I'm going out of town in a couple of hours. I have my annual one-day meeting in Ann Arbor. Except for the flying part, I always enjoy this trip. I meant to be good and get to the office by 9:30 and do some work. Instead, my computer almost collapsed and I had to re-do all the backing up so I would feel comfortable taking it with me. I got to work really late and now there's a bomb scare across the street so I can't go get lunch. Bah.
And, I'm an idiot. I ran into a guy last night, a guy I dated last year. He asked me to go to the baseball game on Saturday and I said yes. In the course of our conversation he said a couple of things that didn't jibe with my memory. One, that we dated for two weeks. No, it was more like five, definitely in the safe-to-say-a-month territory. Two, that I'd recently sent him a text that said "friends." No, I sent him a text at the beginning of March that said, "It's ok. Just teasing, friend." We'd exchanged a couple of texts prior to that and in one I gave him a hard time about missing my birthday, which I didn't expect him to remember.
This morning, on my half-walk to work (I took the bus half-way and walked the rest), I checked the texts. I'd already checked our dating dates. And I started to compose an email message to him, in my head, giving him the correct information. I know I'm right--I have documentary evidence. All he has is a memory like Swiss cheese. Then, it hit me. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what he remembers, if I'm right and he's wrong. There is a reason he remembers what he remembers. That he wants to think it's ok with me to be friends (it's not), that he wants to minimize our relationship. Two weeks? That's nothing. That meant nothing. And he needs to believe that. Who I am to disturb his uneasy mind?
At some level, he remembers. Last night, we stood on the corner, talking, laughing, just like it hadn't been over a year since we'd met face-to-face. And he kept moving closer. If I'd been in a room, I would have been backed against the wall by the time I climbed on my bike and rode home. He remembers.
All the more reason I never should have agreed to go to the game with him. But I want to and I will. These days, I do what I want. What I want to do is to spend one, pleasant evening with this guy and then I want it to be over. And because that's what I want, that's what will happen.
Grateful for: forgetting.
Showing posts with label ann arbor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ann arbor. Show all posts
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Ann Arbor memories
I went to Ann Arbor a week and a half ago for an overnight business trip. I always enjoy this trip, which I usually take once a year, if the budget permits.
Two years before I moved to DC, I spent the summer in Ann Arbor. I had a traineeship for which I did almost nothing, mostly because I had no idea what I was supposed to do. In theory, I was using a particular dataset to develop my dissertation topic. It turned out that the data were not appropriate for what I wanted to do—eventually I dumped the data and kept the topic. But during that summer I spent a lot of time running SAS programs and generating useless output. I felt guilty for getting paid, even if it was only for 20 hours a week at $10/hour.
I had quite a nice time otherwise. I was worried about going because I thought I would be lonely. I remembered how hard it was to move to Chapel Hill, where I only had a single friend. I'd been miserable for months. In Ann Arbor, I knew no one.
Yet, everyone I met was very friendly and they took particular pains to include me in things. For example, when I mentioned to my officemate that I wanted to see the Mariners play the Tigers, she invited me to the game with her and her husband. Word got around that I was a baseball fan and another guy in the office invited me to a different game that same weekend. (Yes, I went to two Mariners games, two days in a row.) A graduate student who tried (and failed) to help me arrange housing became a summer friend and we went to dinner and played tennis a few times. Also, my friend, Spesh, was around for a few days here and there and I hung out with him and his friend, Josh.
I found a place to live in one of the Ann Arbor co-ops. I sent an email to someone at the main office and didn't hear anything for while. I wasn't even sure if it were possible to let a room just for the summer. Then I got a message saying, "Linder House voted and you can stay here this summer." So I did. I had a brief scare when I thought they put me in a double instead of a single, but they hadn't, so I was happy. I was in a tiny room on the third floor of an old Victorian house. There was no a/c, which is pretty necessary for a Michigan summer, but I survived.
While most of the people in the house were a lot younger than me, it didn't matter. They were all friendly and even dragged me out of my room when I was doggedly doing a paint-by-numbers thing for my brother's wedding (long story, best left for another time).
I was enamored of the co-op concept, where everyone had a job and a stake in the house. I asked several times in my first week what my job was, but it took them a long time to assign me something. Then, in the second summer session, I was voted "work manager," which meant that I had to make the work assignments and ensure everyone did their job. That was ridiculous and I didn't enjoy it, but what could I do? I was pleased to have been nominated for something, even if knew it was because no one else wanted the job.
I rarely used my car that summer. I remember spending an afternoon in the living room attaching a speedometer to my bike that I'd picked up at a yard sale while listening to This American Life for the first time. Members of the house passed through and tried to help me. I went on a few short rides with a guy in the house who may have had a crush on me. I did my grocery shopping and clothing shopping on the bike. The only time I drove the car was once to Detroit and to the malls that were not too far to bike to, but too unfriendly to navigate. I would bring my bike into shops with me, if possible and no one ever said boo about it. It was a much better biking town than Chapel Hill (or DC, for that matter).
Somehow, I also got connected with a practice softball game. I'd show up once a week for practice and go for drinks with them afterwards, but I never played in the "real" games.
I still had plenty of free time and I spent most of it reading. I was there for eight weeks and I read fourteen novels. Not all of them were crap, either. I read Gore Vidal for the first time. Good stuff.
I also had one romantic encounter. We had a party at my house and towards the end of the evening there was a bike race—just around the block. I declined to participate, but I loaned my bike (which was then almost brand-new) to this guy, David, who I'd been flirting with. He was mighty impressed. And we flirted tons more. There was a drop-by, a coffee date and then a party at his house. That's where I learned that he had a girlfriend in New York. He waited a good long time to tell me about her. It seemed a particularly cruel turn of fate, since my issues with the then already ex-important grad school boyfriend, Tom, had centered around his girlfriend in New York. But I still made out with David and even spent the night in his room (fully clothed). And then I didn't call him. At least not until two days before I left town. We had coffee in the morning the day I drove back to Chapel Hill. I've never spoken to him since.
