I despise and loathe the dryer in the apartment complex’s laundry building. Granted, I’m drying colors, but I don’t even have a pair of jeans in there for once and it’s taking three cycles to get it all dry, whereas its facing companion finished the whites in just one load. That, if you ask me, is some serious dryer underachievement. I think it’s about time to start browsing the want-ads for used washer/dryer sets.
It’s relentlessly humid. After the evening is through it’s not terribly warm outside, but the air is so laden with moisture that the sweat just stands on your skin after the slightest bit of exertion. Thank goodness for A/C.
Driving down to Gainesville, Florida, tomorrow for my cousin Justine’s wedding on Sunday. They’re apparently having some sort of extended family social/cookout-type thing on Saturday, and as we’re going to miss the rehearsal dinner tomorrow evening, our presence would be required at the cookout. Shouldn’t be too bad, although encounters with my mother’s side of my extended family inevitably tend to leave a stale taste in my mind. It’s the perennially overachieving side of the family. The older of my two cousins, Jessica, was married last summer. She has a doctorate in medieval English or some such from Harvard, studied in Oxford, Cambridge, the whole lot, taught at UCLA for a number of years, and is now teaching at Yale with her husband, another English professor. Her new father-in-law’s idea of a toast at the wedding was to express his pride in all his children equally through reciting their accomplishments. It sounded like a sweet gesture at the time, and Jessica’s husband’s family certainly aren’t sub-par on the achievement scale either, but it retrospect it’s hard not to interpret the magnitude of the father’s admiration as a sort of sum total of his children’s accomplishments in the world to date. And that’s the sort of milieu I’m headed for tomorrow. I have a feeling it wouldn’t matter much if I were completely miserable with my life as long as I were making headway in the world. I’ll tell them about my second job designing the aircraft seat, and the pleasant variety inherent in the graphic design gig at UNC, and they’ll smile approvingly, without any attempt at inquiry as to whether it’s where I’m supposed to be. Accomplishments don’t mean a thing if you’re not where you’re supposed to be. But on the other hand, it’s not really fair to expect that kind of in-depth interest in my bien-être anyway–it’s just small talk among relatives. I’ll just cruise through, catch up on much-needed sleep, finish reading All Creatures Great and Small (excellent book), buy Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance at a local Barnes & Noble and start that, go through the motions at the wedding, and rest. The next few weeks are going to be a whirlwind anyway, ramping up to the Europe trip.
Interesting. I have a friend who is in (or was just in) Gainesville, and who will also be travelling to Europe soon. Coincidences are funny!