when people marry

You might find this to be an odd post. Just warning you.

I hate social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. I find them to be vanity projects, destroyers of the English language and people's ability to communicate in person, and huge time suckers.* But, alas, I have accounts for specific purposes (I joined for other reasons but eventually came to my current state of opinion). I joined Facebook when it was only available to students at certain universities, so it's been a long time. I only keep a membership to periodically check on the status of people I grew up with but don't really keep in contact with. And that's what prompts me to blog this morning.

I got a friend request and a message from people I know, so I figured I should log in. While I was there I glanced at people's updates and clicked on specific people I wanted to peek into the lives of. That is how I discovered that one of my childhood friends (we've known each other more than twenty years) is engaged and comments on her page seem to indicate she is getting married this summer.

Don't worry, I'm not griping about not being invited to the wedding--I would have never have expected that. We have kept in touch only sporadically, and the last time I saw her was nearly three years ago (though that's, honestly, a lot more recently than anyone else I grew up with) when I first moved to L.A.

This hit me in a way that is hard for me to really understand. What I think it is, is that I've finally hit an age where people from my cohort are really going to start doing this. 25 isn't that young to get married by most of society's standards, but it certainly is to me!

I have plenty of friends that are married. In fact, I probably have more friends that are or have been married than aren't, but that's because I've never quite fit in with my own peers and have always had older friends (my recent friend request was from my high school English teacher). So it's not the idea of marriage that is sticking me either.

I also know other people from growing up that are married and married younger (I haven't talked to them since before the nuptials), but I wouldn't really call them friends. I doubt my name would even register with them today (but you never know about such things).

This is the first actual friend from my childhood that is getting married (that I know about anyway). She's one of the few people that I have any fond memories of growing up. Other people's reputations in my mind are marred by acts of meanness, taint from close association with those people, or just the superficiality I feel they might have had for any regard for me.

I don't know what to do with all this. I'm not having a quarter-life crisis. I have no interest in getting married within the decade (or ever). This is just a little introspection on my role in social expectations and how others fulfilling them impacts me.


* You could say this about a lot of internet stuff, but I don't hate the internet. I'm entirely dependent on it, and I'm the first to admit it. I also use it to socialize and do a lot of online dating, but I find this other stuff to be too invasive and pushy and entirely driven by capitalistic greed (the companies, not the users).

more than two weeks later

Let me tell you about the Superdrag concert I flew across the country for.

Oh who can remember all the little details now? But I will say that I am indeed glad I went. They totally rocked. You'd never believe that these guys hadn't played together (or any of these songs) in years. Of course, being the last show of the tour probably helped that a bit, but seriously, it brought back the rock of my youth (somebody pinch me when I'm getting nostalgic at the tender age of 24! Especially after watching Baby Boomers debate the meaning and "corrosiveness" of nostalgia on a local PBS show called Life Part Two, of which I am probably the only member of the Echo of the Baby Boom to actually watch this show when it airs. Oh but that's another story. I clearly have an obsession with PBS and absorbing all kinds of information. Perhaps I've been derelict in writing in this here blog because I've been too busy absorbing information instead. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Okay, back to Superdrag. I was actually surprised not to see people (the guys, really: they were all male) from the old days. We'd never really talk, but we'd certainly recognize each other, the first dorks to arrive at the venue, which was usually the 9:30 Club, but a show or two in Baltimore and even a roadtrip to Philadelphia (if I remember correctly, back in the days when I couldn't even drive and my mom was such an enthusiastic supporter of her silly kids!). It was actually Allie who recognized a lot of people from her stint as a DJ at UMCP's radio station.

We got there when doors opened at 10:00 and claimed the best place in the venue: standing against the balcony at center. In other words, we had a completely unobstructed view of the stage directly over the sound board. Yes, perfect sight and sound! (And I lamented how I should have done this for Teenage Fanclub two years ago rather than pressing myself against the stage.)

