucks." No one signed the note, however.
I thanked the author for the note and he denied writing it. "It must have been some other disgruntled Republican, there are a lot of us out there." After some limp political discussion the whole thing was put to rest.
Well obviously the guy wants me. Heh. Not at all, but in my head I will always think of it has his love note for me. It made me smile, though. God knows what I would do if I were not easily amused.
I just hope that I can find some people of equal charm and humor at Northwestern. I am sure I will, but I am still slightly weary and scared of going. There is no turning back so I might as well suck it up, but leaving is never easy.
I just hope my departure will be relatively happy and my welcome there and my welcome back here all warm.
Love,
Mandy