Off to the races.

I really got in touch with my culture and my roots this weekend--my white, white roots. Who else but white people tailgates horse races?

It was a fine time overall, if a bit chilled and soggy. And by "a bit" I mean "very." It was a bit discouraging, in fact, for actual tailgating, but we survived, didn't we?

Yes, that's silver.

That's setting the bar a bit low, and it's more than a little ungrateful on my part, too. My mother did a fine thing hosting us all--even if she did privilege viewing angles of the intermittent, 3-second thunderings of passing horses over socializing and mingling amongst our fellows.

While I know she tried, I also can't help but admit a little disappointment--as much in myself as anything, it's worth mentioning. It's a bone of contention I like to pick with myself that I don't press on and meet people more despite wanting to, that I don't go out and experience things genuinely as much as I'd like to. But that's another post, maybe; another battle to dissect.

In this case, it was bitter cold and sopping wet, and I was underdressed: a mere jean jacket and thin sweater separating me from the elements. Some of those things couldn't be helped (weather), some of them could (layering), and some things I might best bring up with the concerned parties for future considerations (location).

It turns out, though, that horse racing, in and of itself, does next to nothing for me. Something about 3 seconds of horse blurs every 45-60 minutes just lacks a thrill for me. Maybe if I had gotten in on the betting, I'd have felt more invested. I wouldn't not go again if invited, but I doubt I'll go out of my way seeking horse races to sate some irrepressible hunger, and I'd certainly do more mingling about, that's for sure.

These are my people; my wacky, weird people.

One undeniable thing, though, that can't be taken away from this little trip is the time spent with family. I don't see most of those wackos anywhere near enough, so it's great that we were able to all get together for a weekend of odd hijinks.

(On another note, my little car, Marshmallow, made it all the way down there and back. We even survived Dulles. My cousin Jill can verify that there was no cheating--I actually drove the whole way!)

Comments

Other things that might interest you...

On aging, and fear.

To begin with, I’m not sure you’re aware of it, but I’m middle aged. Oh? What gave it away? Using a blog as my primary literary medium?¹ Hm. But in fact, the APA defines 35 years as the end of “young adulthood.” Yeah. I found out via some shitpost on twitter when I was already 35, so it didn’t sit well with me then either. But my worries about aging began much sooner than that. See, even in my 20s, I feared I’d been wasting my life. I’d struggled with school and life and everything since graduating high school, arguably sooner, and nothing seemed to be going anywhere meaningful . I felt I had a limited social life, a dead-end job, no money, no great travels, a limping love life; I was, generally, a loser, wasting away... There were none of the usual hallmarks of success or happiness. And that scared me. Would my life have been worth it if I continued in this direction? Would it have been a “life well lived” by the end? So, this is my existential struggle. Even now, as I lurch ever nea

Changing lanes.

I was driving home in some traffic last night when I drifted, in my mind, a long way back (about 20 years) to high school. I was caught in one of those periodic traffic slowdowns as I floated back; you know, those waves of congestion that seem to pass backward through the columns of cars in each lane. (I've heard they start because someone switches lanes, and in response, a rippling emergent slowness travels backward and outward as the cars behind it accommodate the change, one by one.) What drew me back to those younger days was that, back in high school, similar phenomena of congestion took place in the halls between classes, when eddies of young humans would get caught in and around those clumps of those chatting by lockers or retrieving books. Occasionally, backups would occur when groups of people got caught in these eddies, or collided with other groups by the lockers, and slowdowns would ripple back from there. Maybe it's not exactly the same, but as I drove it seemed si

On phases and fixations.

My fixations are powerful, but they can also be maddeningly ephemeral and fleeting. And I hate that; about them and, honestly, about myself. But I’ve never really asked why I feel that way... I'll commit immense amounts of time and energy and even money to a fixation for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two, sometimes rebranding my whole personality around it, then just...move on. I'm not sure when I first noticed this pattern—if it was always there or if it emerged and intensified over time—but it's been part of me for a long while. And every time I do, I feel such guilt and shame. Who even am I if I can't be consistent, dedicated, substantive? How disingenuous is it that nothing I care about lasts? I’ve always just accepted those feelings; I’ve never poked at them in earnest. If you can’t tell from the recent flurry of activity on this blog, I have been fixated on blogging; I mentioned in a recent post about this blog that I had a compulsion to revamp the whole bl

palmerpink

Search This Blog