Pie Salad

So I realized that after years of writing articles that are read mostly by my mother and Adam Buck, I have really only trained myself to write 500-700 word pieces or lengthy academic essays. This is not good because 1) I am no longer in school 2) Articles are meant for newspapers and the like, but I don't write for a newspaper and probably won't for awhile, if ever, and 3) I get bloggers block, which is really pathetic, because the entire point of these things is that people write whatever pours out of their heads. To combat this problem I have decided to list things that I've been doing/thinking about doing in the hopes of weaning myself off the pretend article writing system.

• Last week I sang karaoke at a bar called Tam O'Shanty in Lincoln, Nebraska. I don't know what those words conjure up for you, but if your mental picture does not include red shag carpeting-cum-wallpaper; three men wearing cowboy hats in a non-ironic manner (and one did sing Johnny Cash- of course); an older man who could only make it off his stool to tell me about growing up in North Dakota; a dude named Dave who got so drunk for his birthday that the only song he could successfully sing parts of was Rock Lobster, or me and my new friend leading a bar full of drunks in Salt N' Pepa's classic Shoop, than your mental image was incorrect.
• Back in Vermillion... I hung out with Christine Gallati and Mom. Yes, it's true, I live in a town where the only thing we could think to do on a Friday night was walk around WalMart drinking strawberry milk and eating donuts. To be fair, if Christine had not just spent THIRTEEN hours in the car with her mom we probably would have been collectively coherent enough to pull it together and hang out in a bar. No matter, Christine is da bomb and it was great, if not a little disconcerting, to see her here.
• I spend a lot of time staring at the wild turkeys that hang out on the lawn of my friends house. Have you seen wild turkeys? Have I talked about this already? They are really ugly and look kind of like dinosaurs and when they get angry they puff up and their face turns bright blue and they look like the salt and pepper shakers people use on Thanksgiving, but less majestic and more bizarre.
• People here are OBSESSED with Lewis and Clark. To be fair, I don't know that residents really care so much, but a few years ago it was the sesquicentennial (?) of their expedition and so everything is Lewis and Clark this and Lewis and Clark that. Usually I don't care, but I swam in the Missouri river this weekend and it was pretty amazing. Sad as it is, I don't know that I've ever swam in a river. Is this possible? I was so surprised by the current that I have to think that actually I have never experienced anything like it. The stretch of river between Vermillion and Yankton (near by) is the only not-dammed, unmanipulated stretch and so it actually feels like you are looking at what Lewis and Clark, et. al saw. This is cool.
• My new favorite thing to talk about is the electric company magazine. Let me explain, they have recipes every month that are submitted by their customers and are based around a theme. July's theme was salad, this makes sense because summertime means fresh vegetables and light, breezy suppers. Apparently, salad in South Dakota means things like Pie Salad. Where you, no joke, mix a can of pie filling with a can of drained pineapple and mix it together. Whatever, you may be saying, the only funny thing about that is the name, it's just a variation on fruit salad, but wait! The only salad with vegetables calls for canned vegetables and a cup of sugar. What?

That seems good for now. I will do this more often, don't give up hope. You can look forward to my thoughts on the poetry slam tomorrow night, my experiences transcribing 35 year old tapes in the Oral History Center, and my continuing quest to find friends.

Vermillion

This is my attempt at blogging. It is probably a little confused at the moment because this whole moving to the middle of nowhere with no friends my own age thing while it's about 105 degrees each day is throwing me for a loop. Especially because I'm writing this from a really hip seeming coffee place- though not too hip because they do close at 8pm and aren't open on Sundays- and this place is like the opposite of the rest of town. Anyway, here is my first attempt about talking about here, hopefully the writing gets better as things pick up.

I wonder if this year is just going to be one giant lesson in misunderstandings. I won’t understand people here since I will be too busy getting all freaked out by their inner Jesus love- they won’t understand me- after all, I went to an Ivy League school and am Jewish- and my friends won’t understand why I’m here and I won’t understand why they think that I’m miserable. Am I miserable? I think that it’s more like I’m intrigued, confused, and in a state of suspension. I am waiting to meet people, to move into my house, to get a car, for classes to start, for the campus to get busy, for me to get busy, etc. I guess I do partially wish I were in a city, New York or something, somewhere that my friends are and the living is easy, but that wouldn’t be a challenge in the same way. I can’t claim to want to see America and then assume that driving through it some day will give me that chance. I do also think, more and more, that it would be ridiculous not to see America. I can’t just assume everyone else is a Jesus loving fiend without even meeting them.

And the truth is that it all does seem far more complicated than that. The people here are not morons, everyone talks about this idea of being self-sufficient and self-reliant and un-pretentious as an explanation of the ways of South Dakota. It is clear to the people here that the rest of the country, and certainly the rest of the world, does not care about East river or west river, and that doesn’t seem to bother them. There may be some wistfulness as to outsiders thinking that they are unsophisticated- expressed generally by liberal South Dakotans- but generally, that is not a worry. And isn’t that what I’m fascinated by, the fact that for some people there is no worry as to what other people think of them on a grander scale. Whereas, as Chuck Klosterman points out in Killing Yourself to Live it is virtually impossible to be at a concert in New York City and not feel like everyone there is there at least partially because they have to be there to be cool, or to not miss out- not because they genuinely want to see that band on that night.

Maybe that’s not true, but it certainly feels true, especially whenever I find myself at a hipster event of any type in NYC. At the same time I hope this jaunt in So. Dak isn’t some elaborate method of self delusion where I manifest my stress regarding trying to seem cool in New York by running away to somewhere that has a definition of cool that I don’t know and has previously, and maybe even presently, been irrelevant.

I also am genuinely concerned about my ability to retain my sense of self without feeling like an imposter. Today I went to Welcome Table, a genuinely kind event that is held in the Methodist church each Monday from 5:30-7, known here as dinner time. Different community groups sponsor the dinner each week- tonight’s was sloppy joes with mushy green beans, BBQ potato chips and cake- and serve it to whomever shows up without cost. The idea is not to just serve the impoverished or the disabled, but to hold a sociable event where a wide cross section of Vermillion residents can eat a nice meal together. There is even free child care. So, if this is so nice, and there is no overt mention of Christ, why should it freak me out? I think that since being told that I was going to hell because I do not believe in Christ I have this assumption that many religious Christians view my bottom line as someone who is living life poorly because it is not being lived in service to the Lord. I wonder whether I should try to get over this feeling, or whether I should accept it. It seems like many of the progressives in Vermillion hang out in this coffee house setting in a church and the event has a definite religious flavor. Seeing as I am here to test my limits while trying to understand America better, it seems limiting and possibly discriminatory to not try it out. Then again, maybe I will hide out in this coffee shop forever, eventually making friends that don't seem to emanate religious vibes.