Monday, October 27, 2003
stumbleine
Every time I change the bed I think of a girl I dated in college. She helped me change the bed once. I appreciated it because it was a pain changing a bed bunked four and a half feet in the air.
I think of the Smashing Pumpkins song I played over and over one night after she had dumped me . . . weeks and weeks earlier. Said she would call and then all the sudden so much time had passed. And then she did eventually call . . . on my birthday, complaining about my attitude. And that was one of those Sixteen Candles moments, in which I, ought of pure desire to not act like a high school girl full of fluff and self-importance, couldn't bring myself to tell her that I had attitude because she dumped me, then ignored me until calling me that day, that day wondering why I was such a touchy, emotional asshole.
I was fast then, still breaking ground, running new mileage, heavy miles, racing like there was so much time in front of me, still willing to take risks during big races. What pisses me off, writing this is it comes out so melodramatic and imagistic, like I'm using "big races" as some sort of crappy metaphor for something else. But that's really literal. I mean nothing else. Running was the best part of that year.
She called me the next fall. I wanted to talk to her like pilgrims wanted dinner. (See, when I try to be literal, I'll intentionally crack that.) But I spoke clipped generalities while my new roommate maintained that quizzical look, as if he wasn't listening. Later, much later, I thought I'd been too hard on her. Should have at least been personable. But how do you trust somebody -- how do you even have a conversation with them -- when you know they're going to take it all back to their friends for disection?
This was nothing visionary. Stories like that happen over and over on every college campus in America. Freshmen girls huddling together like cows loaded onto the truck. Guys walking around parties like attitude was currency. No one extending a single, meaningful limb. Every one of them afraid -- yes, even the cocky ones -- mostly on levels below conversation, thought, that subtext of mirror; you press your hand against it, you see the reflection of it in the mirror. And there's that space between, that you just can't get to. But it's always there.
"Misspent youth, fakin' up a rampage."
I think of the Smashing Pumpkins song I played over and over one night after she had dumped me . . . weeks and weeks earlier. Said she would call and then all the sudden so much time had passed. And then she did eventually call . . . on my birthday, complaining about my attitude. And that was one of those Sixteen Candles moments, in which I, ought of pure desire to not act like a high school girl full of fluff and self-importance, couldn't bring myself to tell her that I had attitude because she dumped me, then ignored me until calling me that day, that day wondering why I was such a touchy, emotional asshole.
I was fast then, still breaking ground, running new mileage, heavy miles, racing like there was so much time in front of me, still willing to take risks during big races. What pisses me off, writing this is it comes out so melodramatic and imagistic, like I'm using "big races" as some sort of crappy metaphor for something else. But that's really literal. I mean nothing else. Running was the best part of that year.
She called me the next fall. I wanted to talk to her like pilgrims wanted dinner. (See, when I try to be literal, I'll intentionally crack that.) But I spoke clipped generalities while my new roommate maintained that quizzical look, as if he wasn't listening. Later, much later, I thought I'd been too hard on her. Should have at least been personable. But how do you trust somebody -- how do you even have a conversation with them -- when you know they're going to take it all back to their friends for disection?
This was nothing visionary. Stories like that happen over and over on every college campus in America. Freshmen girls huddling together like cows loaded onto the truck. Guys walking around parties like attitude was currency. No one extending a single, meaningful limb. Every one of them afraid -- yes, even the cocky ones -- mostly on levels below conversation, thought, that subtext of mirror; you press your hand against it, you see the reflection of it in the mirror. And there's that space between, that you just can't get to. But it's always there.
"Misspent youth, fakin' up a rampage."
