Thursday, February 16, 2006

To Go Home Again

Being back here is supremely surreal.

Y'know, as I typed that, I wanted so badly to say "back home", but I just couldn't. This isn't home. Home is…somewhere else. I don't know where that is exactly, but it's not here.

This town is centuries old, desperately trying to force itself into the 21st century. Like an elderly women trying to reclaim her youth with lipstick and false eyelashes, so this town tries to hide it's brick streets with bright paint and neon lights. It's disheartening to drive down our Mainstreet now. On one end you can find historic homes, antique shops, and brick lined streets peeking through the edges of the pavement. As you travel, time passes. There's the high school we all went to, because it was the only one that we had, more than a century old. It's been modernized and expanded to accommodate the hundreds of kids who pass through it's doors every year, but somehow still manages to hold the history that, in fact, it's older than any of the town's current inhabitants. There's the butcher that always used to scare me as a child, the nostalgic dairy freeze, and the corner store where anyone could buy a pack of smokes, no matter there age.

From there, we pass into no-man's land.

The high school stadium is sponsored now. A car dealership proudly displays it's logo and name across the top of a grotesquely painted arena. Across the street, a mini mall complete with a Starbucks, tanning salon, gas station, and hideous red neon lights that seem glaringly out of place. A futuristic cosmopolitan clashing with vintage nostalgia.

Maybe it's apropos, considering the residents. The younger generation call this town a black hole. Everyone comes up through the school system swearing they're going to make it out. Only a lucky few ever stay gone. Look at me, gone for almost 7 years and somehow I've been sucked back in. I didn't beat the odds. The optimism of the young blends with the bitterness of the old in these streets.

This blending of age and youth means that no matter where you go, your history is always right by your side. Everywhere I go, people know me. Sometimes I know them, but most of the time their face only strikes a distant memory. I wonder how they know my face. In high school, I was a person I barely recognize now. People had such high expectations of me, and I tried my best to fit everyone's mold. The actor, the singer, the photographer, the top student…and from there I became the college student, and then the college graduate….I'm not that girl anymore. I left her somewhere along the roadside on the way to Florida. And it's hard, because there's so much I want to say to the random person who approaches me on the street or in the bank; I want to tell them about the roads I've walked and the places I've been. I want to tell them that I have no idea who they are, and they really have no idea of the woman I've become. But I can't do that.

It's not possible.

So instead, I smile and nod. I pretend that I remember who they are, and the memories that we supposedly shared together. When we part, I wave goodbye and call out a promise to keep in touch. Inside, I know it'll never happen.

Like this town, we share some characteristics of a fond memory, but deep down we're only strangers.

Monday, February 6, 2006

My RAZR is my Designated Dialer

I have a silver Razr, and everyone always asks me what I think of it. I’m honest about it’s flaws- it freezes up, loses numbers, can’t hold a charge and sometimes getting it to power on in the morning is quite a battle. But I am madly in love with my phone.

Somehow, it knows exactly what I’m up to and sometimes will refuse to play along. For my own benefit.

I am, what you would call, a drunk dialer. Or, more accurately, a drunk texter. A few shots of 151 will have me spilling secrets I should take to the grave. Like tonight, for example.
I’d been sending some texts to this guy. Now, I know I have a crush on him. He knows I have a crush on him. However, it’s obvious he doesn’t feel the same way. And though I’m doing my best to pretend it doesn’t matter, it does. Getting messages from him completely makes my day, and seeing him on myspace makes me smile. I can’t stop from hurting when he doesn’t respond the way I wish he would. So I wrote up a very eloquent text message telling him that, because of this, I’m going to leave him be, and if he ever wants to get together, to let me know.

Otherwise, I won’t bother him again. I’m tired of feeling hurt when he breaks plans or doesn’t call.

And somehow knowing that my BAC was over the legal limit for operating a cell phone, my beloved Razr refused to send the message. I tried again.

“Unable to send.”

I tried again.

“Still unable to send, you dumbass. Why don’t you sober up and then try again.?”

So, in probably one of the wiser decisions I’ve made, I deleted the message. And my whole inbox/outbox/draft folders too. Just to be on the safe side.

And that, my friends, is why I love my Razr. Because sometimes, someone just has to take the keypad away. My Razr is my designated dialer. And it may mock me in the morning when I turn on the power, but it won’t let me make a fool of myself with intoxication as my only excuse.

Ah, friendship.

