Johns Hope-kins

For those of you not in the area, it is currently Restaurant Week here in Baltimore. What is that, you may ask? Basically for us poor assholes who enjoy expensive food but don't want to part with alot of cash, we can, for a week, visit a number of restaurants that offer a set menu of three or four courses for only $35. In some cases, they even throw in a free glass of wine or beer (woohoo).

Last night I was driving downtown to meet up with some friends at one such restaurant. I sat at the light by Johns Hopkins and while I waited I started perusing the people walking to, from, and around the campus. I noticed a beefy girl in a red tank and blue long boys shorts jogging along the path outside the school. Then a guy smoking a cigarette and hauling a book bag passed her and was walking towards a bus stop. The light changed and as I swerved into the side lane for cars to use I continued my inspection of the students. Two girls, who appeared like such kids to me (a sure sign I'm both old AND out of touch) were walking and chatting gaily. Another girl passed them wearing what looked like a going-out outfit and clutched a cell phone to her ear.

You may think I was being ultra-weird, even stalkerish. The truth is I kept looking at these kids with an aura of wonder and respect. Back in high school, when we had all talked about what colleges would accept us, it was usually involving schools with names like Rhode Island University or Flagler. We had all heard of schools like Harvard, Yale, and our very own Jersey school, Princeton. Yet the idea of one of us actually making into one of these prestigious schools seemed so out of the possibility, it as if you were going to be chosen for a space mission. When one or two DID actually gain acceptance to these more notable schools, we all, I suspect, acknowledged them with due congratulations but on the inside felt pangs of jealousy, followed by relief.

The people that get into these schools have almost a preordained destiny for them, I feel, much like a royal family member preparing for the crown. Though you may wish it for yourself, you know that it is not within your reach and so you become settled and comfortable for your own chosen lot in life. Those people were the ones that seemed unstoppable in at least two or three subjects in school, and I would always shirk away from them, fearful of infecting their perfect brains with my own odd observations or even worse, that somehow they saw something in me that I wasn't smart enough to see for myself.

I began feeling all those same emotions as I watched the plethora of students walk about Johns Hopkins. Although instead of tight jealousy in my stomach, I tried to instead think of the accomplishments they'd one day claim for themselves. Each one of them had been selected to be members of an elite society of scholars, and with that came the responsibility to do something with their hefty brains: a cure for diabetes, solving outrageous mathematical equations, supplying a cost-effective treatment for people suffering in third world countries, etc..

Rather than feel that internal greed for their intelligence, I tried instead to think of each one of them carrying some precious material with them, something that you couldn't tell they had until they let it out once in a while, and you were suddenly able to recognize their possibility for greatness.

I finally made it to my destination, and as I pulled out the chair and joined my friends in conversation, I once again felt the relief filter in. Sure, I was no doctor, I would never be an engineer or solve the world's mysteries. But I was secure in the little life I was carving out for myself. And as I sipped my crab soup and discussed the latest book club entry we were reading, offering the odd observations I always seemed to have no exhaustion of, I felt I was beginning to make my own way. Hopefully, anyway.

Ok, so not my funniest entry. Must be this introspective weather...oh well, humor shall ensue tomorrow...