Back at Oberlin

So I'm typing this entry from the Decafe. Yeah OC! As a side note, I think we should sue Fox for damages to intellectual property. Now when someone says "yeah OC," it sounds like they're talking about a lame drama. And sure, Oberlin IS a lame drama, but at least it's one that subverts the patriarchy.

That was probably the first and last time that I will use the phrase "subvert the patriarchy" in this blog. I'm Oberlin, but I'm not all that Oberlin.

I came back for the Oberlin Jazz Dance Festival, which has been great and has challenged my fears that swing is rapidly declining. Good, cool, talented, excited crowd.

Seeing the Oberlin students is a trip too. I've been thinking recently about how everyone has certain styles that they can make work and other styles that they just really can't. Like I can make ugly hawaiian shirts work reasonably well, but if I wore a sweater-vest... I'm sure you get the picture. Anyway, Oberlin people, especially the boys, look like they're all in the process of *figuring* out what esthetic actually fits them. So you have these people with strange assortments of piercings and facial hair. And its not that piercings and facial hair can't work for some people, or even for them, but they just haven't gotten it quite right yet. There's a mild comedy to it, which I think you can only appreciate if you've been there.

Oh, I had a great Fiume (Dirty Hippie Bar in Philadelphia) moment on Thursday. I've often said that thhe place is pure Oberlin -- Oberlin prices, coop owned, Oberlin feel, and a crazy per capita concentration of alums. I usually describe it as "if you say Oberlin in there loudly, three people will turn around like you just said their name." That's supposed to be an exaggeration, though. So Thursday, I'm talking with a friend from Penn and mention my beloved OC, and the people at the table next to us say, "did you just say Oberlin?" Turns out they graduated in '03. One of them lived with Amanda Smith, the other one actually lived in the apartment below me senior year. Fucking hilarious.

Not much to report beyond that. Been great hanging out with Becca and Rachel (Rachel drove out with me to see Becca). Awesome seeing James, my boy got into Yale for grad school though so he deserves a good ass-kicking. Oh, poker has been going great again. Made $1000 last month, already made $1000 this month. Lifetime profit (in a little less than a year, now) = $6,750. I'm hoping to make enough over the next couple months to finish paying off my credit debt and have enough in the bank account to survive the summer. We'll have to see if that works out or not.

'kay, time to hit the road.
-DK

spring break... deja vu

So spring break came and went. The big ? for my time in DC was going to be "what the hell happens with Tenley?" We'd managed to be tremendous when in the same postal code, but she'd also managed to stand me up five times in a row on potential Philly visits. The last one had really started to bug me, and so it was worth wondering how things would turn out.

Didn't start so well. We were supposed to get together Friday night, once I got into town. I left a message for her and she called me while I was on the road to say she wasn't feeling so well and had to cancel. "Great, now she's standing me up when *I* come to see *her*..." Went to a swing dance party instead that night, which turned out well.

So we first saw each other on Saturday, attending the MCSEA meeting. that's right, I said MCSEA meeting. They're back and wanted to meet the alums. Soooo exciting. They seem like a good crowd -- right ideas, hearts are in the right place -- sprogs are going to help them a lot, though, they lack some of the vocabulary we had for thinking about organizing. Anyway, Saturday was alright, and we agreed to spend all of Sunday together.

Sunday was PERFECT. Picked her up around noon, went hiking, went out for lunch, saw a movie, had a semi-fancy dinner... It just felt comfortable and normal, as if we were (believe it or not) a normal couple. And I've had my share of romantic fun, but normal couple things have really never been in the cards. I can honestly say it was more special to me than the MCSEA meeting.

Then, Wednesday night, just before I left for the Training of Trainers in San Jose, we went to dinner with some friends, and afterward she told me she couldn't do this anymore. She's been in a rut for months, and ending things with Chuck really messed with her. It's been our classic problem for some time -- we're great in the present, have too much history between us, and really don't have much of a future.

So that sucked. On the bright side, I can now make the wry comment, "Well, that wasn't the worst end-of-spring-break breakup I've ever head with that PARTICULAR girlfriend." It hurts more than it should, we weren't officially back together, but there was an awful lot of emotion wrapped up in this one. You know, I think Tenley and I have broken up more often than I have with all other women combined. Don't know what that says or means. Figure I'll work it out some other time...

Grosse Point Blank-related stress

Okay, been a long while since I updated this thing. Yeah, like that's a surprise. Anyway, this weekend I'm going to be attending a MCSEA meeting, which is just about the most exciting thing I could imagine doing. They've been restarted by a guy named David Bronstein and someone else whose name I can't remember. So beautiful. A bunch of other alums will be coming as well -- Eric, Mike, Tenley, maybe Candace, Lauren Moskowitz, Nathan.

It's interesting that it's happening on the first weekend of March. That's the 9th anniversary of MCSEA's first meeting (March 3rd, 1996, to be exact). I've already decided that next year, for the big 1-0, I'm going to host a biiiig alumni gathering. Like, as in track-down-people's-addresses-and-mail-invites sort of a deal.

That, in turn, got me thinking today about my 10-year high school reunion, which will be about 2 years from now. And thus, we have the title of this post:

John Cusack's character, Martin Blank, is going through a sort of crisis as he prepares to attend his ten year reunion. I know it's two years off, but I *really* don't live up to the image of a 28-year-old's life as represented in that movie. (Hell, I haven't even killed anyone yet!) Seriously though, my life as reflected by films is something of a disappointment. When I first saw Kicking and Screaming, the line "22? Wow, old man river," was funny and all, but it also seemed real old to me. Then I was 23, and still didn't have my shit together. Same thing with rewatching Singles a few years ago. Those characters are 23. 23?!? I'm nowhere near that grown up yet. And now we have the 10-year reunion, just 2 years off. Where will I be in 2 years? I predict the following...

-I'll be working on my dissertation, which will sound very interesting and hide the reality that I've managed to escape a normal job for a decade past high school.

-I will have probably just been elected to my second term on the Board. This will come as a surprise to absolutely no one who remembers me in the slightest. You know, I was given the "most likely to hug a tree" award at the senior banquet, and apparently it was a unanimous vote of the 400+ person senior class. This will also hide my personal conviction that, despite the titles, experience, and leadership development, I'm still nowhere near the environmentalist I was in high school.

-I will, in all honesty, still probably be single. I'll have a string of swing dance affairs behind me (assuming that I haven't had dance-ending knee surgery by then), and things will still be cloudy with a certain high school ex-girlfriend. That same high school ex will probably agree to be my date for said event, but then stand me up last minute for some inexplicably good reason.

-I won't, most likely, remember more than a handful of names. There weren't a lot of MCSEAns in my year, and my non-MCSEA friends only included about 8 or 9 people. It will likely be me and Michelle hanging out for most of the night. If AJ shows up (he probably will - he was always more into these things than I was), that will be a very nice reunion.

-If I'm lucky, I'll get really drunk and beat the shit out of every member of OAR. THAT would make for an exceptionally successful reunion. ;-)

In the end, I'll find the whole experience to be pretty anti-climactic. It won't occassion much personal reflection or even too many fond memories. Part of that will be because I never made my life at school so much as I did through MCSEA. Part of it will be, honestly, most of those people were totally lame then and probably still will be in two years. But part of it will be that, once again, life never seems to live up to its billing. And that's really too bad.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the night.
DK