You're probably coming to one of two conclusions: one, Peter N. Long has turned into a portly African-American. Or two, he's allowing anybody to occupy this space for a 1.75 of Jack and some incriminating photos. Rest assured, neither is the case. Pete's off tending to some family business. In the meantime, he asked me to write something in his stead.
He approached me about this while I was back in Madison this past weekend after spending five months away from my beloved city. The most common question I received-aside from \Aren't you dead yet?""-has been ""So, what have you been up to?"" My response has been what it's always been: ""Not much.""
""Not much"" is one of those universal quirks of human communication. You could spend the last eight years locked up in an Iraqi POW camp, dreaming every day what you would say to your loved ones if you ever got out. And on the day you returned, if you were asked what you did during those 2,920 days, your immediate answer would still be ""Not much.""
For the record, my ""Not much"" consisted of captaining my family multiple times to the hospital, working menial temp jobs, and healing old broken friendships. But aren't all of our ""not much"" responses like that? We don't usually blurt out what's really on our minds, such as ""I'm pregnant,"" ""I pray to God she's not pregnant"" or ""I wonder if her boyfriend knows I got her pregnant?"" We just give that apathetic head bob, smile politely and take another pull from the bottle we're clutching.
I guess it stems from our need to appear calm at all times. We post-graduates have a tough time with this concept. We're all on various levels of the ""broke-ass"" income bracket. We're living with our parents. And if we're not living with our parents, we're still working jobs that are tedious. How do I know that every post-graduate job is tedious? Because unlike school, work doesn't fall between 12:05 and 3:30 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Sometimes, I look at my watch and ask myself, ""What I was doing a year ago right then?"" This usually occurs on Tuesday at 11 p.m., when the ""college me"" demanded that the jukebox play more Hoobastank while ingesting PBR and bacon. Now the ""post-grad me"" is turning in early because I have to get up at 6:30 a.m. for work.
So am I trying to be a Billy Madison, clutching your shoulders, telling you to stay here as long as you can? In some ways, yes. There will never be a time when power hours and morally loose members of the opposite sex will be so readily available. So for the love of God, cherish it! But also remember that there's plenty of life squeezed into every ""not much"" we utter after college as well. Our future ""Not much""-es could be positive experiences like, ""My scientist daughter created a toxin that killed Lawrence Summers"" or ""My son got on the Real World, and he's not the drunk who brandishes knives!"" Well, that's all the space I got. Have a disease-free spring break and have a good life.
As for me, I'll be doing what I've always been doing. Not much.
Mike Jones was a Cardinal staff writer from 2000 to 2004. He can be reached at jonesy9872@yahoo.com. Peter Long's column will return March 30.
