Procrastination Nation!

A very long time ago, when I was in that weird dark and twisty phase that all adolescents go through (lots of black, lots of Trent Reznor, and lots of humiliatingly bad poetry), I read a book called Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I think they made a movie of it starring Christina Ricci, which totally makes sense. Especially because the book is a rather graphic autobiography of a coke-snorting Harvard-attending depressed Jewish American Princess. Except it's less Sex and the City and more Requiem for a Dream.

Anyway, I remember telling my friend John (who incidentally recommended that I read it), "Why is this girl so whiny? She has like a fucking breakdown every 2 paragraphs." To which he responded with, "Yes. And she's CLINICALLY DEPRESSED."

Then, a few years after that, when I was in that weird sexy librarian phase (fashionably wrong tortoise shell glasses, lots of Charles Mingus, and lots of humiliatingly long conversation discussions about the meaning of Rothko paintings while tripping heavily on mind altering substances), I read a book called Bong Water by Michael Hornburg. I think they made a movie of it starring Luke Wilson, which totally makes sense. Especially because the book is a rather convoluted mess of unrequited love and shitty apartments in New York. Except it's less Felicity and more Rent (but thankfully without the songs and i don't think anyone dies of AIDS or knew how many seconds were in a year).

Anyway, I remember telling my friend Becky (who incidentally recommended that I read it), "Man, why is this guy so whiny? Why can't he get his shit together and move on? He's almost 30 for crying out loud." To which she responded with, "Yes. And he smokes weed every day."

Fast forward to this weekend. I found myself in my yuppie home in my yuppie neighborhood where gardening is the new hot shit, flipping through the yuppie pages of Domino magazine. There was a spread of a designer bathroom, and on the wall was a blow up poster of the cover of Bong Water, and on the toilet was a copy of Prozac Nation.

The yuppie who owned that bathroom was a mother of 3 and an inventor of fancy, expensive aromatic room sprays. And I'm not sure if she threw those things in her bathroom because she thought it would be cool and hip, or if she is trying to subliminally tell the readers of Domino that fictional characters belong in the shitter (albeit a very fancy one at that).

To My Hokies.

In the fall, when collegiate football time comes around, you'd be hardpressed to find a television station that airs an East Coast game in Los Angeles. Especially when your alma mater kinda really sucks.

I attended the University of Virginia for about 3.5 years. I wasn't too keen on it for many reasons. But that's not the point. The point is: football.

There's a rivalry between UVA and Virginia Tech that has apparently been an existence since the dawn of these fine establishments which comes to a head at football. On the game front, you should know that the Cavaliers kinda really suck. And Tech? Well, they had Michael Vick for enough seasons to establish a reputable football organization. So you know they pretty much all-out spanked us every year when I was in Charlottesville.

As for fans: UVA students DRESSED UP for football games. On game days, you would see scores of boys and girls dressed like they were heading to a church service. Blue button down shirts with navy and orange striped ties tucked neatly into their Dockers. White eyelet dresses paired with straw hats and flip flops with daisies. Tech fans on the other hand, went all out with the painted faces, the lettered beer guts, even the turkey headdress (for those of you who don't know, hokies are technically castrated turkeys). On any given Cavs vs Hokie game, half the stadium was a sea of pastels with a smattering of navy and orange; the other half was simply maroon and orange; and yet the entire stadium would be drunk drunk DRUNK (this is Virginia after all).

I never got the UVA tradition. To me, there is something very perverse about drinking a fifth of liquor on that game day while wearing your Sunday best and screaming "NOT GAY" in the school song (the fifth-drinking part is a tradition for all fourth-years on homecoming, and no I am not lying and yes, some girl died once; and no I am not exaggerating about the anti-gay slur although more and more people have boycotted it). I really preferred the Tech way of doing things: I mean, you're going to a football game. You're going to be tailgating and drinking beer and going balls to the wall. Why try to layer a level of pretentious asshole-ness on it by wearing a fucking tie?

Which brings me to my Hokie friends. Because as much as there was a rivalry between the 2 schools, everyone had friends who went to Tech. And your college experience at UVA was just not complete without at least one trip to Tech where you saw one good band (because no good bands ever came to Charlottesville, they went to Blacksburg and they played at Tech's concert hall and Dave Matthews doesn't count because he's from Cville okay?) and had one raucous weekend where your Tech friends would point out the finer art of tractor racing, the abundance of cows, and the all-mighty Drillfield.

There's been enough coverage today about the incident that happened at Virginia Tech. And it's a tragedy that needs no more words, except: I am truly, deeply sorry.

GO HOKIES.

For Eric.

During my formidable collegiate years, I lived in a house with six other girls for about 2 years. Stuffed in those 2 years were sync'd up periods, general (and specific) bitchfests, cleaning schedules taped to the fridge, how-did-your-bra-end-up-in-my-laundry?, 50 different shampoo products in the showers, sly comments in the morning after a misguided drunken hookup, and oh so much more. While we very well could have qualified to be a sorority house; from the exterior of the house, people assumed it was inhabited by raucous Natty-Lite swilling frat boys. (We had a beerpong table. In the front yard. IN THE FRONT YARD.)

One of my more tame roomates was one-half of a nauseating couple--you know, the kind that you can easily picture getting married, buying a lovely townhouse in Washington DC, owning a yellow labrador and hosting vegan dinner parties every Friday night that are scored with softly playing emo music crooning delicately in the background. She and her boyfriend Eric were like walking, breathing Barbie and Ken Go To College dolls, perfectly proportioned and compatible in every possible and enviable way: She was a psych major, he was studying architecture. She loved vintage clothes and read New York Times bestsellers. He went biking every Saturday morning with "the boys." She got up early and jogged every morning for 3 miles. He wore glasses with designer frames who barely drank and never smoked a cigarette. They met and had begun dating in their 10th grade high school geometry class and were still going strong well into college despite a few speed bumps and detours along the way. In short: they were healthy, wholesome people who could have easily starred in a summer campaign for Ralph Lauren.

In our last year of school together, Eric went off to Copehagen for a semester abroad while she stayed at school. They sent each other care packages and spoke on the phone regularly. Then he got sick, was misdiagnosed with pneumonia, and airlifted back to the States when his condition worsened. She drove every weekend back up to DC to be with him for months on end. Eventually, he was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma and flew to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant from his younger brother.

He died that Easter before graduation.

When it was time for all of us to say our own goodbyes to him, there was a crowd outside the architecture building, and each of us released a red helium balloon. About half of them got caught in a tree which made us laugh, breaking the tension.

There is a moment that always comes back to me around this time every year. Two weeks after the balloon incident and his funeral, when all of us were getting ready to venture off and make something of ourselves, I walked in on my roommate looking like she was sitting in a fog. "Are you OK?" I asked her tentatively. And she turned to me and smiled and said, "I will be. I'm beginning to smile now when I think about him."

I haven't spoken to my old roommate in about five years now--change of addresses, change of careers, change of plans have led to us growing apart. But I'd like to think that she's doing it all: the successful career, a great husband, that townhouse in DC, the yellow labrador greeting her at the door, and soy-based Friday night dinners with Pete Yorn or Jeff Buckley crooning in the background. And smiling whenever she looks back and sees the big picture.

A Conversation with an Old Friend.

S: You have about 600 friends on myspace. That's a shitload.
F: I'm getting rid of all of them.