Month One
The Real World
TO THE FAMILY OF ELOISE LAURENT HANSEN
The Faculty and Administration
of
Columbia University
invite you to join us in celebrating the
Graduating Senior Class
at this year’s
Commencement Ceremony
Location: Outdoors on the Morningside Campus
Date / Time: May 13th at 11:00 a.m.
There will be a reception following the ceremony.
Please purchase tickets on the Columbia website.
MAY 12
10:30 P.M.
Two traits I’ve inherited from Mother that invalidate any “secret adoption” claims I may have made in the past:
1. My horrible fear of public speaking and
2. Her original nose.
Neither were easy growing up with, mind you … but at least the former was avoidable, since it wasn’t the focal point of my face. I hate, hate, HATE public speaking. Ever since my then-crush Ezra Steinbeck walked out on my bat mitzvah speech to smoke weed in the back parking lot, talking to crowds has made me nauseous. The only reason I agreed to give this stupid salutatorian speech at all is because representing your class is “such an honor” … even though technically the speaker should have been my roommate, Natasha. She’s the one with the second-highest GPA. But naturally she turned down the invitation, since she’s protesting the graduation ceremony’s wasteful use of printed programs by refusing to accept her diploma in person.
… And also by handcuffing herself to the administration building.
This is probably for the best, however, since her version of a graduation speech would have likely been some sort of beat poem with bongos and a steel drum. Disastrous.
But I digress from my total agony, which has taken place in three stages. Stage one of my descent into postgraduate madness (officially coining as an academic term: PGM) began yesterday, as I started packing up my dorm room. Call me crazy, but somehow reducing my entire life to a small stack of isolated boxes in less than twenty-four hours made my whole existence feel dreadfully insignificant. All my textbooks, all my records, all my minimalist movie posters: tightly and precisely smashed into 18 × 16 cubes of cardboard to be flown cross-country, where they’ll soon reside in my childhood bedroom … exactly twenty-one steps down the hall from my mother’s room.
Oh dear god, my MOTHER. Somehow, against all physical odds, Mom managed to overpack her luggage by twenty pounds for a two-day trip to New York. TWENTY. That’s ten pounds extra per day. It’s remarkable. Though I’ll never understand what compels her to pack like a nomadic Grace Kelly, even THAT nonsense feels only moderately absurd in comparison to Dad and his rental car. He insisted on renting a minivan for the weekend because Mom refuses to take the subway. Logically, I suggested an Uber or a cab, but apparently he read somewhere that it’s cheaper to just rent a car and pay up-front. This is definitely not true and I suspect he’s making it up, but Dad hates relinquishing the wheel to anyone, and anyway, his Uber account is still suspended for aggressive backseat driving.
Stage two of my catastrophic PGM spiral took place tonight at the Plaza. Despite living in Los Angeles, the Hansens have been regular Plaza patrons for more than twenty-five years, making us C-list celebrities among the staff. In fact, the Plaza is the only place where people still call me Eloise, which would be fine if it weren’t a painful reminder of my somewhat legendary conception.*
My walking pace was quicker today than usual (probably due to excess energy manifested from anxiety), so I arrived at the hotel fifteen minutes early, instead of my usual ten. I decided against going inside and facing the front desk (“*GASP!* Is that Eloise Laurent?? MY GOODNESS, have you grown up! What’s the plan, college grad? We all expect BIG THINGS from you, young lady!!”), so I waited on the famous velvet steps facing Fifth Avenue in the muggy East Coast heat, contemplating how many passing New Yorkers were survivors of PGM or similar disorders. Half an hour later, Dad’s bright-red pearl-coated minivan screeched up to the valet, Mom’s bulging designer suitcase strapped to the top like a Christmas tree. Three attendants immediately descended on the vehicle, as though it belonged to the Kennedys or Windsors or Baldwins instead of just the Hansens.
Before the car stopped moving, Val slid the door open, leapt out of the backseat, and ran up the steps, looking like a goddamn siren. Maybe it’s because she’s missing a few days of high school to be here, but my sister was positively glowing: her bronze hair in climate-defying, frizz-free beach waves, skin golden as the hotel’s awning, arms lean from hours in the selfie position. I threw my own less-defined arms around her while she gushed non sequiturs: “Oh my god, the flight was crazy. I can’t believe it, you’re so old!!!”
