emily tompkins

I am overwhelmed by thoughts of how many people have entered into and subsequently exited from my life. It’s one of those lonely nights. Who knew you could be so lonely in your own head? I wish so many good things for everybody I’ve ever cared about, but I often wonder what it’s all for. Why we spend so much time cultivating relationships for some of them to crumble into a fine dust and disappear. Some vain part of me wonders what impressions I leave trailing behind myself, or if the people with whom I’ve crossed paths think about me the way I sometimes think about them. I’ve been thinking a lot about the past. I am two years out of college, living in southern Louisiana with a boyfriend and a cat. There’s no way I could have ever predicted this. If I trace the events from one to the next, I can almost see some logical progression. Even though at the time everything felt haphazard, it all makes some sense in hindsight I guess.

On an unrelated note, listening to iTunes on shuffle is kind of like looking into a kaleidoscope of memories, stitched together like an enormous quilt - images one after the other of things that have happened to me, of people I have loved. Music has always been a good companion for my thoughts.

In real life news, I took the MCAT again. It went much better this time, I think. I have to wait til early May for my score, and the waiting is torture. If it went well, then it’s fair to say I have a shot at getting into med school. I’ve been so focused on this test that now I can step back and properly view the sloppiness of the other parts of my life. Namely that I need to start going to the gym again. I wish I liked to run outside.

Okay world, have a good night. I will be here if anyone needs me.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and I’m not flattering myself into thinking that anyone is sorely missing my internet presence. But so many good things have happened lately that it would be a crime not to post about them, since so many times I only post when I’m feeling lousy.

The move to Louisiana has been outrageously successful. Each day I fall more and more into a routine, which I guess is a good thing. It certainly makes the weeks fly by. My job is enjoyable and I have learned a ton. In spite of the fact that my liberal intentions are often very different from my co-workers, I have learned the most about life here from them. They struggle, they have a lot of stresses with young children, divorce, step-kids, living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of their problems are much like mine (minus the kids and divorce stuff). And as long as we aren’t talking politics or presidential candidates, I think we get along just fine.

Living with Steve is a riot. Sure, there are some mornings I could kill him for not wanting to get out of bed when the alarm goes off. It wouldn’t be such a problem if we didn’t have to carpool to work, but there is no way I could afford my own car right now. So, he has to get up when I do.

Yesterday we unearthed some dusty papers from the back of the wooden desk we got off craigslist. It has a rolltop cover, and we noticed papers were crinkling whenever we lifted the cover to the top. After pulling out the drawers to reach down into the back of the desk, we found a crapton of old papers and notes and photos that had gotten shoved back there and been forgotten. I spent a few minutes looking through them, and there were a bunch of notes from Cathy to Connie. Cathy was basically a bitch, always talking smack about fellow classmates and saying things to Connie like, “I feel closer with Jennifer than I do with anyone else. Don’t take it personally, she just understands me.” I got totally caught up in their world of Sweet Heart Dances and the made for TV movie, Bad Ronald. (This is actually how I managed to date the letters, since the movie came out in 1974). The rest of the stuff in there was mostly junk. But I did have a moment reading the letters when I realized that whether you grew up in a sprawling suburb of Upstate New York or a sleepy town in southern Louisiana, your experiences were probably pretty similar; all the alliances and dramas and petty worries that accompany being a teenager and making it through middle and high school in one piece. It’s the same everywhere. We all think we have such unique experiences growing up, but the older I get the more I realize that people have more similarities than they do differences. Part of getting to that point is realizing that my own experiences aren’t as unique and amazing as I had once thought. That’s not to say they weren’t incredible for me, but I see now they don’t set me apart from the next person.

Anyways, enough of that. Yesterday was a good day for other reasons. We found a local vinyl store and spent a good hour poking around there, leaving with some pretty cool records to add to our collection. We sat outside in one of the city parks and watched folks set up for a wedding reception or something as the last rays of daylight faded into dusk. Then we met some new friends at a hibachi/sushi restaurant and ate delicious food. I should probably spend most of the day today studying, but my brain is so busy thinking of other things. Life is good.

