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God. So much happened this week, I almost don't want to sit down and write about it.
It started on Saturday, with the St. Mary's Halloween party. My friend David came down specially to celebrate with us, which was the best part, as far as I was concerned. The early festivities at Jim's included smearing green make-up all over Jim's face and bald cap to make him Bunsen Honeydew colored, and poaching the skirt from a little girl's pumpkin fairy costume to make Tyler some lovely fluffy orange Beaker hair. I went as a Chinese Assassin, because while I adored my earlier idea of being Molotov Cocktease from the Venture Brothers cartoon, I couldn't find a black catsuit that was cheap enough for my budget.
The big party was on the Townhouse Green, and that place was a madhouse. If there was a single St. Mary's student oncampus who wasn't there and drinking, I would be shocked. I eventually found John, dressed as Andy Warhol, and it was pretty obvious that he had pregamed the hell out of that shit. I spent a goodly amount of time trying to find his friend Julia to foist him off on, at the same time trying to keep him from freak dancing with strangers, or on poles, or on the ground, or from getting us shot by asking "Where're all the white people at?" or from touching strange men inappropriately. If it weren't for the fact that everybody else was as drunk as he was, I'm pretty sure someone would have punched him. Hilariously, he ran into Joanne Goldwater, the head of Student Life here, and drunkenly introduced himself to her. Luckily, he only got his first name out before Krystle managed to pull him away. Public Safety was also in evidence, although they seemed more focused on keeping everybody safe than in cracking down on anyone. Still, none of us really wanted to drink on the greens, since it seemed to have a greater than average potential for becoming a bad scene. So we went over to a friends with some vodka and got well-toasted. Chilled at Jim's for a bit, then staggered home, warm and happy and drunk. And that was my Halloween!
Sunday is irrelevant, because after that was Monday, and Monday night was the Decemberists concert in D.C.!
And oh my god, it was the best thing ever. And surprising! I remember when I first started really getting into the Decemberists I looked them up online and was disappointed that for people who made such beautiful music, none of them was really attractive in any of the pictures I saw (yes, I'm shallow, it's an established fact. I like to look at attractive people and I don't have any qualms about saying so). Anyway, Colin Meloy is apparantly just strikingly unphotogenic. Because he came on stage, and the first thing that I noticed was, wow. He's extremely attractive, who knew? And their new violinist who's touring with them to promote The Crane Wife... yeah. She might be kind of super hot.
And totally apart from that, the show was intense. The 9.30 Club was packed wall-to-wall, and everybody was really into it. The opening act, Lavender Diamond, was headed by this fruit loop of a lead singer, but even though she was totally ridiculous, the crowd seemed more charmed by her than anything (it probably helped that she could really sing). And of course the Decemberists were amazing. Their set list was chosen from all of their albums, so it was a good mix of old and new for me, since I haven't heard the new one yet. There was in particular an amazing B-side from the new album, called 'Culling the Fold,' that I have to get a copy of immediately because it was absolutely one of the best things I've ever seen performed onstage in my life. Creepy and intense and powerful. There is a part of me that deeply yearns to sell all of my posessions, rent a bus, and ride around the country following the Decemberists on tour and attending every one of their shows, because it was truely one of the best experiences I've had in recent memory.
Krystle's friend Amanda who was at the show came home with us all the long way back to St. Mary's, and we did a little bit of hanging out, although everyone was pretty wiped after such a great show and a long journey. I slept late the next day, and only got up in time to go with Krystle while she drove Amanda up to the nearest Metro station, as it's a long drive and I didn't want her to have to drive all the way back alone.
So we're driving home, singing along to the Decemberists and hashing over the show, and suddenly I hear absolutely the most horrible noise, and I look over my right shoulder, through the window in the back door on the passenger's side of Krystle's car, just in time to see a motorcycle slam head-first into the side of a car, and watch the man go flying about twenty feet through the air before slamming head-first into the pavement. It was absolutely the most horrific thing I have ever been witness to in my entire life.
