Alenda Lux

So, inspired by Sara, advice to myself 10 years ago.

In 1999, I was either finishing my freshman year of college or starting my sophomore year.

That guy you broke up with? That’s a great idea. I had this long-term boyfriend that I spent a LOT of time with freshman year of college. I’m not going to say that time was wasted, I was also way more upset about breaking up with him than I should have been. Girl, you are not even yet 20.

In spite of my previous advice, just go ahead and accept that you feel everything on 11. It’s one of the things that I’ve really grasped about myself in the last year, but I am as stubborn as my dad and I FEEL EVERYTHING, well, like I’m permanently set at 11. I don’t think of it as being sensitive, per se, but I have very, very strong feelings and reactions. If I’d realized really what the hell was going on in my head ten years ago, I might just managed myself better, and felt better about it.

When you graduate in 2002, shit will be rough. It will be okay though. Just try to relax more.

You are going to date a string of very strange guys. This is going to be good in a few ways, one of them being, you are going to have a lot of fun. Another of them will be that when you meet the guy you end up with in the end, you will have equipped yourself with enough radar to know you’re making a good decision. Some of these guys will be stinkers and people will judge you not only for nearly always dating someone, but also for having friends with benefits. You already think this, but just to reiterate: Fuck those people. At least one of those FWB guys is going to help you through some rough spots by putting the emphasis on the friend part and understanding that “benefits” in this context don’t always mean sex.

Finally, go dancing more. Make better friends with Ross earlier and just dance.

1. Darling Nikki, 2. On the Lamb…, 3. (Old) Dawson County Courthouse, 4. Pink Pigeon, 5. John Legend, 6. Vanilla Porter, 7. Seycehelles (Playboy Beach), 8. Limoncello Dessert, 9. Released to Public: “First Lady Astronaut Trainee” Jerrie Cobb (NASA), 10. The Cats are Happy to See Thomas, 11. smart car parking 101, 12. Davidson College Campus – Chambers Building

via.

To do it yourself:

The concept:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, and pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

The questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name?

Yes, there is a photo there that is actually mine. It came up in the first page of results, so I used it. Kind of neat!

So last night at Sally’s wine tasting, I received a parting hug from a guy whose name I sadly am totally unable to remember (sorry nice ponytail guy with the Mormon family!) who said, “I need to give you a hug! You tell great stories!” He may have been drunk, but it made me realize that I don’t think I’ve ever used this here blawg to chronicle some of my funnier experiences.

(more…)

You may (or may not) notice a new link over on the left, for Senor Brad Bridges. I think you all know I went to Davidson College, and whilst there I had the good fortune to have a “Little Brother” assigned to me during Junior year. I think that this was Seth’s hall, but at this point, so many people we knew were freshman RA’s that I don’t remember. Anyway, Brad was a cool kid and I think I was a little absentee as a big sister, but I remembered him and tried to speak with him when I did see him (we tended to run in different circles), which is more than I can say for my big brother from freshman year, about whom all I remember is that he played soccer, was way “too cool” for me, and did take me to one formal event. In retrospect I was way too hot for him at the time, but what did I know? (A retrospective on “Why did I think I was so ugly?” will be featured later this month.)

Anyway, he lives in Texas and he does cool stuff like going to Honduras as a missionary, and while I suspect that he and I might not agree about everything in life, I think he’s doing some good things, and I think he’s doing Davidson proud. It’s always nice to see people grow up and make good — like Amber’s little sister (Hi Lizzy! You’re on the internet!!) or Brad here.

Yeah. I’m about to make a big change, which I will not divulge in el cyberspaceo. But it is huge for me, and weirdly scary although very welcome and good.

Also, if you look on the sidebar under “Stuff” you will see a link to The Georgia Podcast Network. North Fulton Drama Club has its first podcast up there now. Many thanks to Amber and Rusty for putting that together.

Thanksgiving is such a weird holiday for most people. Generally speaking, all you ever hear about are the stereotypical family faux-pas . . .not that I’m any different. My mom’s crazy sister has basically disowned my family for all things holiday and my dad’s family has never really been my cup of tea. They’re not psychotic or anything, not by the dictionary definiton or anything, it’s just that I’m like an alien amongst them. I like, read and stuff. And my husband isn’t a truck driver, a farmer, or a mechanic. I’m really one of the first of my family to descend from the proverbial trees in this way. Not to say they’re all horrible hicks, because they’re not, but what I want and expect out of life is pretty much radically different from what the majority of my relatives want/have gotten out of life. I’m the intellecutal black sheep, and it’s really very obvious.

