Whew—sorry for the interim delay in posts. I feel like I’ve had a lot on my mind as of late, and this past weekend may or may not have sent my brain into overdrive, prompting me to just get it all out.
The week before last I was in Houston for a couple of days with Shell. I really like them… and Houston. I wonder if they like me too.
Maybe I’ll pass them a note with the check boxes like back in the day, and hope they don't make a "maybe" box.
The rest of that week and the last one were fairly uneventful as far as events go. Work has been passing slowly and quickly all at the same time. I wonder if that feeling is common to twenty-somethings embarking on new endeavors. Like everything is happening and nothing is happening all at once?
Another sensation that I’ve been wondering of its commonality amongst young adults, is this weird feeling I get when I’m at work. At the risk of sounding cliché, sometimes I forget it's just an internship, and that it’ll be coming to a screeching halt in a matter of weeks. The people at my office treat me much less like an intern and more like a co-worker. I even imagine living and breathing and growing and loving at the feeling of it all. I imagine I’m already a grown up then, instead of smack dab in the middle of what should be a quarter-life crisis. I imagine a home that I live in, with bright paint on the walls and matching appliances. I envision a husband whom I see God in the little specks of light in the irises of his eyes and the creases of his mouth when he smiles. A feeling of partial completeness fills my lungs when I entertain this train of thought for a bit, a expanding of my heart, even. A feeling so big and heavy that I imagine floating up through the ceiling tiles and rafters of the bull-pen with the lightness of it all.
Then, all too soon, it contracts again and I remember that this is just a trial run at adulthood. So far okay, but there is so much to come. It feels oddly like a play date. A wonderful expanding and contracting play date that gives me gossamer glimpses into what future He has in mind for me... (please don’t think I mean cubicle work stylings and donuts at departmental meetings) but a play date all the same.
This past weekend my roommate, some of her college friends, and I went on a Cajun-adventure to the Essence festival in New Orleans. She stumbled across some free tickets to the event for Saturday night through one of her contacts, and was lovely enough to let me join her for the festivities. That expanding and contracting happened again there. Meeting her little family of friends made me have that stuck-in-between feeling even more than usual. I remember the easy friendships of undergrad, and sidling next to them for the weekend confirmed that college should have some of the funner-est moments of growing up.
We wandered through the French quarter… its debauchery isn’t often exaggerated by my experiences.
I will say that men are quite bold on Bourbon. Women would be in varying states of undress (depending, I guess, on their mating phases) and men would stand on sidewalks outside of bustling daiquiri huts, clubs, and (what I’ll just call) brothels and survey women from their toes to their crowns. Some even so much as stepped out, grabbed the (desired) woman's arm, and walked along side them flirting until a firm rebuff came.
Off of Bourbon men were still bold, but seemed more discrete in their eyeball surveillance. I stumbled into a guy while I was trying to find my seat at the concert, and as I was apologizing for my clumsiness my hand glanced off his arm for balance. His 40-something mind took this as a signal and enveloped me in a side-hug, at which I had to reciprocate to not disrupt the flow of traffic. He walked me a quarter of the way to my seat interspersing his speech with endearing phrases about my physique (arm in arm, no less- can you imagine!?), and topped it off with a kiss on my shoulder-blade. I stood in disbelief, and found my seat in a half daze (not the dreamy kind, either). Another, more presentable fellow caught my attention while my roommate and I were walking back to the hotel off of the infamous Canal street. He chatted easily with us up the expanse to the strip of occupied hotels, called me a keeper, and told me to save his number under “My Future.”
Again, there isn’t much one can say in response to such advances.
As topsy-turvy as my weekend felt and perhaps even translates, I did really have an interesting time. I also confirmed a standing operating procedure:
You are what you attract.
That was plenty for me.