My RAZR is my Designated Dialer

I have a silver Razr, and everyone always asks me what I think of it. I’m honest about it’s flaws- it freezes up, loses numbers, can’t hold a charge and sometimes getting it to power on in the morning is quite a battle. But I am madly in love with my phone.

Somehow, it knows exactly what I’m up to and sometimes will refuse to play along. For my own benefit.

I am, what you would call, a drunk dialer. Or, more accurately, a drunk texter. A few shots of 151 will have me spilling secrets I should take to the grave. Like tonight, for example.
I’d been sending some texts to this guy. Now, I know I have a crush on him. He knows I have a crush on him. However, it’s obvious he doesn’t feel the same way. And though I’m doing my best to pretend it doesn’t matter, it does. Getting messages from him completely makes my day, and seeing him on myspace makes me smile. I can’t stop from hurting when he doesn’t respond the way I wish he would. So I wrote up a very eloquent text message telling him that, because of this, I’m going to leave him be, and if he ever wants to get together, to let me know.

Otherwise, I won’t bother him again. I’m tired of feeling hurt when he breaks plans or doesn’t call.

And somehow knowing that my BAC was over the legal limit for operating a cell phone, my beloved Razr refused to send the message. I tried again.

“Unable to send.”

I tried again.

“Still unable to send, you dumbass. Why don’t you sober up and then try again.?”

So, in probably one of the wiser decisions I’ve made, I deleted the message. And my whole inbox/outbox/draft folders too. Just to be on the safe side.

And that, my friends, is why I love my Razr. Because sometimes, someone just has to take the keypad away. My Razr is my designated dialer. And it may mock me in the morning when I turn on the power, but it won’t let me make a fool of myself with intoxication as my only excuse.

Ah, friendship.

Friday, February 3, 2006

My DVD Player is a Sentient Being

My DVD player is smarter than I am.

No seriously.

That thing it does; remembering where I left off on a dvd, even after I turn off the power? That’s scary. I can even take out the disk, turn off the power, turn it back on, and play another disk, but when I put the original disk back in, it goes right to where I left off. That’s scary on an entirely new level.

No, that’s moving beyond scary and straight into sentience. My DVD player is a sentient being.

“Moonlight mile!” Says I. “And let’s take it from the top!”

“No,” says DVD player. “Alas, the last time you watched this movie, you turned it off at 15:32. There we shall start.”

“But, lo, I did not. Why would I turn off the movie after only 15 minutes of Jakey goodness?” I press the rewind button repeatedly.

“To 15:32 we go!” says the DVD player. “No less, no more. Where we left off is where we shall begin, and that is final.”

I immediately begin plotting the homicide of whoever in my family turned off the movie 3 scenes in, but am quickly distracted by Jake Gyllenhaal standing in a bedroom.

“It’s ok.” I resign myself. “Who needs to see the funeral anyway?” And, because my DVD player knows better than I do, I sit down to watch my movie 3 scenes short.

But if it takes off even a millisecond of my CSI:, I have the original register receipt and a baseball bat in hand. Just in case.

A girl’s got to have her limits.

My DVD Player is a Sentient Being

My DVD player is smarter than I am.

No seriously.

That thing it does; remembering where I left off on a dvd, even after I turn off the power? That’s scary. I can even take out the disk, turn off the power, turn it back on, and play another disk, but when I put the original disk back in, it goes right to where I left off. That’s scary on an entirely new level.

No, that’s moving beyond scary and straight into sentience. My DVD player is a sentient being.

“Moonlight mile!” Says I. “And let’s take it from the top!”

“No,” says DVD player. “Alas, the last time you watched this movie, you turned it off at 15:32. There we shall start.”

“But, lo, I did not. Why would I turn off the movie after only 15 minutes of Jakey goodness?” I press the rewind button repeatedly.

“To 15:32 we go!” says the DVD player. “No less, no more. Where we left off is where we shall begin, and that is final.”

I immediately begin plotting the homicide of whoever in my family turned off the movie 3 scenes in, but am quickly distracted by Jake Gyllenhaal standing in a bedroom.

“It’s ok.” I resign myself. “Who needs to see the funeral anyway?” And, because my DVD player knows better than I do, I sit down to watch my movie 3 scenes short.

But if it takes off even a millisecond of my CSI:, I have the original register receipt and a baseball bat in hand. Just in case.

A girl’s got to have her limits.