Wednesday, February 08, 2006

no one is going to save the world with what i've got

"Homesick. 'cause I no longer know where home is."

We talk about it like it's a broken home, but my parents are happily married.
Once a month I sign away another piece of my soul for something I never see.
Monday through Thursday I make the 1/2 hour commute. I go to work. I go to school. I come home and I eat with my family.
On Fridays I make the 1 hour commute. I sleep. I play. I come home and I talk with my roommates.
Every Sunday night I pass through a time warp and re-enter the parallel universe I came from.

In all seriousness, though, folks, It's not that I'm unhappy about all this, but the transition can be painful.

My friend also cheerfully bears a burden which might seem to cause her no end of grief: from birth known as Joey, her name is Taylor. Her apparent pseudonym has given rise to a suspicion of a two-fold identity, a second life. By day, mild-mannered student Taylor; by night...
Well, we never quite nailed down what her superpowers [track three, to be exact.] would be.

I like to think that I lead a double life too.
(I prefer to call it a dual life 'cause I think it sounds less shady.)

Some properties can be explained best by logic and practicality and others by whimsy and idealism.
The interchangeability of the roles of student, teacher, child, adult, loaf and nomad.
(If we can talk about the phonology of dance, why not the geometry of life?)

duality
n 1: being twofold; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses; "the dichotomy between eastern and western culture" [syn: dichotomy]
2:(physics) the property of matter and electromagnetic radiation that is characterized by the fact that some properties can be explained best by wave theory and others by particle theory [syn: wave-particle duality ]
3:(geometry) the interchangeability of the roles of points and planes in the theorems of projective geometry

dichotomy
n 1: division into two usually contradictory parts or opinions: "the dichotomy of the one and the many" (Louis Auchincloss).


dual
having more than one decidedly dissimilar aspects or qualities
I don't like to talk to people about my life because this is how the "conversation" goes:
them: "What are you studying?"
me: "Well, I graduated in Linguistics and now I'm back taking a couple of classes for fun."
"Oh. That's cool. How do you like the E. Lang classes? Did you ever have Professor So and So?"
"Well, actually, I go to the U."
"Oh."
"So are you working?"
"Yeah. I work at the U and I teach ESL at a non-profit in SLC."
"Cool."
"Wait. You go to school and you work in SLC?"
[wince] "Yes."
"Then why do you live here?"
And, truth be told, I don't.
I pay rent because I signed a 1-year contract which I've been too lazy to sell these past few months as I tried to pretend I could maintain the charade of successfully navigating a life split between two cities, cultures and sociabilities.

So there you have it, kids. I'm giving up my life as Spiderman.
On March 20, 2006 I move into my new home in downtown SLC.

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