Five Takes

Well, despite the fact that Quick Takes isn't an official thing anymore, I like the format and I think I'm going to keep writing them for the time being. 

It probably won't be consistently seven takes anymore though. 

1.) Questionable Fashion

It's finally getting cool and rainy outside, which means I break out my flannel "lumberjack" shirts.

These shirts are not what you'd call  flattering. Most of them are men's shirts, they're baggy, and they're plaid. They're also definitely not what you'd call feminine. There was one memorable Thanksgiving a couple years ago where I realized I was wearing the exact same thing as my husband's  butch lesbian cousin. 

But they're really comfortable, and I feel more confident in clothes that are functional rather than fancy. It's worth having people potentially question my sexuality for that, I think. 

2.) Bonfire

The 22nd anniversary of the Texas A&M bonfire collapse  was Thursday. 

"Bonfire Memorial" by Steven Wilke is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0  

The  poem my uncle wrote for a high school class that my grandparents decided to put on his part of the memorial at the bonfire site. Be careful what you write, you never know where it's going to end up.  

This was the first year since it's happened that my grandmother has decided not to go to the annual memorial. My uncle, her youngest child, was one of the 12 who died in the accident. 

It's the first (and as of 22 years later the only) time my family has been closely affected by a disaster that received national news coverage. 

Some things we learned...

a.) Journalists WILL get details wrong, and they'll be ridiculously rude and pushy. I know you want the scoop, but don't show up at someone's house and ask about how they're feeling now that their son/brother is dead with a camera in their face. 

b.) Lots of mail. It was well meant, and my grandmother kept a lot of it. But the sheer volume was pretty staggering. Loads of flowers too. 

c.) Don't have a character in your ten year anniversary documentary's dramatic reenactment have the name of an actual victim on their helmet. And for sure don't have them widen their eyes dramatically right before the collapse and their assumed doom. 

It's kind of traumatic and not really needed. The family will see it, they will connect the dots to their loved one, and yeah...it's just not needed. Get your dramatic moment some other way. 

I was only 6 when he died. He was a good uncle though, and close with his nieces and nephews, so we all felt it pretty keenly when he died.

  I now have kids that were the same age I was when he passed, and seeing them interact with a particular uncle of theirs is bittersweet. It shows me in a lot of ways what I lost. 

3.) I wrote a play scene. 

For the record, I'm fully aware of my limitations as a creative writer. There's a reason I usually stick with essays: I handle things like genuine character development and symbolism with the subtlety of a plastic surgeon using a sledgehammer. 

But it was kinda fun to write, and the only way to get better at this kind of thing is to be openly really bad at it for awhile.

4.) I also wrote about an illegal entry into our home that happened last weekend. 

TLDR: two people entering the country illegally via the train tried to out run the police by cutting through our house. The cops subdued and arrested them on my kitchen floor in front of my kids. 

The border crisis is real, it's affecting real people, and the politicians in power need to actually solve the problem instead of weaponzing it to score votes. 

5.) A New Texan 

A good friend of mine from New York moved to South Texas this week. 

It's been interesting helping her get settled in. Despite the fact that I'm in my late twenties, this is the first time I've had the opportunity to help a friend move. I keep looking at Corpus wondering what she sees. I imagine New York and Texas are pretty different, but I'm not entirely sure what stands out and what looks normal. I'm pretty certain the mild weather and palm trees stand out, but I'm not sure what businesses stand out, or whether the people seem different. Do we all have super obvious accents? Is hearing "ma'am" and "sir" all the time weird? Do complete strangers hold the doors open for you in New York like they do here? 

It's also going to be interesting seeing how we fit into each other's lives now that we can do it in person. Most of our friendship up to this point has been online. Now that we live within an hour's drive of each other, I'm wondering how we relate to each other will change. I think it'll be good change for both of us, but I'm not sure what it'll look like yet. 



No more Quick Takes, but this blog and this blog are pretty cool and deserve a shout out.