"In vacant or in pensive mood..." I am: Bekah; 24; Law Student / Favorite Things: Carbs (so there!), Johnny Damon, Smiling at babies, Grilled cheese, Comfortable silence / Favorite Supreme Court Justice: Brennan / Favorite Wilson: Owen by an inch / Today's Special: Song: Elliott Smith, "Bled White"; Quote: "You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bowstaff." Please love me: mmbekah@yahoo.com

 
On the Road Again

When you're stuck inside studying all the time, it's easy to forget all of the beautiful sights and sounds going on around you. That's why all of the highway driving I've been doing since the end of the semester is so good for me. It gets me back in the game and puts a little bit of perspective on things. Before I continue, I want to make something clear. I was raised in the South, and I will be the first to say that some of the stereotypes are just not fair. I have never seen a gun, much less supported the right to bear one, I am a Democrat, I am a Jew, I am Pro Choice, I am not a bigot, I shower daily, I do not drive a pickup truck or chew on hay, I do not drink mint juleps (I don't even know what they're made of!) or Jack Daniels from a mysterious paper bag, and I do not have a farmer's tan. And more importantly, I am not anomolous in this respect: I know tons and tons of people, just like me, who populate the various Southern states. (I do say y'all, but I will be happy at another time to fully defend that word. It is very useful, and is much less irritating than a constant, whiny "you guys...you guys...")

But all of this is beside the point. Although I did grow up in the South, I never got a real taste of the roadside establishments that populate all of that lost space between actual cities. Now that I have, I have come to one important conclusion. The South seriously knows how to do gas stations. (Incidentally, they also do a mean billboard. My personal favorite is: "I Miss You, Let's Talk Soon. Love, God." That one really made me question my faith and my life choices). When you go to a gas station in the South, you're not just getting petroleum and the usual pre-packaged food. You're getting any or all of the following: home-cooked food (there's usually a "kitchen" in the back for fixing up 99 cent breakfast biscuits, ribs (from baby's backs?!), or hot wings; none of which did I sample, but all of which were certainly completely sanitary and not cooked anywhere near the restrooms), a State-themed clothing line, dishware, home security devices, hunting gear, musical birthday cards, furry toilet seat covers, and the best selection of bumper stickers your heart could desire. I purchased one of the latter that featured a simple drawing of a beer can bearing a Rebel flag and a label reading "Whoop Ass," with a caption alongside proclaiming in no uncertain terms, "DON'T MAKE ME OPEN THIS!" I really, really want to put it on my car, but I am resisting the urge (for now). I searched for the old favorite, "My Kid Can Beat Up Your Honor Roll Student," but those appeared to be out of stock.

I don't know if this is a Southern thing, but I have a weakness for the old $1.99 tapes that they keep up by the register in gas stations. I looked at one rack and spotted, to my extreme elation, Kool and the Gang's greatest hits, including (gasp) "Ladies' Night"! I also grabbed a Rick Springfield tape because, really, who doesn't like "Jessie's Girl" now and then on a long drive? In my car right now I have tapes by Styx, Pat Benetar, The Sex Pistols, and Nanci Griffith. They serve as nice supplements to my cd collection. But I was a little bit ashamed of the B music I was purchasing this time, especially because of the skeptical look I got from the woman at the register. I got a little flustered, and was going to explain to her that my purchases were kind of ironic--that I thought it was cool to have a few old cheesy tapes around in my car for fun. But I looked into her disapproving eyes and all the eloquence was reduced to: "I like tapes." She said nothing, and I felt like an ass. But when I got on the open road and popped in Kool and the Gang as the wind blew through my hair, I knew it was all worthwhile.

posted by Bekah at 10:57 PM :: |

 
Warning: I went almost a week without writing or being in contact with other human beings, and it kind of made me antsy. Now I seem to have vomited an extremely long entry for your reading pleasure (or exasperation). I apologize. Feel free to take this one in small doses. From now on, I promise to be more regular with the updates. But not in a Metamucil sort of way. Crap-tastic, that is.

Purple Mountain Majesty

Ah, the mountains. I am rejuvenated and revivified. My family (along with a variety of my aunts, uncles, and third cousins eight times removed) owns an old mountain house in North Carolina where we usually go for a few weeks in the summer. It has no television or heat. It has no high speed internet, no sound system (ack!), and is outside of the Sprint PCS service area (what isn’t?). It does, however, have toilets and a shower, and it is one of my very favorite places in the world. The smell of that house and the surrounding woods is locked in my brain. The memory lies dormant during the year until those final moments when I’m driving up the winding road to the house, windows down, and all of my childhood summers come rushing back. It smells equally of fresh rain, fireplaces, wildflowers, and the pages of old books. Rain on the tin roof in that house is one of the most comforting sounds I know. The clink-clanking makes me feel almost like I’m outside in the cold rain, but reminds me at the same instant that I’m safely tucked under three blankets and the rain is just noise. Sometimes in the morning the house is enveloped by a cloud, and everything looks a little spooky in the heavy mist. You can look out of the kitchen window and see rabbits darting across the road or little baby foxes with heads too big for their bodies prancing around by the woodshed. When I was little, my family used to go in late summer during blackberry season, and my sister and I would tromp through the blackberry bushes around the house with our little pails. Then we’d take bubble baths in the claw-footed bathtub and decorate each others’ hair with the bubbles.

