Bottoms Up

I don’t think it’s fair to characterize me as a “glass half empty” or “glass half full” person. Most of the time, I drink too quickly to see what’s in the glass.

I’ve always been a “fast drinker,” literally -- the kind of girl who exhausts the water-refill guy at restaurants. You might think this would make me lots of fun at parties, but those of you who’ve seen me at parties know the frontal lobe-pickling drill: drink, drink, drink, flirt and/or make incoherent “observant” comments (ex: “Alanis wrote ‘You Oughta Know‘ about Dave Coulier! Uncle Joey! The Woody Woodchuck guy!”), fall asleep. No need to worry about me in New Orleans. Well, as long as I fall asleep in my own apartment.

As my Honesdale stint winds down, I’m realizing that I may be a “fast drinker” in the metaphorical sense, too. My teaching career ended in a flurry of pink disciplinary slips and check-marked report cards. Couldn’t wait to load “road trip mix” CDs into Andie Acura and hit I-24. Once I got here, I couldn’t wait to start my job at Highlights. Of course, after the job started, I couldn’t wait for Friday. Then, I anticipated specific Fridays. Long weekends, the circus, etc. And now, 50 or so Fridays later, it’s all over.

I feel like I carped a few too many diems.

This isn’t a cautionary tale. Anticipation is part of human nature, I think. We must “look forward,” if to avoid the cubicle walls on either side.

The summer I worked retail in Cambridge, one of my counter-mates was a 40ish, graying woman with a Brandeis degree and a heap of unpaid loans and medical bills. I suspected she had a few mental tics, but we enjoyed chatting about the latest Julia Roberts flick or comically “impossible” customer.

We both hated the job. Really hated it. What’s to like about standing up for nine hours (minus a closely monitored lunch break), straightening sweatshirts and price checking Harvard ashtrays?

I didn’t much want to talk about senior-year plans with my co-worker. It seemed at best impolite, and at worst unforgivably bratty, to describe course selection and kickoff par-tays, when she marked time by the punch-card. But she kept the questions coming: what professors would I have? How would I decorate my dorm single? What would I do for fall break?

I joked about the impossibility of scoring dates at the Tower Court “meat market,” but she convinced me that I’d be engaged by the end of the semester. “You’ll find someone, too,” I said. She lived alone, went to the movies alone (like I did). “Not likely,” she smiled, straightening the shirt on a “I *heart* Harvard” bear. “But, hey” (I still remember her saying) “Hope springs eternal, I guess.”

I don’t know what happened to my co-worker -- I’m not going to mention her by name, because I’m afraid you’ll go to the Harvard bookstore, and she’ll still be working there. I hope I’m wrong. Hope she was a “fast drinker” with a higher-paying, full-benefits job ahead. Hope does spring eternal, and I’m glad. Anxious, tearful, cranky….but glad.