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May 2, 1998
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No sign of the starlings this morning. I woke up at 5:00 AM anyway in anticipation, but I was reluctant to turn the air conditioner on as a preemptive strike because it was rather cold and rainy outside and even on "fan only" it would have chilled the bedroom. There is some chance that the female voted against this as the nest site or something. According to the Stokes book, starlings lay their eggs about a week after the final nest building. It had seemed to me like the female's kicking the nest materials into my bedroom was the beginning of final nest building and I was afraid there'd be eggs there before I had a chance to hire someone to come and put a screen over the air conditioner. One more thing on my ever growing to do list: keep starlings from laying eggs in the air conditioner. I didn't sleep much last night. I kept waking up and moving around. When the alarm went off at 8:00, I decided it was pointless to try to get anymore sleep. I didn't really get up so much as just make a decision not to sleep. About 10:30, Joan-east called to say it was still raining at Priscilla's house and at Rita's house so we wouldn't get our walk in at 11:00. We used to walk in the rain all the time, but a couple of us have fallen on wet leaves and stuff so we've had to be more careful. Anyway, my knee feels like somebody forgot the WD-40. If somebody happens by with an oil can, I'd be much obliged. I had my coffee at Starbucks after my trip to the laundromat. No sign of Tom or Ned or any of the Larrys. Tom's car was in the parking lot behind the old town hall, but wherever he was it wasn't Starbucks. The place was packed and I felt crowded siting at the counter with my book (The Name of War still ). I ran into somebody I used to work with who gave me the update on all the folks who have left Cosmodemonic Telecomm since the merger. Almost nobody I remember is still there. Is it the same company if all of the people are different and the name is different ? What's a company? The building? A set of papers filed somewhere with the SEC? Sometimes I feel like all of my past has been swallowed up: schools I went to, companies I worked for. My grammar school no longer exists at all. Well, part of the building is still there but whatever is in the building is entirely unrelated to Saint Bernard's School in any way. My high school sort of still exists. It's in the same building but it has a different name (Trinity Catholic) and is the result of mergers between/among several schools. Our Lady Help of Christians is long gone. Every once in awhile I get an alumni newsletter from Trinity Catholic but I can't relate to the place at all. What has Trinity Catholic got to do with me? They must have a record of my existence if they send me a newsletter, but I can't think of myself as a graduate of Trinity Catholic. Do the graduates of Sacred Heart and St. Patrick's think of themselves as being from Trinity? It's not even the building they went to. At least I recognize the building. Kevin is going to his 25 year high school reunion tonight. At least BC High still exists, is still run by Jesuits, and still has an identity. The kids thought I should know all about their Dad's high school reunion but it had totally slipped my mind that he'd been out of high school 25 years. My 25 year college reunion is coming up this month too. I got a questionnaire to fill out for it. It was due Thursday and I never did send it in. I suppose I could still drop it in a mailbox, but why? I have no intention of going to the reunion. Regis College does not play much of a role in my everyday life. It's just not a major component of my identity. Even when I was there, I didn't have that overwhelmingly strong identification with my "alma mater". I got a good education there and I have positive feelings toward Regis, but I don't think of myself as a Regis Woman. The questionnaire was full of questions about family - husband, kids, relatives who went to Regis - and about friends from Regis days, favorite faculty members, fondest memories, and current employer. Not having a husband or children or a current employer I started to feel like I've fallen off the map. Have I ventured so far outside of mainstream society that I can't make sense of my life on an alumnae questionnaire? When I was first out of college, in a world where women engineers were a curiosity at best - kind of like a dancing bear - and it was perfectly legal for prospective employers to ask you whether you planned to have children and what form of birth control you used, I often complained of feeling like I just didn't have a map to guide me. Now there is a map to super womanhood but I've wandered off without it into uncharted territory again. I'd be curious to see how many of my classmates have the same problem fitting their lives into the questionnaire and finding their way through a world that changed utterly within the four years we spent on that katsura tree lined campus. Wasn't there a Grateful Dead song with the line "...goin' to hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoyin' the ride"? |
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