Your Erin Fix

So, I know that wiping a hard drive is perhaps the easiest possible computer activity, but I must say that I am infinitely proud of myself for getting my own up and running through the process. The video card and I had a bit of a showdown, but I did come out victorious. It means no new computer for now, but that's fine by me. I'm just basking in the glory of my accomplishment.

While trying to avoid daylight this afternoon during a rather futile nap session, I was awaken by my momma who informed me that we were going to a graduation party. Knowing my dear sister, it could have been for anyone from the Denver equivalent of a Trump heiress to the ant that climbed out of a soup bowl this morning. She's a social little creature to say the least. It turned out to be closer to the former and so I re-donned my blue seersucker strapless dress, fluffed my hair, pulled a wrinkled pashmina out of my still packed suitcase to fight the coming storm and slipped back into my tan kitten heels, praying for an open bar.

I got the open bar and promptly reverted to my Venezuelan/80-year old man program, scotch on the rocks, but found even more pleasure in some of the people that I met. There is some humor, albeit one filled with disbelief, in hearing people talk about getting $80,000 cars for graduation, and I laughed as they droned on about the harshness of driving DVD-, LCD screen-, refrigerator-equipped minivans while their children drove BMWs. Honestly.

The best part, however, is introductions. I got so many "you are just gorgeous" comments. And while the cynic in me reviled and looked for signs of superficiality, the ensuing conversation, interspersed with "your skin is beautiful" and similar refrains forced me to smile and say thank you and let my ego inflate a little bit more. Not only was it kind and sweet, but it is so refreshing to have someone tell you that you are gorgeous and know that person is not trying to sleep with you. Let's be clear, the 60-year old women were not looking to take me to bed.

A friend, who is in the process of ending a rather odd long-distance relationship that is eerily similar to my situation last year (minus the LCB part), remarked she would rather have them looking for something at this point. Sometimes we need one, sometimes we need the other.

I am experiencing an interesting process as I meet new people and old friends and talk to them about this project. When I gave a presentation to Devon's classes, it had to be very low key. i worried about how it would come off to them and how to make the idea resonate. The poverty, the abandonment, the teenage pregnancy, and so much more are part of their everyday lives. What I find appalling and terrible and worthy of academic inquiry, they find normal and quotidian. I mentioned teenage pregnancy in Devon's fourth period class last week, which set off a string of giggles and under-the-breath snide comments. I tried to blow it off and act cool as I realized that the episode was probably old hat to them. I later learned that not one, but two of the girls, 15-year old girls at that, from that class currently find themselves carrying a miniature person inside of them.

Perhaps it is my own disconnect with that reality that makes this project so interesting to me. I knew that this sort of thing happened in high school. I know girls who disappeared to the alternative school and did not come back, their cousins coming to class nine months later with pictures of rather small children. I have been told that the culture at my high school encouraged them to leave, but I also have heard stories of women coming to full term at Creek. On many levels, I was shielded from all of this. My honors classes and small group of over-achieving, privileged, perfectionist friends, my middle-class suburban neighborhood. For all intents and purposes, it was a choice. The closest I came to "those kind of girls" in high school was through charity. My Girl Scout service award project with the Bridgeway home for teenage mothers, so lauded by my universities and so reviled by the Girl Scout organization, was really my only link. And it proved a link that probably created more haughtiness and sense of superiority than anything.

Most undergraduate universities across America pride themselves on fostering debate among their students. Whether of a political or economic nature, or more often than not, a social nature, debate should fill the halls of dorm rooms and libraries and grassy quads.

I was in college when W was first elected, when September 11 ripped open our imaginary bullet-proof vest and when cheering crowds brought a tyrannical statue to the ground. Despite the flurry of political events that marked those four years, I only remember one constant source of debate: the golf course.

It might seem odd that a fertilized patch of recreation inhabited solely by starched khakis and popped collars would incite an entire undergraduate population. I might clarify that the golf course refers to the 5K cross-country course that loops around the Washington Duke golf course, not a place to sport your new 5-iron.

Even people who refuse to run have run the golf course. It is 3.1 miles of pure up and down, curvy hell. It strikes fear in the heart of athletes who had to race around it in opposite directions or had to find ways to make it longer by repeating choice inclines. There is no way to measure your progress, at least until you've memorized every turn, and the hills are simply killer.

I am not a runner, and was even less so in college. I would swim a few miles for you, but getting me to run even one was almost impossible. My roommate used to drag me to the golf course on a regular basis and run circles around me. Literally, if I stopped or started to walk, she would jog around me and tease me to get me going again. We, and many others debated. Start left? of start right? At the bottom of the hill? or the top of the hill? I marveled openly at my friends who would run it twice or three times or sprint the last hill over and over again, but really just thought them crazy.

