the thin line between optimism and delusion…

Most of the time I am pretty comfortable playing Russian roulette with regards to being called on in class when I am unprepared and I hate telling the teacher beforehand that I am unprepared. But every once in a while there are situations when I need to go ahead and pass before class starts. Like today. I have friends coming in town this weekend for the football game and some of them are already here. And we went out last night. And it has been a while since I have had motivation in Trust and Estates. Don’t get me wrong, it is probably my favorite class, but it is easy to follow along in class even when you haven’t read and I am lazy. Oh yeah, and my book is at home. So I’m not even able to wing it today. I am that unprepared (I always bring my book to every class, this is the first class all semester that I haven’t had my book, I love my book. I love all books, and my law books and I spend a lot of time together and I am attached). I’m having a Peter Gibbons day – I just want to avoid being hassled, that is all I ask. In order to avoid being hassled I had the following conversation with my teacher:
Charlsie: “Professor Love, I am not prepared.”
P. Sarajane Love: “And what is your name?”
Charlsie: “Charlsie Paine”
P. Sarajane Love: “Wow, good thing you told me because your number was up.” (sort of punches me in the arm)
Charlsie: “Great.” (laugh nervously)

There are at least 80 people in this class. This was my first pass of the year. I am regularly unprepared. I am very lucky.

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I didn’t what a lot of the debate. I wasn’t in the mood, I was actually in a bad mood and watching a debate was not going to make it better. But I did flip to it a couple of times while watching One Tree Hill (which is not a good show, but I like it), and reruns of Sex and the City. The one thing I did get out of the debate was that John Edwards was straight up rude to Dick Cheney. I hate politics, and before last night I did not have strong feelings about Cheney or Edwards. I have actually always liked both of them, if I thought about (which I normally didn’t). But they both seem to have cool families. I know very little about Edwards, but I have heard great things about his daughter from friends of mine who know her, and I think this is a strong plus for him.

After watching the debate last night, I changed my mind. Edwards acted like a jerk. I feel bad for his daughter. You know he talks to his family like that when it strikes him. My dad and I would have it out. Anyone that could treat a colleague the way that Edwards treated Cheney is not a nice guy. I couldn’t even listen to Edwards well spoken arguments because he spent so much time trying to rub what he was saying in Cheney’s face. Cheney spoke to the camera and the nation, Edwards spoke AT Cheney. I mean, common courtesy is all I ask. I know that I am little idealistic, but I think that regardless of who you are, you need to have some manners. I wanted to think more of Edwards than that. I hate politics.

I met Justice Scalia this summer on my study abroad program. I was introduced to him by the head of the program at the breakfast table. Scalia had finished eating and was sitting around drinking coffee with his wife and the other teachers, enjoying the Aegean Sea. The head of the program stood up and gave me a hug, and introduced me to Scalia. I am standing next to the table. Scalia turns to me and shakes me hand, but does not budge out of his chair. I’m sorry, but I was offended. I was the only person he was being introduced to, it was a private setting, and he wasn’t being harassed. And he was being paid to be there. By me and my friends. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have been introduced to a man sitting at a table who did not stand up. He should have stood up when I approached the table. But I don’t expect that. All I would expect is that a grown, cultured, intelligent man would have the manners to stand up and meet a young women that is studying his profession. He wouldn’t have even had to stand all the way up, he could have just done that half stand up thing. It would be different if he was in the middle of a eating (even though most men I know would have still stood up), or if he was doing something important, but he wasn’t. Especially for being so conservative, I would have expected him to at least have manners. But as my brother says, maybe I expect too much out of people. Maybe not.

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Have you ever noticed that there are certain groups of friends that when you run into them they like to share stories about what they remember the most about you? I find this interesting. Because it isn’t always the same groups of people, but it seems likeonce the group starts the “what I remember best” it is hard to stop. I know that I have a tendency to do this as well. Like this weekend, I ran into lots of friends from college. One group, the group I spent most of my freshman year with (lets call them group A), and hung out with in the dorm, when I saw them, they wanted to talk about what they remembered about me. I think this is probably because for the most part group A is still intact; they still live together, or at least visit each other, and talk on the phone a lot. But they only see me on occasion and so it is easy for them to reminisce about me, because I am not in the picture much anymore. It is as if when I run into group A, even though at the moment we are together, really we exist for each other in the past, and the memories are the most vivid part.

In contrast, two of my roommates from college stayed with me this weekend, and we discussed one of our other roommates who was not present (we will call this group B, mostly roommates from Windsor). These roommates ended up being my closest friends in college, and even though I love my friends in group A and I definitely think of them as friends in the present, group B contains the friends that I talk to on the phone on a regular basis and the ones I visit regularly. For this discussion, I will include myself in group B. So this weekend group B is discussing a member of the group that is not present. And we spoke of her in a manner similar to the way that group A discussed me. And this particular absent friend has been living out of the state for about the past last year. And we don’t see her much. I talk to her more than the other two, and I probably see her more than the other two.

The question here that I am asking is, at what point do your friends start to talk about you in the past tense? I don’t think that this has anything to do with how much your friends like you. It is just a reference to how you used to be an every day part of their life, and now you aren’t. And I don’t think that this is anything that should be seen as negative, obviously you are important if you are still being discussed. Also, you can’t live in two different places very easily. This can apply if you just moved from Atlanta to Athens, but you go to Atlanta two or three times a week, and still talk to your friends in Atlanta all day, and don’t make friends in Athens because you still rely so heavily on your friends in Atlanta ( I mean, you are planning on moving back there anyway). This can also apply to living in the past. Well, you can’t help physically living in the present, and like I said, living in two places at one time is not good. The bottom line is that moving on in your life is good, and although you might be able to keep up with a lot of your friends from college, you can’t keep up with all of them.

But you know what? It still kinda hurts. It is sad to be thought of in the past, and it is upsetting for me to think of certain friends are being in the past. Whenever a friend starts a sentence like, “What I remember best about you…..,” it is bittersweet. It is really sweet to be remember well, and for people to have vivid, particular memories about you (as long as they aren’t too embarrassing). I would never start such a sentence like this when speaking about a friend who was part of my everyday life unless the conversation was already underway. If one of my other friends began discussing what they remembered about a mutual friend, I am sure I would have input, even if the mutual friend was part of my present. Do you think that the more you talk about someone in the past tense, the more you think about them that way? I am scared of group dynamics, and it is scary that someone in a group could have the whole group thinking about an absent member in the past tense, even if the absent member is not past tense, just absent. I definitely have friends who are absent, but not past tense. I also probably have friends who are present but are past tense. Will group B one day talk about me in the past tense?

I guess this is just part of growing up. I’m not actually asking a question here, and I don’t have any answers, this is just a thought that I can’t get out of my mind. It seems to stem from a fear I have about being considered the past. Which is stupid. Obviously something about me is afraid to move on, and doesn’t like change. Maybe this is something that I need to work on.

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Saturday I went to one of the most fun football games I have ever been to in my life. It was more fun than I can express. I had a good feeling about the game, I really thought that we were going to pull through and win, but I never thought that we would stomp LSU into the ground. I did feel bad for the lone LSU fan that was sitting behind me, but then again, I have been there. I admired this LSU fan because he didn’t leave. He stayed with his team, even when his team was losing. I don’t like fair-weather fans. But this was all just a fleeting though, since I had too much to think about – reveling in the fact that our offense was finally clicking and that our defense is still awesome!! This is going to be a fun fall and I am excited. Oh, and Thomas Davis is my hero.

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