Rendering Death And Forever

While I was Google image-searching for my favorite poem in the whole wide world, I came across this little gem, and while, admittedly, alot of those are a little Tuesdays With Morrie-ish, I really like “Send lots of valentine cards.  Sign them.”  I’m in that kind of mood.

All of the other images of my poem were like, scripty calligraphy pink writing with peonies in the background, which was frustrating because I imagined something carved in stone and black and…enduring, not fragile and delicate.  But I couldn’t find it.

In Which I Judge People Just To Amuse Myself

So, today in my Brit Lit prior to 1660 class (yes, it’s exactly as disgusting as it sounds), there were two group presentations on the schedule.  Cool, I thought, because all previous presentations have been fun and engaging and enjoyable, involving Monty Python and BBC shows and DIY astrolabes, for Christ’s sake.  Can’t wait to see what these two groups have in store for us today!

Oh.  Wait.  These two groups consisted entirely of poor public speakers and tragically dressed young women.  To the girls who presented today, some feedback:

• Ok, girl in the pink sweater dress.  You look adorable and don’t speak like you have marbles in your mouth, so even though all you did was read directly off of your paper, you get a pass.
• However, you, sporty looking girl, do not.  I realize that you are athletic and are on the curling team and are a little bit offbeat, and I even appreciate that you were the only member of your group actually talking to the class and not acting like a court stenographer being asked to repeat lines back to the jury, BUT!  There are things called hairbrushes and they make them for a reason.  Maybe it’s acceptable to just toss your hair in a ponytail and then smoosh it all back with a headband for the post-game curlers’ party, but you are being graded on how you present, and part of that is how you appear.  So, while you’re at it, take off that ridiculous fleece-lined zippy vest and throw on a damn sweater already.  Also, your lip ring makes you look like one of these.
• Ok, now, Final girl From This Group- here’s the deal.  I chose to read the selection by Hobbes about the Leviathan rather than listen to your monotone recitation of your entire paper.  Your fake blonde hair looks very cute today all curled and hairsprayed up, but seriously, princess, invest in a public speaking skills training class.  For all of us!
• Now, second group, my hopes were low.  And you did not exceed them.  But by now I was resigned to people droning out exactly what was on their papers, but ok, Tracy or whatever your name is, next time you present in this or any class, put on some real pants, and for God’s sake, at least ditch the North Face for the duration of the presentation.  Would that kill you?  Also, thanks for the comedic relief after you used the “word” chronologicler.  The puzzled way our professor said “Chronologer? Chronicler?” and your reply of an eye roll and “I don’t know, I’m not that good at pronouncing things” was priceless.  Like the basic human task of speech is too much for you.
• Ok, and you, Hilary or Ashley or Tiffany or whomever, the previously mentioned North Face, or fleece-lined zippy vest, or basically anything in the whole damned world would have been better attire for your presentation than that baby pink sweatshirt emblazoned with “Party Like A Rockstar” and last year’s worn-out Uggs.  No one is going to take your assessments of Ben Jonson’s masques seriously when you look like a hungover sorority girl schlepping to her early Friday morning class after a totally crazyyyyy Thirsty Thursday.  You feel me, Amber?

Ok, now that I feel all Harriet the Spy (except it’s not like any of these people are my friends, just random classmates), here’s a positive: my professor for this horrid class is one of the most adorable, likeable, intelligent, literate, friendly, and sweetly dorky people I’ve had the good luck to encounter in two and half years at this University.  I really only stuck with this class all semester because she made a positive impression on me from day one, all trying to learn everyone’s names by making eye-contact and requesting an interesting fact about them.  Also, she totally complimented my first-day-of-classes dress and chatted with me about “The Lady of Shalott” when we ran into each other in the bathroom one day just before class.   So, yeah, she rules.

Hey there!  I’ve had a very busy past three weeks!  You?  …Oh, you want to hear about mine?  Well, how kind of you!  Tune into this:

The day after my last post, I and one of my future roommates found our apartment for next year.  MY GOD, how I wish I could move in after Christmas break, because I am so unbelievably ready to be up out of the dorms and into some place that is conducive to real-food-making.  I am typically not one of those people who is concerned with what she eats on any given day, but just listen to the straits that I am in: 2/3 of a parfait, Starbucks, and mozarella sticks intended to be cooked in an oven but actually amateurishly heated in a microwave instead.  IT IS 7:00 AT NIGHT.  Christ on a crutch, I just want a real meal!  I would even settle for being forced to make it myself in my own apartment, as long as it meant meat and potatoes!  So you can see why, after two and a half years of dorm life and dorm food, I am jonesing to move into that apartment, like, yesterday.

