So, what’s news?
Perhaps that’s not the best way to start.
When was the last time I made a proper post to this blog? Sometime in 2008, if I had to venture a guess.
I want to say that I’ve been busy getting on with my life and so busy have I been that I couldn’t be bothered to write, but that’d be a load of horse shit. If I’m to be frank, I’m probably less functional now, not blogging, than I was two years ago, when I blogged upon every whim and fancy. Much to my chagrin, no dearth of material does not equal to an abundance of writing talent, as can be evidenced by anything I wrote in October of 2008. Or November. Or August. Or ever.
At any measure, I did have something to say. If I can remember it all, we’ll see a miracle worked, but I will try.
So, what’s news?
Let’s do this in an orderly manner, shall we?
- I graduated high school
- I went caving
- I turned eighteen
- I visited Richmond
- I went to my college orientation
In that sequence, I think. I’ve anchored those bullet points with their respective anecdotes below. For those of you who don’t care particularly about my high school commencement, or my city travels, or my spelunking, and since this is a sort of combined posting concatenating what should have been a number of separate posts, feel free to skip about as you please.
I graduated high school
The Senior Class
of
Twin Valley High School
announces its
Commencement Exercises
Friday evening, June eleventh
Two Thousand Ten
seven o’clock
Twin Valley High School Gymnasium
Believe it or not, I did manage to graduate. Twenty-second of fifty-four. I would have been much happier with twenty-seventh, frankly. Dead middle, exactly where I belong. Regardless, I’m happy enough to be finished with high school, as all graduates are, and to be moving on to bigger and better things.
The ceremony itself was perfectly lovely. I looked resplendent in my flowing black gown and gleaming white collar, medals making a joyful noise at my breast and cords of distinction more various than all people of the world swaying hither and thither. The hard leather soles of my shoes beat a perfect tattoo upon the parquet of the gymnasium floor as I marched forward to receive that which I have been laboring for so arduously these four years past.
I cried a bit afterward. Large, compulsory tears that turned into larger, genuine ones.
I went caving
I went caving in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky the week after graduation. Two days of exploring the largest cave system of the world with Brittany and Lucas Looney. It was certainly one of the most fun things I’ve ever done, and by far the most exhausting and uncomfortable thing I’ve ever paid to do.
The first tour we went on was a spelunking tour, which is a sort of do-it-yourself tour that involves crawling and climbing and exploring in areas that are not open to regular tourists. You do this all in coveralls and hard hats with lights attached. It was…eye-opening, to say the least of it. The other two tours we did were typical tourist things that we were able to walk along for, thankfully.
Apart from exploring caves, we took some time to explore the various restaurants in south central Kentucky. Lucas and I managed to convince Brittany to try sushi at a Japanese place in Bowling Green, and the next day she ordered a whole meal at an excellent Indonesian restaurant called Orchid Flower in Lexington.
We’re so hip.
I turned eighteen
My eighteenth birthday was the most unceremonious occurrence I’ve ever experienced, I think. For something most people are somewhat anxious about, my attitude about it was downright boring. I’ve never been a person to get excited about birthdays. Likely due to the fact that my family has never been one to make a big deal of them. So my ascent into legal adulthood came and went with about as much pomp and circumstance would be afforded a Catholic holiday in my house.
I got cake, and gifts, sure. I get to vote, be drafted and buy cigarettes.
But let’s face it, it’s nothing special. I can’t even rent a car.
I visited Richmond
Richmond, capital of the Old Dominion state (that being Virginia…) and my future home, is the most awkwardly constructed city I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to quite a few.
The streets go any which way they please; the buildings look like they were jammed into place by an under-attentive toddler playing with Lego bricks; the buses stop at seemingly random intervals to pick up or drop off nobody; the neighborhoods are not consistently black or white, poor or wealthy; I’ve yet to find a map of Richmond that looks the same as any of the other maps; and I love it to death.
When I first made my decision to move to Richmond, I was warned by and large that the city is dangerous, that there’s crime and gangs and Negroes and all manner of such abominations and in large numbers. And I suppose this is true. But I suppose, too, that the same is true for any city, anywhere. Richmond is hardly the only city in which the crime rate is eight times higher than the national average for other cities its size, right? Right?
Regardless of that, I think I’ll be mostly safe where I live (downtown) and where I go to school (uptown), because those are generally good neighborhoods (i.e., white, to hear my gloriously racist father tell it). I live in Cabaniss Hall, in downtown Richmond, and most of my classes are at the Bowe Street Deck, which is about twelve blocks west. I’ll be taking a bus, or a bike (I’ve not decided).
I’m actually excited. You know how strange that is.
I attended my college orientation
Virginia Commonwealth University holds several orientation dates throughout the summer, and I managed to get stuck in the last of them. This was July 15–16, just a few days ago. I spent the night in a dorm with five strangers and spent both days walking Richmond until my feet fell off.
I was shown around the Monroe Park campus, in Richmond’s vibrant west end. There are ethnic restaurants on every street. The buildings are all old and made of stone, or old-ish and painted loud colors. The streets meet at odd angles and veer off into whatever direction they fancy. The university people all seemed a bit on the weird side, except for a few who seemed unusually normal.
I registered for classes this fall. As a part of the last orientation group that registered, I was lucky enough to be able to pick from the bottom of the scheduling barrel. Consequently, my schedule is somewhat totally fucked up. On Mondays, I have no classes until six in the evening, at which point I have a single studio class until nine at night. Tuesdays I have art history for an hour and a quarter, at ten. Then nothing until five-thirty. Thursdays are the same. Wednesdays I have art education class from noon until two, then a studio class from six to nine again. On Fridays I have a single studio class all day, from 8:45 AM until 5:30 PM, with a two hour lunch break.
I am so going to fail.
