Husker Power
I actually had a great weekend. It started with Indian food and ended with hippie food. In between I underwent a true Nebraska rite of passage: attending a Husker Football game. Husker Nation they call us. It couldn't be more true. I've always said the football coach was the second most powerful man in the state, second only to the Lord himself. My dad took me to the grand event and as I sat in what would be the thirst largest city in the state if it weren't a stadium, I wondered why I'd never done this before. It was fun. 86,000 odd people crammed onto benches watching padded young men jump, run, kick, tackle and punch (there was a bit of that). It's too bad they outlawed big cheerleader throws a few years back because the cheerleaders would have been a lot more entertaining, but the band made up for it. It was odd to think how many of my band-mates from high school had marched many a'time on that field. I didn't even know why each team punts or kicks....I learned. Despite his embarrassment at my ignorance, my dad humored my questions all the way through, probably relieved to finally be adding this bit of knowledge to my brain warehouse. God, I love my dad. He's just a great dad and friend. That's probably the best part of this whole story.
Being the indoors-pansy that I am, I had to sleep after sitting in the sun for a few hours. Yes, I wore a hat (one of 5 women in the whole stadium doing that I think. Skin cancer is certainly worth no hat hair...). Coming off of my horrible mood documented by my last blog entry, the movie my family watched that evening, Mamamia, pissed me off. It was so fairy tale and carefree...people living on an island. I had a bit of "why in the hell am I putting myself through this" break down.
The next day, things were better. I went downtown and studied, hung out with a friend, at some Chili Con Queso. Went home, my dad had made amazing food. Ate it. Sat with my wonderful parents. Went over to a friend's parents' place where they were having a shindig, complete with live James Taylor-esk music and old friends. I was home by midnight and not so angry to get up and drive to Omaha this morning. My chemistry class which usually leaves me smoking from the ears in frustration was mangable.
All this to say, I had a good weekend. The ups and downs sure are coming fast.
Once you go to Austin, you can't go baustin to Nebraska
I had reached such a good place here in Nebraska. I was
ridin' the wave of, "My three months of transition are over. It's time to start
diggin' the place where I'm
livin'". I had certainly started. I even was going out. :O Then I went on vacation. Bad idea.
An old friend of mine from middle school and I decided to take a road trip to Austin, Texas to visit a buddy I went to school with at Whitman who plays the fiddle and lives from it in Austin. The drive down was amazing. We brain vomited the whole way across Kansas, Oklahoma and then the first 2/3 of the state worthy of its own time zone, Texas. Admittedly, we saw some pretty ridiculous things like the Horny Toad Harley Store and the church offering 30-minute worship sessions for the busy pious. We got honked at by truckers and tried not to be caught by the police for rolling our tires just slightly too fast down the interstate. (It's a 13 hour drive, we deserve to speed). Leaving Nebraska, we battled fog, so much that we just held onto the hope that we weren't going to run into anything because our eyes were useless at that point. Kansas was better but still very overcast. Their scenery was more colorful as the
milo and sunflowers popped red and yellow. In Nebraska soy and corn monoculture's green reins king. Oklahoma brightened up and by the time we hit the Texas border, we knew we were on vacation. That feeling of warmth in the marrow of your bones that usually means summer in Nebraska has been all but absent here. Texas was different. It was cute too. I had not expected that.
Instead of leaving their bridges plain gray cement like the rest of us, they've decorate them with color and a lone star at the top of each supporting columns. New apartment complexes had themes and flair, something I had never even thought could happen.
And then we were there. And it was awesome. The city is small enough that it's not intimidating at all to small city people like us
Lincolnites. It's the live-music capital of the USA, though, so it's all but dead. We ate BBQ. There was music. We drank a bottle of whiskey we bought at the store in the parking lot of a bar. There was music. We went downtown. There was music. We saw a band with the
remnants of country greats, like Johnny Cash's piano player and others including the best guitar player in the city. Music was everywhere. People were dancing, couple dancing!
Whoaaa and I thought that died with the youth of the baby-boomers. Folks are friendly in Texas too, much more than in eastern Nebraska (I'm not going to claim to know what's going on in
cowboy land out west). I keep getting the feeling that the
midwest can't get over itself and the sin it sees in the world. People are more tied up in knots. Twisty inside: wanting to be nice but afraid God might not like it. It's all more morally difficult here and the caution with which people
approach their surroundings makes it all less enjoyable. But, I digress. The point is: Austin rocked my socks off.
And then we left, speeding back to our lives in Nebraska. The drive back was far less enjoyable than the one there. It took for seemingly forever. I will say that when we finally did cross the Nebraska border at around 7 pm, just as the sun was setting, the scene was marvellous. It filled me with warm fuzzy nostalgic tickles and I did feel home.
We arrived around 10, after 14 hours on the road. I had to write a lab report and finish my
genetics homework. The next morning I was up by 7 packing, showering, finishing my homework and preparing for the day in which I'd have to turn in a quiz and go to two labs. 2 more hours in the car that day. The next day, same thing. Drive up, go to class, study, go to class, study. The next day: quiz, lab, then finally home. I hated it all. The drive up to Omaha is really getting under my skin and I'm casting curses at all those who voted against the train. My Organic Chemistry class is driving ME up the wall. It's just ridiculous and the prof a gift from the mayor of arrogant confusion city. Genetics has yet to become interesting, the prof there too could use some major tuning up. Physics is a joke, which is nice for the stress-
ometer but not so great for the feeling inspired thing that's supposed to happen to you. And then I wonder if I'm cut out for medicine if none of these science classes are doing anything for me. Luckily on Thursday, my
genetics teacher talked about some diseases and my ears perked up. Good sign. Then it was the weekend and I was back to feeling like I had nothing I wanted to do in Lincoln. Shit and I thought I was over this. Guess not now that I've been reminded about what other cities have to offer. Oh well. My bad.
So here I am, sick of this NE life. Looks like I'm back to square one, figuring out how to change my perception so that I'm happy. Luckily, I've done it before and not so long ago. Time to forget about Austin or Montreal or wherever and focus on here and what it's got going for it. Yup, back to square one.
