Appreciation

For the past few days I have struggled to find something to write about.  It’s not that I didn’t have ideas. Ideas I had in spades: politics, friendship, graduate school, college admissions, the Super Bowl…I just couldn’t decide what to say about what.

Last night, something tragic happened.  The older brother of one of my best friends committed suicide.  I don’t know the details and I’m not sure I want to.  This is a deeply personal thing and I don’t want to intrude.  However, when I found out about this when I got to campus today, I felt like I just had to write something down.

I’m sure that after a little while I will go back to my confusion with dating and irritation at people for cutting me off in traffic.  Today, though, I’m introspective.  I never knew my friends brother all that well, but I felt that I did since I would trade sibling stories with her all the time.  “Oh, my gosh, they did WHAT?!” and “Wow.  What do you even SAY to that? What were they even THINKING?” were common questions we asked each other.  We would laugh at our siblings (and ourselves) and trade stories, both good and bad, to the point where I felt as though I knew her siblings pretty well and she knows mine.

This is a strangely disorienting event for me.  I know that any death in the family can really hit hard (one of my uncles died a few months ago and I still remember exactly where I was standing when I found out that my grandpa had passed away).  This one seems different somehow.  Maybe because it wasn’t an accident or some freak occurrence.  It wasn’t even something that could have necessarily been prevented, but the idea of someone taking their own life chills me to the core.

I have had some very low points in my life.  At one point I actually wondered what would happen if I were to die (a question that really stressed me out because I didn’t want my parents to have to go through the hassle of dealing with my cluttered apartment).  However, even at my worst, I have never considered suicide a legitimate option for myself.  To imagine someone being in so much pain that they would actually kill themselves blows my mind. 

My heart aches for my friend and her family.  To have someone you love be in so much pain that they want to leave this world must be one of the most heart-wrenching experiences to have.  To know that, even if you didn’t always get along, your brother or son or father or whatever will never be around again to mess up your hair or make you roll your eyes in exasperation…I don’t know what that could possibly be like.  In fact, I’m tearing up right now at just the thought of anything happening to my brother.

Despite all the times where we didn’t get along (see: all of high school) and how jealous we always got of each other and how we always thought the other person had it SOOOO much better than we did…It’s funny how those things seemed like such a big deal growing up.  I remember that one of my biggest problems with my brother was that he got to see a rated R movie before I did even though he is three years younger than I am.  I would get upset because he always made friends with people, even when we were camping in the middle of nowhere.  He would get upset because all of his teachers would say, “Oh! You’re her younger brother!”  He also rarely got to be the first to do anything and his grades were never quite as good as mine had been.

I made sure to call him this afternoon to tell him that if he ever feels so sad and without hope that he even thinks for half a second about taking his own life that he should call me.  I will drive over the worst mountain passes in the middle of a blizzard to be there for him.  I don’t care what he’s done (or hasn’t done), he’s my brother and I want him to be around for a really long time.  After all, if I ever end up having kids, they will need a cool uncle to make up for their stick-in-the-mud mother.  They’ll need someone to encourage them to be crazy and express themselves without fear of judgment.  They will need someone who can tell them, “Don’t worry about it.  Your mother did the same dumb stuff when she was your age.”

I hope that all of you that have family give them a call to let them know how much you appreciate them.  Even if it’s just for a few minutes, perhaps that’s all it will take to make them feel loved and appreciated.  I know that I will be calling both my parents tonight (and probably my brother again).

Reconnecting

This is something that happened back around New Year's.  I wrote it and then forgot about it until this morning.  Enjoy!

Holy crap.  I just had the most random and most awkward chat. I used to be acquaintances with a guy named Joseph*.  In elementary school he freaked me out a little (of course, that isn’t saying much since I was incredibly shy and was weirded out by most people) and after elementary school he just got really quiet and shy.  Not a bad guy, but not someone that I ever spent any time with outside of band class.   

Anyhow, he randomly caught me on facebook chat and asked how I've been since we haven't talked or anything in ages.  Normally I think it’s interesting to hear from people I knew back home, but I also typically only hear from people that I actually spent time with.

