all in the family

Guest post from my brother:

To start things off, I had the common post graduation dream where I forgot to write a paper for a class and just realized right before the paper is due and would fail to graduate as a result of not turning the paper in on time. I know that a lot of people have this dream, but it was the first time for me, so it kind of freaked me out. I am better now.

Moving on to more exciting things. This might be a sign that work has taken over. I was dreaming up inventions, some of which seemed like really good ideas at the time but I can't remember all of them now. The one that I do remember is a gem though. The basic concept of the invention is combining two advertising mediums, frisbees and t-shirts. The invention starts out as a frisbee with some sort of logo on it, and when you dunk the frisbee into water, it changes shape and becomes a t-shirt with the same logo on the front. In my deam I thought it was a great idea. When I awoke from the dream I laughed at myself and said no way that hasn't already been invented. I seemed to skip over the fact plastic plus water does not equal fabric. On my way to work, when I finally started to wake up, I remembered this dream and the thoughts that followed and realized that it was in fact the changing of materials that would hold this invention back, not the fact that someone has probably already done it. I could very easily check to see if it is out there but I am not going and prevent my dreams from potentially being crushed.

this has all happened before

It was high school and college graduation all over again at the same time. The night before I dropped my parents and my brother off at their hotel and took the car (magically transformed into the old Dodge Caravan) around the old neighborhood. As I drove by the house on Witherbee, I got a call from a friend who wanted a recommendation of where to take his boyfriend on a date in Birmingham. I told him I'd have to think about that, and in the meantime decided to head over to Birmingham myself and take in a movie. It was almost 2 am when I remembered to call that guy, and by then he and his boyfriend had broken up and he was a big slobbery sobbing mess, so I took him along to the next movie with me to cheer him up.

Luckily, the first event the next day was the band and orchestra awards ceremony, part 2, which I was already planning to use as nap time. (They gave out so many awards to the band and orch kids that they had to break it up into an evening gala, which I'd skipped, and a standard ceremony in an auditorium.) I was super bored and didn't see anyone I knew. I took out a twenty dollar bill and was going to ask the middle-aged man next to me to do something with it. Maybe it was going to be a bet or something, to make me less bored. But at that moment the marching band started a number and I was transfixed by the chubby flag girls. When I looked over, the man was pocketing my twenty!

"Hey, is that your twenty?" I asked him.

He said, "Oh, I thought you wanted me to have it." He gave it back, but then he thought we were flirting, which was awkward. Joe started calling my name from the other side of the auditorium, and I slid over to talk to him over everyone's head. I'm not sure why he was there. He was in band, but at a different high school. Still, it was good to see a friendly face.

Before I could figure it out, we all filed out to head over to the actual graduation ceremony, which was taking place at a highway toll booth in the Appalachian mountains. The teachers lined us up in rows like cars waiting to pay the toll, then we marched through to the other side to listen to the speakers. The first speaker was this guy who lived down the street and was really into biking. He may also have been a priest, judging by his collar. But he didn't bother to prepare a speech, so after a minute he started going, "umm, ummm," and got really mad at us when we stopped paying attention. The next speaker was supposed to talk inside the highway patrolman's office as we chowed down on refreshments. No one listened to her, either, and I felt bad because she was actually very good, and she had made grilled corn and chocolate truffles for us.

Then my cousin Tricia showed up, and told me I was about to lose my job at The Globe and Mail if I didn't organize a techno dance party immediately. I didn't realize I had a job there, but I also didn't want to lose it, so I rounded up six of my graduating friends and told them the rules. We had to stay within a 6'x6' dancing box, and no one could stop dancing, not even for a second. Someone cued up an Erasure remix and we were on our way.