LITTLE 5

Last weekend was Bloomington’s Little 500, an annual bicycle race precipitated by the biggest party week of the year. During the week undergraduate attendance drops by nearly half, the school newspaper publishes op-eds about why Little 5 is the greatest college party in the whole U.S. of A., and kiddy pools and beer pong tables materialize on every block in preparation for the weekend. As early as Tuesday it is not uncommon to see sloshy teenagers slip n’ sliding on hefty bags or playing a beanbag game known as “cornhole” in their front yards. There is an almost constant level of squealing. At about 11am on Friday I was riding to campus and passed a house party spilling out into the street. Girls in fluorescent shorts and matching sorority-designating purple t-shirts milled about and a guy on the porch wearing an empty Natural Ice box on his head did a robot dance to Kanye West. Did I mention that Ludacris performed at one of the Fraternity houses at some point?

I spent most of the weekend getting work done on the deserted campus and puppy-sitting for the charming but spoiled Oscar (below), who refused to walk like a normal dog and insisted instead on being carried everywhere.

On Friday the anthropology department held its Skomp Lecture, featuring a fascinating woman who studies human skin color and argues that it cannot be used to classify people into groups or races because similar colors have evolved many times in many places. She spoke optimistically of our first “moderately pigmented president.” Afterwards there was a departmental reception (baby quiches, wine, and awkwardness!) and then a graduate student party that I wanted to escape from the second I arrived. Though I am not looking forward to packing my bags I am ready to leave again. A good thing, as my summer travel plans promise to feature Austin, St. Louis, Seattle, San Francisco, D.C., and possibly South Carolina and Alabama and that's all before I leave for China early in the Fall.

More on all of that later, but first, for all of you that don't enjoy the rare pleasure of living in a college town, a few pictures of the Little 500 festivities (and their aftermath). I tried to take them surreptitiously with my phone, fearing drunken reprisals and harassment. Collective inebriation emboldens college students to yell insults and provocations at total strangers, and after a week of riding my bike around town and being honked at, directed to the race location, and repeatedly regaled with "go little 5 woo-hoo!", I didn't feel like encouraging them.

MATRIMONY, MARYBETH STYLE

I do realize that technically, matrimony takes two, but for me, the trip to NYC was all about MB. Long one of my most treasured and most admired friends, Marybeth is one of those people who is just too good to be true, except for the fact that she is. Brilliant, charming, principled, loyal, and eternally stylish, Marybeth is one of those friends that makes you feel better about yourself for the mere virtue of knowing that she thinks you're cool too.

I have all kinds of fantastic memories of our times at the LSE, but as those days, thank god, were not digitally recorded, I will happily start here, at the bachelorette party. You can't see it here, but all of us had recently been baptized in penis and testicle-shaped confetti.

A girl after my own chinky heart, MB brought an animatronic panda to the hotel pre-party.

Jason had something to say about being included in the festivities.

From Tribeca, we moved to on to the tranny-tastic decadence of Lips NYC.

Jason proved very popular.

Like all of us, Marybeth was captivated by Mary J. Blige, in addition to being moved by the signature frozen cosmopolitans.

On Saturday afternoon I made my way to Jersey City, where I was greeted with this marquee upon my exit from the PATH train station at Journal Square.

The interior of the theater, built in the 1920s and perpetually in the process of restoration, was phenomenal.

The bride and groom dance their first dance to The Cure.

Hanging with the bridal party.

I'm not sure why, but judging from his hand gestures, Cy appeared to feel that something at the wedding was "wiggety wiggety wack".

Quite possibly my very favorite picture of the night.

Oh open bar....

The following afternoon, a few of us met up in Central Park. It was a gorgeous Spring day.

And it didn't take us long to polish off the rotisserie chicken that Ursula and Donnie brought. Oh the innocence of those happy hours before I knew the fate that awaited me in Terminal A!

Mrs. Christiansen, in a white trench coat, takes a stroll to call her mister.

This is what soulfusion looks like, my friends.

$$$!!!$$$!!!$$$!!!$$$!!!$$$!!!$$$

A very obtusely worded e-mail arrived in my inbox today and from it I slowly deduced the news that I have won a grant for my dissertation research next year from the National Science Foundation. It is less money than the Fulbright but more social capital, and y'all know how I prize social capital over shekels any old day. 

HOORAY! I HAVE BEEN FUNDED!!! 

ADDENDUM:

On Monday I received word that I have also been granted a Fulbright. The news continues to be excellent though as a friend recently noted, if ATM machines start suddenly spitting out cash at me as I walk by I might start to wonder if that deal with the devil that I made didn't work a little too well.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Guarding my precious outlet at the Newark airport

Well I didn't exactly wish for more time spent at airports, but after looking at the last 24 hours in light of my recent posting on my love of the places I'm feeling a wee bit superstitious.

Checking in at Newark yesterday afternoon I was informed by the computer that my flight had been cancelled and rescheduled for first thing the next morning. I sought out the help of an airline employee but nothing else was available. I made the quick decision to stick it out instead of heading back into the city, not wanting to bother my friends again and figuring it would be a huge hassle to make the trip back out again at 3:30am. I now feel that was a poor decision. I'm sure I could have worked something out that was superior to wandering around Terminal A from 1pm to 11pm, squeezing in a few hours of sleep on a large luggage trolley (the only place warm enough), spending a further 4 hours at Chicago/O'Hare on a layover this morning, then squeezing into the back row of a tiny 2-engine next to a morbidly obese man on the flight back to Indy. I tried to feel compassion for him, primarily to keep from feeling resentment, but he was asleep almost the whole flight and while I was squeezed as far against the wall as possible, his arm kept dropping into my space; elbow in my waist, weighty forearm pressing limply against mine, and hand brushing my thigh. I would try to push the offending limb away but it kept falling back as he fell straight back to sleep. Eventually I settled for a childish solution, building a defense composed of my book and an in-flight magazine. This at least limited actual contact.

Now I am back again at the Indianapolis airport, waiting for the next Bloomington shuttle bus. I'm really tired. New York was excellent but I spent too much money and slept too little and now my nerves are shot and I'm trying to remember what it is I like so much about travel. I went to the restroom right after my flight landed and promptly burst into sudden tears. I want to go home.

NO ONE DOES IT LIKE YOU

Emmy sent me a link last night to this strange and wonderful video by one of my most favorite bands. I just watched it again in the Indianapolis airport, which is currently crowded with Army reservists in fatigues, crewcuts, and sand-colored boots eating breakfasts from McDonald's. I want to ask one of them where they are headed but I won't; I'll just worry about their fates from the steel and glass sterility of this shiny new airport.

I'm off to NYC today for Marybeth and Cy's wedding and wedding-associated activities. I've been looking forward to this for ages but right now I am so perfectly comfortable and calm that I feel little of the excitement I expected. Such is the effect airports have on me. Give me some cavernous lobbies with windows onto runways, bad art mixed with surprisingly good art, coffee, a scone, and a few minutes to browse the magazines, and I'm happy as a clam. At least I am until I get on one of those infernal flying machines.