A Mighty Fine Life

You tell me: is it 2000, or 2009? I spent the afternoon and evening sitting around Sarah's house, chilling with her, Nelly, Kat, and Tim. AKA, the high school gang (minus Jared, sadly). Kat, Tim, and Sarah still live around these parts (or live around here again), but somehow Noelle and I had awesome timing because she's in from Oregon.

So it was a lovely, nostalgic evening. I think I've known Sarah since... 3rd grade? 4th? I became friends with Noelle in 6th, and Kat and Tim in high school. I'm absolute shit at keeping in touch with people, as 99% of people who knew me in college have since learned, but it's nice to be able to come how and still find friends.

In related news, I drove! I haven't done that in three and a half years, and never liked it much to begin with. But out in the country, there isn't much to hit. Heh. But I managed to stay on the road, and even in a single lane. (In fact, I prefer it when there are lines on the road, so I can better judge where the car is.) But for some reason, the one thing I'm not intimidated by is driving at night, so the way home was surprisingly fine. (There are no such thing as street lights on 99% of Newfield roads. This town, for the record, does not have a single stoplight. It really is that small.)

So: nice evening. Drove! Home safe. The end.

Clearly, yesterday morning when I said "sporadic updates" or whatever, what I meant was "several times daily flist spam."

So it turns out that if you're 25 years old and use a High School Musical wallet, when that wallet is left on a bus, then turned into the driver and then to the station and you have to come collect it, the guy who hands it to you will smirk at you.

Bah, humbug. My cheap-ass plastic wallet makes me happy whenever I see it.

The money -- about $19 -- was gone when it was turned in, but the credit card was still there, thankfully. And it was at the same station where I'd just been, not at any of the Cornell stops or Elmira or somewhere, thank god. They called my mom when we were still on the way home, since I apparently had her business card in my wallet, and the guy at the station figured we'd be related, based on having the same last name and all. So no crisis, just smirking.

But now I'm home with my folks, chilling out. I shucked some corn for dinner and walked around the property to see all the new gardeny stuff they've done. It's very green out, and there's so much space. And quiet. Very odd, if you ask me.

ETA: Conversations had by my parents since I arrived home:

Mom (using a leaf blower): Don't tell me anything until I turn this off, I can't hear.
Dad: What? Turn that off, you won't be able to hear what I'm saying!
Mom: Wait until I turn it off! I can't hear you!
Dad: I can't hear you! What? Turn that off!

And:

Mom: The toothpick just came out of this cleanly, so is it done?
Dad (about 80% asleep): Stick it with a toothpick, see if it comes out clean.

And I won't even share the puns. Lordy.

Cellphone and iPod are both charged. Tickets are purchased. I'm off to spend the next five days-ish with the 'rents upstate, so updates/flist reading will be sporadic. <3

So I'm home -- like, home-home in upstate -- for the first time since I moved, almost two years ago. The house has changed a bit; improvements include skylights in the wooden living room, and also, no more dial-up internet. THANK GOD.

So I'm here. Ithaca is dreary and gray, but it wouldn't be Ithaca if it wasn't spitting rain the moment we drove in. At least there's no snow on the ground at the moment.

Mom and Dad's cats are tiny! I'm so used to Lilly, the hugest cat in all the land, that I forgot then when cats can run and play (and kill wild things) in vast fields like the ones around our house, they end up all skinny and whatnot. Very different from our apartment-only cap, who only hunts bottlecaps and prefers flopping to dashing.

And now, to write a novel until Mom gets home from work.

Here's a hometown anecdote for everyone, from my drive home ten minutes ago.

You know when you see a deer right by the side of the road, and realize that if you were going faster, or it had jumped out, or any number of other factors had been different, you would have hit it? The momentary panic/relief thing? I just totally had that happen to me.

Except replace "deer" with "cow".

In other news, you want to know how awesome my life is? Today I got up, went to work, stayed there for thirteen and a half hours, and am now going to bed, so I can get up and go to work tomorrow! You so wish you were me!

This has come up twice in conversations with friends in the last 30 hours or so, and so it's been on my mind; this post will probably be long and rambley, and possibly won't make any sense to anyone who didn't grow up in Newfield or a comparable town. There's no real point to it, and writing things with no thesis bothers me, so I apologize for that in advance.

( Girl from a small, white town meets the concept of diversity. )

>to my former students: the wheel of time stops for no one, and time has
>come for me to retire. i feel so fortunate to have had a job that i love,
>and for that, i have you to thank. thank you for keeping me young (in
>spirit, at least!). thank you for your hard work and constantly giving me
>new ways of looking at things. thank you for the time you were willing to
>give to me and various projects we worked on. thank you for making my job
>productive and fun at the same time. thank you for letting me be a part
>of your lives and for enriching mine. i can only hope that i have made a
>difference, and as always, you all have my best wishes for happy and
>fulfilling lives. sincerely, byron williams

Didn't I tell him specifically when I graduated that he was not allowed to retire, ever, under any circumstances (including death)? Because without Mr. Williams, how will students understand functions and fractions, let alone calculus?

Anyone who has heard me talk about high school knows that Mr. Williams had a huge impact on my life. He was my math teacher for four years; because of him, I took two extra years of math--he wouldn't take no for an answer when I said I didn't want to, and no one in her right mind disappointed him. He made math interesting and understandable, even to people who hated it and otherwise wouldn't have understood it.

He was the best teacher I have ever had, in my entire life. Period. End of story.

He was also the National Honor Society faculty advisor, and used that as an excuse to go out of his way to never get a teaching award. We awarded them, and he removed himself from the ballot every year. Which was ridiculous, because every single student and teacher knew he was the best and deserved the recognition.

He was the only teacher I have ever loaned a CD to, and one of the few I emailed after gradutaing. Most of my best memories of high school are from his class.

My brain just can't comprehend the fact that now, students at Newfield aren't going to have him as their teacher. It might not feel like the end of an era to anyone else, but I can't imagine how different my high school life, and the person I am now, would be without having had Mr. Williams' class.

Well, I'm home safe. The ride was long, but not as long as usual because the train actually (gasp!) ran on time the (gasp gasp!) whole way! Also, because Liz from the library lives in Syracuse (she has a Wegmans' shoppers club card. Kickass, yo.) so we sat together and gossiped and whatnot. That was fun.

Meanwhile, I've glanced at the damage in my room but haven't investigated totally yet. A lot of the ceiling came down, but it's been cleaned up so it's less freaky looking than I feared. There's plastic pinned up over the gaping, gaping hole and my stuff has been piled in the opposite corner of the room for me to sort through and get rid of most of.

So really, that's the news from my corner of the world. Valentine's was nice, and I must say, raspberry white hot chocolate? Best. Thing. Ever.

First, mad props to anyone who gets the title quote. (Can I say things like "mad props"? I don't think I can.)

As for what it refers to...

I may have occasionally whined in here about how my room at home leaks and how irritating that is, in terms of destroy the ceiling of the room, as well as the floor; making it impossible to clean (not that I tried very hard...) and generally being a gross pain in the ass.

So Mom just signed on to IM me that the ceiling in my room has collapsed. Or at least, a significant section of it has. They rescued some of my stuff, but basically my job over break is now to clean out everything and box it up, and clearly I won't be staying in there, I'll be in the guest room.

Should I point out this is the second room in under a year where the ceiling has fallen down?

Yeah, Mom and Dad are moving as soon as my last tuition check clears next year.