Continental Domination (Hypothetical)

February 11, 2011

[From my journals]

Last night's 30 Rock created a crisis of loyalty in me by being both Canada- and North Carolina-themed.  Liz Lemon has a relationship crisis while on a flight to Raleigh for the weekend, while Jack and his neo-con beloved are on a romantic, pre-parenthood weekend getaway to Toronto when she goes into labour.  They are faced with the horrific possibility that their daughter might be born a Canadian, and as a result she would never be President ("As absurd as that sentence sounds").

Then (of course) I had a bit of a panic attack upon realizing that any (totally hypothetical) child I had here would be unable to become President.  (I might need to start working on my anxiety problem.) Citizenship shouldn't be a problem for wee Hypothetical S. Pine, but I would never forgive myself if I kept little Hypo out of the White House right out of the gate.

I've talked from time to time with Canadian friends about how distinctly American the ubiquity of the "When I grow up, I'll be the President" childhood dream is.  Apparently few children in Canada dream publicly of becoming Prime Minister.  I'm intrigued by why this is.

Interestingly enough, to be Prime Minister of Canada, one only needs to be a citizen of Canada, not a natural born Canadian.  Could little Hypo be the politician to become President AND Prime Minister?  Could I?

Only time will tell.

To Hate Like This is To Be Happy Forever

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Today is one of my two most superstitious days of the year: the second Carolina-Duke basketball game.

Let's honour this glorious day of pride in alma mater, through the noble process of hating a worthy but despicable adversary.

I give you the late Charles Kuralt, fervent Tar Heel:

I was asked to speak here tonight, because during the bicentennial I was the guy who stood there in front of the President of the United States and said that I was there to speak for all of us who could not afford to go to Duke... and would not have gone there even if we could have.

We have great affection for Duke University.  All of us in this room know how important it is to our state, and know how important the rivalry is.  And if there had never been a Duke (which of course there was not, during most of the distinguished history of the University of North Carolina); if there had never been a Duke, we would have had to invent it.

We would have made it a place with severe gothic arches and ivy growing out of the walls, to persuade the more naive undergraduates that they had been admitted to Yale after all.

And we would have given it a towering national reputation (in some odd things, like parapsychology and the rice diet), but a national reputation.

We would have sent Richard Nixon there to study constitutional law.

Home and Castle

March 5, 2011

Oh, the house drama.

On February 9, I spent three and a half hours getting my hair done.  Finally.  Everything had been so busy that I had rescheduled the appointment twice when work meetings got in the way.  Finally, I devoted an entire evening, the night before I was doing the final inspections on the house of my dreams and an important faculty meeting.

At the end of our three and a half hour slog through foils, chemical smells, round brushes made of tourmaline or some other space-age hair-altering substance, and endless pondering of the Royal Wedding, I turned to my stylist and said, "The only person who is going to get the full effect of this is my septic inspector, tomorrow morning."  I hoped he'd appreciate it.

The product of our labours

To be honest, by the next morning I was sporting a limp, tangled, "morning after the prom" look.  Classy.  But he still did appreciate it, paying me the very high compliment of acting surprised that I was "from away," and telling me that I "sounded just like a Nova Scotian" as he toured me through the proctological video journey he was making of my prospective sewage system.

Just after this, my realtor showed up, looking grim.  "We've got a problem," he said, "Basically, we're f**ked."

There was a problem with the foundation.  A problem that would make the house essentially unsellable, should I ever lose my job, have to leave Canada, and need to unload the house promptly.  It was a $40,000 problem that, if solved, would raise the value of the house no more than $4000.  It was in addition to prospective problems with the roof, the chimney, the floors, and the septic system.  There was no concession that the sellers could make that would make it worthwhile.  We withdrew in deep mourning.

Actually, I was pretty strong at the beginning, acknowledging that it was the only possible logical choice.  D found it harder, having become attached to the property from afar.  But in the weeks that followed, I felt grimmer and grimmer, like I'd been dumped unceremoniously by my very first house-love.  "I loved it," I told people, "but the whole time it was hiding a bad foundation from me.  How could it?  How could I not have known???"

I began scrolling through real estate listings with a dull resentment.  "There's nothing," I wrote to D, "I feel like I will never love again."

"I don't know," he replied callously, "That last place was nice.  Kinda small."

I sighed.  We'll see.  We'll see.