While doing nothing in Durham the past few weeks, I, lacking my bicycle or a mountain to hike up, decided to revisit those old torturous hills and pray that I might fit into my bridesmaid dress after a little running. I was pleased to find that on my first trip through the trees, I made it all the way around without a problem. I even sprinted the last straightaway (and almost died) and found myself wishing I had another half hour to do it again. By my fourth day, I thought I was ready to do it twice and I am very proud to say that I ran six miles! This is quite the accomplishment for me, being both a non-runner and deathly afraid of that course.

All in all, my feat is not really all that amazing. Before, I was trying to go at someone else's pace. Even when I ran it alone, I ususally managed to tire myself out completely by the end, if I managed to finish it, running at a pace that was simply unsustainable for me. This time, I really felt I was going at my speed. It took forever, of course. I ran through all those lovely, nostalgic trees that had sheltered so many shallow breaths and felt so comfortable. If I had had more time, maybe I would have done it three times.

I am learning to do things at my own speed. My writing, running, cycling, reading, everything. I think it's a good thing.

It's a terrible thing to forget. It's a terrible thing to admit you've forgotten. But when I walked into the Sarah P. Duke Gardens this morning after my run around the golf course, my mind held nothing else than minor embarrassment for my dirty, sweaty tank-top and pajama pants and the hopes for a pleasant walk among the flowers and a few good pictures.

I found plenty of the last two items. Most of the flowers were just past blooming, with the rose petals beginning to cover the ground. I took pictures of the Monet bridge and the baby ducks and the trees that loomed overhead. It was a good cool-down from my harrowing jog.

As I kept walking around, the stone steps and the little, cherub fountains suddenly came into view, and it all came back to me and I just started bawling. And not just little tears at the edges of your eyes crying. This was full-on, coughing, hiccup-y sobbing.

It's been two years since we planted Maggie's cherry tree and I hadn't been back. I also don't think I've cried about her in several years, perhaps even since her death. No, I did, once. I cried when they read her best friend's monologue about spreading her ashes in the North Carolina mountains. Fuerte.

I cried for like ten minutes, and I just let myself go. I didn't try to stop it or hide my sadness or keep my voice down or wipe my eyes even until I felt I was OK. I had this terrible, I'm-so-ungrateful moment thinking about all the amazing things I've done and seen over the last four and a half years. And how she hasn't.

No trip to North Carolina in the spring is complete without a Durham Bulls game. I took in one last night thanks to an old friend and got great seats at half price thanks to Harris Teeter. We sat three rows up from the field, looking straight up at that lovely old bull with the flashing red eyes and smoke coming out of his nose. His tail was broken, didn't go up and down, which was sad, but that's the way it works. We sat down and watched the boys warming up and I had the strangest feeling that I knew one. When he turned around, his shirt said McDonald, as in Darnell. As in huge giant football and baseball high school stud from good old Cherry Creek. It was just too coincidental.

Darnell hit the first home run of the evening, setting the bull off. I'd like to think he did it for me. He has no idea who I am or that I was there, but we'll just ignore that part.

I've been struggling with writer's block the past few days. I thought perhaps it was the lack of appropriate stimuli (as in, I'm not in Venezuela), or the abundance of unrelated stimuli (school, shopping, friends, English, trees, apartment shopping, Mexican food, country music, etc). Leslie, however, just offered another explanation, which I will quote herein.

"another friend of mine, a writer too, swears that she simply cannot write good prose unless shes wearing good underwear. i think your lingerie shopping is an integral part of the writing process so no guilt my dear!"

Note to self.

North Carolina sunsets are not spectacular. Often, the sun tiptoes down behind the trees without one ever really noticing. When I lived here, I used to complain about the lack of a horizon and the dearth of sunsets, how day just seemed to slip into night without any acknowledgement that another day had come to an end. To contrast, Colorado sunsets meant darkness as the sun suddenly dropped from the sky down between the mountains, bursts of light escaping in attempt to hold onto the shortening hour.

North Carolina sunsets hold none of the glory, but I was quickly reminded that there is nothing like dusk in the lush countryside of rural NC. Without the sun to distract you or the light pollution to dim the moon, the eastern sky turns a deep, velvetly blue while the western sky holds onto the color of day and slowly succumbs to the darkness. It's really too gorgeous for words.

I watched the sky darken over a girls' high school soccer game in Henderson, NC on Thursday. It was the perfect end to a day filled with biscuits and fried chicken from Bojangles (yes, I know it sounds wildly inappropriate) and Southern accents.

It's pretty crazy that I'm still saying I love it here after the weather we've had. Yesterday it rained like madness and today is gross and gray. But Duke is just as stunning as ever, with huge, leafy trees and stone walls and gargoyles around every corner.

And I'm practicing my Southern accent. It's amazing how quickly it slips into everyday conversation, a y'all there, a drawn-out 'he-ey' here. Jens is going to be so happy to see me, well at least to hear me.