The vast bulk of the set drew from Superdrag's first two LPs (which the original lineup, hence the reunion, created): Regretfully Yours and Headtrip in Every Key. There was also a track or two from their earlier EP and demo efforts, and "True Believer" from their third of four LPs (In The Valley of Dying Stars) which is not a tune from the original lineup, but voted the number one favorite by fans through an online poll. Now, I do indeed love this song and many others from their later releases, but I thought it was not in spirit with a reunion tour of the original band to vote for music they didn't all perform. I guess the bulk of voters didn't get that message. I wasn't actually surprised that it won. It's the only song I've actually seen covered by another band (The Plus Ones). In fact, I remember telling someone at the Plus Ones concert that they sound a lot like Superdrag just as they started to play "True Believer."

The first half of the set was dominated by Regretfully Yours, and while I love all Superdrag music--seriously, not one bad track--I still consider this my least favorite album. It's a bit too monotonous, which you can really feel standing at a late-night concert. But then they brought on the Headtrip In Every Key, which for the longest time was my favorite album of theirs. I still go back and forth between it and In the Valley of Dying Stars. Including the encore, I believe the total playing time was somewhere on order of an hour and forty-five or fifty minutes. Probably the best concert I've attended in years.

A special note, there was absolutely no booze on stage. Now, considering Superdrag disbanded on account of John Davis's Born-Again Christian sobriety, it's not really that surprising. But how many rock shows have you been to where no band member was throwing back beer or whiskey in between songs? There's no alcohol required to rock!

And if that cheesy line wasn't enough, here's an embarrassing plea. In August, waiting to gawk at the ever-youthful Paul Rudd at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater, I was blabbing about Superdrag to Anna when the guy in front of me turned around to tell me he is a big Superdrag fan. Well, man, if you have happened upon this in some sort of bizarre googling incident (or any other means), please email me, leave a comment, or something. I totally flupped up the follow through on that one. I'm willing to bet we've got more in common than a love for Superdrag and cool glasses.

Fin.

sexy math

So last night I met the hottest mathematician. He was a guest speaker in this teaching seminar I have to take. He looked like he couldn't have been more than thirty, but he's already hopped around to a few universities as a professor and won several teaching awards. He wasn't there to lecture on math--though, if my math teachers looked like that I would probably be a mathematician too. Not that my history teachers were particularly attractive, but you know, a little encouragement never hurt anyone.

So he's young, he's obviously brilliant, he's personable, and he can dress. Maybe he's gay. I don't know, the gaydar could go either way. It doesn't matter. You can't make advances toward faculty members, even if they're in unrelated fields.

This leads to a confession I feel compelled to make in light of this. I find mathematicians and scientists secretly sexy as hell. Maybe it's because as a kid I wanted to be one, and I could have easily gone down that path if I hadn't found people and stories so much more compelling. (Who knows what the real reason is for my diversion into the humanities, but it wasn't for lack of ability.) But there's also this association I have with geeky science men, intense brilliance, and a general quirkiness I find attractive. These are complete stereotypes, but well, we all have our types (in stereo or not). Then it's also a bit of an opposites factor. I'm an absolute humanist, postmodern to the core, and fundamentally question the scientific method (mostly on the basis of its presumed objectivity when in fact there is no such thing). So if I could snag a scientist it's like a bit of a coup. Hell, conservatives and god forbid libertarians are drawn to me like a moth to a flame (probably because they think they can convert me...go do missionary work elsewhere, thank you!). I don't want to destroy the scientist. But I have this fantasy that he's progressive as hell, knows what he's doing isn't objective, and just gets it. Hopefully he's got some social skills too. Plus, while it's attractive to partner with someone with similar ideals, goals, etc., do you really want a companion that would be a competitor in your field or profession? Think of the cool books and articles you could author together, but also think of the nasty competitor it could breed. Though you could fight and have make up sex...