The Stars and the Cookie Jar

The Hall of Remembrance is one of the few actual, physical places that has made me cry. I went about two years ago, and a couple people got separated from the rest of the group as we went through the museum itself. I've always thought it was sort of interesting to watch other people change as they went through, and a testament to the actual design of the museum; laughing teenage boys who had run with no small measure of disregard up the Lincoln steps, who hadn't cared the slightest bit about the sanctity of the FDR memorial (which was excusable, as it was about 10 at night, we hadn't had dinner, and it was pouring rain), slowly became rather solemn-faced men in the face of that museum. I started coming close to losing it in the tower with the photos, and I think Blake didn't say a word from the shoes onward.

And then I stood in the hall and cried, but that's sort of not the point. I think, you know, everyone who goes through there changes in different ways, but everyone changes, somehow. So you don't have to pretend to belong. I don't think it matters whether you're jewish or one of the small pink triangles on the wall of symbols or whether you're, you know, twelve or eighty and you fought to get rid of it. I think everyone sort of belongs because everyone who walks through there changes, somehow, and you belong by right of that change.

I think that's why I liked the holocaust museum, because FDR was boring and Lincoln made you small, and Vietnam made you silent and reverent and I cried at the statue of the nurses, but the holocaust museum made you feel.

And what is your cultural stance on fry bread?

I luuuurve it. But then I grew up in Oklahoma - the place where they stuck all the Native Americans when their lands were taken - and it's pretty hard to avoid.

I'm convinced the dinosaurs are just a joke the geologists haven't gotten yet.

Hee. I don't care if they're a joke. I still want to play with them when I finally grow up.

*is geology major*