This is, of course, why I’m happy to have a great family of inlaws, because the Stricklands, while not all of them “get” me or Thomas, at least don’t act as if we have third arms or second heads. We have a geeky neice (some sort of cousin really) who will be a high school senior this year, and Thomas’s twin nephews enjoy going to comics shops, bookstores, and dorky documentaries about penguins with us. My mom and dad, while sometimes completely perplexed by me, I think, just accept me for who I am and are proud of me in my massive dorkiness.

So, all of this to say, some of my family makes it hard to be thankful on Thanksgiving, and other parts of it make it a lot easier. Of course, I’ve got a lot more to be thankful for, anyway, so that should make it really simple, yeah? Like, list simple:

1. Thomas. Somehow I lucked out and married a guy who’s smart, can dress himself, does not obsessively watch pituitary cases in satin underwear on television, can carry a conversation, and who will put up with my shit. He’s good looking, and he’s a big ole geek. I think that his picture is next to “Perfect Man” in the dictionary.

2. My friends. I have some damn awesome friends. Julie and Cort, Reggie, Amber, Alyssa, Sally, and so many other people really have gone and continue to go out of their way to make my life better. These are the people that I do not fear at all will drift away from me, because no matter how long we go between seeing one another and no matter what insanity any of us may get into, when the going gets rough, we will all be right there together. That’s totally priceless.

3. Davidson. For all that Davidson nearly killed us, Davidson gave me all of the most important people in my life, one way or the other. So, thank you Davidson College. I may never fully recover, but I’ve got a great company in the “Totally Fucked Up, Seriously,” Department.

4. My Cats. I have two Very Awesome Cats. Daeva and Daksha are the icing on the cake of being married and having a house. They’re our little family, and they love us in their little furry cat ways. Good pets are a huge blessing in life.

5. I’ve got a better job. That speaks for itself, I think.

6. I’ve got my health. And my family’s healthy. My cats are healthy. My friends are, by and large, healthy.

7. We’re not rich, but our finances aren’t fucked up. Which is a good thing, since we just had to replace the hot water heater. Yay, home ownership!

8. Hey. We own a house. We have managed to buy and basically rennovate the all holy hell out of our house in two years.

9. We’re married . . . but we’ve managed to maintain single friends. Which means we’re not a cliche, and also that I’m not constantly surrounded by women who Must Spawn a Child Now. Double winnar!!

10. And last, and probably least, but it’s a big deal to us: The SOB’s that lived up the street and who also kept a dead SUV in the road beside their driveway, have moved out, and their damn dead car has been towed. Thank you, Fulton County Popo. The car was only in the same place for one year. Excellent job.

Over at Amber’s blog, a commenter said something about loving it that Americans seek out McDonald’s when overseas. Now, I did proceed to make an ass out of myself, since the comment was a little cryptic and I was feeling pretty beligerent about people being blown up, but the MickeyDee’s bit has stuck with me like the music from those god-awful Six Flags commercials with the creepy old man in them.

Anyway, it put me in mind of the summer I spent in Cambridge with Davidson. We were at Magdalene College (you say it “Maudlyn”) that year, and I lived in Mallory — yes, named after that Mallory. we were living in Britain and eating British food, and it was really a bit of a trial. Sainsbury’s was the supermarket we had the easiest access to, being that Cambridge is a walking town. We ate out a lot. I remember that Jessica Bogo and I found an Italian restaurant after a particualarly harrowing first train trip (nearly to Liverpool!); the place was called Don Pasquale. We made a habit of the place, going there probably once a week. They had a really good gnocchi, which Jess loved because she’d just spent the semester aborad in Italy, and we drank a lot (really, a lot) of Lambrusco.

