Homecoming
For now, I'm going to depart from my usual pseudo-philisophicality and actually talk about homecoming. For now.
Ah, M-Week. A week of traditions, paint, and alcohol in almost any pure or not-so-pure form. The last one I don't care about. The first two can be interesting.
At "home" -- Lennox, that is -- homecoming is the second biggest event in the high school (graduation being the first). The week is spent dressing strangely, attending pep rallies (okay, okay, pep rally), decorating your car, and culminates in the football game that everyone's spent the whole week talking about.
Around here, homecoming day itself is of little interest. If you're a frosh, you wear your beanie (yes, we still have beanies) and go on beanie raids. If you're a senior, you wear your senior hat and collect garters. If you're in the middle, you laugh at the stupidity of the frosh and seniors. It basically culminates at the all-school picnic, the day BEFORE the football game, where people eat, drink, and jump in the mud, followed by a climb up M-Hill to whitewash a gigantic concrete "M" by sliding down it in a flood of white paint. When I say "slide down it," I mean you sit/lay/sprawl on the ground and shove yourself down the letter, potentially scraping yourself in uncomfortable places but not really caring till you take a shower and have to get all the paint out of sore spots.
We have strange traditions, okay?
But it's all fun stuff (well, mostly fun stuff), and a great break from the usual classes.
Still, the term "homecoming" leads to other thoughts, which is why I said I'd depart from the philosophy FOR NOW.
Sitting in the lobby doing homework, I came to realize that my normal life has taken a completely different path. "Normal" used to be class from 8:30-3:15, with activities before and after, three square meals a day, homework every evening, occasional tests that didn't really require studying ... you know, high school. Now, normal includes showering when it's convenient, planning my day around doing laundry, midnight trips to Wal-Mart, movie nights in dorm rooms, 21 girls using one bathroom, meals when I remember, and general confusion as to where "home" really is.
Hence the philosophy of today's entry.
"Home" can be one of two places -- the place I spend eight or nine months of the year, or the place my parents live. "Home" could include my direct family and the people I've known for years, or these others I do homework, watch movies, and generally live with. For now, "home" is fictitious -- I'm either in Sioux Falls or Rapid City, and that's all I can handle.
In Sioux Falls, things keep moving without me. My sister has decided where she wants to go to college, my brother is staying busy with sports and Boy Scouts, and my parents keep making major purchases. Meanwhile, here, life goes on as it has for the last year, and I tend to feel in the loop. Does that make it more "homey"? Does it really matter? After all, in five years, home will be something completely different, and all of this will be a happy (albeit confusing) memory.
In the end, I guess it's not important. By all accounts, I'm more or less homeless. Home is where the heart is, and right now, my heart is disoriented.
"The music and laughter eat away at your thoughts. The noise blots them out. All the sound distracts. Your head aches from the glue.
Anymore, no one's mind is their down. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion."
--Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk (2002, Anchor Books)
Ah, M-Week. A week of traditions, paint, and alcohol in almost any pure or not-so-pure form. The last one I don't care about. The first two can be interesting.
At "home" -- Lennox, that is -- homecoming is the second biggest event in the high school (graduation being the first). The week is spent dressing strangely, attending pep rallies (okay, okay, pep rally), decorating your car, and culminates in the football game that everyone's spent the whole week talking about.
Around here, homecoming day itself is of little interest. If you're a frosh, you wear your beanie (yes, we still have beanies) and go on beanie raids. If you're a senior, you wear your senior hat and collect garters. If you're in the middle, you laugh at the stupidity of the frosh and seniors. It basically culminates at the all-school picnic, the day BEFORE the football game, where people eat, drink, and jump in the mud, followed by a climb up M-Hill to whitewash a gigantic concrete "M" by sliding down it in a flood of white paint. When I say "slide down it," I mean you sit/lay/sprawl on the ground and shove yourself down the letter, potentially scraping yourself in uncomfortable places but not really caring till you take a shower and have to get all the paint out of sore spots.
We have strange traditions, okay?
But it's all fun stuff (well, mostly fun stuff), and a great break from the usual classes.
Still, the term "homecoming" leads to other thoughts, which is why I said I'd depart from the philosophy FOR NOW.
Sitting in the lobby doing homework, I came to realize that my normal life has taken a completely different path. "Normal" used to be class from 8:30-3:15, with activities before and after, three square meals a day, homework every evening, occasional tests that didn't really require studying ... you know, high school. Now, normal includes showering when it's convenient, planning my day around doing laundry, midnight trips to Wal-Mart, movie nights in dorm rooms, 21 girls using one bathroom, meals when I remember, and general confusion as to where "home" really is.
Hence the philosophy of today's entry.
"Home" can be one of two places -- the place I spend eight or nine months of the year, or the place my parents live. "Home" could include my direct family and the people I've known for years, or these others I do homework, watch movies, and generally live with. For now, "home" is fictitious -- I'm either in Sioux Falls or Rapid City, and that's all I can handle.
In Sioux Falls, things keep moving without me. My sister has decided where she wants to go to college, my brother is staying busy with sports and Boy Scouts, and my parents keep making major purchases. Meanwhile, here, life goes on as it has for the last year, and I tend to feel in the loop. Does that make it more "homey"? Does it really matter? After all, in five years, home will be something completely different, and all of this will be a happy (albeit confusing) memory.
In the end, I guess it's not important. By all accounts, I'm more or less homeless. Home is where the heart is, and right now, my heart is disoriented.
"The music and laughter eat away at your thoughts. The noise blots them out. All the sound distracts. Your head aches from the glue.
Anymore, no one's mind is their down. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion."
--Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk (2002, Anchor Books)
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