Monday, May 19, 2008

Only Got Four Minutes, Four Minutes

Oh my word I am full. I think my mom sees Seattle as some sort of shiny, rainy, starvation camp or something because when I visit her she stuffs me like a...stuffed something.

I am too stuffed to think of the proper stuffed imagery. Just insert your own, if you would.

Either that or she thinks that Nordic Boy and I are hobbits, who have to eat every two hours or so. Or that we're newborns. I have been back in Michigan for four days and I have felt like I'm preggers with a food baby every damn day.

And now, here I am at the Flint Public Library, sitting at a computer with the damn minutes ticking down. It's going to log me off in 24 minutes! Type faster! FASTER!

Now I know what the patrons in my library feel like, and that's good I suppose, but it feels like librarian karma is biting me in the ass region right about now.

Please do not point out that I using my precious twenty four minutes (twenty two now, actually) to talk about food babies and ass-hungry karma, because I have thought of that already. I am one step ahead of you. True story.

Here is the thing, people. The city where I am from? The one that spawned me and made me who I am today, and that I love beyond all rational thought? The one that everyone else wants to feel sorry for me for, and that makes me want to kick them in the face because the pity is so unfounded because this town rocks out with its socks out? It's really...tired looking. Really, really.

Believe it or not, this has never occurred to me before. I have never noticed it. It's just something that...is, like your parents' faces or your best friend's laugh. It's like air. Accepted, completely.

But this year? I am noticing the cracks. Like, oh my sweet rattled brain, the state of the roads here! There are roads here, that if I was honest, don't deserve to be called roads. They are just patched up, ratty pieces of concrete all cobbled together in a post-pothole universe. It would be a much better ride on these roads if they just tore it out and we reverted back to straight up dirt. Nordic Boy and I were driving around the other day, and our teeth almost rattled out of our heads it was so bumpy. I couldn't BELIEVE it. The roads just didn't all the sudden get assy this year. They have always been like that. I just accepted it before. That's what roads are like at home. Whatevs. But now, I am all SHIT you have got to be kidding me.

There are more examples of this, but I only have 14 minutes left and email to check and such and besides that you get the picture. There's something about this train of thought though, that makes me uneasy. It makes me feel a little more distant from this place that means so much to me than I like to feel. It's like I am starting to look at it with the eyes of an outsider, and I don't like that feeling. You know?

Despite the way this post is coming out, I am indeed having a lovely time here. I have many photos to show ya'll when I get back, and tales of thrills and spills (quite literally) to go with them.

Ok, I only have 9 minutes left, and besides that I am sure it's time to strap on the feedbag again soon. Ha. I just said strap on.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

7 comments:

cadiz12 said...

food=love, right? or that's what i say to make myself feel less guilty every time my mom sends home twenty times the amount of food the two of us could possibly eat and i have to throw some of it away.

it's hard to watch something we love get older, be it parents' faces, best friends' laughs or the town where we had some great memories.

Sauntering Soul said...

The attorney across the hall from me is from Michigan. He went back a couple of weekends ago for his sister's college graduation and he said it was completely depressing because the town is basically shutting down due to the economy.

Sorry your city is kind of bumming you out. But enjoy all the food!

Anonymous said...

i used to work for this organization that put free computers in libraries all over the country. nice, right? then i worked in one of those libraries and had to deal with lots of nasty people who weren't happy enough to share the free computers and took out their many frustrations on me. that was karma biting me in the ass.

The Kelly Green Rogue said...

LOL I have the same food problem when I got home. I think it's a mom thing, or maybe a midwest mom thing

Anonymous said...

Oh, hey! I live in Michigan! ... and all the roads around here are like that.

Chris Cactus said...

Enjoy the rest of your time. Hope you don't have to rush!

Anonymous said...

That is a really articulate way of talking about seeing your hometown from the outside (and you did that with only 24 minutes, look at you!)

My mom does the exact same thing with the food.