So of course we pulled over to the side of the road and got out. The thing they don't tell you about traffic accidents is the horrible stench of burning rubber that they give off. I wasn't prepared for it, and I admit that in my head I was breaking down a little.
The idea was for us to go over and see what we could do, since we were direct witnesses to the accident. On the other hand, I really did not want to go over, because unlike Krystle I had actually seen the man impact the pavement, and had a pretty good idea of what we were going to find. My mother was a paramedic, she's the one with the strong stomach, but even she always said that one reason she was able to stand all the horrors she saw was because at least by the time she got to the scene, they were already done and over with, she never had to witness the accidents as they were happening. And while I pride myself on my ability to remain calm in an emergency, and I think that I would be able to deal with anything... I didn't want to put myself in the position to have to.
It became a moot point anyway. By the time we walked back to almost level with the accident on the other side of the road, there was a crowd of maybe twelve people already gathered around, and a police officer must have been within five feet of the accident as it occurred, because there was already a car with lights flashing pulled up in the intersection. Add to that, Krystle and I couldn't find a break in the three lanes of traffic we would have had to cross to get to the median, much less the three lanes of traffic after that, and above all we didn't want to wind up casualties ourselves. We wound up walking back to the car. I'm still not sure if that was the right thing to do, but even in retrospect I don't know as we could have made any other decision.
There were two other cars pulled up behind Krystle's, and we briefly stood nearby, still unsure about leaving. While we were there, I overheard the women talking to one another.
"Oh, I've lost lots of friends to motorcylce accidents," said one.
"Me, too. I ride all the time, and I've lost friends and family."
"Yeah. People just don't look out for us motorcyclists. It's horrible," said the first.
I have never so much wanted to knock two people's heads together. How many people who you know and love have to die before you say, geeze, maybe this is sort of a dumb idea? I imagine it must take an awful lot, if you're blaming the tragedies on everybody else. You can't imagine how many conversations and arguments I've gotten into that begin with me being incredulous about Why would someone do something like that? and end with the other person in the conversation throwing up their hands and saying Not everybody is like you! I admit that this is still something I struggle with, and I suppose the question of why someone would choose to ride a motorcycle at any time, much less on a moderately busy highway near rush hour in the middle of the week, is just going to have to be chalked up to the same thing as so many other things that I find frankly bewildering and incomprehensible, like religion and altruistic behavior and introvertedness: Because Not Everybody Is Like Me.
Let me just say, I wholeheartedly support the right of other people to own and ride motorcycles, if that's their choice. I also hope that anybody who makes that choice understands that it is extremely difficult to see a motorcycle even under ideal circumstances. The woman whose car the motorcyclist in this accident collided with was pulling out of a church parking lot. From the newspaper article I read today, I learned that the driver was a 56 year old woman driving an 81 year old passenger, and I for one saw her throwing up by the side of the road afterwards, which believe me I can understand as I felt the same impulse. I know she wasn't being maliciously negligent, or even particularly careless. The motorcyclist also was probably merely obeying the 45 mile-per-hour speed limit on that stretch of road, which is fine for a car, but must have made the smaller machine much more difficult to see. As great a tragedy as this is, I can't really place a whole lot of blame on the car driver, and as horrified and saddened as I am, I can't help but be angered by the man who made a choice that put him in such a position. I don't expect everybody to back me up on this one, but it is how I feel and think about the situation, in the same way that my sadness would be mixed with anger in any case where I saw someone's choices directly leading to their death.
I told my mother about it when I got home yesterday (I came up for her birthday, which is tomorrow), and today she pulled out the section of the newspaper that had information on the crash, and also the obituary of William Vincent Bowling, Jr., who is survived by his parents and his wife and two children and a large extended family. I am so, so sorry for this man, and his family, and also for the woman who completely by accident was an instrument of his death.
So, that was my Tuesday. The rest of the week will have to wait for some point when I'm feeling rather more up to relating further events.
