May 2006, Dad's Memorial Service, and New Mexico.
May 2006.
Lesson Learned: "The best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley [go oft awry]." -- Robert Burns. This is lesson comes from Robert Burns's "To a Mouse," which we covered in Dr. Moore's English class, and it is something I wouldn't have minded learning once. But it was frustrating to learn it so well, and on so many separate occassions, all in one month. But perhaps this is lesson that merits repeated learnings, because it essentially teaches you that sometimes things go wrong no matter how hard you try and that it isn't your fault.
Well, as of today, only two weeks left of my junior year. I don't understand it. My last semester dragged on for what felt like years, but this semester seems to have flown by so quickly. I wonder why.
Lesson Learned: Staying focused for the last two weeks for the semester is harder than staying focused for all the other weeks put together.
Lesson Learned: It never rains but it pours. Case in Point: I spent all of this semester and last semester applying and being interviewed for jobs that I never got. Now, after eight months of having no job offers, I suddenly have two!
Of all the aggravating things that Mom does -- and there are many -- the absolute worst is that she starts bawling if anyone within a ten-mile radius of her so much as things about Dad. And she'll probably keep doing this for the rest of her life.
Music of the Month: "Hips Don't Lie," by Shakira with Wyclef Jean; "Where'd You Go?" by Fort Minor; and "Over My Head," by The Fray.
Shakespeare Quote of the Month: Vernon: "As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer." -- King Henry IV.
New Mexico.
Lesson Learned: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Case in Point: As of today, I've been here in New Mexico for exactly one day, and never before have I so missed the humidity, Gulf breezes, green grass, Magnolias, Oaks, and other tall trees of Louisiana.
There is a mountain above Las Cruces, New Mexico, with a big white "A" painted on it. I'm serious! The "A" clearly visible from our hotel window, and from just about everywhere else in town, it seems. Who the hell put it up there? And why? I know it stood for "Adulterer" in Hester Prynne's case, but I can't imagine that's what it's supposed to mean here.
So, after three different people tried to speak to me in Spanish in three days (and someone else probably will tomorrow), majoring in French has never felt so useless.
The coins are brighter here in New Mexico, as if they're newer. I think it's all this sun that makes them so shiny; honestly, I haven't seen shade for a few hundred miles, and I haven't felt a raindrop since before we left Louisiana.
I've never done drugs, but I imagine feeling high must feel similar to standing in the middle of the desert of White Sands, New Mexico. The hot sun beating down in the middle of blindingly-white sand dunes stretching as far as I could see. Easily the most unreal experience of my life. Ever.
Dad's Memorial Service.
(Held May 20, 2006, Unitarian Universalist Church of Las Cruces, NM.)
Dad's memorial service went off beautifully, despite all my worries. Mom and Celeste were both there, and they didn't kill each other. Mom cried so much that we all nearly drowned, but I had expected that. Ben decided not to come at the last minute, but I guess I should have expected that, too (we are talking about Ben, after all). I had promised myself that I wouldn't cry, and I didn't, although I came close. But a lot of people did cry whom I had never seen cry before, including Steve, Mark, and Michael, which was weird.
Everyone who spoke at the memorial service talked about what a wonderful, loving father Dad had been. In fact, it seemed the only people who didn't say he was a great father were his kids. My mom said that Dad never complained that his kids always wanted to eat at McDonald's, never minded eating another meal of chicken and macaroni and cheese. Another relative (I can't remember who exactly) said something to the effect that Dad never uttered a swear word in his life. Both are completely untrue. I am not trying to insult or belittle my father's memory, but nor do I want him to remembered as something he wasn't. He swore often, and I have several memories of him and Mom swearing at each other, repeatedly and loudly (one, for example, was one night when we were driving out of Houston after visiting Mark and Vickie and we got lost). He complained that I watched my "Peter Pan" movies too often, and he told that the soap operas I watched were crap. I usually had to say "Dad" four or five times before he would hear me, and at least once a week, he would get into his car and drive away to somewhere without saying a word to anybody, and he didn't reappear until several hours later. Dad wasn't a saint; Dad was a man, with the same imperfections as all men.