Isn't it something that Fairfax county describes itself as "the home of the internet" on NPR? "Technology center" wasn't really the way I conceived of the place, when I was there. How many AOL millionaires did I go to high school with? And AOL of all things. Go figure.
I can't decide if the "best years of your life" line is either cruel or kind. I suppose it depends on how it's meant. At the high school graduation "these have been the best years of your life" implies "everything will be much worse from here on." That's the cruel one: those were the good ones? The kind way of saying it involves a deliberate but benevolent lie: "you feel miserable and confused but, actually, you're living rather well." Well, that's not false. What's false is the way the point is put: "these are the best years" instead of "there are respects in which these are pretty good -- your responsibilities are minimal, your freedom is fairly extensive, etc." I'm not sure I'll ever have "best years." I have years that are good in some ways, bad in others.
Really humid days seem always to be preceded by insomniac nights. Just rubbing it in.
Posted by Mike Green at July 09, 2001 04:37 PM