He asked how I was and if I was working and then told me that he is working for a utilities company.  This whole time I'm thinking to myself, "Why the heck is he even talking to me?" Then he drops this on me: "there were some times were I really thought that we might end up dating. and i always wonder, did you ever think about that too?"

W.T.F.

I just stared at the screen, totally uncomprehending.  I almost looked around for a hidden camera somewhere in my room, no joke.

I told him that no, I never really thought about dating him in high school, but that I also didn't consider dating until senior year and that was only because I wanted to do group dates with people. Here's pretty much how the rest of the conversation went: 

Him: well I always liked you but I never knew if you really ever gave a shit about me...

Me: I thought you were nice, but never really thought about you in a romantic way. I guess I was ambivalent? Although, to be fair, I was ambivalent about most people

Him: well sometimes i thought you might like me but i also had my parents putting a "little" bit of pressure on me since my mom is 1/2 Filipino and my dad is totally white and maybe they thought there was something about that. but i liked you despite any of those "factors".

Seriously. What. The. Hell. Just. Happened.

I have no idea how to feel about this or even if I SHOULD be feeling anything. It's just so...........weird.  Totally. Weird.

The conversation continued thusly:

Him: yeah, real rarity, did you know my parent thought you like me in middle school band because you would alway say hi, i really didn't klnow what you would think but  i alway thought you were a great girl

Me: Haha.  I'm flattered

I think I was too oblivious for most of my teenage years to really have crushes on anyone

Him: well your dad is a white guy liked an asian girl they thought i would be the same, whats funny is i end up attracted to a girl who has a good vocabulary and cant construct a fluid sentence

and what i mean is i think you would have fit the bill. sorry i wasnt mature enough to ask you out...

Me: Thanks

So are you dating someone then?

Him: no, if you want to come back and be my girlfiend i would be excited

Me: Sorry, but I love living in S_______.

Him: haha|! i know, i spent a long time wanting to get out of here, but i just couldnt find a job i could make a true living of until now

on the old time subject im wondering, didn't you like me too back in high school? I was sure we had something going on back then...

Me: Honestly, I didn't really have many crushes in high school.  I think that I had one until sophomore year on Jeremy* and then I just focused on getting into college and moving out of there

Him: lol, i had a laser beam on B______ after college because i had alot of friends at GU who grew up in B______ and knew people in S________

Me: Yeah, I'm planning on staying here for at least another two years

Then maybe moving again

Possibly to Europe with my friend Chris

Him: is chris your boyfiriend?

Me: No, just a good friend who lives in London

Him: sorry, maybe that was jealous me, i guess if i wanted to date you i really should have tried in high school,

Me: *shrug* Hey, if it was meant to be, it would have happened

So what brought this on, anyway?  It seems pretty out of the blue

Him: I do really like intelligent girls and I've known you long enough to tell your not stupid and certainly very smart

i guess I just needed to reconnect with someone who I havent seen in a very long while, its probably good i just let this whole crush thing go now anyway...

Um…what?

Me: Probably. Haha.

Plus there are plenty of smart women in S________.  You just need to find them

Him: well the first smart girl i liked in S_________ was you, thats not embarrassing it just what happenned..

Me: Well thank you.

I think that I should probably get some sleep.  I just noticed the time. Yikes!

Him: keep in touch though, its been fun talking to you after so long

Me: Sure.  It was nice catching up!  Good night!

All I could think for a solid five minutes was, "That. Just. Happened."

This is probably one of the strangest things that has happened to me recently, and that is REALLY saying something.  I swear, the universe is turning me into one giant dating joke. Think about it: do you know anyone else that this stuff happens to?  I don't.  Guess I'm just (un)lucky that way?

* Names have been changed
Also, any time you see X________, I'm removing the name of a location

Dating and Relating

I have been on a handful of dates with people that I’ve met through dating websites. Some have resulted in me meeting some great people.  In fact, two people in particular that I met through those websites are now good friends of mine.  Then there are those that fail miserably.  You know what I’m talking about: the dates where no matter what you say, conversation fizzles out into awkward silence, where you wonder what on earth made you think that you were compatible with the other person.

