Because I Think I Get it Now

Day #136: Fleetwood Mac – “Albatross”

My grandma used to drive me crazy when she’d say, “it’s no fun getting old.” She’d say it so much, it became like a catchphrase, and it annoyed me the way she’d get annoyed by elderly people she knows who fill conversational air with reports about their aches and pains and visits to the doctor. It’s not just a reminder about being old, there is a sadness. I don’t think grandma got it, that we saw age differently. (Or, at least I did, since my brother had in his 20s dismissed 40-somethings as old). But we were raised by our grandparents. The majority of family members and family friends we got to know as we were growing up were from their generation. Age probably didn’t mean the same to us as it did to other kids who were raised by their parents or people their parents’ age.

I dropped by my aunt’s house this weekend to take her home with me to Florida. She’s my really my great aunt, but the title feels cumbersome and makes her sound removed. She’s grandma’s sister-in-law. Her husband was one of grandma’s brothers that we were all closest to, and when he died six years ago, I asked Tom what would happen to my aunt now. They didn’t have children. She would now be a woman in her late 80s learning to living alone. Without the man she had share so much of her life with. Luckily, she knows people in the town who are able to keep her company.

It’s kind of sad when I return to her house in the small North Carolina town where she’d spent most of her life. There’s a familiarity and a routine that hasn’t changed much since we started going there as kids. It’s the same furniture. The same coffee cups. The same clothes. The same routine of finishing the night by asking what we’d want for breakfast in the morning – a sausage biscuit or cereal. And these things have aged as she does. I’ve started to notice where things are falling apart, or are starting to, and it makes me wish more than anything that my uncle was still around to be with her. She tries to keep busy, and remain in good spirits, but to lose someone like that feels like the way a family dog doesn’t fully return to its normal self when the other family dog dies. It’s apparent that something will always be missing.

My aunt has become more conscious about her safety and her health. She keeps my uncle’s dusty jackets on the back porch to give the appearance that a man, and maybe more specifically a man who is into hunting, still lives there. I’ve noticed that her eyesight has gotten so bad that she can hardly read the morning paper anymore. As we sat down to breakfast this weekend, she showed me a bottle of vitamins that she started taking. I don’t remember what it was called, other than the name and the logo both seemed to cheesy to really give any impression that it does anything at all to improve eyesight. Or at least slow down the deterioration. I don’t want to imagine that it will get to be so bad that she will eventually go blind, and I don’t want her to think about it at all, though I’m sure the thought has quietly crossed her mind.

I think I’m finally starting to get what grandma had meant all these years. That it’s “no fun getting old.” I look now at my aunt, and even my grandma who, despite her best efforts to remain industrious, has slowed down quite a lot, too, in recent years, and realized that this will be us in time. We will age and slowly wither whether we like it or not. It’s this that also makes me want to punch people who complain that turning 30-something is getting old. A few gray hairs and persistent aches and pains is nothing. We have no idea yet what it really means.

Because the World is on Autopilot

Day #135: Galaxie 500 – “Strange”

I have made this drive back home hundreds of times since living in DC, and finished another roundtrip tonight. The drive almost feels like the progression through an orchestra. The hour the stretch on the interstate through North Carolina becomes pitch black. The morning sun finally rising over the marsh as I pass the Georgia state line. Passing the same exit when I start to feel like I will never make it to the other end of South Carolina. The accidents creating the traffic jam as I approach Lumberton. The inevitable 3-lane bottleneck in Frederick when I am so close to home and so tired of driving. The breeze of a drive in the HOV lanes through DC late at night. The relief to finally be off the road, in either direction.

Because the Calm Before the Storm Looks Awesome

Day #134: Onra – “Where I’m From”

Florida finally got some rain this week. That’s where I’ve been spending the holiday. Back home. Though tropical storm Beryl might have rained out some Memorial Day plans, I found in it a moment of zen. I miss days like these, when the sun sets in the evening, disappearing from a sky full of rain clouds.

Tomorrow, I make the 13-hour drive back to DC, satisfied.

Kind of like this. (Photo from the Blue Ocean Blog)

Because I Wasn’t Made For Fighting, But At Least My Zingers Would Be Good

Day #133: Woodhands – “I Wasn’t Made For Fighting”

If ever I was confident enough to start a fight, I’d probably open with something like, “I’m going to update your status with my fist!” It may get some laughs before anyone notices I can’t actually fight.

Because That’s When the Kids Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the GAP

Day #132: X-Ray Spex – ” Germ Free Adolescents”

I watched an episode of Dawson’s Creek for the first time today. It was like sitting through a 30-minute Young Life meeting. And yes, that’s including the subplots of adulterous parents and the student-teacher fantasy, and the excess of neutral-colored clothing. It’s quite different than the angsty high school years portrayed in My So-Called Life, which aired only a few years before Dawson’s Creek. It’s like you can almost pinpoint where (white) youth became completely sterilized.

Does not compute.

Because I’ve Been Writing These Love Letters to Vienna

Day #131: Lazerhawke – “So Far Away”

I love traveling. I think it’s in our blood in our family. Gramma would take us on lengthy drives in the summers to the Midwest when we were kids. And once my brother and I were old enough, we got passports and started traveling overseas with Tom. I think that if I had the means and the freedom, I would probably spend most of my life wandering the globe, which reminds me of something a guy once said to me at a party, that I seemed to be more comfortable just being a spectator. Indeed.

