judgement
i'm a bad swattie. every once in a while, guilt swirls up around me about this. how could i be so bad? it was my first choice skool and it picked me in the first round -- love, actually, reciprocated. where did we go wrong?
thanks to swarthmore, i became a feminist, a happy leftist, a full-out vegetarian (though i revised my stance and became a jewish vegetarian, because life's not as good without fish). i became a director, a filmmaker, a screenwriter, a film critic, an ally, and a girlfriend, as i may have mentioned.
but one thing swarthmore couldn't make me is an activist. let's be honest now people: what matters more? who cares how passionately i can defend closed support groups or diversity on college campuses if i'm not willing to go to pennsylvania this weekend and knock on doors?
that's the real question underlying all this neurosis. i *mean* to be activisty, i want to be. but it's soooo not my scene. i feel self-conscious chanting. marching is okay; i've gone to marches. sometimes i've found them uplifting. but even that memory hasn't been enough -- and even my intense, authentic, unbeatable FEAR of this election hasn't been enough -- to drive me to the phone banks. all the true swatties are at the phone banks! they're partying with the undecideds, or they're tearing their hair out over the latest articles on Salon, but they're there. where am i? at home watching america's next top model and eating wasabi peas.
oh swarthmore. surely you deserve part of the blame. perhaps the candelight vigil for the football team disenchanted me. perhaps it was the studied inarticulateness of the radical left, who preferred to qualify their statements into oblivion rather than risk accidentally offending. perhaps it's because, in bowing to that tradition, i began to use the words "like" and "um" myself and now i find it hard to stop.
this could be backlash. a little rebellion, now that i'm free. maybe i WON'T consider whether or not to be offended by that commercial: that THAT, college! maybe i'll make declarative sentences! maybe i'll consider eating chicken! ("wow, look at her go ... that ester. i guess she always did think outside the box.")
maybe i'm just a wuss and i didn't deserve you, swarthmore. maybe i miss you more than i can admit, and my feelings are all confused because we parted on such an odd, discordant note. maybe i *should* go knocking on doors this weekend -- your doors. you'll open up and see me standing in the rain. silently, we'll look at each other, recrimination and hurt shining through the tears, until i sense you soften and you feel my heart break and, to the swelling of a piano score, we end up sobbing cathartically in each other's arms.
er, or maybe i'll stay in new york this weekend and eat a bag of mini Milky Ways, pretending i trick-or-treated for them. i miss being a kid.
thanks to swarthmore, i became a feminist, a happy leftist, a full-out vegetarian (though i revised my stance and became a jewish vegetarian, because life's not as good without fish). i became a director, a filmmaker, a screenwriter, a film critic, an ally, and a girlfriend, as i may have mentioned.
but one thing swarthmore couldn't make me is an activist. let's be honest now people: what matters more? who cares how passionately i can defend closed support groups or diversity on college campuses if i'm not willing to go to pennsylvania this weekend and knock on doors?
that's the real question underlying all this neurosis. i *mean* to be activisty, i want to be. but it's soooo not my scene. i feel self-conscious chanting. marching is okay; i've gone to marches. sometimes i've found them uplifting. but even that memory hasn't been enough -- and even my intense, authentic, unbeatable FEAR of this election hasn't been enough -- to drive me to the phone banks. all the true swatties are at the phone banks! they're partying with the undecideds, or they're tearing their hair out over the latest articles on Salon, but they're there. where am i? at home watching america's next top model and eating wasabi peas.
oh swarthmore. surely you deserve part of the blame. perhaps the candelight vigil for the football team disenchanted me. perhaps it was the studied inarticulateness of the radical left, who preferred to qualify their statements into oblivion rather than risk accidentally offending. perhaps it's because, in bowing to that tradition, i began to use the words "like" and "um" myself and now i find it hard to stop.
this could be backlash. a little rebellion, now that i'm free. maybe i WON'T consider whether or not to be offended by that commercial: that THAT, college! maybe i'll make declarative sentences! maybe i'll consider eating chicken! ("wow, look at her go ... that ester. i guess she always did think outside the box.")
maybe i'm just a wuss and i didn't deserve you, swarthmore. maybe i miss you more than i can admit, and my feelings are all confused because we parted on such an odd, discordant note. maybe i *should* go knocking on doors this weekend -- your doors. you'll open up and see me standing in the rain. silently, we'll look at each other, recrimination and hurt shining through the tears, until i sense you soften and you feel my heart break and, to the swelling of a piano score, we end up sobbing cathartically in each other's arms.
er, or maybe i'll stay in new york this weekend and eat a bag of mini Milky Ways, pretending i trick-or-treated for them. i miss being a kid.