For those who used to follow Opossum Stomach, it is now no longer due to a transformation in control; Blogger can only be accessed via google accounts which, I previously did not have. With that said, I bring you
To Feel The Vacation.
The title is tentative as are the feelings. The mission is pretty much the same--to bring you updates, queries, propositions, whispers from beneath the bed and the snow between my ears (and as usual, much poetic waxing). Since I have been waiting to jump in and write...here I go.
It is eleven days into the new year and I already have more plans than I have power to carry out. Yesterday, after receiving my tuition bill, I realized that it was smaller than normal. In the grand scheme of things, this shouldn't mean much. However, it came to my attention a few days ago before my jaunt back to Chicago that I would be receiving the rest of my trust. Here go the eye rolls, but hang on. I have never been a "trust fund baby" nor have I come from old money like so many New Englanders do. Money has been more or less quicksand and this trust was set up by my grandfather with the intention of putting me through college.
Now that I am in my final semester, after I pay tuition, the remaining difference is up for the choosing. As many of my close friends and family know, I haven't been able to shut up about Israel and I am pretty certain most think I am an avid Zionist now. The former is certainly true. My tentative thought is to ship off to Israel sometime in July, visit some friends until I can find a place of my own and teach English as a foreign language. However, I am barely managing in America and I am not so sure what makes me certain I can make it work in another country. Additionally is the added burden that my parents do not have money and here I am listing off so casually the possibilities their wayward son might have. It doesn't help that I've been reading another Dave Eggers work, You Shall Know Our Velocity!
In Eggers meandering and limitless world he creates the characters Will and Hand who set off for Senegal and travel to Estonia in the span of a week to get rid of $32,000. Much more emotionally complex, as his writing often is, the story becomes more about philanthropy than indulgence, throwing a cathartic blanket around the world--potentially unsafe. So why can't I just give it away? Well, it is not $32,000 to begin with, in fact it is an eighth of that. Secondly, I am twenty-one with a terminal degree on a planet speeding toward illiteracy without a care or reach for the e-brake. Can you blame me for wanting to dick around in other countries? Lastly, and I quote from the book here, "...stasis is itself criminal for those with the means to move, and the means to weave communion between people."
With the means on my mind there is no reason not to move but maybe this chair in which I sit won't be so bad after all. I will keep you posted.
