| Quotables |
"Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. ... I felt
very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo."
-- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar |
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"On the surface, it sounds irresponsible, but to flourish in a rapidly changing world, you actually need to make more mistakes. Fail quickly. Fail often. If you do something and it
doesn't work, just recover in a hurry and try something else. ... Help develop a culture that is willing to fail its way to the future."
-- Price Pritchett, Culture Shift |
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"There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction -- every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour."
-- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar |
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| kirksville bound |
| Saturday, July 25, 2009 |
For quite some time now, I've known that I wanted to take a weekend and get back up to Kirksville, and it would almost certainly have to be over the summer sometime; not that Fall is out of the question or anything, it's just that this summer holds some pretty significant importance in the overflowing nostalgia bucket that my head has become.
Some of you may remember that I stayed in Kirksville over the summer of 1999 to knock out some classes so I could graduate in December. Well, it turned out to be one of those summers you never forget. I met my excellent friend Rachael, I fell in with the theatre crowd, got cast in a mainstage play (the last one of my college career, although there would still be some one-acts), had a fling with one of the more high-profile girls in the department, I even wound up dating our assistant stage manager for most of the production... and that's only scratching the surface. Periodically, when I think back to that summer, I absolutely kick myself for not keeping a better journal and taking more pictures, because that's the kind of time in your life about which you want to remember every. detail. you possibly. can.
It's hard to explain why. It was really the way the place felt over the summer. Let me tell you, from a student's perspective, Kirksville over the summer doesn't look anything like it does when classes are in session at the University. The campus is bare and very quiet; all you can hear is the hum from the buildings (yes, the buildings hum). You have everything to yourself, you never have to fight for a parking space or a computer or a seat in the dining hall. It was hotter than all hell, but I got a bullshit doctor's note that authorized me to put an a/c window unit in my room, so when I wasn't out getting cast in plays or dating theatre girls, I was lounging in 70-degree air conditioning while temps outside climbed to somewhere in the vicinity of 200 degrees F.
This summer, then, would be the ten-year anniversary of all that nonsense I enjoyed so much as a mere 23-year-old college student, all the rehearsals, parties, gatherings, and get-togethers that made that summer what it was. And so I thought, what more fitting way to observe that than to take a weekend and head up to Kirksville? I'll catch the summer play, run wild all over my old stomping grounds, and take a ton of photos while I'm at it. It'll be a trip down memory lane, to say the least, and since I haven't been there since Rachael graduated in 2002, it'll give me a chance to see what all has changed since I've been gone.
A decade, my friends. Ten years have passed since one of the most pivotal times in my life... how is that possible?
My awesome friend Jen, who I met in my very last writing class at Truman, lives in Kirksville with her husband and chickabiddees, and I thought I would stop in on them as well. Unfortunately, that's the weekend of their yearly trip to Minnesota, so I'm going to miss them this time around. I hate that, but it can't be helped, of course.
The best news, though, is that I understand the hotel I'm staying at has high-speed internet access. So I'll be taking the Netbook and all the necessary accessories so I can blog and post photos before I get home. I'll be Facebooking, too. So keep an eye out for all the dish, because it's coming your way before I even get back.
I haven't been to Kirksville in nearly seven years, and after next weekend, it could be a very, very, very long time. There's just no telling. So I'm going to make this one count.
One last thing -- let me address this before one of you does. I know there are those of you who are still hoping for a visit from me... those of you in Denver, Houston, Pearland, et al, who may be wondering why I haven't come to see you but am going to Kirksville on a weekend in which I know my one remaining friend won't be there. The answer is all a matter of expense; I can afford one but not the other. My hotel bill for the entire weekend in Kirksville wouldn't pay for the gas it would take to just get to your house, let alone get home again. And I wanted you all to understand that that is the only reason.
They say that as long as you're an alumnus, which you are for life, there will always be something for you in Kirksville. I'm kind of hanging my hat on that at the moment, because the thought of not having a second home up there makes me really, really sad. Right now, though, I'm just looking forward to getting back and enjoying some old memories. I do love that place.
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posted by N.T. @ 9:04 PM  |
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