Things are getting weird.
My life is usually confined pretty clearly within walls of unpredictability. I'm used to it. Sometimes, when I go into Wal-Mart, the cashier will just ignore me for long stretches and engage in ridiculous and obscene conversations with her friends and managers. I'm thinking, whatever.
One of my professors seemed to shut off in class the other day -- in the middle of a word, he froze and stared out at the classroom for 45 seconds, then looked down and executed an awkward box-step behind the podium for another 30 seconds or so before looking up and resuming his lecture. Once upon a time I would have been outraged -- now, it's just water under the bridge.
In my econ class the other day, the broken English of my professor was made even less comprehensible than usual when the radiators directly behind my head began to shriek at a sustained 85 decibels, a sound much like an immense drill being operated steadily at maximum speed. I shrugged it off -- these things happen, especially to me. A good friend of mine recently developed an intense mania for Raising Cane's chicken tenders and has eaten there once a day ever since. C'est la vie.
But lately, things have started to get weird, even by my standards. I was walking across Grounds the other day with one of my dearest friends, and the world just came apart around us. The light was diffuse and strangely yellow, despite the perfect clarity of the twilight sky. I saw a young girl walking towards us, talking with unusual vigor into her cell phone. Normal enough, except for the fact that she was carrying an open umbrella clutched down against her head, despite the total lack of rain, snow or other hazard. As she came closer, I realized that her umbrella was horribly mangled, so that several of the ribs had been broken and were dangling down into her hair. The hideous deformation of the umbrella meant that it couldn't even have held off the rain, were there any to be held off. Then s*** got really weird when the girl got close enough for us to hear her talking, and we realized she wasn't. She was just moving her head and mouth, head and hands, without making any noise.
Then, as she walked past me, still pantomiming a cell phone conversation, she moved the umbrella so that it would hit me in the chest. That's a little much, even by my standards.
A few yards further, I saw a man lying on the ground outside of Echols, shrugging off a backpack as he gathered up a shrub into his arms and cradled it with a frantic tenderness.
Things will probably only get weirder this weekend. This is, as you probably know, Family Weekend. Which means families. Now, my parents are coming into town, and I am delighted as heck about it -- I haven't seen them in a while, and I (unusually) get along famously with both, so it will be a delight.
The weirdness is inevitable, though -- not from my 'rents, but from everyone else's. The lines at the Tavern will be hours long, as the awkward students make awkward small talk with their parents, realizing that it feels like they're at a bad apartment party with people they haven't seen since first year.
It's always an odd thing when the old folks come to town, because, much like the rain, it forces us to see Charlottesville as something different, less seductive and entirely stranger than what we're used to.
We're taken up out of our patterns and compelled to see our circumscribed world with the eyes of our fathers and mothers, made to realize why things which we casually assess and dismiss are in fact bizarre, puzzling and often grotesque.
If I had any advice about avoiding the inevitable this weekend, it would be as follows: Minimize the parental contact with outrageously intoxicated people. Don't feed them Gusburgers -- they're old and will realize they're gross. Realize that once you reach a certain high-risk demographic for osteoporosis, streakers lose their magic.
But regardless of all the strangeness that no doubt lies ahead, we're all bound together, my friends, and we share in both the beauty and the foreignness of our days (and our non-English-speaking teachers). Which is why I am particularly excited to finally show off the seal of my soul at the University by receiving my ring on Friday afternoon. I hope you're all as excited as I am. I realize that there's little chance of that, but hey, a man can hope, can't he? If he can't, I might have to throw in the towel -- I don't know how much longer I can deal with shrub-cuddlers and silent-talkers and weird umbrellas.
Connor's column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays. He can be reached at sullivan@cavalierdaily.com.
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