cookout
Today I went to this cookout shingding for the Fourth. It was a gathering of the white-hairs, a smattering of 50 something's and your's truly. It didn't seem entirely promising at start but it offered the promise of food and hey, a girl's gotta eat. But at any rate, I was sitting next to this man. His name, Robert, his last name, I don't know, what I should refer to him as, Mr. Something and not Robert. He came in wearing a striped red, white and blue shirt and a Korean War Veteran baseball cap. He sat between me and my aunt and of course, my aunt starts bragging about me to this man - the closest in the vicinity and one willing to listen. Overall, I'd say that this was quite awkward as I was sitting to his immediate right and trying to fend off his compulsory praise. The man thinks I am extremely bright because of the scholarship thing, the grades my aunt has listed out for him and once he finds out that I plan on being an English major (what he majored in as an Undergraduate), he begins to spout out titles and authors of books I've never heard of. He talks about his children, both lawyers, all extremely intelligent book-loving folk. In the midst of conversation, he off-handedly mentions that both he and his children are Mensa members, something which I make him repeat to make sure that I'm not becoming deaf and senile among the geriatrics. This man is so intelligent and well-spoken, well-read, extremely interesting etc and I am torn between wanting to talk to him and wanting to stop talking to leave him with his impression of my brightness. I feel like one of those stars that explode but you can still see the light because they are so far away. I'm not even entirely sure how long it takes for the star to go out, or for us to stop seeing it. Is it seconds, minutes, hours? Days? Years? I have no clue yet I feel like the empty void, the vapid youth who is existing only because someone millions of miles away happens to look up at the sky at that very moment and admire the brightness of something that is not even there. I know, so I am being overly dramatic. I know that I am not an empty void, but I can't get over the feeling that I've somehow mislead him. I've somehow tricked him and he has me confused with the other bright youth of America. Because it's more that I am ordinary. And you know, there are millions of people on earth. Nearly everyone is ordinary so it shouldn't be such a bad thing to admit to. Yet even in saying so, I feel like I'm settling, for what or from what I don't know. It's just that I, along with my billions of contemporaries, would like to believe that we are extraordinary in someway. But anyway, I really want to go and visit this man and just listen to him talk. Not that I'm saying it would be Tuesdays with Morrie-ish (no offense to Mr. Albom - see I'm showing respect) but maybe by osmosis I will become a better person. When I found out he was a Mensa member, I really just wanted to ask him why he was even bothering to talk to me. This is entirely and completely stupid. Why I think this way, I don't know. We could hang out, drink Iced Tea or something. I could make him read Harry Potter. He could make me read everything else. Good deal I think.