Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day(s)

This post has nothing to do with my grandfather, but it is still funny. And it has pictures!

The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day(s)

After weeks of uncertainty and half-planning, I was finally on my way to Staunton, Virginia to help Justin, my boyfriend, move back to his parents’ house in New York City. I’ll spare you the details on the different variations of the plan surrounding my trip down there; the final plan involved me driving to Staunton on Wednesday, loading some of his stuff into my car, loading the rest of his stuff into the back of a truck that was passing through to Georgia and then back to New York sometime, and then driving with Justin to New York on Friday. A few days after we settled this plan, Justin sent me a text message.

“I have some good news and some bad news. The Shakespeare Theatre Company wants me to come to DC for a face to face interview, but it’s on Friday.”

I responded with glee, as I am overly supportive and dying for him to get the internship with STC. “That’s not bad news at all! We’ll make it work!” I said in response. Making it work involved changing our Friday plans from leaving whenever and driving straight to NYC to leaving by 11 am from Staunton to DC, and then leaving DC sometime in the evening to drive to New York. This is one of those plans that is good in theory.

So I arrived in Staunton on Wednesday late in the evening. I’d had a relatively rough day that involved an early rise, a sudden doctor visit, the inability to eat all day, and a four and a half hour drive, so I was extremely tired. We grabbed food at the only place that would still serve us after 10 pm, and then we met with a friend to say goodbye. According to Justin, I fell asleep so fast that night that when he turned over to go to sleep, I didn’t move a muscle or say good night, which is incredibly strange for me. I had weird dreams all night, and I’m certain I actually sat up in confusion several times throughout the night.

So then Thursday came. Thursday was a full day. We had plans to have a goodbye breakfast with our friend Erin at an incredibly early time, then work on finish packing and cleaning the house, take a load of stuff to the dump, take a mannequin to a local theatre, and have lunch with our friend Kitty. Then I was going to attend a rehearsal of Pericles at a local private school, visit quickly with Bob, and have snacks and drinks with Beth and Prewitt while Justin continued to pack and clean the house. We’d both have dinner with Victoria and Matt, and have waffles at Waffle House with Mike at 10:30pm. There was also a possibility the truck for Justin’s stuff would show up sometime in the evening.

That was the plan. Then life happened.

The goodbye breakfast went off without a hitch if you don’t count us being late as a hitch. Justin enjoyed his meal (I ate a piece of his bacon since I still had a stomach ache) even if it was early in the morning, and then there were sad hugs and promises of visits that I absolutely intend on keeping. We watched Erin leave and then headed back to Justin’s house….

…Where we took a nap. Yeah, well, when involuntary naptime/food coma happens, you can’t really fight it. Also, neither of us likes getting up before 10 am. So then we woke with a start around 11:30 am, suddenly very aware of how much we needed to get done. We decided to go to the dump, then come back to the house for the mannequin, then go to lunch. Then Justin would head back to the house while I watched rehearsal, met with Bob, then visited with Beth and Prewitt. I folded down the back row of seats in my VW Golf and then loaded in the old computer tower, the rat cages, the folding chair, and the gallon can of red paint that Justin’s roommate had left after moving out. Justin grabbed the mail he needed to send, and we left for the post office and then the dump.

While I was sitting in the parking lot at the post office, I was feeling good about life. I was feeling so good about life that I tweeted about it.

Justin came out of the post office and said that a friend of mine was inside and wanted to say hi. When she came out to the car, she looked in the backseat and said, “Did you know that your can of paint is open?” No, no I did not know that the gallon of red latex paint that I had set in a precarious and stupid place on the folded back seat was open and dripping all down the seat cushion in the back row and the back of the driver’s seat, and collecting on the floor behind the driver’s seat into what was currently a puddle of about a half an inch.

Justin and I both jumped out of the car with a few “oh shit” and other profane phrases. I swung open the door and stared at the damage.

“Ohmygood, what do I do?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Justin replied sadly. He looked very concerned, mostly because he was certain the red damage in my car was somehow his fault. Secretly, it wasn’t his fault even a little. Our friend looked at me with concern, and then she said, “Well, I have to go. I’m sorry about your car!” She gave me a hug and left us staring at the red travesty before us. Luckily, for her character and image, she really did have to get someone to the airport.