I’ve been going through the tons of photos Tom and I took during our trip to Vienna last month, though I’m not yet quite sure how to post them, as I prefer to eliminate the practice of writing such ridiculously dense blogs that take weeks to finish. The trip kind of happened on a whim. Tom had plans for one of those guided tours around India this spring, and I had intentions of going, too. It’s a more ideal time for me to travel because these annual meetings at work tend to make most summer travel prohibitive. And, Tom always goes to a number of great places every year. Matt got to join him for most; I’ve missed out on quite a lot. With the possibility of work creating a scheduling conflict again this year, thus keeping me from going on the India trip, I begged Tom to postpone so I could still go somewhere with them, too (in that typical, baby-of-the-family tag-along fashion). Tom kind of said, OK, but asked what the alternative destination should be.

Where do you want to go? That is the kind of question that momentarily makes traveling anywhere possible till the realities of time and expense kick in. We rattled off some possibilities, and then our eyes strayed to Europe. Maybe we could go back to Rome. Or Athens. Or maybe we would finally see Germany. I suggested Austria. There were ads on the metro last summer and the stock photos somewhat resembled Amsterdam, another gorgeous city (although one unfortunately overshadowed by American’s fondness for its “coffee shops” and other rare permissions). It was sort of a mindless suggestion, like the way advertising puts certain inexplicable notions in your head; I just wanted to go, I didn’t really know why. Tom did a quick estimate of what it would cost to go and stay in Vienna, and we looked at lists of things to see out there. It became a viable contender and so for now, the trip to India would be put on hold. We were going to Vienna!

I hesitate to call it the Best Trip Ever, only because my brother wasn’t able to go at last minute. But, I really loved Vienna. A lot! It was like glimpsing a better way of life. Where the Dream hadn’t yet been squandered. Mind you, we were viewing everything through the lens of a tourist, but Austria’s capital city seems prosperous enough. It’s breathable. It’s not so overcrowded. There’s no fear of being trampled at any moment the way you might when trying to share a sidewalk with hoards of people in a place like New York City. The food was wonderful and wonderfully inexpensive. The weather was ideal. And the Viennese were so polite, I couldn’t imagine returning to the obnoxious slobs I frequently encounter back home. In fact, there seemed to be this strange, understood sense of civility and order in Vienna. Tom remarked how patiently people waited at the crosswalks for the signals to change, even when it was apparent that there was no oncoming traffic. And, the subway fares were collected on the honor system.

Vienna isn’t a place that Americans flock to as often as other parts of Western Europe, and because the dominate language is German, Tom and I remained pleasantly isolated. It was, for several days, our little slice of Heaven.

More words and pictures to follow soon.

Leaving the Naschmkrt at sunset.

Because the Scientists Started Bands

Day #130: Starflyer 59 – “All My Friends Who Play Guitar”

It’s ten minutes to midnight and I haven’t got anything meaty to post. So instead, I offer some trivia from the School of Fail blog. An infographic (as the kids say) about musicians who have their doctorate degrees. May this teach you kids an important listen: stay in school. Don’t do drugs. And learn a few simple guitar chords in case you need something to fall back on.

On a side note, The Offspring would have had two of their own on the list, had Dexter Holland completed his PhD in molecular biology. He’s still got a bachelors and masters in the subject, which earned him a mention in Cracked’s “8 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Geeks.”

(click on the graphic to enlarge)

Because I Could Use an Intervention

Day #129 – Arcade Fire – “Intervention”

The new job is a mobile workplace. We got laptops instead of desktops. And when I started last month, I was issued a Blackberry. My first remote connection to never-ending company communication.

Today, I was issued an iPhone, which will eventually replace the Blackberry. I carried it back to my office with my other two phones (including my personal phone) and laid them out on my desk. Just as I am coming to terms with the fact that I spend way too much time in my day rapt by these devices (it isn’t good for the eyes, much less my social skills), I now have this slick new phone just begging to played with. My fingers were just twitching with the eagerness to download and customize. Goddammit!

And so begins the plan for some self-imposed intervention. I will be handing the phones to the family with orders to lock them away during the visit back home this weekend. Maybe then I’ll be able to concentrate on reintegrating into the real world. I wonder if it is still as I remember.

Because I Was Bested by the Backyard

Day #128: Madness – “Our House”

Phil and I had hardly done anything with the house in the last two months, and for that reason, I was certain we were never going to get it on the market this year. But this weekend, we hunkered down, cleaned up, and made the place presentable enough to take some photos and pass them along to our real estate agent. As of Monday, we were allowed to stand in the front yard, wave our scepters, and officially declare this home For Sale! This makes me a first time home seller, and all before being a first time home buyer!

As a result, the house is as clean as it’s ever been. I didn’t think that was possible either. But, we’ve renovated and repaired. We moved a lot of our crap into storage, and donated a lot more elsewhere. It’s almost like living in a furniture showroom, and I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here and and pretend that there is no storage unit, and that the gigantic, unused treadmill that used to occupy half of our living room is gone, and not sitting in our friend’s basement, waiting for a pickup. I want to live here, where things are of a manageable size. A comfortable amount.

Phil has a sort of mental list of features he’s like to have in the next place we buy. Seeing as how I agree with a lot of them, like having a dishwasher and an extra bathroom, I will save mine for more a more unique demand: to find someplace with a backyard as awesome as the spacious, landscaped one with the patio we have now. The one that has been the site of many a summer barbecue, corn hole, and the Great Slip n’ Slide Run of 2010, which produced a lot of worthy bruising. Obsessing over a yard made sound ridiculous, but when you live around the city, having a decent-sized plot of green to call your own is kind of a big deal.

Ah, heaven…

Because We Survived an Apocalypse and the First Year of Marriage

Day #127: Gold Panda – “Marriage”

Well Phil, we made it to our first anniversary. Now we can get those t-shirts made!

Also, a happy fifth to Mr. and Mrs. C. who celebrated this weekend. It seems like only yesterday that DC was diving into a hotel swimming pool in a full tux.