How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation

One long post, in lieu of a dozen short ones.

After I dropped Jonas off in the tiny Stuckeyvilleian town of Waupaca, I had about seven hours of driving time left.

I spent five of those hours with The Satirist, a quiet, stolidly cynical, previously-unbedubbed girl who's been in a few of my classes. I don't especially like The Satirist, but I don't dislike her either; the only feeling I have towards her is one of genuine unadulterated goodnatured ambivalence. We sit next to each other in class, chit-chat, and never dream of socializing afterwards. I approve of her existence, and she approves of mine.

This isn't to say that The Satirist doesn't have any good qualities. After all, she is cynical (which I take to mean "negative, but in a smart way"), and when she's not dividing the world into fools and knaves, she's silent. I can't tell you how much respect I have for people with the good sense to be quiet every once and awhile. I think I have already, though.

Five hours of intermittent conversation and surprisingly comfortable silences later, I dropped The Satirist off a few blocks from Hamline. She's supposed to call me tomorrow about a ride home. I cranked up the music ("here's your problem," Matt said later, turning up the treble and bass) and drove home without incident.

Waking up in my own bed Wednesday morning, I knew that waking Josh up and kicking him out of my room had been the right choice. For one thing, when I'm at home, in the huge ergonomic bed, I seem to dream more. Interesting dreams, too, not just regurgitated images from the day before.

I think it's just that I've got so many memories here. This place and these people played such a huge part in making me the person I am today that I can't help but think I'm losing a bit of myself whenever I leave.

I don't have to be around Graham and Manney, but where else is the "justification one" joke funny? I don't need to be around Matt and Josh, but who else knows the proper reply to "phone's ringing"? Where else do I have so many old issues and repressed memories, so many friendly acquaintances and familiar inside jokes?

I was glad to leave Brainerd behind, and I'm still glad I went far far away, but part of me couldn't leave this town. Lawrence Dan is, undeniably, a different person than the Dan who merely wanted to escape; not by choice or out of any conscious effort to "reinvent Dan", but simply because all the old associations that created Brained Dan are needed to sustain him. Outside of context, I'm like some poorly translated Japanese novel.

Wednesday night, Jenna, Graham, Manney, Amelia and I congregated at Amelia's (a safehouse for rogue Green Party members) for a casual reunion. Since prettymuch everyone except me either goes to Hamline or dates Manney, they'd all seen each other before. But even the Hamlinites enjoyed being off campus- we could (and did) put down minorities with nary a non-ironic thought, safe from dimwitted p.c thugs.

I suppose that I should apologize for all of us by saying that what I find offensive is not the inability to say something offensive, but the implication that we believe the offensive things we're not allowed to say. If I believe Jews are plotting to use Krispy Kreme donuts in a devious scheme to take over the world, then I'm a moron. If I'm pretending to believe the same because I think it's ludicrious, and downextremeright hilarious, then anyone who has a problem with that is a moron, or a liberal arts major, or both.

This hamfisted restriction on speech seems to be more of a problem at Hamline than at Lawrence, thankfully, but the reaction to last year's "Better than Hitler" campaign posters proves that it's our problem too.

That first night seems to have been spent in random conversation and giddy slurs, until we left to see Friday After Next at the little theater.

We didn't know it was there, however, and by the time we figured out were Manney and Amelia had gone Graham had convinced us to ditch the happy couple and go bowling.

I tried to flake out, couldn't, and ended up at the bowling alley demonstrating a technique rarely seen outside of the Special Olympics: The Wrist-Flick (which, as some Lawrentians can attest, I practice whenever bored or nervous).

It was a veritable Graham's-older-friends reunion at the Paul Bunyan Bowl, but I knew J. Lo pretty well and the rest of the people were vaguely familiar (Sam Bedard was much too familiar, in every horrible lap-sitting sense of the word) so I didn't feel like Graham's tag-along, always a fear. After a few successful frames and some lighthearted mockery from the skilled 100-bowling bowlers, we went to Perkins.

After years of being the only guy not to go pheasant-hunting on Thanksgiving, I'm almost over the implied immasculation; sleeping in for hours and hours on Thanksgiving morning certainly lessens the blow. My mom and I got to my uncle's farm in Avon around two, just as everyone was getting back from hunting.

My aunt Bernice and my Gramma still like me as much as they like chocolate. My cousin Danielle still idolizes my brother Matt in a way that always makes me think she has a crush on him (until I remember that everyone there is related). My aunt Bonnie still seems to have an unspoken grudge against me- she hasn't forgiven me for my behavior on our trip to Michigan five years ago.

My uncle Mark encouraged me to succeed and whatnot- odd when you consider that, in a family of socialites and business majors, I'm somewhat of a black sheep. A rebel, if you will (but I wouldn't).

It seems like someone has been working behind the scenes, having (ah, there's one of my dreams! I remember typing this!) everyone get behind Dan's ill-thought-out plans. I think it's just that someone (my dad, perhaps, from what I gather from Matt) has been thinking about what exactly I'm going to do after college, and mentioning the subject to others. Hence the attention.

I drove home with Matt and Josh. I'm glad I'm related to Matt; we've had some pretty good conversations of late, but if we didn't share the same parents we might never have met.

I have no idea what I did Thursday night. Probably some of the stuff I think I did Friday night, but, truth be told, I seem to have spent most of some evening or other at home, playing Halo with Matt and Josh.

Friday morning Jenna and I braved the Day-After-Thanksgiving-Day crowds to do some shopping at Target and Best Buy. Though surrounded by bargains, I saw only one thing I wanted: the Blade DVD, on sale for $10. After about an hour and a half, we went back to Jenna's and watched said DVD, then I headed home.

We all (Jon, Graham, Jenna, Manney and I) ended up at Graham's again that night, then went to the 371 Diner, Brainerd's shiniest diner. After we'd finished our meals, Graham and I decided to become men the only way we knew how: by eating food as fast as possible. The victorious glutton?

On the way back from the 371 diner, I was encouraged to use a word other than "dastard", one which "wouldn't cause people to judge you so quickly." That certainly rankled, especially since I'm perfectly aware (and, for once, have always been aware) of both what that word means and what it means to say that word. It's a funny, tragically ironic little word, and until I get tired of it (inevitably: remember "curses" and "proverbial") I'll keep using it. Egads…

After downing medically-unacceptable amounts of delicious batter bites, we went all went back to Graham's and sat and digested. We watched television and probably would have continued to do so had not an obviously-bored Jon (he doesn't like Seinfeld, the inhuman monster) got the proverbial hookup to a party in North Brainerd.

At any successful party there's something a little different going on in every room. This party had one room devoted to cribbage and one devoted to watching L.A. Confidential, and while I was content to sit in silence and watch the movie for the third or fourth time, Graham got antsy.

We saw Die Another Day, starring Halle Berry as Jinx. We somehow managed to both enjoy the movie on its own merits (it was better than the other recent Bond movies) and make fun of it with what Graham called our "unbearable wit." I showed Graham a measurement-related move that Ann or Jinx or
Meg(h)an taught me and he spent the rest of the movie resisting my invincible come-on. I didn't dare try the other line.

Well, that's about all. Tonight was quiet- dinner with my parents and a game of Trivial Pursuit with two Koreans; tomorrow, it's back to Lawrence.