#these are all examples of carmen doing the cutting off [warranted or not] and it eats at or destroys her

[grahamcarmen]

carmen's team red seeing carmen being upset that she doesn't get to be with gray

[chroniclesofawkwardness]

The Claw

My phone rang just as Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) said the words "I just want to fit in." I was watching the movie version of American Pyscho, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Two things surprised me. One, that my phone was set to something other than silent. Two, that someone was calling me at 8:30 PM on a Tuesday. Aaron, a sophomore at Ohio State, was on the other end of the line. Though we engaged in small talk for a few minutes, I found it hard to hide my annoyance at being interrupted in the middle of the movie. He was just doing his job, but as he asked me about myself, told me a little about himself, and moved on to reciting facts about me that were staring back at him from his computer screen, I felt an emptiness inside. The thought of being reduced to a graduation date and an earned degree didn't sit well with me. Sometimes I try to fill the void between supposed accomplishments and reality with writing, cooking or reading. Patrick would fill his void by obsessing over seemingly innocuous details like the fonts on or thickness of business cards, and later by killing. Killing just to really feel something that even having the best of the material world couldn't buy.

Aaron was a bit taken aback when I told him what I do for a living in the financial sector after he'd read the name and focus of my degree back to me. I can't blame him. Area Studies is not exactly a lucrative field, and that's always been the point, in my eyes at least. American Psycho may be an extreme example of how external signs of wealth don't necessarily lead to internal fulfillment, but this notion has real-world applications too. Most of us are put on a conveyor belt of achievement toward adulthood from the time we're born. Maybe, if we reach the pinnacle too quickly like Patrick, the hunger for a true challenge in a world where someone has the luxury to obsess over facial scrubs, suit fabrics, and business card fonts is what gives rise to both a void to fill and a need to fill it. Maybe some of us make dark choices to harm ourselves or others out of the need to feel in control of at least something when our destinies seem predetermined and our choices heavily regulated as we move along the conveyor belt.

Even as a child, I enjoyed defying conventional wisdom. Who doesn't? When we'd go to the grocery store, I loved turning a can on its side and watching it roll past the cereal all the way to the front of the line instead of standing there upright and passive as a good can should:

- Vegetables first, honey.

- Kiss my ass, kale. Woooooo!!!

I wonder how many adults I royally pissed off when the cashier would let me try to scan a can despite the fact that his or her numbers were probably being tracked for productivity analysis. I had extraordinary difficulty even finding a UPC label as an eight-year-old, let alone positioning an item so it could be scanned correctly. The adults behind me in line probably had to get home to their families so they could continue to prod them along the path to supposed happiness that was reflected back to them by mainstream media. But I didn't give a shit. I was going to take my time at the head of the line, and confirm that Del Monte mixed vegetables were indeed on sale for 99 cents.

As much as my brother Simon and I looked forward to scanning cans and pissing off adults while doing so, we also loved trying to guess the total grocery bill. Between the two of us, we only got it exactly right once, and the now-defunct Big Bear. One would think such a remarkable achievement would warrant a ride on the tiny toy pony stationed outside the store, or a battle with the prize machine barely inside the door, its claw hanging idly above what looked like a treasure trove of stuffed animals, sports balls, and slinkies.  But, in her infinite wisdom, my mom would always tell me that we didn't have that kind of money. Leaning heavily on my tendency to take everything literally (remnants of which can still be found today), I believed you needed a special kind of coin to ride the pony or manipulate the claw, and I resolved to find some of this magical currency.

I realize now that mom was trying to teach me a valuable life lesson that went beyond: Maybe we'd have that kind of money if you kids hadn't insisted on buying three boxes of Triscuits; a lesson deeper still than that, much like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, fake pony rides and battles with prize machines were bullshit. She was trying to impress upon me that you can't have and don't really need everything you think you want. Of course, I couldn't tell Aaron all this over the phone. Even as these thoughts raced through my mind, I had to remember that I was still annoyed at having to pause the movie. Even if I had wanted to tell him everything, he probably had a limited amount of time to listen since he had other phone calls to make. He told me that in the face of funding cuts from the state, the university was increasingly dependent on donors like me. He casually asked if I'd be willing to contribute $150 to the Slavic Languages Discretionary Account, which was double what I'd given last year. You can't blame a guy for trying, even if my previous contribution was probably highlighted in yellow on his screen, along with the name of my employer, marital status, mother's blood type, and who knows what else.

I wanted to tell Aaron that I'm generally happy with my life, that I'll be okay even though my current profession doesn't have much connection with what I studied in college (at least on paper). I wanted to tell him that I use what I learned during and after graduate school on a daily basis. As I listened to him talk about the new dorms constructed to accommodate students who are now required to stay on campus through their sophomore year, I wanted to scream that the voice in our heads that says, "I just want to fit in" is just as much bullshit as pony rides and prize machines.

Some lessons, as I found out, are best left to personal experience, as it seems to be the only kind that really sticks.

Yesterday, I attended my first Ohio State football game in 18 years. The Buckeyes won, as they've done more often than not when playing at home in my lifetime. The Campus Chimes that precede Carmen Ohio still brought a tear to my eye, just as they had when I attended my first game when I was twelve. (At thirty-seven, they reminded me that I too could still feel something deeply.)  That day, I decided Ohio State was the only place I wanted to go to college. My chosen field of Area Studies made that dream come true. As O-H-I-O resounded throughout Ohio Stadium one letter at time, I didn't care that I had to piss really bad because I drank an ill-advised beer when I knew damn well that the trek to the restroom and back from thirty-six rows up in C-deck might as well have been ripped from the pages of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. During media timeouts (which were conveniently tracked on a highly visible clock) I thought about how I'd wanted to study abroad even as a child.  We didn't have the kind of money for that either; I quietly resolved to find this special currency somehow, just as I'd done years before in the face of plastic ponies or dangling claws outside Big Bear.

The seed that was planted in my head in Ohio Stadium on October 16, 1993, vs. Michigan State would come to bear more fruit than I can count in the almost exactly twenty-five years between my first game and my most recent one. Not only did I get to attend the only university I'd ever really wanted to, but I also had the chance to study abroad, and see things with my own eyes that I'd only read about in books. If life is what happens while you're making big plans for it (a quote from Johnny Depp's portrayal of George Jung in the movie Blow) I wouldn't trade mine for anything.

On the way back to the car, I saw the new dorms Aaron had mentioned to me and some old ones I'd passed by on the same route years ago. I wanted to scream, "You'll be okay" to anyone listening, but I needed to piss again despite having finally relieved myself after the game ended just minutes earlier. I have faith anyone within the sound of my voice that day will figure out for themselves that they’ll be okay, just like I did. That's the whole point.