I thought I’d share two dating misadventures with you today.

I’ve been told that guys don’t read profiles the same way that women do.  When I peruse profiles, I go through everything that they have written, look for common interests, see if they have pictures of themselves smiling, et cetera. Apparently guys are not like that.  The other thing that I’ve noticed is that even the guys who do seem to at least skim my profile may or may not have actually believed anything that I wrote.

This was one of those times. 

We started with Mexican food.  I love Mexican and thought this might be promising since he also suggested we check out Total Recall afterwards.  One of the first things he suggested was talking about comics.  I was thrilled and asked if he preferred Marvel or DC.  He suggested Batman, and I proceeded to wax passionately about Batman and Superman (two of my favorite super heroes).  Unfortunately, his eyes began to glaze over and I knew I had lost him. 

I changed the subject quickly to college football.  I remembered he was a huge fan of his alma mater, so I asked how he felt about the new defensive coach.  He had been hired fairly recently and had not had much time to recruit. Most of the new defensive players had been recruited by the other coaches or by the former defensive coach. As I paused to await his response, I saw the eyes once again glaze over.

Third time is the charm, right?  Thankfully, the dinner was over so we could go to the movie theatre. Now, there aren’t many surprises in the movie.  Just in case any of you are cranky about spoilers, I won’t say too much about it other than that the characters in the movie have a transport going through the center of the earth each day, but haven’t been able to make the land surrounding London habitable (chemical warfare rendered most of the earth uninhabitable). I mused that it seemed absurd that mankind would not be able to create more habitable land.  My date majored in biology in undergrad, so I thought he might find such a conversation interesting.  Nada.  All he said was, “Can’t you just enjoy the movie?”

My only reaction to this was to picture a mushroom cloud.  No joke, I actually saw a mushroom could superimposed over my dates face for an instant. 

Okay, date two.

Guy seemed promising.  PhD in computer science, made interesting conversation, loves travel, has a great job at a big tech company doing what he loves.  Over the course of the evening we covered topics from academics (statistics, economics, politics) to the more abstract concepts behind certain philosophical beliefs.  Before you pass judgment, I actually really enjoyed the conversation.

At some point in the evening, he mentioned that he got a $50,000 signing bonus when he took this most recent job. Blew. My. Mind.  Now, it’s not that I’m impoverished or anything (despite currently living off of student loan money), but this guys signing bonus was more than I’ve made in the past two years.  Later he mentioned that he makes $350,000 a year.  That tidbit of information, of course, floored me.  It also meant that I felt less bad about ordering dessert.

As the evening continued, we eventually began discussing trajectories.  In particular, what directions we would want our own lives to head in.  He seems quite satisfied with his life and where he’s headed (as well he should be).  Then things started going terribly wrong.

My life plan includes working in higher ed with underrepresented populations.  In particular, I want to work with Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, foster youth, first-generation and students from low-income households.  I also want to work for a public college or university where geographic diversity is also celebrated.  To most people, my goals and ambitions are perfectly acceptable.  In fact, my friends are very supportive of my plans.  Sometimes they look at me as if I’m crazy (don’t worry, I’m not trying to convince you that I’m not insane), but they still think that it’s great that I at least have a direction.

This guy, however, asked why I would want to bother working with the bottom 25% of humanity when the resources I had could be better utilized by people in the 50^th percentile.  The more that I talked about it, the more he pushed for me to change my mind.  The more that I tried to explain my passion, the more he seemed to try to convince me that I was wrong to want to work with the people that I want to work with instead of focusing on the students who have the capacity to be the best of the best.  In my opinion, the students who are already ridiculously high-achieving really don’t need any extra help. 

Anyhow, that’s when I realized that this was really not going to work out.  I was on a date with a real-life Sheldon Cooper.

I believe that this might be a sign for me to stop the whole online dating thing for a while.  Maybe just wait to see what else comes my way.  We’ll see.

The Story of My Parents' Wedding

Story Time with Old Man Sharrett!

This week we have a guest writer, one of my best friends, Old Man Sharrett. This is the story of his parents' wedding.