It started on Saturday, with the St. Mary's Halloween party. My friend David came down specially to celebrate with us, which was the best part, as far as I was concerned. The early festivities at Jim's included smearing green make-up all over Jim's face and bald cap to make him Bunsen Honeydew colored, and poaching the skirt from a little girl's pumpkin fairy costume to make Tyler some lovely fluffy orange Beaker hair. I went as a Chinese Assassin, because while I adored my earlier idea of being Molotov Cocktease from the Venture Brothers cartoon, I couldn't find a black catsuit that was cheap enough for my budget.
The big party was on the Townhouse Green, and that place was a madhouse. If there was a single St. Mary's student oncampus who wasn't there and drinking, I would be shocked. I eventually found John, dressed as Andy Warhol, and it was pretty obvious that he had pregamed the hell out of that shit. I spent a goodly amount of time trying to find his friend Julia to foist him off on, at the same time trying to keep him from freak dancing with strangers, or on poles, or on the ground, or from getting us shot by asking "Where're all the white people at?" or from touching strange men inappropriately. If it weren't for the fact that everybody else was as drunk as he was, I'm pretty sure someone would have punched him. Hilariously, he ran into Joanne Goldwater, the head of Student Life here, and drunkenly introduced himself to her. Luckily, he only got his first name out before Krystle managed to pull him away. Public Safety was also in evidence, although they seemed more focused on keeping everybody safe than in cracking down on anyone. Still, none of us really wanted to drink on the greens, since it seemed to have a greater than average potential for becoming a bad scene. So we went over to a friends with some vodka and got well-toasted. Chilled at Jim's for a bit, then staggered home, warm and happy and drunk. And that was my Halloween!
Sunday is irrelevant, because after that was Monday, and Monday night was the Decemberists concert in D.C.!
And oh my god, it was the best thing ever. And surprising! I remember when I first started really getting into the Decemberists I looked them up online and was disappointed that for people who made such beautiful music, none of them was really attractive in any of the pictures I saw (yes, I'm shallow, it's an established fact. I like to look at attractive people and I don't have any qualms about saying so). Anyway, Colin Meloy is apparantly just strikingly unphotogenic. Because he came on stage, and the first thing that I noticed was, wow. He's extremely attractive, who knew? And their new violinist who's touring with them to promote The Crane Wife... yeah. She might be kind of super hot.
And totally apart from that, the show was intense. The 9.30 Club was packed wall-to-wall, and everybody was really into it. The opening act, Lavender Diamond, was headed by this fruit loop of a lead singer, but even though she was totally ridiculous, the crowd seemed more charmed by her than anything (it probably helped that she could really sing). And of course the Decemberists were amazing. Their set list was chosen from all of their albums, so it was a good mix of old and new for me, since I haven't heard the new one yet. There was in particular an amazing B-side from the new album, called 'Culling the Fold,' that I have to get a copy of immediately because it was absolutely one of the best things I've ever seen performed onstage in my life. Creepy and intense and powerful. There is a part of me that deeply yearns to sell all of my posessions, rent a bus, and ride around the country following the Decemberists on tour and attending every one of their shows, because it was truely one of the best experiences I've had in recent memory.
Krystle's friend Amanda who was at the show came home with us all the long way back to St. Mary's, and we did a little bit of hanging out, although everyone was pretty wiped after such a great show and a long journey. I slept late the next day, and only got up in time to go with Krystle while she drove Amanda up to the nearest Metro station, as it's a long drive and I didn't want her to have to drive all the way back alone.
So we're driving home, singing along to the Decemberists and hashing over the show, and suddenly I hear absolutely the most horrible noise, and I look over my right shoulder, through the window in the back door on the passenger's side of Krystle's car, just in time to see a motorcycle slam head-first into the side of a car, and watch the man go flying about twenty feet through the air before slamming head-first into the pavement. It was absolutely the most horrific thing I have ever been witness to in my entire life.
