miscilleny 3
Originally written 03/22/2002
I left the movie at 11. I had just gone, alone, to see The Royal Tannenbaums which I found to be a completely satisfying movie. Funny, yes, but something more than that as well. It reminded me slightly of Franny and Zooey which might be why I liked it so much. I was still laughing to myself about the kid who grimmaced, muttered “oh fuck”, and then scampered, like a bat out of hell, to the back of the theatre when a cadre of drunk middle aged women shoved their way into the row where we were seated.
I took the long way back to the flat. On sunny days, I like to walk through the Meadows, this big green park space in the middle of the city, but on dreary nights, I prefer to avoid it. It’s not that it’s dangerous, though the place is reputed to be a homosexual pick-up spot, drug bizarre, and general den of iniquity after dark (though I haven’t seen any of those things), it’s just too quiet and lonely. So quiet that you can’t really think. Your thoughts just echo around in your head, plinking around like that bouncing-ball sound in that one Aphex Twin song. So, I back-tracked towards Lothian road, turning at the brightly lit Bank of Scotland building. I passed the couple kissing in the doorway, ooblivious of the soft rain that was beginning to fall. I walked up the avenue, past the art college, and past the girl who was walked quickly past me in the way that someone walks away from an evening where something has gone very, very wrong. Cars and taxis rolled smoothly past, but the sidewalk was empty. The colorful storefronts of the daytime now stood muted in the quiet half-light of the lampposts.
I walked past the school where I sometimes pass the massses of uniform clad teenagers on their lunch break. When I was in school, I think I would have hated to have to wear a uniform, and would have raised quite a fuss about it and spouted rhethoric about how imposing restrictions on attire was a violation of our right to free speech (which I guess it is, albeit too often speech about classism and consumerism masquerading as gap logos). Now, though, I’m jealous. I lament my un-uniformed school days. The uniform just seems simple, elegant, innocent. I envision school days with happily homogenous pupils working studiously away at maths assignments or discussing schoolyard philosophy. I envision walking through the hallways of the school and seeing groups of students, cliques even, but without the rigid, self-imposed dress codes. Airy acoustic guitar music is playing in the background, maybe Nick Drake. The kids are smiling, everyone is getting along. No one is complaining about how hard the assignment was or how the upcomming exam fucks up their social calendar. It’s a perfect world. But then I snap out of it. Their school experience probably has all the cliques, the banality, the ugliness that defines high school for so many kids. If they seem to get on better, it’s probably just because they’re all rich enough to go to a school that has uniforms and at least have that in common. Still, the possibility that maybe they have things better than I had is bittersweet. I can’t decide if I want to smile sweetly at the schoolkids or grimace menacingly.