Champion of the Semicolon

In 25 hours, I will be en route to Portland to visit my folks' old roommate. She's the most awesome person over 40 I've ever met. Kyle and I will be spending a long weekend with her in the City of Roses, so posting may or may not occur. I can assure you that if there is any kind of posting, it will be brief. But I digress. I'm going to be cooking an untraditional Thanksgiving for three: roast chicken, garlic mashed potatoes with gravy (no way am I doing Turkey day with out 'em), some sort of salad item with Sister-in-law dressing (secret family recipe!) and some sort of desert item. I need a desert item recipe, come to think of it. Something eeeeeasy. So not only am I thrilled to be cooking again (it's been MONTHS!), but I'm thrilled to go to Portland, with all its coolness and Powells-ness and neo-hipsters and dim-sum restaurants and that Greek place my folks like. Very thrilled to get out of Eugene for a bit. Janelle is driving us up, and we're taking the train back. Too cool.

I think I'm beginning to tire of irony. Yeah, I know. It's groundbreaking news for Erica "sarcasm" Rothman, and I guess that's not what I mean. Verbal irony and literary irony and outright sarcasm aren't really my target in and of themselves. What bothers me is that our entire generation is de facto ironic. We take irony supplements, if you will, to our daily culture. Everyone has something snarky or smirky or IRONIC (and I mean it in the proper sense and its bastardized meaning) to say. There really isn't very much room for genuine emotion any more. I read this book, The Brothers K, a while ago. It's awesome because a) it just is and b) it's not overwhelmingly ironic. The Corrections, on the other hand (another great book that I really enjoyed), was TOO ironic. There were too many twists and double-meanings and such for some of the characters to appear genuine. And I'm worried that real people, people I see, are just layering themselves in irony because emotion is too difficult. Or too rare or unpopular or ugly or real. Don't be a construct would be my warning to this generation of college students. Makes me fucking sick.

EDIT: Added a link to my awesome pal Meg.