This all might sound a little too idyllic, and maybe it is, but that’s one luxury of memory. Just be glad you’re getting this selective view, without the bickering or complaining of adolescent sisters. My memories of fighting over who should get the firewood and complaining about long hikes will have to wait for another day. One quick story though. We always go on a variety of hikes while we’re in North Carolina, and I remember one particularly long one that my sister and I weren’t too pleased about. We were pretty young, and pretty prone to complaining. So my Dad pointed up to the tree branches above us and said, “See the light through the trees? That means we’re almost there.” So Hannah and I kept staring up at the light through the trees…and kept staring…until we got to the top about two hours later. Good one, Dad.

During the past few summers, my family’s schedule hasn’t allowed for a simultaneous visit. So this year I drove to the house by myself and spent 5 days curled up in my pajama pants with an electric blanket, instant oatmeal, hot chocolate, and piles of books. When I’m reading or studying, I like to stack all of my books around me, like a little fort. It reminds me of how much there is to read, which is a great thing if I’m reading for pleasure, and a terrifying thing if I’m studying for exams. During the past week, I didn’t do much else besides read, nap, and go for walks on the paths around the house and in the town. When Hannah and I were younger, “town” was our favorite place. We’d spend hours in the candy store or the little shops browsing for various worthless (though expensive) trinkets. I think I still have a small figurine of a pajama-clad walrus reading in bed. Yeah, I have no idea either.

When I ventured into town this year, I couldn’t stay long. And it wasn’t just because I’d grown extremely attached to the electric blanket. As I walked innocently along the main shopping street, I saw it: A Thomas Kincaid monstrosity of a store was glaringly situated in the center of town, with a huge golden cross set up among the fluorescent gazebos and luminous Christ-Gardens in the window. Since my last visit, the store had apparently crept in from its offensive but less presumptuous location on a side street. Or maybe, lord help us, this was a second store. When the nausea passed, I decided that “town” and everything it stood for would be best left to my childhood imaginings.

America’s Favorite Pastime

Resuming the baseball-themed description of my literary aspirations, I have to report that I didn’t get all the way through the lineup. Unfortunately, my ambitious reading list didn’t really account for sleep time. Truth in Context is still in the dugout, as is the biography of Wittgenstein and Fever Pitch. There were, however, a few pinch hitters, no strikeouts, and one glorious homerun. During breaks between other books, I read large chunks of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, which is extremely readable and entertaining. Unfortunately, I only managed to read from the 1870’s through the Negro Leagues so far. Becoming a baseball expert is going to be a little harder than I thought. Maybe my goal for the time being should just be baseball competence. At least until I’m out of law school.

The leadoff hitter this week was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Carson McCullers made a strong showing, hitting a solid double. It would have been a triple if not for the slightly heavy-handed Southern symbolism that slowed her down on the base path: Yes, the town deaf-mute was named Singer, and, yes, he was the one person everyone in town wanted to talk to. Why don’t you just beat me over the head with the devastating isolation of the human condition! But all in all, it was a good book, with intriguing and well-developed characters, and it even made me cry once (I won’t spoil it and tell you when).

Up next was The Sirens of Titan. As a Vonnegut connoisseur (“Em, yes Jeeves, I believe Cat’s Cradle will do very nicely today, with a smidge of caviar and a drop of that delightful sherry, mmthankyou”), I must say this was one of his greatest showings. Simply put, it was a homerun. After reading a Vonnegut novel, everything else just seems forced. As they always say (and by they, I mean me), “Once you go Vonnegut, you never go back.” I think it’s worth a slight digression to give you a few examples of the man’s sheer brilliance. One of the earliest passages in the novel describes the skeleton of a dog: “The skeleton was symbolic—a prop, a conversation piece installed by a woman who spoke to almost no one.” Um! Brilliant! But my very favorite line is a description of the protagonist waking up from a night of drunken debauchery: “His eyes felt like cinders. His mouth tasted like horseblanket puree.” I don’t care how many times you’ve been hungover, you could never come up with a description that vivid or that true. It makes me cringe and yearn desperately for a big glass of water and some Ibuprofen. Give that man the Pulitzer! Or have they already?

Third up was a pinch hitter, The Neon Bible, a little known work by John Kennedy Toole, author of A Confederacy of Dunces. The Neon Bible wasn’t published until 1989, twenty years after Toole committed suicide. It was written when the author was only 16, was discovered after his death, and became the subject of a big ownership war among his family members. But it was finally published, and worth the trouble. In some ways it’s a basic specimen of Southern fiction (Dad smacks Mom around, town preacher derides anyone who is insane/homosexual/foreign/poor, kid gets terrorized by bullies, etc.), but with a twist of the writer’s youth that makes it great. Base hit, with a nice little slap on the butt from the first base coach for the star effort.

At cleanup was Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. I don’t really feel comfortable talking about this book. I liked it though. A lot. In fact, it might be the absolute funniest book I’ve ever read, even though the hero is a very callous and judgmental person (just to scratch the surface of his faults). Still, as a former camp counselor, and as a former 12 year old girl, I just have to be disturbed. Mr. Nabokov, I’m going to peg you in the head with a curve ball and allow you to take your base.

That’s where we are in the order right now. The game will probably slow down as my research assistant responsibilities pick up (more on that to come). But I definitely hope to get some more good reading done this summer. In the meantime, I have a few months worth of movies to catch up on…what should I see first?

posted by Bekah at 12:47 PM :: |