Of course, we weren’t always into “fine” Italian dining. There were plenty of times we were rushing to or from some weekend destination through King’s Cross, starving to death in the way that people who walk or run everywhere do (particularly when you really are a lazy American and this trotting back and forth stuff isn’t your usual bag), and McDonald’s looked very good. Usually, it was very good. We were always so hungry that it didn’t matter. Nothing in this world like a good old Quarter Pounder With Cheese when you’re hungry enough to eat a goat, skin and all anyway, right? And, it tasted like home. No matter how much I <3 Furriners and being abroad, I have to acknowledge that I will always be happy to return to the taste of American cooking. Things just taste differently at home; maybe it’s the water, maybe it’s the type of oils we use, maybe it’s that American cooking has more salt in it than the sea, I don’t know. But I do know that the taste of McDonald’s is comforting to a tired low-tech student tourist who really just wants to collapse on the Cambridge-London express.

I also spent about ten days in France while on this trip. My best friend from college, Amber, and I traveled to several cathedrals in France as part of my Dean Rusk Grant Project. We lived for most of that time in one hotel — the Hotel Perfect — and took the train to different cities to see cathedrals. We visited Notre Dame, Ste Chapelle, St Denis, Beauvais, Reims, Chartres, Bourges . . .I know I’m leaving something out. Anyway, the staple food of our existence was a French Baguette, brie cheese, and a Swiss Army knife. We ate Chinese food in the rain (ordering Chinese in pidgen English-French is too much fun), ate at cafes around our hotel, and had a chocolate croissant every morning from the bakery down the street. On the way in to the hotel, we noticed this place called Bojangles, which was odd to us. What, we thought — Chicken and biscuits in Paris? Hm. Finally, one night we were utterly exhausted, starving, and the drizzling rain was too much for us to consider wandering around in a ten-block radius looking for food. We went down the block to Bojangles.

We stepped into the small storefront expecting to hear the usual “Bon soir!” Instead our tired American ears were greeted by, “How are y’all doing?” I like to have passed out. Other than the chick at Gar du Nord who thought Amber and I were Norweigan, this was the first non-Davidson American voice we’d heard in more than a week. The place smelled like heaven. We looked around and realized the restaurant was filled with American expats, people who were hungry and tired and craving a taste of home, too. They were friendly and gregarious in the way that people are when they’ve been living in a foreign city with people whose first language is not their own. We sat down to a menu with about three things on it — Chicken, Pork, and Fish I think. I think we ordered sweet tea, the first time we’d so much as had the inkling of an option to drink our Regional Drink since I’d been in England. The food came out, and it was so good — the chicken was moist and flavorful, there were some sort of geens I’d never touch in another life with a vinagrette dressing that were divine. I flatly informed Amber that if she didn’t eat her gravy, I was taking it, so she’d better move fast. I’ve never been more hungry in my life, and food has never tasted so good.

Just a little entry to let everyone know that Apollo died last night in a cat versus car incident. Amber let me know this morning. The massive furball will be missed. (But perhaps not by wayward rabbits.)

Hola!

Well, I am now down to about one month left in South Florida with UCLA grad info starting to hit my e-mail box daily. I might have an apartment (knock on wood) in Santa Monica. One of the third-year Ph.D. students, Griffin, has a roommate going abroad and will know the details this weekend. Fingers crossed! I met Griffin at the AMS meeting last year. Good peoples. The apartment is 30 minutes (by bus–which is free for UCLA students) driving time from UCLA (which is really like one mile in LA) and ten blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. Rough life. Granted I’ll probably never have the time to enjoy the ocean . . .

My fellow UCLA Ph.D. class has begun to chat. We’ve been e-mailing out bios to each other the last two days. I feel a little intimidated . . .
Phil has a B.A. from Wesleyan and a M.A. from Brandeis
Elizabeth has a B.M. and M.M. in piano performance from Julliard
Marcie has a B.M. in opera performance from U Texas
-two people yet to check in
I now deliver subs at lunchtime for a new sub place. really cool people, not much money, but far better then the evil guy from the last job.
CIAO!

Abi, who we have all been wondering about, is actually alive.

Hi, Abi. I know you read this now.

She thinks she doesn’t have anything good to post, but I think all things are good to post. So, let’s encourage her to post.

Post, Abi!! Post!! You are funny!! We like your sense of humor!!

I can also say in this post that if you didn’t know it, Thomas and I are currently trying to buy a house. So, keep your fingers crossed for us.