To this day none of them will admit which of them did it. It's as though they all four took a solemn vow in the back of that station wagon as they drank copious amounts of booze, to never, EVER reveal which of them did it.

What is "it" you ask? Either my Uncle Larry (my dad's older brother), Uncle Jim (dad's brother in law), or Brian (his college roommate) wrote the word Why on my father's left shoe and Me? on his right shoe. We are fairly certain that it was not Brian because he is a math teacher in Shelton and we don't think he can spell that high. Anyway, when my parents knelt towards the end of the wedding ceremony one half of the congregation chuckled in hushed amusement and the other gasped in horror.

Now, my grandmother would likely have murdered her new son-in-law and all his kinfolk if it had not been for the SIX CASES of champagne that had been purchased for the reception. Uncle Larry made certain that no one's glass was ever empty. Everyone was drunk. It wasTHE party of 1985. Even my elderly great-grandparents. My Great Uncle Glen, who has never been heard to utter more than five words at a time, was found passed out in a hallway with a lampshade on his head.

The only sober person was my mother, mainly because she was under 21 and would be driving them to their honeymoon in Oregon. Thus, when the time came, they helped my father into the car where he promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat. Now, my mother has this issue with deciding which direction of the freeway she should be getting on. To this day she will have to ask my dad or whoever is navigating, "Do I want to go North or South?" Only for this trip her navigator was sleeping off a God's Own Drunk. Dad woke up from his little nap just south of Seattle where he promptly informed my mother that she was driving them the wrong way. They arrived safe and sound, though somewhat later than anticipated, at the hotel in Oregon that night.

Why College Was Awesome

While walking down the street yesterday, I was reminded why college was so epically hilarious.  Two events in particular occurred: first a cyclist zipped by on his bike.  Not unusual in a city like Seattle, however, this guy happened to be chanting (NOT singing) what sounded like an Irish power ballad.  There really isn’t another way for me to describe this, but let it be known that this guy had quite the sonorous timbre to his voice.

This on its own simply made me smile as I walked the rest of the way to the bus stop.  Once I got to the bus stop was when I really remembered the kinds of things I saw in college.

I was using a handy dandy smartphone application to check how long I would have to wait for my bus.  As I was doing so, a guy rolled up in an epic college beater car.  This poor car was in rough shape.  I’m talking more than just a rusty bumper barely holding on (this one had a rusty bumper that was held on by, I kid you not, duct tape). The hood of the car was held down by a fraying bungee cord, one rear window had been replaced with a piece of plastic, and both driver’s side doors were maroon while the rest of the car appeared to have once been a blue or green. 

The driver, a guy maybe 19 or 20 years old, completed the picture.  He wore a backwards trucker’s hat, had hair that is so blond that it might as well have been invisible, and his gangly limbs did not seem to fit comfortably inside the car.  Next to him rode a very exasperated boxer with its head leaning on the dashboard, drool dripping onto the passenger seat.  As I was taking this scene in, the driver suddenly turned to his dog and laid down some mad Dr. Dre lyrics like a straight up G.

He was seriously into it. I’m talking with the hand motions, jumping up and down in his seat, rocking the car, etc. Oh, and did I mention that there did not appear to be a working radio in this lemon car?  Yeah, no sound except for the kid and his enthusiasm.

I quickly looked around to make sure that I wasn’t the only person bearing witness to this Aryan gangster rap.  Another girl also had her eyes on the car and immediately started texting on her phone.  I continued to stare as he finished the chorus and then, just as suddenly as he had begun, turned forward and slowly drove into the intersection as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

After a series texts sent to various friends, I realized that stuff like this used to happen all the time in undergrad.  Now, perhaps this is because my undergrad university is located in a large, urban area.  Maybe if I had gone to school in the middle of nowhere this would not have been a normal occurrence.  However, this is one of the things that reminds me why my undergrad experience was so awesome.  Not frat parties or major events.  I remember how ridiculous things were and how I spent four years living in a microcosm of insanity and came out a better person.  Or maybe just a more sarcastic person.