Please Happy

OK, we all know that spring came to Los Angeles in late January.

But, spring is officially in the air around campus. I’ve seen more people smooching, skipping and napping this week than in winter weeks.

Happy almost April.

Forget food trucks, L.A. now has its own mobile pregnancy helper truck.

Joking aside, I think it’s amazing idea, especially for those who don’t have a doctor, don’t have insurance, don’t have a way to access medical care.

Everything’s going mobile. Food, dog grooming, ultrasounds. Let’s hope we have some solar/biodiesel/poop-fueled vehicles soon to accommodate this trend.

Just another genius comic from the wits at Married to the Sea.

Dad used to collect the coke cans that came out at Christmas. We’d have Santas and Polar Bears crowding the shelves. I think one year someone went to open one, and – halfway through popping it open – remembered the cans were meant for saving. So, we had a partially punctured full can that looked pristine, but was actually contaminated. I think we hid it in the back where it blended in with the other white and red jollyness.

Not sure if Dad still has that collection. Maybe one night he got really thirsty (and realized that coke cans don’t do so well on eBay) and had a high fructose corn syrup party, opening the cans one by one, like shiny red presents under a tree.

The morning after my rejection was a tough one. Kind of a blurry one where the classes I’m taking seem pointless, where the money I’m borrowing seems heavy. Where the traffic I sit in seems endless.

But.

I did have coffee and quiet.

And a short walk on a nice flower-lined path to the off-campus building where I take my “Web-Based Scholarly Multimedia” class.

And, there was a large bug in front of me acting like Lassie. Darting away, coming back, looking over its shoulder to see that I was following.

And, it was not a bug at all, but a bird. A humming bird with its gorgeous 120 beats per minute. Beating and whirring.

Photo courtesy of Mark.

Leading me down the path.

Later that day, I saw another one. And imagined I heard its wings. Purring like my kittens, happily perching on red flowers and darting ahead and back.

(This video has more of a Puff The Magic Dragon sentiment than a lassie/redemption message, but I still love it.)

When I got home from Austin, there was a thin letter waiting for me from a fellowship I had been counting on to take me to The Next Level. I sat at the kitchen table watching the future I had pictured myself in fade and fall away (like Marty’s hand in Back to the Future when it looks like George McFly and Lorraine won’t end up together at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance after all).

I didn’t want to be hugged or talked to or told that I was going to Make It despite this. That my excellence would eventually be noticed. I wanted to sit in the shittiness of it. And sulk.

Then, Jake, from the other side of the room where I made him sit, suggested this:

J: Maybe you should listen to Pink Floyd.

Me: What?

J: When my friends and I all got our first college rejection letters, we went and sat in the dark together and listened to The Wall.

I thought it was kind of a dumb idea, actually. First of all, he and his friends are really smart and all ended up at Ivy League schools. Second of all, the only Pink Floyd album I like is Dark Side of the Moon. Third of all, I wanted to be miserable.

But, I did it.

In the light. With an iPod and speakers.

Mother.mp3

And, the future continued to crumble in front of me. The well-laid path from fellowship to career to family to happy world travels of journalism and discovery fell away and away, leaving the airy space of the unknown while Pink Floyd screamed and played through two entire Walls.