It's been a couple or three weeks since my birthday now. I started writing this post on my laptop while sitting in the Salt Lake Public Library, and to my horror discovered that my laptop battery is only good for about twenty minutes now. I was really frustrated by that, because I hardly ever run it on the battery. Truth to tell I just don't use it that much. Anyway, I've ordered a new battery already, but it hasn't come yet. Now I'm writing this as my 2nd period class writes about memories connected to music. We're working up to writing personal narratives.Anyway, here is the post I was writing, then...
So, the other day I turned 30. I went to dinner with Mom and Dad at the Bombay house. While we were driving there Mom called Uncle Mark to ask him if we could come for Thanksgiving dinner. She forgot that they weren't telling people about the brain tumor yet, so that's how I found out, overhearing her talking on the phone with Mark. That wasn't a super feeling. She labored a bit to explain her confidence about the situation. It mostly had to do with the feeling that things were orchestrated devinely. I'm not as convinced.
I'm not too inclined to think that way these days. I felt very strongly that they were, before, especially as they all seemed to be around me going on my own mission. The next two years didn't offer me evidence of this and I had a hard time dealing with that for the rest of my 20's.
After dinner with Mom and Dad I went to Cache Valley, to Brady and Ondy's and we cooked. Steve and Jill Peterson, some other friends came, as well of course as Mike Foresberg. Mr. Forsberg asked me if I was depressed about turning 30. I said I wasn't. I couldn't understand why he would expect that I would be. My 20's were a bad decade. I'm glad to see them go. I have regrets, for sure, and they are the reasons that Mike spoke of for his own depression when he crossed into his 30's, no marriage, no kids, failure to make my mark on the world. But I'm better than I was in my 20's, and more likely to achieve the marriage and kids part, so I guess that's what makes me less than pessimistic about the new decade.
Unfortunately soon after we served up the food, around 11:00 Mike and Ondy fought and she threatened to kick him out. He got really hurt and left. Steve and Jill split too. The whole situation was pretty uncomfortable. Ondy went to bed and Brady got ready too. I'd planned on sleeping on their couch like Mike does each weekend, because the heat is off at Mom and Dad's house and I didn't want to shiver and wait for it to warm up.
Within half an hour Mike called me and asked what was going on. He had gone out walking around, and he continued to do so for a while then he came back and we sat on the porch and I talked to him till 3:00 AM so he wouldn't get in his car and leave. At that point we both felt ready to drive home. I got back to Salt Lake around 4:30, and slept in my own bed.
Not the best birthday, but at least I got to see some friends, for a while.
Anyway, I've had the whole week off from school and in that time I fell in love with audio books. Mostly it is an obsessive/compulsive thing. Putting them on my computer and writing the tags. It's lovely busy work, and it's always satisfying to bring order to something. So I have been doing that all week. It is fun to listen to them too as I do it.
I listened to Wyrms, by Orson Scott Card, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I did when I read it as a 14 year old. But there is some really good stuff there. There was an after word where he talked about the book. He said his books were mostly boring talk between two characters broken up by unspeakable violence. I liked that. He has some interesting stuff in this one about the nature of will. He talks about it being us. Was it President Packer who said that it is the only thing that is uniquely ours that we can give to God? Card seems to agree, and says more or less that since it is the only thing that we really have it is the only thing that can characterize us.
I listened to Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn, which was good, fun, well written, but ultimately unsatisfying.
I also listened to The Body, by Stephen King, and I liked that too. I listened to Inventing a Nation, by Gore Vidal, and although he had some good stuff I wasn't as into it.
The one that far and away I liked the most was Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami. I decided to go out for a long walk on Wednesday, and I began listening to it on my mp3 player as I went out. I walked from my place up A St to about 4th ave, then down the walkway into Memory Grove Park and up the other side of the canyon to the capitol. From there I went on up to Ensign Peak...
(this is new stuff from here on out)
then back down to the Capitol Building. From there I turned left and took the ring road that goes part of the way up City Creek then curves around and goes up the other side of the canyon. From there I walked along 11th ave to F St. and walked down it to the Smiths on 5th Ave, and followed that back to A St., then from there I went down to my place. It was something like 8 miles.
But that's not important. The story was what I wanted to write about. I listened to it until it ended at about 3AM, about 12 hours after I started. At the very first I didn't really like it. The introduction in the meadow wasn't grabbing me, and then the protagonist wasn't interesting to me as he was describing going to live in the dormitory in Tokyo. But then I got it. It was almost a cosmic thing.
I was thinking about being 30 as I listened to his date with Naoko on her birthday. She seemed so depressed about turning 20. She said how lucky he was to still be 19. I thought about my teens, then my 20's. I thought about Taru, the protagonist. When I was a teenager I was so concerned about becoming someone. Then when I was in my 20's I was angry because I hadn't become anyone yet. And I was bored by Taru because he wasn't anyone as a protagonist. Who wants to be start a reading relationship with a protagonist that isn't anyone? Then it all changed. I loved that Taru wasn't anyone. I've accepted not being anyone and I'm far happier than I was in my 20's. Good riddance to them. It was a bad decade, from which I have few if any happy memories. I'm glad to see the end of them.
Then what happens between Taru and Naoko happens and all of the sudden he's someone to her. At first that pissed me off, but then I accepted that too. I can live with the idea that we are only significant to the people that we become significant to, that love gives us meaning.
Anyway, I was hooked on Taru and Naoko's story till the end. And I'm 30, and I'm ok not being anyone, even though the story made me want to become someone to somebody.
(this is new stuff from here on out)
then back down to the Capitol Building. From there I turned left and took the ring road that goes part of the way up City Creek then curves around and goes up the other side of the canyon. From there I walked along 11th ave to F St. and walked down it to the Smiths on 5th Ave, and followed that back to A St., then from there I went down to my place. It was something like 8 miles.
But that's not important. The story was what I wanted to write about. I listened to it until it ended at about 3AM, about 12 hours after I started. At the very first I didn't really like it. The introduction in the meadow wasn't grabbing me, and then the protagonist wasn't interesting to me as he was describing going to live in the dormitory in Tokyo. But then I got it. It was almost a cosmic thing.
I was thinking about being 30 as I listened to his date with Naoko on her birthday. She seemed so depressed about turning 20. She said how lucky he was to still be 19. I thought about my teens, then my 20's. I thought about Taru, the protagonist. When I was a teenager I was so concerned about becoming someone. Then when I was in my 20's I was angry because I hadn't become anyone yet. And I was bored by Taru because he wasn't anyone as a protagonist. Who wants to be start a reading relationship with a protagonist that isn't anyone? Then it all changed. I loved that Taru wasn't anyone. I've accepted not being anyone and I'm far happier than I was in my 20's. Good riddance to them. It was a bad decade, from which I have few if any happy memories. I'm glad to see the end of them.
Then what happens between Taru and Naoko happens and all of the sudden he's someone to her. At first that pissed me off, but then I accepted that too. I can live with the idea that we are only significant to the people that we become significant to, that love gives us meaning.
Anyway, I was hooked on Taru and Naoko's story till the end. And I'm 30, and I'm ok not being anyone, even though the story made me want to become someone to somebody.
