With a bang or a whimper? A year earlier than expected, I find myself writing my last column for The Cavalier Daily.
That's right. They're finally rubbing me out.
And so one last tug on the heartstrings then, right? One more column for the ages? One more Thanksgiving piece, nostalgic autumnal elegy, crappy self-deprecating rant?
One more "Thank God I'm a Wahoo"?
If only.
Bottom line, speaking without evasive action, simile, or florid prose: This sucks.
And I'll miss it.
The reason, thankfully, is a happy one for me. Rather than getting fired outright, as I quite honestly expected on at least two occasions, I get to trade one job for another.
And, let's face it, as a member of the Honor Committee, it really would be a conflict of interest for me to say things like, "lying in columns for the sake of a joke is my number one practice!"
But I will definitely miss getting angry voicemails from my mother at 3:00 on Tuesday afternoons:
"A-J, I never. Ever. Said that to you."
I'll miss sitting up late, eating Rold Gold honey wheat pretzels (you know what I'm sayin'), wearing my writing fedora, and listening to my roommate talk in his sleep as I stare at the blinking cursor thinking:
I wonder what the world would look like if it were made out of cheese.
Then I would type out that sentence and applaud myself for using the subjunctive mood, applauding myself again for remembering that the subjunctive is indeed a mood and not a tense.
I'll miss IM's from my friend Nick at BU, who -- let's say by coincidence (coughcoughINSECURITYcough) -- always reminds me that surely he'll be published before me after reading my latest column.
Get over it, Nikolai. It's not a competition. And besides, do you think I'd ever sell out to the publishing giants?
S'il vous plai, mon ami. I'm way too Bohemian.
I did this s*** for the street cred.
My s*** is pure.
I'll miss emails from readers.
"Dear A-J, After reading your article about self-expression, I would love to meet you for dinner downtown tonight. I won't be wearing any underwear. Kisses, Nastasia."
This, alas, represents the kind of letter that I never received. One of my deepest regrets is that I never received a letter like this and if I only had the chance, I would have.
I know it.
For me, writing these things twice a month has been a personal exercise. When I look back on all of them, I get a very clear picture of how college life has progressed for me.
From the wide-eyed, homesick, long distance relationshipped, insecure first year, to the aging, raccoon-eyed, insecure third year.
Whoo.
Quite a wild ride.
It's a bit like reading one's journal from the summer before eighth grade.
A crush on Susie McPotterson. Whining about mom and dad telling you to turn down the music. Pining about pimples.
Painful.
Looking back on any of one's old writing is an exercise in realizing how shallow, how mistaken, how quaint you used to be.
How embarrassing were the times. How short was your hair. How skinny and goofy you looked.
Compared with now. [Use Arnold Schwarzenegger voice] The more mature. The more suave. Empowered with direction.
"Look at ze little furst year. Pdobably still sucks his thumb."
When, what really can I claim?
I have a major. Two, if you're counting.
And I'm writing on the same laptop, struggling over the same words. Against the same inner editor. Against the same deadline.
It's just for the last time.
There are so many more things I wanted to investigate, make fun of, assault, defend, humiliate, disgrace, laud, berate, celebrate.
So many more forms with which I wanted to experiment. Limerick, sonnet, epic, haiku.
So very, very many more puns.
I'm not going to make this any more MacArthurian than I should. But this thing has become part of my routine. It's a bit like sucking the morning coffee out of my life. Except, instead of getting a splitting migraine, I'll just get a little more existential angst.
I'll wind this up with a haiku, fulfilling at least one experimental dream of mine. And, come to think of it, I may or may not have actually used a haiku before.
It's been fun, I'd say.
The writing's not always great,
But well, whatever.
Hope I've brought at least as much entertainment into your every-other-Tuesdays as Sudoku.
I look forward to the possibility of a glorious coming-out-of-retirement party.
But until then, cheers.
A-J's column ran bi-weekly on Tuesdays. He can be reached at aronstein@cavalierdaily.com.
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