In which i'm a curmudgeon
What the fuck am I doing in Washington DC? This is a question I have yet to really answer myself. Yes, it is spring break, and yes the usually means a “break” of sorts, but there is nothing really that should bring me to this city. As far as I can tell, it is entirely populated by politics and museums, neither of which I care for all that much. Museums have always seemed like the ultimate exercise in passive learning. Basically you spend the entire day walking from room to room being talked at (either in the form of placards, video displays, or people who get paid to basically tell you why items you would give no mind to are actually historically important… for some reason). I know what you’re saying, Ian you just don’t like standing for long period of time pretending to be interested in a subject matter that you don’t really know anything about, and I would say that you’ve sussed it. But seriously, my father wants to go to a garden museum… it is a museum on gardens. I’m sure there will be garden exhibits, photos of historic gardens, some how-to instillations perhaps, but in all honesty I can’t see myself spending four hours to take in the nuances of late 18th century English gardening techniques. As for art museums, I’m not going to pretend I’m more high brow than I actually am. Let’s face it, visual aesthetics and I don’t get along. Too antsy. Maybe I just miss the science museums of my youth, climbing over 50 foot globes, watching giant lighting bolts being shot at faraday cages (but what of the person inside???). Oh, those were the days. To bad people look at you like a freak if you’re walking around the children’s museum of science with out a child.
There are also monuments here in DC, though, and at least I can handle monuments in theory. Either they involve large things (like towers or statues) or grand, emotional metaphors, but in practice I bet all the monuments you have seen in your life have blended together into one giant memory: you are surrounded by a lot of people, you stare at the thing in question, and you try to convince yourself that the longer you stand still the more poignant the thing will somehow become. Sort of like the grand canyon, people keep telling you it says something about the majestic nature, and powerful force of the world… but all in all the whole experience shouldn’t take you more than five or ten minutes. After that it just becomes a big hole with some rocks, but maybe I’m just overly cynical.
It’s going to be a hard week, if only for the fact that I don’t normally have to deal with my parents by myself. Usually my brother is around to help carry the burden of small talk and platitudes, as he is much better at handling such things, but instead he took off to Austin for SXSW. Yeah, I can see who won in this case.
And it’s not that I particularly dislike my family, because I couldn’t ask for a more supportive and loving environment, it’s just as if they hit 55 and stopped talking about anything other than the weather. I mean really, I have only been in the city for 4 hours, and already I have heard that the weather is beautiful 200 times. (60 percent of which were followed with a comment like “it’s so good to see no snow on the ground!” and the other 40 percent were followed with something like “It’s so great to be out of Maine!” My mother also has a tendency to tell every passing person our life stories.
“so, that’s two rooms?”
“yes, one for us and one for our son Ian. He just flew in from Iowa where he goes to school… Ph.D. you know, but we actually came in from Maine. The weather is just so wonderful here, it’s just so great to be out side and not see snow on the ground…” and so forth. I’m just off to the side just thinking “why does she have to know I go to school in iowa? Why does she have to know it’s for a Ph.D.?”
Along these same lines, there also comes a point in every trip when we end up at a Japanese restaurant and my mother feels the need to tell the waitress that I studied Japanese in college, leaving me to wonder what my mother hopes to get from revealing this piece of information. Does she hope the waitress will give me a vocab quiz? Perhaps ask my hand in marriage? It’s all a mystery to me.
I can’t really blame them though, since I generally take the philosophy that I would rather say nothing than resort to pleasantries and small talk. I have sort of given up trying to communicate with my parents on a somewhat real basis as the last time I tried to joke around with my mother it went somewhat like this:
Me: Yeah mom, no my friend is looking it up on wikipedia. It’s this online Encyclopedia, have you ever used it?
This comment deeply insulted her, and she then yelled at me for ten minutes, claiming that I accused her of not knowing how to use a computer. My friend rightly said that this is somewhat akin to asking someone if they had read Moby Dick and having them say that you accused them of being illiterate. They are crazy folks, but damnit if I don’t love them anyways.
There are also monuments here in DC, though, and at least I can handle monuments in theory. Either they involve large things (like towers or statues) or grand, emotional metaphors, but in practice I bet all the monuments you have seen in your life have blended together into one giant memory: you are surrounded by a lot of people, you stare at the thing in question, and you try to convince yourself that the longer you stand still the more poignant the thing will somehow become. Sort of like the grand canyon, people keep telling you it says something about the majestic nature, and powerful force of the world… but all in all the whole experience shouldn’t take you more than five or ten minutes. After that it just becomes a big hole with some rocks, but maybe I’m just overly cynical.
It’s going to be a hard week, if only for the fact that I don’t normally have to deal with my parents by myself. Usually my brother is around to help carry the burden of small talk and platitudes, as he is much better at handling such things, but instead he took off to Austin for SXSW. Yeah, I can see who won in this case.
And it’s not that I particularly dislike my family, because I couldn’t ask for a more supportive and loving environment, it’s just as if they hit 55 and stopped talking about anything other than the weather. I mean really, I have only been in the city for 4 hours, and already I have heard that the weather is beautiful 200 times. (60 percent of which were followed with a comment like “it’s so good to see no snow on the ground!” and the other 40 percent were followed with something like “It’s so great to be out of Maine!” My mother also has a tendency to tell every passing person our life stories.
“so, that’s two rooms?”
“yes, one for us and one for our son Ian. He just flew in from Iowa where he goes to school… Ph.D. you know, but we actually came in from Maine. The weather is just so wonderful here, it’s just so great to be out side and not see snow on the ground…” and so forth. I’m just off to the side just thinking “why does she have to know I go to school in iowa? Why does she have to know it’s for a Ph.D.?”
Along these same lines, there also comes a point in every trip when we end up at a Japanese restaurant and my mother feels the need to tell the waitress that I studied Japanese in college, leaving me to wonder what my mother hopes to get from revealing this piece of information. Does she hope the waitress will give me a vocab quiz? Perhaps ask my hand in marriage? It’s all a mystery to me.
I can’t really blame them though, since I generally take the philosophy that I would rather say nothing than resort to pleasantries and small talk. I have sort of given up trying to communicate with my parents on a somewhat real basis as the last time I tried to joke around with my mother it went somewhat like this:
Me: Yeah mom, no my friend is looking it up on wikipedia. It’s this online Encyclopedia, have you ever used it?
This comment deeply insulted her, and she then yelled at me for ten minutes, claiming that I accused her of not knowing how to use a computer. My friend rightly said that this is somewhat akin to asking someone if they had read Moby Dick and having them say that you accused them of being illiterate. They are crazy folks, but damnit if I don’t love them anyways.