adiva_calandia

. . . So today, in Computing, I made the mistake of looking up pictures of my hometown on Flickr.

And then over in Milliways, I was threading with an Alaskan.

And then a friend from home that I haven't seen since July called tonight and we gossiped about the theatre scene.

And now I just put on my Alaska Grown T-shirt, which is my sleep shirt.




And I'm really, really homesick.

December 13th's not that far away, really.

[Poll #1040710]

WTF, thunder, did you just, like, lurk until I got back on the computer? *unplugs laptops*

I am triumphant! In spite of having acquired new clothes in the last week (I has well-fitting bras nao!) I managed to repack everything into one bag. Go me!

Packing is hot work, man. But oddly enough, it seems to have re-energized me.

We spent today in Hyde Park in Chicago, wandering the U Chicago campus (there were no zombies) and 57th street. There were bookstores and Greek food, and it was good.

JESUS lightning. *jumps* *uses appropriate icon*

ETA: Also, idea for a short story that my dad and I came up with today.

"Hi, I'm Jack Lemming, running for president. Follow me." ("And this is my running mate, Robert Domesticated Turkey.")

I'm not really in a mood to do much of anything.

We drove from Wheaton to Buchanan today, which means we went through three states. We also went by a 40-ft RV that was just catching on fire, and a trucker who'd stopped his truck and was running for the scene with a fire extinguisher. Apparently we timed it just exactly right -- my aunt and uncle were driving the opposite way a little while later and called to say that the road was totally blocked by police cars and fire trucks and so forth. Oh, and when we pulled into the driveway here, we discovered that one of our tires was going flat.

So. Exciting!

So now we're in Buchanan, just like every August. Except that it's entirely, entirely different.

Mom got here yesterday so that she and her siblings could work more on estate issues. I walked in today, and I noticed the moving-out-like chaos of boxes and items and so forth, sure. Hard not to notice.

And then I went into the bathroom and closed the door, and there was a big, blank rectangle where there used to be a poster of Mary Cassatt's The Bath. Just . . . nothing. Just the remnants of tape or glue or whatever had been used to put that poster up who knows how many years ago.

That's when it finally sank in that everything is changing, elementally, at its very core. Buchanan has been a constant -- we stay in the house with the long blacktopped driveway, with the huge maple in the yard, with the porch swing, with the old piano with the out of tune B-flat, and we go to Lake Michigan and we go to Marzita's, only now it's Lucy's, only now it may not even be that anymore soon, and the family drives us crazy but the majority of it is worth the crazy-making.

Who knows what'll happen to the house now, though? Even if the sibs decide to keep it, it'll be empty of all this detritus, all these things that have built up over sixty years of continued occupancy, all this stuff that makes the house what it is. And if they don't decide to keep it, what happens to the family meet-ups? If you take out the core of something, it can still stand, but will it?

To top it all off, of course, there's the still-unsettling fact that when we leave here, I won't go home. I'll go to college. The entirety of my routine has been thrown into confusion.

But some things don't change, because our family has a lot invested in tradition. There's a right way to do things, and a wrong way, and then there's the White way. Which is why now, we're going to go to Warren Dunes on Lake Michigan, by God, and tonight we're going to eat sweet corn at my uncle's, and let nothing stand in our way.

Tonight we spend in Ottumwa again; today we go to Fairfield, IA, for Mum to visit friends there.

I intend to spend as much time as possible sleeping, reading, or drinking coffee. Only ten days left before college!

From Ottawa, KA, to Ottumwa, IA today.

I'm too sleepy to add anything else of note. Oh! Except! We saw a garage band playing on the street last night -- real small town America type scene. The bass line was great, the rest of it left me ambivalent. mmmmmmelectricbassguitar.

Okay, now we drive. Or, well, I sleep in the back seat.

"Welcome to Alaska! Here's $1000!"

WIN.

Go see the Simpsons Movie. Yes. Do it. OMG. My dad and I were laughing so hard at the Alaska jokes; I felt sorry for the people in front of us. We were glad we saw it in Oklahoma (although I understand seeing it with an Alaskan audience is pretty fantastic, too). But it has more to recommend it than Alaska jokes! It's. It's just. If you like the Simpsons, GO SEE IT. You will not be disappointed.

When we weren't in the movie theater, Dad and I wandered around Oklahoma City trying to find a retail store that had post-its (We could barely find retail; we eventually found post-its in a different hotel's gift shop) and complaining about the heat. Good Lord, the heat.

We also ended up wandering by the Oklahoma City Bombing Monument, which was quite nice. What got me, though, was that in the midst of this lovely, austere memorial to one crazy guy and the death he caused . . . all of us tourists ended up gathered around a duck and her ducklings.

Life marches on, and joy is harder to extinguish than some people think.

Tonight, we dine at the Cowboy Museum with the rest of Mum's conference. We have little "Vegetarian" tags, for ease of identification and studying -- I mean, serving.

Today we go more or less straight south to Oklahoma City. (When we head to Kansas City in a few days, we miss Lawrence by a bare 40 miles. Helas.)

So I forgot to mention! As silveraspen's party, I was giving my 30-seconds-or-less definition of dramaturgy: "It's playwrighting, and textual analysis, and historical research, all the geeky stuff." One of the other guests exclaimed "She can say 'textual analysis' and she's not even an undergrad yet!"

And I was Discreetly Smug.

But last night I realized I TOTALLY should've said "Blame Aspen and Viv and their ilk*! Milliways has ruined me." 'Cause it's true.

(I mean, I missed a chance to use "ilk" in a sentence! What's wrong with me?)


*Sweeney, Shati, Mir, you're getting especially Significant Looks, but ALL of you are getting eyed.

Had a really wonderful time at silveraspen's place, with vivien529 and a passel of their very welcoming friends, watching "Once More With Feeling" and listening to them sing along in preparation for the performance they're off to later tonight. I've only seen it once before, so I didn't really manage to sing with them (alas! They were lovely harmonizers, too!) but I did have a ton of fun.

And there were no trips to the ER by either Aspen and her guests or my family, so I think the trip can be counted a success.

Tomorrow we head out for Solina, KA, and the day after to Oklahoma City. And my computer still doesn't work. *resigned* I won't be entirely incommunicado for the next while, because Mom is kind enough to let me use hers when I need to, but still. No AIM and probably not much threading for a bit.

Oh, well. The evening more than made up for the computer frustration. :) Not to mention getting to Tattered Cover!

(PS: Can anyone hook me up with a copy of OMWF? *puppyeyes*)

We're in Evergreen, CO, staying at the house of one of my mom's old college buds. They sell fancy French knives. :D Cool people, all told, and nice enough to take us to their office after hours so we can use their Internet here.

They also have a very sweet, very soft, very gray kitten by the name of Trillby.

Ugh. I am sleepy, man. I was up really late last night, and didn't get as much sleep on the road as I would've liked.