So of course we pulled over to the side of the road and got out. The thing they don't tell you about traffic accidents is the horrible stench of burning rubber that they give off. I wasn't prepared for it, and I admit that in my head I was breaking down a little.
The idea was for us to go over and see what we could do, since we were direct witnesses to the accident. On the other hand, I really did not want to go over, because unlike Krystle I had actually seen the man impact the pavement, and had a pretty good idea of what we were going to find. My mother was a paramedic, she's the one with the strong stomach, but even she always said that one reason she was able to stand all the horrors she saw was because at least by the time she got to the scene, they were already done and over with, she never had to witness the accidents as they were happening. And while I pride myself on my ability to remain calm in an emergency, and I think that I would be able to deal with anything... I didn't want to put myself in the position to have to.
It became a moot point anyway. By the time we walked back to almost level with the accident on the other side of the road, there was a crowd of maybe twelve people already gathered around, and a police officer must have been within five feet of the accident as it occurred, because there was already a car with lights flashing pulled up in the intersection. Add to that, Krystle and I couldn't find a break in the three lanes of traffic we would have had to cross to get to the median, much less the three lanes of traffic after that, and above all we didn't want to wind up casualties ourselves. We wound up walking back to the car. I'm still not sure if that was the right thing to do, but even in retrospect I don't know as we could have made any other decision.
There were two other cars pulled up behind Krystle's, and we briefly stood nearby, still unsure about leaving. While we were there, I overheard the women talking to one another.
"Oh, I've lost lots of friends to motorcylce accidents," said one.
"Me, too. I ride all the time, and I've lost friends and family."
"Yeah. People just don't look out for us motorcyclists. It's horrible," said the first.
I have never so much wanted to knock two people's heads together. How many people who you know and love have to die before you say, geeze, maybe this is sort of a dumb idea? I imagine it must take an awful lot, if you're blaming the tragedies on everybody else. You can't imagine how many conversations and arguments I've gotten into that begin with me being incredulous about Why would someone do something like that? and end with the other person in the conversation throwing up their hands and saying Not everybody is like you! I admit that this is still something I struggle with, and I suppose the question of why someone would choose to ride a motorcycle at any time, much less on a moderately busy highway near rush hour in the middle of the week, is just going to have to be chalked up to the same thing as so many other things that I find frankly bewildering and incomprehensible, like religion and altruistic behavior and introvertedness: Because Not Everybody Is Like Me.
Let me just say, I wholeheartedly support the right of other people to own and ride motorcycles, if that's their choice. I also hope that anybody who makes that choice understands that it is extremely difficult to see a motorcycle even under ideal circumstances. The woman whose car the motorcyclist in this accident collided with was pulling out of a church parking lot. From the newspaper article I read today, I learned that the driver was a 56 year old woman driving an 81 year old passenger, and I for one saw her throwing up by the side of the road afterwards, which believe me I can understand as I felt the same impulse. I know she wasn't being maliciously negligent, or even particularly careless. The motorcyclist also was probably merely obeying the 45 mile-per-hour speed limit on that stretch of road, which is fine for a car, but must have made the smaller machine much more difficult to see. As great a tragedy as this is, I can't really place a whole lot of blame on the car driver, and as horrified and saddened as I am, I can't help but be angered by the man who made a choice that put him in such a position. I don't expect everybody to back me up on this one, but it is how I feel and think about the situation, in the same way that my sadness would be mixed with anger in any case where I saw someone's choices directly leading to their death.
I told my mother about it when I got home yesterday (I came up for her birthday, which is tomorrow), and today she pulled out the section of the newspaper that had information on the crash, and also the obituary of William Vincent Bowling, Jr., who is survived by his parents and his wife and two children and a large extended family. I am so, so sorry for this man, and his family, and also for the woman who completely by accident was an instrument of his death.
So, that was my Tuesday. The rest of the week will have to wait for some point when I'm feeling rather more up to relating further events.