During that summer I also realized that if I didn't change advisors, I'd never finish my PhD. A grad school friend was in town for a week to teach a class and I had lunch with her one day. I poured out my advisor woes to her. She was sympathetic but couldn't really understand how bad it was for me, since her advisor was a great, supportive guy. My advisor thought I was stupid. That conversation, which we couldn't have had in Chapel Hill, helped make it clear to me what I needed to do. It wasn't that I hadn't know for a good long while, but this time, I finally succeeded. I changed to my new advisor as soon as I got back and it was one of the best decisions I ever made in grad school.
P.S. When I was in the Detroit airport I spotted a sign for the "Religious Reflection Room." What the heck? I think it's ok to call it a chapel—that's a nondenominational word, after all.
Grateful for: Ann Arbor.
Drop me a line.
Two years before I moved to DC, I spent the summer in Ann Arbor. I had a traineeship for which I did almost nothing, mostly because I had no idea what I was supposed to do. In theory, I was using a particular dataset to develop my dissertation topic. It turned out that the data were not appropriate for what I wanted to do—eventually I dumped the data and kept the topic. But during that summer I spent a lot of time running SAS programs and generating useless output. I felt guilty for getting paid, even if it was only for 20 hours a week at $10/hour.
I had quite a nice time otherwise. I was worried about going because I thought I would be lonely. I remembered how hard it was to move to Chapel Hill, where I only had a single friend. I'd been miserable for months. In Ann Arbor, I knew no one.
Yet, everyone I met was very friendly and they took particular pains to include me in things. For example, when I mentioned to my officemate that I wanted to see the Mariners play the Tigers, she invited me to the game with her and her husband. Word got around that I was a baseball fan and another guy in the office invited me to a different game that same weekend. (Yes, I went to two Mariners games, two days in a row.) A graduate student who tried (and failed) to help me arrange housing became a summer friend and we went to dinner and played tennis a few times. Also, my friend, Spesh, was around for a few days here and there and I hung out with him and his friend, Josh.
I found a place to live in one of the Ann Arbor co-ops. I sent an email to someone at the main office and didn't hear anything for while. I wasn't even sure if it were possible to let a room just for the summer. Then I got a message saying, "Linder House voted and you can stay here this summer." So I did. I had a brief scare when I thought they put me in a double instead of a single, but they hadn't, so I was happy. I was in a tiny room on the third floor of an old Victorian house. There was no a/c, which is pretty necessary for a Michigan summer, but I survived.
While most of the people in the house were a lot younger than me, it didn't matter. They were all friendly and even dragged me out of my room when I was doggedly doing a paint-by-numbers thing for my brother's wedding (long story, best left for another time).
I was enamored of the co-op concept, where everyone had a job and a stake in the house. I asked several times in my first week what my job was, but it took them a long time to assign me something. Then, in the second summer session, I was voted "work manager," which meant that I had to make the work assignments and ensure everyone did their job. That was ridiculous and I didn't enjoy it, but what could I do? I was pleased to have been nominated for something, even if knew it was because no one else wanted the job.
I rarely used my car that summer. I remember spending an afternoon in the living room attaching a speedometer to my bike that I'd picked up at a yard sale while listening to This American Life for the first time. Members of the house passed through and tried to help me. I went on a few short rides with a guy in the house who may have had a crush on me. I did my grocery shopping and clothing shopping on the bike. The only time I drove the car was once to Detroit and to the malls that were not too far to bike to, but too unfriendly to navigate. I would bring my bike into shops with me, if possible and no one ever said boo about it. It was a much better biking town than Chapel Hill (or DC, for that matter).
Somehow, I also got connected with a practice softball game. I'd show up once a week for practice and go for drinks with them afterwards, but I never played in the "real" games.
I still had plenty of free time and I spent most of it reading. I was there for eight weeks and I read fourteen novels. Not all of them were crap, either. I read Gore Vidal for the first time. Good stuff.
I also had one romantic encounter. We had a party at my house and towards the end of the evening there was a bike race—just around the block. I declined to participate, but I loaned my bike (which was then almost brand-new) to this guy, David, who I'd been flirting with. He was mighty impressed. And we flirted tons more. There was a drop-by, a coffee date and then a party at his house. That's where I learned that he had a girlfriend in New York. He waited a good long time to tell me about her. It seemed a particularly cruel turn of fate, since my issues with the then already ex-important grad school boyfriend, Tom, had centered around his girlfriend in New York. But I still made out with David and even spent the night in his room (fully clothed). And then I didn't call him. At least not until two days before I left town. We had coffee in the morning the day I drove back to Chapel Hill. I've never spoken to him since.
During that summer I also realized that if I didn't change advisors, I'd never finish my PhD. A grad school friend was in town for a week to teach a class and I had lunch with her one day. I poured out my advisor woes to her. She was sympathetic but couldn't really understand how bad it was for me, since her advisor was a great, supportive guy. My advisor thought I was stupid. That conversation, which we couldn't have had in Chapel Hill, helped make it clear to me what I needed to do. It wasn't that I hadn't know for a good long while, but this time, I finally succeeded. I changed to my new advisor as soon as I got back and it was one of the best decisions I ever made in grad school.
P.S. When I was in the Detroit airport I spotted a sign for the "Religious Reflection Room." What the heck? I think it's ok to call it a chapel—that's a nondenominational word, after all.
Grateful for: Ann Arbor.
Drop me a line.
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