We stood there a little in shock as my brain raced. Justin wrapped his arm around my waist and said, “I guess I’m buying you a detailing for your car for your birthday.” A woman, who had just pulled up, jumped out of her car and ran to us with a few paper towels. “I am so sorry!” she said, which confused me because for a second I thought she was taking blame for the leaking can of paint that my boyfriend’s roommate never properly closed or disposed of himself and that I never checked before placing in a precarious position. I thanked her for the paper towels and then explained that the damage was beyond that. She saw the pool of paint on the floor of my car, apologized again and then also left us to stare.

I called my dad, but he didn’t answer, so I decided that all we could do was run to a detailer and see if they could rescue us. On our way there, I realized there was no way I would make the 2:30 rehearsal since it is already 12:30 and we hadn’t had lunch, so I called the teacher and apologized and asked him to explain to the students that I had an emergency that involved red paint and my beloved car. He assured me it would be fine and wished me luck. We pulled up to the detailers and headed inside. The young guy asked us if he could help us, and I uttered a phrase I never thought I’d say.

“We have a detailing emergency. Can you get latex paint out of a car?” The guy thought for a second, and then he said, “well, I don’t know if we are allowed. We can’t clean bodily fluid, so I’m not sure about paint. You’ll have to ask the manager.” We asked the manager, and he explained that even if they were allowed, they wouldn’t be able to because they didn’t have the equipment. Great.

My dad called as we were on out way out of the detailer's place. He told me to keep the paint wet and to find a wetvac. When I explained to him that I know no one in this town with a wetvac, he says “well, keep the paint wet and run to Walmart. Buy their cheapest wetvac. When you get back to Justin’s, use the garden hose to soak the paint and then suck it up.” So we did that. I ran through Walmart to find a cheap wetvac, ignoring the greeters who told me to stop running. I raced back to the car, and then we drove back to his house as I cursed at every slow driver we encountered.

As soon as we got back to the house, we tried to plug in the wetvac, but Justin only had a small extension cord and a power strip since he was moving and had already packed up his house and certainly didn’t anticipate such an emergency. We were only able to bring the wetvac to halfway across the lawn. I drove my car up onto the sidewalk and into the lawn and started cleaning. I poured gallons of water into my car and then tried to suck it up, but the wetvac almost immediately lost suction. In a panicked state, Justin and I dismantle the wetvac to figure out the problem. After discovering that there were instructions and loose parts still inside the wetvac, we took a second to put the wetvac together properly. Doing so nearly killed all the patience and ability to think clearly that we possessed in that moment.

Now, about that whole “keep the paint wet” part? It was something like 90 degrees on Thursday and my car is black. So, after about an hour and a half of cleaning, the best I was able to do was lift some of the excess, still-wet paint. Justin and I stared at the damage. “You can’t ever dump me,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I’ll always think of you whenever I see the red in my car. So, really, if you dump me, you have to buy me a new car.”

“Oh. I think I’ll start playing the lottery.”

The car looks like a shooting crime scene, and I’m attempting to embrace it since there is little to nothing I can do about it. Also, I tend to only freak out about things that have possible solutions. The only possible solution here is to splatter the whole back seat with all sorts of colors and sell it to a trustfund hippie. And that’s not actually a solution.

So, at this point, it’s 2:45 and we still hadn’t eaten lunch and who knows if Kitty had actually waited for us. I told Justin the best we could do was load the mannequin in the car on top of the stuff going to the dump, meet Kitty for lunch, run our errands, and then try to meet Beth and Prewitt so that we were back on schedule.

He admitted that he had to run to the program office to print out some documents and that it might take a few minutes, so I ran to the theatre with the mannequin myself. While waiting for him, I ran to visit with Bob, which turned into me visiting with my friend Sarah instead, which is good because it is Sarah, but sad because it wasn’t a real visit with Bob. I hugged them goodbye, and then I ran to meet Justin and Kitty for lunch. Matt was there, and after we talk about how it is 4:15 and we still need to get to the dump and back before 5 so I can meet Beth and Prewitt, Matt suggests that if I’m okay with him loading his junk in my car as well, he’ll take the stuff to the dump. If you are curious about why I hadn’t thought to send Justin to the dump himself, it is because he doesn’t know how to drive. I thanked him profusely, and at 4:45 I kissed Justin goodbye and ran to the restaurant where I was meeting Beth and Prewitt.

Snacks went well with Beth and Prewitt, although having just eaten lunch and about to eat dinner around 7, I wasn’t very hungry. We ate some sweet potato fries while I told them the tragic story about my car, and Beth told me that the dump doesn’t even take cans of paint in the first place. Justin texted me to tell me that the dump closed at 4:15, which he knew because he was sitting in front of closed dump, so we would have to add “run to the dump” to our preposterous list of things to do Friday morning before we left by 10 am. I enjoyed the rest of my visit with Beth and Prewitt, and then I headed home just before 7, which then made me late for dinner with Matt and Victoria. During dinner, Justin had to go back to the house long enough to let friends in so they could take his dresser. The dresser didn’t fit into their car, and then the neighborhood cat, Adorable Orange Kitty, snuck into the house while the door was open.

This resulted in Justin and our two friends scouring the house for the stray cat, who had snuck back out at some point and was sitting on the concrete wall across the street from the house, laughing at the silly humans, I’m sure. Justin returned to Victoria’s to tell me that he found out that the truck for his stuff wasn’t arriving until sometime in the afternoon on Friday, so he’d have to pay a friend to sit at his house and wait for the truck. At this point, however, dinner with Matt and Victoria had been ruined by the fact that we still had to finish cleaning Justin’s house after a day that had been one crappy happenstance after another.

We left Victoria’s around 11:30 pm much against our wishes to relax and enjoy our last night in Staunton. When we arrived home, we stared at the mess and debated whether Justin was the one who should go to bed early because he was the one with the interview or if I should be the one to go to bed early since I was the one driving. Instead, we both went to bed at 2 am, hoping for the best.

Friday started at 7:45 am, as I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed. We ran to the dump, which was an adventure in itself, but not amusing enough to tell here, and unloaded all of the crap except the guilty red paint. We wrapped that in a kazillion plastic bags and dumped it in an undisclosed place. We rushed around to finish everything in the house, and at 11:15, when we were over an hour behind schedule, Justin finally gave in and left stuff for the third roommate (the one who didn’t leave behind a can of paint) to toss. Shannon, the third roommate, gets a million gold stars. We loaded our travel bags in the car, put the car in drive, and pulled away from the Hobbit House for the very last time.

We made it to DC so early we were able to grab a quick lunch with a friend. I met with another friend, Ashley, while Justin had his interview. It was a good visit, and Justin was able to join us after his interview. Things were almost starting to slow down and chill out. Justin’s interview went well, we think, but it is hard to tell. He’ll know in about a week if he got it. I think he did (knock on wood). Keep your fingers crossed if you have any you aren’t currently using.

After the interview and visiting, we had dinner with one of Justin’s friends. During dinner, I started to melt from exhaustion, but I was determined to head to New York. Even though we got back to my car around 10 pm, I was still determined. I was enticed by the thought of sleeping in all day on Saturday. I will always choose the option that lets me get more sleep and lets me sleep in over the option that involves me stopping and starting again. I was certain one more early morning might kill me.
Except somewhere around 12:30 am I thought all of the cars were trying to merge into me even though they weren’t and I suddenly was struggling to change lanes because there were imaginary cars everywhere and everything was confusing and I made some stupid comment complaining about a car I was attempting to pass speeding up to match my 80 miles an hour because clearly that’s what my speedometer said I was going when really I had unknowingly slowed down to 70 and had grossly misread the speedometer. I admitted defeat, and we pulled off at a stop in Christiana, Delaware. Unfortunately, all of the hotels were booked solid except for king beds, and those rooms were hiked up beyond reason. One of the hotel clerks explained that the University of Delaware was having graduation that weekend, so we got back on the highway and continued up to exit 3 on the New Jersey Turnpike. We got a room at The Red Roof Inn, and I crashed into the hotel bed sometime after one.

We arrived at Justin’s house in Queens sometime around 1:30 pm on Saturday, and after some greetings and settling-ins, I took a nice long nap.

Family Obligation and Guilt

One night, during dinner, my grandfather turned to me and said, "Are you getting married any time soon?"

Now, here's the thing about that: I'm the eldest of three and about to turn 26. I have a steady boyfriend who lives 3 states away and just recently grasped the idea that we are a real couple, and I am currently one summer semester and one student teaching semester away from finishing my third master's (this one in education so I can teach Shakespeare to kids in public high schools) at a school in this state. I am stuck 3 states away from him until at least December.

Here's the other thing about that: My little brother and my little sister are both already married. My sister has already popped out her first kid. My brother married his wife on May 2, 2009. My sister married her husband on May 3, 2009. (Yes, the same weekend. It's a long story.) I brought my boyfriend to the weddings, which was three weeks before I would be graduating with my second master's in Shakespeare. I fielded "When are you two getting married!?" and "So what exactly do you do with a degree in Shakespeare?" questions all weekend. Neither of those questions, by the way, are supportive. If you think they are, you are twisted, like torture, or are already married and have figured out your life and forget what it's like to be single, dating, and/or floating around without a career. So, back to my grandfather's horrendous question.

"Are you getting married any time soon?"

I snorted a little. "No." Justin and I are just now casually and quietly dancing around the possibility of moving in together sometime after December. Marriage is no where near the top of either of our lists.

"Is that because you don't want to, or because no one has asked you?"

"Why are those my two choices, Poppop? Why can't I just not be ready yet? It's just not time. Why can't that be the answer?"

"Well, you're not getting any younger." Have I mentioned that I make up none of these conversations? I have a steel trap for a brain when it comes to conversations. He actually said that.

"I'm sorry. What??" I was a bit in shock. I hate these conversations. I hate that people actually feel that they are necessary. I hate that these conversations happen outside of movies and tv shows.

"Well, I have to look over my finances, and I just wanted to check to make sure you didn't need any money." Hi! I'm a full time grad student who is already $78,000 in debt from my last graduate program, and I am currently looking for ways to fund my final student teaching semester for THIS grad program. But you are right, I only need money if I'm getting married.

He continued, "I'm just hoping I get to see you married before I die." Oh, here it comes. "Your grandmother wanted to have great-grand-children before she died, but that didn't happen." My grandmother passed away in 2007. Her first great-grand-child was born to my cousin about a year later, and her second great-grand-child was born to my younger sister a few months ago, but apparently it is my fault that my grandmother didn't have great-grand-children before she died. Or maybe it's my fault my sister didn't get knocked up sooner. I'm not sure. I have three older cousins, by the way. Only one of them was married when my grandmother died, but I'm the delinquent who chose to further my education before I get married, so it is my fault.

Then my mother chimed in with wanting more grand children, and I quipped about how I was going to adopt, and this got my mother going again about how I was required to have my own babies, and then my dad just hung his head and walked away, which is how our dinners end more often than they should.

Later, dad asked me if I'd take him with me to Staunton when I visited Justin, and I said, "as long as you don't ask me when I'm getting married or pushing out babies."

"I'd never do that, and you know it," he said, which is true.

"I know," I said. "That's why you'll be invited to the wedding."

Fire!

Apparently, my grandfather's new hobby is setting things on fire.

This isn't the most healthy hobby, for him or for us, especially since our state is perpetually dry enough for fire warnings. This alone is ironic since the ground itself has been overly saturated since November (making us also perpetually wet enough for flood warnings), but the grass blades keep drying out. We've already had one grass fire on our property because our neighbor decided to burn some brush on a dry, windy day. The fire almost took out our goat pen. So, fire is bad.

A few days ago, my grandfather wanted to clean something with gasoline. Who knows what it was he was trying to clean in the first place. He poured gasoline on a crappy old sweatshirt that was some sort of synthetic mix. He cleaned whatever it was that so desperately needed to be cleaned with gasoline, and then didn't know what to do with the now gasoline-soaked sweatshirt. So he took it out to the rock driveway, laid it out, and then SET IT ON FIRE WITH A BLOW TORCH.

Yeah. My dad came home, saw this black gunk stuff on the driveway, and asked my mother what that was about. My mother explained to my father what HIS father had done. My father shook his head and then headed out to his garage where he could tinker with the car he's building and pretend like his father doesn't think setting gasoline-soaked sweatshirts on fire is a good idea. Later, my grandfather came out to join my dad, and he said, "did Paula tell you what I did today?"

"Yeah," my dad said with a little sadness in his heart.

"That was really stupid of me," my grandfather replied. My dad asked him what he had been thinking, but I don't think there was a response.

While one would think that my grandfather's lack of response would mean that he had learned his lesson, one would be wrong. No, he did it again. This time, it involved a shoe.

One day after the gasoline incident, my grandfather discovered some sticky substance on his shoe, so he headed out to his wooden shed where he keeps all of his chemicals and tools and golf clubs. He used some paint thinner to rub the sticky substance off of the sole of the shoe. He got the sticky substance off, but now the shoe was wet! So he grabbed his blowtorch AND DRIED THE SHOE WITH FIRE. And by "dried the shoe" I mean "set the shoe on fire". He had to put out the fire with his fire extinguisher.

Yesterday he wandered out of his wooden shed after a fire-free visit and announced that he was finally feeling old.

DId anyone else see that shift?

I haven't blogged in who knows how long. Or, well, I guess over to the right it could tell you exactly how long it's been, but that isn't in front of me right now, and I can't even begin to guess.

Either way, it's been a long time, and now I'm back. I've decided to focus this blog to something specific: conversations with my grandfather.

My grandfather will be turning 87 in a week. He is incredibly healthy for his age, and his mind, while not as sharp as it used to be, is more in tact for his age than I often like to remember. The problem is two-fold: a. he has the habit of saying things that are most certainly a result of his generation, and b. within minutes of having said one thing, he will change his mind about how he feels or thinks or what facts are true. When he does change his mind, whatever he currently believes has always been true. Always. Without a doubt.

As my grandfather spends almost all of his time locked in his room with the TV blaring, our awkward conversations happen during dinner, much to my father's chagrin. My father, my grandfather's son, feels that he must play referee and is torn between telling my grandfather to shut up and being a good son. Sometimes he is forced to interject (I used the passive voice there because I hate to admit that often I'm the one forcing him), and sometimes I do everything in my power to not put him in a position to referee. Sometimes I swallow my pride and let my grandfather say preposterous things.

So tonight. I was telling my parents about how I received a call from the automated subbing calling system at 5:30 am for a subbing job at the local high school. I said that the automated voice told me I'd be in for a Spanish teacher.

My grandfather pipes in, "You taught Spanish today?" I have several degrees in English Literature and Drama, so maybe his shock was founded, as long as he was incapable in believe that I might be multi-talented. "Do you even know Spanish?" I should have said something in Spanish to show my level of competence, but I didn't. Instead, I continued to explain because obviously my grandfather does not understand the difference between a teacher and a substitute teacher. Now, I always go above and beyond the normal subbing call of duty; I never just babysit, and I have found that I can still be useful in a Spanish class even when the material is beyond what I remember.

"I had 6 years of Spanish through high school and undergrad. I'm at least competent in the basics. And besides, I wasn't actually teaching. I was just subbing. I handed out worksheets and then supervised them while they worked on projects. But last week I subbed for a Spanish teacher, and that time I had to teach a small lesson because apparently the regular teacher doesn't teach them much." There. That should explain it.

"Well, I think it's a shame that we -" (I'd like to interject here that I thought for sure I was about to get a lecture about bad teachers in this country, but that is not at all what I was about to hear. Not even a little. Now, sorry for the interruption. Let's start that sentence over again.) "Well, I think it's a shame that we teach Spanish to American children. We should be teaching English to the Mexicans!" It's possible that when he finished that sentence, my jaw dropped just a bit. Just a wee, tiny, little, gaping, Grand Canyon-sized drop.

I had to collect my thoughts. My knee-jerk reaction was to flip out. To school my grandfather in how the world works today. But then I saw my dad's eyes dilate a little, and his forehead tighten a smidge, and his nostrils flair just a wee little bit. So I grabbed hold of my knee-jerk reaction, and I sought a new, more passive response.

"Yes. Well, they do. There are lots of programs for Spanish-speaking children who live in America to learn to speak English. But, ya know, it's good to be bilingual. There are many benefits." There, that was calm. That was a happy medium, right? I hoped....

"I'm bilingual, ya know!" he said proudly. Technically, he means he grew up in a household where Italian was spoken on a regular basis, and that he still knows how to say certain words in Italian, almost all of them relating to food. Ultimately, this means he can say "penne pasta" and "mozzarella" with an Italian flair. I'm not trying to be mean; I asked him to teach me Italian about 10 years ago, and he said he couldn't remember hardly any of it, so he couldn't help me. I said none of this at the dinner table tonight, of course. He continued, "and you know, I read an article once that said that if you're going to teach kids another language, you gotta start when they're young. You know? Like in 1st, or 2nd, or 3rd grade."

"Yep," I said. "I worked in a preschool about 4 years ago where the teachers taught the kids words here and there in Spanish. It is a great place for kids to start; elementary schools are doing it a lot these days. It's hard to teach them to conjugate at that age, but it builds a very strong foundation."

And that was that. The end of the conversation. I was left wondering if he really felt that American children should not learn Spanish, or if he thinks kids should learn Spanish at a younger age, or if he actually thinks anything about any of it because secretly he just wanted to sound intelligent and opinionated and important for a minute.

So, there will be more to come. I will revisit the ones I remember, and provide new ones as they occur. I love my grandfather, but I am an opinionated intellect who believes in voicing her opinion, which is very much against my grandfather's point of view, which is "I'm right. Stop arguing with me."

Get me out of here

So, as my previous post indicated, I spent last week alone. My sister and her husband were around, but for the most part, it was just me. On top of that, my sister and I had to function, get things done, and so we stopped our bickering and got along so well we were even hanging out when things didn't need to get done.

And then I was so excited to go back to school that I griped only a little on Monday morning when my alarm went off. And by Wednesday, I was back in full swing of being okay with my life. I even started thinking that I like it here.

This is all important because I'm thinking about applying for a job that could possibly deter my graduation until the winter of '11. That, I would like to put out there, is a year and a half, almost two, from now.

The job is super awesome. The beach area tourist office around here is looking for someone to travel the area and blog about the experience for two months. They're also offering free housing and a nice chunk of change. I would love to take on this job. I hesitated when I discovered how it would throw off my summer class schedule, thus pushing back my student teaching and graduation by a lot, but my boyfriend convinced me that I should apply anyway.

His reasons were that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that one day I might look back and regret not applying. Also, if I get the job, there's a strong possibility he'd get to join me. We'd get to enjoy two months together. Plus, I'd have money in the bank to pay for my student teaching semester. I agree with him on all accounts and I've been feeling okay about living with my parents, so I started to look into making the video application.

And then today happened.

Now, before I start explaining today you need to understand that nothing about today is out of the ordinary. I'll get back to that point.

This morning at 8:30 am, on a morning when I really needed to sleep in and rest, I woke because my grandfather (who doesn't like to wear his hearing aid or admit that he can't hear anything) turned on his country music. It's 3:23pm. I'd kinda like to take a nap. But guess what's still playing? Yeah....

Then I headed out to my mom's studio to help her get it cleaned up and organized after the big winter/Christmas rush. My sister came in with her 3 month old baby to tell my mother about all of her friends who are pregnant. My mother proceeded to tell me how I need to give her a baby one day, and adopting is cheating. I have to push the baby out of my crotch. Her words, not mine.

My sister also mentioned how excited she is about this cruise she just booked for her and her husband. My sister struggles to pay my parents the small monthly rent they charge her, and yet she gets to go on a cruise. Because we live in a world where those who accidentally get pregnant, get married at a young age, and struggle to pay their bills can still go on luxury cruises when the child is still not old enough to crawl.

After my sister left, my mother told me all about this fight she had with my sister just a day or two ago. This fight sounds exactly like every other fight my mother and sister have ever had. And I realize right then and there, as if I'd just caught the brick wall that'd been chucked at me - my sister will never change. Nor will my mother.

Nor will my grandfather.

And I kinda secretly am over teaching college freshman.

And if I don't graduate in December, I will be teaching in a high school classroom as a certified teacher for the first time when Obama is fighting for his position as President against some unknown Republican candidate.

And I'm exchanging the ability to move next New Years to wherever my boyfriend is for two months of vacation with him followed by a year and a half of weekend visits when possible.

So I'm not applying. And I am full steam ahead for graduating December '10 because *OMG* get me out of here.

The Blizzard of 2010

Everyone is in a panic about the impending blizzard, but no one is freaking out more than my own parents. They have a special reason; they are scheduled to leave for a cruise out of Baltimore on Sunday and they didn't buy the insurance that would let them move their cruise if they miss the boat. So...panic.

