2002-07-31
Feeling random, posted at 5:31 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Very little is new. This entry is very random, and probably is best read as if you were imagining each set of *** to be a separate entry. Otherwise, depressing stories about mothers dying of AIDS will uncomfortably mingle with stories about how I thought I looked damn good in a tank top the other day. You've been warned.***
There are just two days left of summer school. I'll miss these kids quite a bit. I've grown close with them this summer, despite my general laziness in my teaching practices. Actually, my teaching hasn't been lazy, but all other things regarding the job I've done have been. For example, today I came in after the class bell rang. Oops. I was caught in some awful traffic coming in from Bally's, and was late as hell.
One of my student's mothers is dying of full-blown AIDS and an AIDS-related cancerous tumor on her brain. I cannot begin to fathom how painful that must be. I feel like I'm the only one he's talking to about it. The tumor is such that the mother is having a difficult time recognizing anyone. Listening to him talk, I get tears in my eyes. I'm not sure what to say, other than to be patient with her, that I'll be thinking of him, and that I'm here if he needs to talk more. He goes and sees her in the hospital every day after school. This kid's grandfather died about three weeks ago the same exact way my grandfather died eleven years ago - a stroke, then a week spent in a coma in the hospital. We sort of connected over that, but I have no experience similar to losing a mother.
***
Otherwise, I haven't been doing too much. I'm planning my big trip back to Michigan, and sent out an e-mail today to about 50 friends. I'm calling it another "Whirlwind Tour of Michigan," and I have three tour stops: Detroit, Lansing, and South Haven. I'm really looking forward to this trip - there will be karaoke, a Tiger game, dinner at Armando's Mexican Cuisine, drinks at BW-3, a movie with my cousin, dinner with my grandparents, and three days spent camping and hanging out on the shores of Lake Michigan. I can't wait.
***
The CD I've been listening to the most lately is Tracy Chapman's eponymous debut. I no longer think the CD belongs on my eschelon of greatest CDs ever - it's moved from my top five to my top twenty - but, damn, there are some great songs on it. "Fast Car" is the song that first made me love music. And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone... Love it.
***
Inspired by Glenn McDonald, I have begun drafting a list of my 100 Favorite Songs Ever and my 100 Favorite CDs ever. That's the sort of fun summer project I need to go along with all the not-fun cleaning projects I haven't done.
Think "Fast Car" will be there? Bet it.
(That's a slangy expression I picked up from my students.)
***
So, I wore this tank top to the gym the other day. A Calvin Klein one I got for $5 at this cheap discount clothing store. Size Large. I still remember the days where I always looked for XXL, or, if I was lucky, I could find an XXXL. Because if I wore baggy stuff, no one could tell how fat I was. Ha.
It was the first time I'd wore this shirt (my sister convinced me to buy it when she was in town), and the first time I'd ever wore a tank top to the gym. Hell, it was only the second time I'd wore one in public.
But... I looked damn good. I know that sounds horrible and immodest and vain in an "I bet you think this song is about you" kind of way, but this is my diary and that's how I felt. :) I could barely recognize the guy in the mirror. It was the biggest confidence boost I've had in a long time.
The extra confidence made me work out harder than I probably should have. Yesterday was a legs workout, which generally kick my ass, and yesterday I probably overdid it a little. Today I'm so sore I could barely spit out a mile on the treadmill, and I'm walking so funny that people are asking me why I'm limping. And today was suppsed to be my six mile day. I'm still on this 6-2-6-2-break schedule, but actually have only stuck to that schedule one week. I did six on Monday, two yesterday, and one today. Today it wasn't really that I couldn't run aerobically, it was more that my leg muscles were just too damn sore. I'll have to time my leg workouts a little bit better, I guess.
***
I have been doing a lot of downloading lately from Kazza. I wonder how quickly they'll shut this one down. It's just as good as Napster.
***
I've been reading obituaries like crazy lately. It's always been on of my favorite parts of the newspaper. It's not because I'm mordid. I just enjoy reading the stories of people's lives, of hearing about these people whose lives would never have touched me otherwise.
These last few days, though, I've been looking at their pictures and reading their articles with a new outlook. I've been wondering a lot lately if these people got what they wanted to out of their lives, what sort of regrets they have.
I remember once we had an exercise in one of my college classes where we were to write about what scared us. I wrote about Regrets. One of my group members loved what I wrote, but another one quoted some writer who said that a life without regrets does not exist, that it's unrealistic to hope for no regrets, that regrets are part of life because each regret results from a choice for something else. I wonder.
I'm trying to psyche myself up for something I'm not sure I have the courage to do.
Woah, Epiphany is getting all reflective. It must be he's got a birthday coming up.
Yes, folks... two weeks from tomorrow, I will be 25. A quarter century. I think I've already had my quarter-life crisis (hence... Baltimore), but 25 has always seemed like one of those milestone years and it's approaching like a mack truck.