Blogging to Nobody

This blog is such an odd thing. I keep imagining it has all kinds of potential, but of course I have done nothing about that potential, and so I would never dream of imagining it would have any sort of readership, and without an audience, what can it be? It is public, so it can't be a diary. I wouldn't want that, anyway. Maybe one day it will simply coalesce into something worth reading.

We're about to move to Arizona. Saying goodbye to Chris was one of the hardest things about moving. We've had to scrape together money, eat whatever we could mooch off people, move heavy furniture, find a place to live and convince someone to let us live there. But saying goodbye is never easy. This is the biggest move we've made yet. We're going where we know no one and the people we do know are days away. And we're going where we can't look back. Once our paths sunder, I know it will be hard to ever bring them back together again.

Sitting on the grass in his front yard, looking up at the stars, it felt like a scene from a movie. Inside the house, we had cheerfully noticed it was getting late, we were all getting tired, and it was time to go. Stepping out the door and crossing the wet lawn to the car was like crossing from ignorance into denial. The moonlight and starlight that made me feel like I should be part of some epic coming-of-age story simultaneously reminded me that this night would soon give way to the morning. Tomorrow would come and deprive us, without comment, of a friend.

We stopped at the car. One of us said, "See you never." It was a phrase we had started saying when Jon and Ashley left for New York. We said it all the time when one of us would leave town. Saying it like that, flippant, like it was something you were supposed to say all the time, made the reality of it easier to ignore. We had already gone through this sort of goodbye before--the uncertainty when we would see our friends again. In the short walk from the house, the three of us had realized that this wasn't just goodbye for the night. This felt like goodbye forever.

Once we leave the Pacific Northwest, we won't be home anymore. And we probably won't be coming back. We have to go wherever the jobs are. And then we'll want to settle down and have a family. And then we'll tell our children about our friends from college, the ones we visited when they were little, too little to remember. Their kids are just a little younger than you, we'll say. They sent a picture with their last Christmas card.

So it really wasn't like a movie at all. We sat in silence under the stars, occasionally moving to scratch an itch or adjust for comfort, listening to Chris's dog whining from inside the house. "I'm cold," said Chris, shivering a little. We sat a little longer. "I'm getting pretty tired. We have to go eventually," I said, sounding heartless in my own ears. We all stood up. I opened the car door. The inside of the car, suddenly illuminated by the dome light, seemed like a prop that had been accidentally left on the stage of our little drama. We stood there, unable to see one another's expressions in the dim light of the early morning. Andrew moved around to the driver's side, opened that door, too. I looked between them, unable to read their expressions. I sniffled. I needed a Kleenex. At last, I sat down in the car, leaving the door open. "Goodnight," I said. Not goodbye. "Bye," said Andrew. Nobody moved. Then he just got in the car, and we just left, while Chris waved and his dog whined in the background. It wasn't poetic at all. It was just like leaving every other time, only this time felt worse. This time, we wouldn't be coming back.

Cashier Memoir

I started working in the Home Electronics department a few months ago. Since then, the great things that customers do and say have increased tenfold. I really should have thought about blogging about it then, but only a few weeks ago did the thought cross my mind. And now it's almost over. In six hours' time, I shall be free from working in retail forevermore.... or at least, probably until I finish my masters. And now I hear that the genre "cashier memoir" is taking the world by storm (mostly Europe so far) so I haven't even been the first person to think of making something out of my experiences, so I don't have to feel as though the last 2 years of my life were a complete waste. Nevertheless, the fact that I am not the first person do write about it won't stop me from doing so. I have to do something to make the last 2 years worth it. So I shall begin by telling stupid customer stories and reflecting on my time, now that I've escaped. Almost. Must go find my lovely black apron now, work starts in 50 minutes.

Barrier

Today at work a little boy wandered into the home electronics department. He couldn't have been older than 3 and a half years old, probably closer to 3. My co-worker and I looked down at him and smiled. He stopped in front of us. "What do you need? Do you need to buy that?" my co-worker asked. He looked a little uncertain. Then I heard a voice speaking Spanish coming from the other side of the aisle, just outside the department. The little boy looked bemusedly from us to the speaker, who I assume was his father. Then I realized what was happening. The little boy was being sent into the department to buy the DVD he was holding or ask a question for his father, who was standing 10 feet away using the aisle as a barrier between himself and my co-worker and me.

This awkward moment sort of symbolized the struggle of the family, of our culture, and of our country as a whole to co-exist with others whom we don't understand. This little boy was so young he can barely speak either English OR Spanish, yet was forced to be a go-between for grown adults because neither side of the aisle had been given or taken the opportunity to learn the language of the other side. This lack of ability to communicate, and the innocent caught in the middle, and most interestingly the barrier that separated us, this obstacle, this bulwark, evoked an image of partisan politics that wrenches our country apart and leaves us standing confused and unable to function. Somehow we've become a nation with so much mistrust and shame that we've become the father, the son, the employee, and the store itself, unable to ask for help, unsure what help to ask for, and unable to give help even if we did know what was needed, and everybody spending valuable time and money trying to figure it out.

Fat

I think I'm getting more conservative in my old age, which makes me sad. But I can't help it if I feel like obese people should have to pay for two seats if they take up two seats. My airline ticket price shouldn't go up because other people have medical/ size issues. Airlines will certainly lose money if they have (half) empty seats that aren't paid for, which will probably cause all ticket prices to increase. Am I becoming more greedy? I think poverty is taking its toll on my values. I'm not sure what the old me would have thought of this. And I know I'm no republican--not by a long shot. I'm just not so sure that fat acceptance is a great movement. Being fat is deadly, and we should be doing what we can to stop it in a kind, inclusive, non-discriminatory way. I don't think that making accommodations with possible economic repercussions for everybody is the way to stop it.

Neighbors

People tend to seek homogeneous neighborhoods. It makes them feel safer to live with others like them. It seems almost wrong to have a neighborhood of inter-income facilities. But it also, on a much deeper level, seems more right.