“Fernandito,” Maria said to him. “Tell us of the time thee went to Valencia.”
“I did not like Valencia.”
“Why?” Maria asked and pressed Robert Jordan’s arm again. “Why did thee not like it?”
“The people had no manners and I could not understand them. All they did was shout ché at one another.”
“Could they understand thee?” Maria asked.
“They pretended not to,” Fernando said.
“And what did thee there?”
“I left without even seeing the sea,” Fernando said. “I did not like the people.”
“Oh, get out of here you old maid,” the woman of Pablo said. “Get out of here before you make me sick. In Valencia I had the best time of my life. Vamos! Valencia. Don’t talk to me of Valencia.”
“What did thee there?” Maria asked. The woman of Pablo sat down at the table with a bowl of coffee, a piece of bread and a bowl of the stew.
”Qué? what did we there. I was there when Finito had a contract for three fights at the Feria. Never have I seen so many people. Never have I seen cafés so crowded. For hours it would be impossible to get a seat and it was impossible to board the tram cars. In Valencia there was movement all day and all night.”
“But what did you do?” Maria asked.
“All things,” the woman said. “We went to the beach and lay in the water and boats with sails were hauled up out of the sea by oxen. The oxen driven to the water until they must swim; then harnessed to the boats, and, when they found their feet, staggering up the sand. Ten yokes of oxen dragging a boat with sails out of the sea in the morning with the line of the small waves breaking on the beach. That is Valencia.”
“But what did thee besides watch oxen?”
“We ate in pavilions on the sand. Pastries made of cooked and shredded fish and red and green peppers and small nuts like grains of rice. Pastries delicate and flaky and the fish of a richness that was incredible. Prawns fresh from the sea sprinkled with lime juice. They were pink and sweet and there were four bites to a prawn. Of those we ate many. Then we ate paella with fresh sea food, clams in their shells, mussels, crayfish, and small eels. Then we ate even smaller eels alone cooked in oil and as tiny as bean sprouts and curled in all directions and so tender they disappeared in the mouth without chewing. All the time drinking a white wine, cold, light and good at thirty centimos a bottle. And for an end, melon. That is the home of the melon.”
“The melon of Castile is better,” Fernando said.
”Qué va,” said the woman of Pablo. “The melon of Castile is for self abuse. The melon of Valencia for eating. When I think of those melons long as one’s arm, green like the sea and crisp and juicy to cut and sweeter than the early morning in summer. Aye, when I think of those smallest eels, tiny, delicate and in mounds on the plate. Also the beer in pitchers all through the afternoon, the beer sweating in its coldness in pitchers the size of water jugs.”
“And what did thee when not eating nor drinking?”
“We made love in the room with the strip wood blinds hanging over the balcony and a breeze through the opening of the top of the door which turned on hinges. We made love there, the room dark in the day time from the hanging blinds, and from the streets there was the scent of the flower market and the smell of burned powder from the firecrackers of the traca that ran through the streets exploding each noon during the Feria. It was a line of fireworks that ran through all the city, the fireworks linked together and the explosions running along on poles and wires of the tramways, exploding with great noise and a jumping from pole to pole with a sharpness and a cracking of explosion you could not believe.
“We made love and then sent for another pitcher of beer with the drops of its coldness on the glass and when the girl brought it, I took it from the door and I placed the coldness of the pitcher against the back of Finito as he lay, now, asleep, not having wakened when the beer was brought, and he said, ‘No, Pilar. No, woman, let me sleep.’ And I said, ‘No, wake up and drink this to see how cold,’ and he drank without opening his eyes and went to sleep again and I lay with my back against a pillow at the foot of the bed and watched him sleep, brown and dark-haired and young and quiet in his sleep, and drank the whole pitcher, listening now to the music of a band that was passing. You,” she said to Pablo, “Do you know aught of such things?”

at home with a bum ankle. looking at pictures of people traveling through france. wishing i could win the lottery or something.