Behind her, Dad was helping the three bellmen unhook the sofa-sized suitcase from the hood of the van, shouting orders like the captain of a sinking ship. Val kept gabbing until we both saw a single Manolo Blahnik appear in the passenger doorway, followed by a freshly manicured hand and bejeweled wrist. I instinctively adjusted my oversize T-shirt as an attendant received the free hand and pulled forth Mama Shell: all five foot five inches of fabulous.
Mom was thinner than usual (how, HOW is this possible??), in a navy Gucci blazer with white trim, over a silk camisole and light-wash jeans. Her reddish-brown Dior sunglasses covered her narrow face, her Prada purse dangled from a bent arm, and her gloss-covered lips pouted into a smile. I suddenly regretted my choice of ripped jeans, awkwardly crossing one leg over the other to hide the overtorn hole at my knee.
Before I could lift a hand to wave, Mom was up the stairs and on me (impressive, considering her stilettos), kissing my head, fixing my hair, subtly checking out my outfit. From the second she left the car in her devastatingly perfect ensemble, Mom was talking, and she did not stop talking until we were all seated for dinner an hour later.
“… Okay, so I have our whole postgrad life planned out. I’m thinking yoga, hiking, and cycling classes. Once-a-week facials and mani-pedis … maybe a biweekly massage? Oh! Monday nights are still Bachelorette viewing parties with the Red Hot Ladies, of course. This season’s so intense, you’re going to die. Oh, excuse me, Jonathan? Yes, Jonathan, I’ll have a Shell-tini,* please … bring four. Yes, of course she’s of age, she just left her ID in the car. Thank you! Where was I? Oh! Lulu, we play mah-jongg once a month now at Susan’s. You’ll love it, because it’s a game of strategy. Oh my gosh! Wait ’til you see the pugs! Muffin’s gotten so big, he’s twice Baguette’s size. I don’t mind, though—pugs can pull off a bit of chub. Oh, and I just bought them the most adorable collars … they’re so chic!”
Jonathan handed me a Shell-tini and I instantly started chugging. Bless the sacred mix of cucumber and gin. I ordered a second. And a third. Because somewhere around the talk of chic dog collars, I was overcome by the third and final stage of my PGM, rendering me virtually mute for the rest of the evening. Whatever else Mom said at dinner was completely drowned out by my existential inner monologue:
It’s happening. Tomorrow. No more classes. No more papers. No more freshly printed textbook smell. OH GOD. I no longer get student-discount tickets at theaters or museums. As of tomorrow, I stop getting aggravating emails from random university organizations that I have no interest in joining.
Tomorrow, I am receiving a summa cum laude degree from one of the most venerated and esteemed academic establishments on the planet … and I am both job- and apartment-less.
After my fourth Shell-tini, I finally kissed my family good night, pledging to text Mom when I got home, and began stumbling uptown. I found my way to the subway, then quickly stopped by the Columbia administration building to give a protesting Natasha my leftover veggies before heading to my dorm. (You know, for someone who’d been handcuffed to a doorknob for three days straight, she seemed far more relaxed than I am.)
Shoot. I’m still a bit buzzed from the Shell-tinis. I need water stat, or I risk delivering a dehydrated graduation speech tomorrow, and the last thing I need is dry mouth. Ugh. All right, all right, focus! What else do I have left to accomplish? My boxes are packed. Speech is printed out. Cap and gown are pressed and ironed … everything seems to be in order, except for me.
Okay, Lou Hansen: you’ve got this. You are a warrior. You are a champion. You are an intellectual and academic badass. The next time you write in this journal, you will have gone from an exemplary undergraduate student to an overqualified bum.
… On second thought: bottoms up.
* * *
GRADUATION GOALS
Short Term
• Establish new living-at-home rules/expectations with parents.
• Rid closet of all unnecessary and unprofessional outfits.
• Email Professor Richmanson about job opportunity!!
• Buy more ink for label maker.
• Start waking up at 7:30 A.M.
• Tell Mom about Theo.
Medium Term
• Move out of parents’ house within 9 months.
• Secure a job in a field that I can commit to for the rest of my life.
• Learn how to cook something that isn’t cereal.
• Lose 5 to 7 pounds.
• Find a one-bedroom apartment that’s reasonably priced.
• ^That Mother will approve of.
Long Term
• Forbes 30 Under 30 article (could actually be considered medium-term … feeling very, very old).
• Modern-style house in Pacific Palisades
• My very own NPR segment (nonnegotiable).
• Have kids: one boy, one girl.
• …?
Copyright © 2018 by Autumn Chiklis
