Among Other Things

I had the following exchange Sunday morning. My friend who was crashing at my place is Jewish and had complained about his roommate who kept texting him Easter related things. He also made me watch part of some basketball game Saturday night. Apparently my lack of interest in televised sports is a character flaw.

Dude: Do you know what today is?
Me: The day Jesus rose from the grave?
Dude: No. It's the first day of baseball season.

I should probably start feigning interest in sports more. It's not that I don't like them, I do like them, I would just rather be watching them in person. I can only watch volleyball and figure skating on tv and sometimes Premier League Football (because of all the faux-Europeans I know in DC) and sometimes swimming, but that's only men's swimming. Have you ever met a male swimmer that was out of shape? Exactly.

And tonight I met with a classmate to work on our project for PoliSci. We had never really talked before and we ended up talking for awhile. He uses Linux. And is an only child. And knows a hell of a lot more about what's going on in Gaza right now than I do. Our project is about that particular conflict, more specifically Ehud Barak, but that's all beside the point. We were talking about parties in Richmond, or how loud the Fan is or something when this exchange happened:

Dude: My neighbor called the cops on me the other night...
Me: That's odd, what for?
Dude: Acetone doesn't burn at a very high temperature......
Me: ...
Dude: ...it's not like gasoline...
Me: I have no idea what you are going on about.
Dude: I set this dude on fire..
Me:..
Dude: Well not really him, but his pants.
Me: I can't tell if you're being serious or not.
Dude: It was acetone, he was fine, I've done it before.

Umm...hilarious? Awesome?

And then I went to see the Screaming Females and Antlers, but it was sold out. At Gallery 5. The place has a capacity of 150, but I have been there several times before and it has never had more than fifty people in attendance. People in Richmond never pay for shows unless it's something huge at The National. And even then, if it sells out before the day of it's because people from everywhere except for Richmond bought tickets after the show in their city sold out (think Spoon, Wilco, Morrissey, My Bloody Valentine, etc.). Anyway, bummer.

So I went to my sister's to pick up the remainder of my laundry that I had started at her house earlier today. And she, being with child, decided to read to me from all the check-lists and pamphlets her doctor had given her. She has decided to have a natural birth.

April: Ten centimeters? Why is that the magic number? I don't want to start pushing until eleven.
Me: Well, that's roughly five inches, and that's about the diameter of a baby's head.
April: No. Have you seen my head? My baby is going to have a big head.
Me: But what about your husband?
April: No, my head has always been big. Have you seen my baby pictures? My baby is going to have a big head.
...
April: Mom is going to want to be in the room.
Me: I thought you didn't want her there.
April: It's going to be your job to remove her when I get annoyed.
...
April: Having a kid is going to be so hard.
Me: Are you just now realizing this?
April: Yes. Do you want it?
Me: No. I am quite happy being childless at the moment.
April: Oh.
Me: Why did you want one?
April: I thought it would be fun.
Me: No way. It's going to be hard and terrible. But kids are the opportunity to put the best of yourself into the world.
April: That's true. Who told you that?
Me: No one. That's why I want to have kids, one day.

Everyone in my immediate family will be a parent by the end of this year except for me. Currently I don't want to have kids until I'm at least thirty. April keeps telling me that I'll change my mind in an effort to "catch up" with my siblings. This may end up being true. I am younger than all of them by at least eight years - my whole life has been an attempt to catch up with them. It hasn't mattered though. To them I will always be five, or at least the age they were when they moved out.

I also want to spend my twenties moving every couple years. I mean, I grew up in the same house for the first eighteen years of my life, I should see something different. The life I want, or have slightly planned in no way includes other people. I want to be out or Richmond by 2012, and hopefully move to Austin, but that as well as everything else is tentative. Maybe I'll move to Topeka and write about Westboro Baptist Church, or to Tombstone and be a tour guide at the OK Corral, or Montreal and learn Canadian French, or Stolkholm and form a Swedish-pop band, or to Sicily and drunkenly marry a beautiful man who doesn't speak English, or to Russia and drink lots of vodka and pretend to be Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago, or to Fiji because I don't know anyone who has ever been there, or Iceland just to be the new girl.
Or anywhere and be Julie Christie. You should Netflix Billy Liar, especially if you're a Morrissey fan.

"She's crazy, she just enjoys herself."



Story of my life: