Quidditch and Carolina in My Mind

What would you choose to do with your life if time had a more liquid quality?

Miles walked today: 2?

Percentage of students at Carolina who study abroad: 40

Slices of pizza eaten at Pepper’s, my old haunt (artichoke and sundried tomato): 1

When my dad and I went to orientation at my college the summer I left for school, I had a sinking moment when I thought: oh, shoot. They’re leaving me here for four years? Like, to live?

My dad was also having a whale of a time at orientation and couldn’t stop giggling with another dad in the back of the auditorium when the speaker talked about stuff like security and classes and meal plans. I suspected he might be having more fun than I was.

I had been trying to get the heck out of Dodge for the previous three years, at least. Atlanta wasn’t big enough for me. I was ready for bigger things… in a smaller place. So when I arrived a few days before school started to do Freshman Camp, I knew no one. Not a soul.

And I loved it.

There were lots of boys, lots of pizza and independence in spades.

I dated one boy, ate lots of pizza and called my parents in desperation when I had spent too much money on pizza and also made a stupid subtraction error, to the tune of $100 ($100!), in my checkbook.

We didn’t have cell phones back then, so plans to meet up with each other often went awry back when time was a more liquid entity.

Time? That’s for old people. I remember seeking out free phones in campus buildings to call empty dorm rooms.

There were huge parties and endless hours with friends when you had nothing better to do than fill out a crossword puzzle or watch “Guiding Light.” And there were times when home felt much more than 450 miles away.

College is a different place today.

Everyone has a laptop, a cell phone, an iPod. They are connected. Students start small businesses and eat in newly renovated cafterias with Subway sandwich cafes and modern architecture.

Today, my BFF and I took our four kids to my alma mater. Her daughter is a freshman in high school, and I subscribe to the belief that kids can’t shoot for a goal unless they know it’s there.

We went to the old business school building, which is now the new journalism school building, and we listened to the orientation speech.

The speaker talked about out-of-state students, studying abroad, the honors program and about 500 clubs you could join.

“The Quidditch Club?” My friend’s daughter perked up.

The admissions counselor/daytime comedian talked about students on broomsticks in the Quad, trying to catch another student who had painted himself in gold paint.

Wow. I felt old.

And my friend’s daughter was ready to sign up. She might start filling out her application tonight, listing Quidditch as her major.

My son wanted detailed instructions about where to go to get food.

We took a tour, and when they saw the model dorm room, my son asked, “Where’s the rest of it? Where does the other person sleep?” I pointed up on the loft. “Oh….” he said, eyes glazed.

My daughter wanted to know where they kept the TV.

And I wondered what the mailboxes in the common area were used for anymore.

We used to wait for letters from home or letters from friends at other universities. If we were really lucky, a friend would send a mix tape with songs we had never heard before… songs that would become our favorites until the tape wore out from overuse.

Why would a student need a mailbox today? Texts from friends arrive instantaneously. Professors email answers to questions. Even bills are delivered electronically.

The buildings felt haunted with the person I used to be: a goofy dreamer with anxiety about the unmapped future, the one who met and befriended people who played Frisbee with me and went to aerobics with me and talked to me late at night and comforted me when things got tough.

Those people don’t exist anymore, at least not in the way I remember them. Every time I saw an adult my age or older, I had that kind of flash like on the TV show, “Cold Case”: they morphed into what I imagined they used to be.

There we were, parents who wish for our kids that they go away to college and have the same wonderful, heartbreaking, earth-shattering, lonely, friendship-ful time we did.

And maybe, just maybe, get to play some Quidditch.

The Gatsby Effect

I couldn’t find a daisy.
My dad took this photo at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Miles run today: 4.5

Words written in my novel so far: 29,134

Live rats found under a lounge chair at the neighborhood pool: 1

Copperheads pulled out of pool the same day: 2

Thank goodness I’m not Gatsby, and I don’t have a Daisy. The yearning and pining and years of build-up are very draining, and I’ve got toilets to clean, darnit.

Our book club read The Great Gatsby this past month. For most of us, it was the second time, the first being in high school: the time of Romeo and Juliet and the Red Badge of Courage, Jane Eyre and The Scarlet Letter.

There is a reason teenagers read the classics.

I didn’t like Gatsby much the first time; the decadence of the era and superficial characters irritated me whether they were meant to or not. I didn’t have much hope for it the second time around.

This time, I ended up thinking Fitzgerald really knew how to write; who knew?

But I still didn’t like Gatsby much.

One of our book club members said, “I loved Gatsby as a teenager; this time around, I just thought he was sleazy.”

I think I might have had Gatsby tendencies as a young person and didn’t like the comparison my subconscious drew between the two of us.

1. I was big on yearning. Yearning without ever getting was kind of interesting. And funny.

When I was 14, another friend and I bought M&Ms (for charity!) and ate them as our lunch at high school. We made wishes on the green M&Ms and hoped for dreamy guys in letter jackets to come over and talk to us. They never did.

In retrospect, I was okay with it. We laughed and had more fun than if the guy had come over and sat with us. I mean, what would we have talked about? Letter jackets? Golf? The benefits of chocolate?

2. I coveted glamour. I know. You’re not supposed to covet. Give me a break. I was 16.

Gatsby had a sleek, covetable vehicle.

One of the girls at our high school had a red BMW with red painted wheels. A guy I thought was amazingly cute had a Jeep that he rode all open even when it was freezing outside.

I had a very large white Oldsmobile with a maroon top and plaid interior. Not many people rushed up to me to ask for a ride home.

“Tomorrow is another day,” I repeated to myself as I walked up from the junior parking lot.

I had visions of a future husband leading me out to the driveway, blindfolded. When I opened my eyes, there would be a beautiful, luxury automobile with a large red bow tied around it.

It may not surprise you too much that I drive a minivan today. Both sliding doors are currently low-functioning with non-existent outside handles.

3. People liked to be around me, and I didn’t even notice. The problem with coveting and acquiring glamorous goods is that you miss out on the opportunities all around you.

There was Gatsby in that great big house with the swanky clothes, yummy food and limitless party-giving capabilities. All these people showed up who he could have gotten to know. The only person he really wanted to know was Daisy.

I had all this great stuff: a quirky car, great ’80s hair, dinner with friends at Applebee’s and a family who loved me. Why did I bother looking across rows of cafeteria tables at boys who didn’t know I existed?

Enough with the yearning.

Life lesson: all you have to do is look at what happened to Gatsby.

And be grateful that you have toilets to clean, I guess.