Yesterday is when the general panic set in. Two other couples were going to drive to our house on Friday and Saturday, and then they were all going to head out on Sunday in one car. My mom and I decided to go to the grocery store around 2 to get food for two large meals that would feed everyone. The store was crowded, as one would expect. We grabbed some food, and mom decided that she had a ham and a brisket, so we just needed some side dishes. We grabbed what we needed and headed home.

When my dad got home from work, he started panicking about not being able to get to Baltimore if the government calls a state of emergency. He convinced my mother that they need to leave on Friday and get a room until Sunday. They call their friends and make the appropriate plans. I start to feel, for the first time, a pang of panic in my heart. I'd be utterly by myself all weekend. I'd have no interaction with other human beings for the entire time I'm snowed in. I might as well live in a cabin in the woods at this point.

Then the prospect of being by myself brought on another fear. Our property is 5 acres. Our driveway spans 2 acres. Our snow-blower is finicky and unreliable. And that's even if I knew how to start it in the first place. "Dad. How am I going to get all the snow off the driveway?" I asked. He looked at me for a second, and then began to mime a shoveling action. My eyes grew like saucers. I would have to shovel the entire driveway by myself. A month ago I barely survived when I had to shovel out a spot big enough for my car. Bwah!?

Also, food might be an issue. We have lots of food for big meals, but very little in the way of individual servings. Also, also, I've never made a ham. Or a brisket. At this point, I'm certain that before this is all over, I'll be eating a meal consisting entirely of Stove Top Stuffing and Poptarts. But that was the least of my worries, apparently.

My mother started panicking about all of the other details that I hadn't thought of. "What if we lose power?" she asked. Power? I could lose power? When I'm all by myself? But I'm just a girl! I won't know what to do! My mom turned to me and said, "honey, if you lose power you have to build a fire in the fireplace to stay warm." Ohmygod. I'm going to freeze to death in my own house. To be fair, I was a girl scout and I know how to start a fire, but still. There's the possibility that I could run out of wood. You don't learn how to use an axe in Girl Scouts (that's another issue...but I won't digress). And then I thought about what food I could eat in the event I have no way to heat it. We have hot dogs, so I can roast those. But then I wondered if we have a non-electric can opener. If it gets down to it and I have to start eating canned food, would I even be able to open them? And then what about sleeping? I'd have to sleep by the fireplace all night. On the floor? Could I drag my mattress into the living room to the fireplace? Also, if there's no power, there's no water. Which means the toilets will be unflushable.... I'm going to die. I'm suddenly second-guessing all those times I laughed at that Bear soandso guy on Man Vs. Wild. Its not so ridiculous now that I'm facing possible death at nature's hands.

So now I'm fairly certain that my parents are going to return from their cruise to find me dead on my mattress in front of the fireplace. I'll have a can of beans in one hand and a butter knife in the other. Hopefully the dogs won't have started gnawing on me by then.

The Future of Books

Today, a friend of mine posted an article about the future of books. In this article, Adam Penenburg says that in the future, books as we know it will live in museums, and in their place will be multi-media experiences. Authors will intertwine words with pictures, videos, sound clips, music, and so much more. The author will be "acting more like directors and production companies than straight wordsmiths." Penenburg claims that mere words will suddenly seem stagnant on the page.

Truly, I believe that the future is headed in that direction, and for non-fiction works, nothing could be better. Could you imagine reading a text book about Louis Armstrong and clicking on a link that immediately beings to play the song the author is discussing? Or watch a clip of the first steps on the moon while reading about how the astronauts got there? Cookbooks will now have videos that can demonstrate a cooking technique. Footnotes will no longer be at the bottom of the page or limited to a tiny amount of information, and students can interact with history and science like never before.

And then there's fiction. Artists have been tweaking, changing, toying with, experimenting with all mediums of art since the beginning of time. This could be another avenue. A poet could choose exactly what image is in your mind and what music plays in your ears while you read his poem. He can craft almost every aspect of your experience with his poem. A novelist could show you exactly what the town in the book looks like, or what every character looks like far beyond descriptions through words. A writer no longer has to just be a writer - he can, as Penenburg says, direct every detail of your reading experience. This, however, is where my fear lies.

Reading is an individual experience. An author is a wordsmith. He crafts a world using only words. But words are fluid. They are anything but stagnant. Words change meaning from generation to generation. They change from culture to culture. They even change from individual to individual. No two people will have the exact same experience from the same work, and I love that. I love that my own personal experience of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is mine and no one else's , and that it doesn't stop anybody else from having their own personal experiences as well. Thank you, Eliot, for not including pictures of what those mermaids look like.

For example. Take a room full of people. Hand them a descriptive paragraph from a novel, and ask them individually to sketch whatever it is the paragraph describes. Each person will bring his or her own individual view and experiences and imagination to that drawing. None of the sketches will be the same. Elements will be the same; for instance, if the paragraph says that the scruffy man wearing a blue coat walked down the dark sidewalk on a snowy Christmas eve, every person will draw a man (who will be some kind of scruffy) wearing a blue coat and in an upright position, a dark sidewalk with snow, and probably something indicating Christmas. But even within those limiters are worlds of possibilities.

When the author begins to litter his work with limiters through images and other added elements, the experience of reading a novel becomes a controlled experience - much like watching a movie. Yes, authors have for eons included images with their works. Cover art and artist inserts have been part of the publishing industry for quite some time. Outside of picture books, however, they don't paint the entire book for you. The first Harry Potter book had a picture of a boy with glasses and a scar on his forehead, so that was probably what you imagined when you read it [and thank god daniel radcliffe was born when he was because otherwise we'd have to find another kid who was the spitting image of the cover art]. But what about those other characters? Hermione? Or the settings? How about the school? Do you remember the reading experience you had before you saw the movies? What did Snape look like to you? What did his voice sound like? And then you watched the movies, which were so closely released with the books that after you watched the first movie, the rest of the books had specific images in your head that matched the movie. Daniel Radcliffe spoke when you read Harry's lines. You knew what Hermione looks like. And she looks exactly like what the person next to you thinks she looks like. But how about those characters who didn't make it to the movies? If we all sat down and sketched THOSE characters, would they be as similar if we all sat down to sketch out what Harry looks like?

When a director makes a movie out of a book, he is giving you his interpretation - his personal experience with the book (yes - other elements such as box office, budget, and audience appeal play a part, but it is based on his experience). He is not giving you THE book. His interpretation could be different from yours, and that is why no movie adaptation can ever really destroy a book for you. It can still be your world and your imagination as long as you actively choose to leave behind that director's experience. The director is not the author, and only the author can say, "yes. Willy Wonka looks like Gene Wilder and Veruca Salt looks like Julie Dawn Cole. They are exactly who I imagined when I wrote that novel."

What if Shakespeare had included a drawing of what Macbeth should look like? Or Hamlet? Thank god he didn't actually ever specifically describe Cleopatra. We can all individually decide what absolute beauty is, and then we can agree or disagree with a director's casting choice. But we wouldn't be able to argue with Shakespeare if he had included a picture of a specific blonde, tall, busty woman wearing a red toga because then that specific woman is what Cleopatra would have to look like.

Reading is already interactive - the best kind of interactive. You take the words the author has given you, toss them in your brain, mix them with images and your imagination, and then create images and movies and sounds and smells and music. You could decide that Huck Finn looks like your little brother or the old man in "The Old Man and the Sea" looks like your grandfather if you want. Sometimes you share those images with others, and they are allowed to say, "oh, well when I read that, I see this," or "I always imagined Titus Andronicus to be tiny, yet fierce instead of big and tall and built like an ox." Unless they have decided to interpret the author's use of the word "tall" to mean "short", they are not wrong, and that's the beauty of it.

Please do not think that I feel this form of media morphing is completely wrong or has no place in the world. In fact, sometimes it would be fun to have a 360 experience from an artist (think Hitchhiker's Guide). But this future medium should not completely replace books as we know them. An author should not always want to completely control their audience's experience with his words. If they do, they're in the wrong medium and should sign up to direct the next film Hollywood will give them.

Penenburg says, "And ask yourself: Which would you rather have, the hardcover book of today or this rich, multimedia treatment of the same title? Suddenly mere words on a page may feel a bit lifeless." I say, "Penenburg, my imagination works just fine and words have never seemed lifeless to me. Please hand me the hardcover book filled with endless possibilities and interpretations."