The week after was intense and hellish and unbelievable.  Like, just when I thought things could not get any worse, oh wait!  Something else climbed right on top of my load of stress and worry.  I had a major paper/project/exam/presentation every day all week and so was getting less than healthy amounts of sleep, was minorly sick, homesick out to HERE, dealing with apartment ridiculousness, worrying about my job, and ignoring a boy situation that needed to be addressed.  Have you ever had the type of interaction with someone where you go into it thinking, “Oh this is surely just a minor misunderstanding!  I am calm and capable and reasonable and will absolutely be able to deal with this situation effectively and in a timely fashion!” and then you talk to the other party involved and they are just BATSHIT CRAZY?!  I had one of those that week, one so bad where i got off the phone and hyperventilated a little, and then called my friend Morgan and laughed nervously/crazily, because if I didn’t do that I would have launched into hysterics, and I absolutely did not have time for that because I had to be at work in half an hour and hadn’t even eaten dinner yet and ohmygodcanijustbefiveagainthanks!  And then, a solution was offered to the situation, but it was the kind of solution where you’re like, “Well… that’s an option, sure, but it’s like asking me whether I’d rather go blind or deaf.  I know which one I’d choose, but I don’t really like or actively embrace either one”.  I remember lying in my bed on Friday, trying to cry silently because my roommate and her boyfriend were in the room being all cutesy and I just wanted them to leave so I could sleep, and I was stressed out about the aformentioned situation and just wanted to go home, but instead knew that I was going to her house that weekend for her birthday celebration and I would be expected to be happy and cheerful and fun, and those were three things I was not up to at all, all week long, and LORD was I ever a sloppy, sad mess. 

And then, because I strongly believe in the wheel of fortune taking people down and then bringing them right back up, nearly every issue that I had been struggling with that week resolved itself Friday evening.  Academically, socially, romantically, professionally, emotionally.  Better.  And we had a lovely time at my roommate’s home for the weekend, wherein floorboards were ripped up, Twister was played and bruises were accrued, real food was secured for all, babies were brought over, an old friend “surprised” us (except I totally knew beforehand that he was coming because I’m sneaky like that), camels appeared in a parade, awkward relationships were patched, and a LOT of fratty music was listened to.  It was precisely the weekend I wanted and needed after my week of stress from the depths of hell.

And then it was two short days of school and home for Thanksgiving break.  I didn’t get home til almost midnight Tuesday, but when I did, Letterman was on and Time magazines abounded, and one of the first things my dad did was assure me that the new hand-crafted Oriental area rug in our dining room “isn’t from no K-Mart parking lot” in a fake corn-pone voice.  I love home so much.  Break was absolutely perfect: I had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, enjoyed listening to the men in my family watch football together more than I enjoyed the actual game, hung out with my sisters, went out Friday night, only to find myself in a hot tub in Brookville at two in the morning, drunk on wine, had waffles made for me the next day, slept late all the time, flipped my homework the bird, saw people at Coldstone and secured myself hours over Christmas break, and most importantly, was fed real food again some more.  Seriously, you’re underestimating the food situation here.  It is threat level orange. 

This week has kind of been full of minor annoyances and irritations, including rain on my drive home and the worst night of sleep last night I’ve ever had at school.  I literally slept in fits and starts and 20 minute catnaps for five hours.  But things are looking up, as they always do!  I didn’t have to work and am currently engaged in a Billy Madison quote-off with my friend Genna, and am now toying with the idea of lounging around and watching an old episode of Alias or something.  I’m working right now on really appreciating the fact that I have very few actual responsibilities in this world, and those that I do have are easily blown off or simple to deal with.  it won’t be like that much longer, so I might as well live it up while I can.  Stress is for people in the real world, and I’m not living there just yet, so I need to just chill the fuck out.

Mission accomplished, I think.

Happy November 10th!

Honestly, I’ve been feeling a little restless and unhinged lately.  Impulsive.  Irrational.  By lately, I mean for like the last month.  But today is different.  My morning can be summed up thusly: It finally feels like fall outside.  And I mean the kind of fall where the leaves are crunchy and and it’s chilly and I get coffee and walk home feeling hopeful and like I’m in a movie, which is the feeling I’ve been waiting for and waiting for that’s taken it’s dear sweet time getting here.  And then, I get home and the fall magic continues with a canceled class and babies dancing to Beyonce.  And finally, I made the best mixed CD known to man.  It involves “Can’t You See” by the Marshall Tucker Band, followed directly by “Rehab”, and then that song from Mulan.  No, not the weepy one by the pond; the kickass one about fires and typhoons and the dark side of the moon.  That one.  I made this CD with the express purpose of listening to it on the drive home for Thanksgiving, which is two weeks away, but it’s all I’ve been listening to this week anyway.  “American Pie” is on right now, and MAN I love that song.  One of my all-time favorite lines in any and all of music is when Don MacLean forcefully declares “I KNOW that you’re in love with him cause I saw you dancin in the gym”.  It always reminds me of high school and it always makes me kind of wistful.  Today is a really good day.  Finally.

General Update

Pros:

• dinner with my ex-roommate, in which we talked about salsa dancing, stutterers, and the Medieval Club
• also, when she hugged me goodbye, she paused while pulling away and said “Whoa.  You smell like a Cabbage Patch Kid!”
• no class on Fridays next semester, officially!
• our room smells like chili right now, which is one of my very favorite smells of the fall ever
• there was this commercial on TV just now with pipes speaking in crazy Eastern Bloc accents that cracked me up
• Bones reruns on TV right now
• shout out to my main man Glenn of Glenn’s Shoe Repair for fixing my brown flats, making them better than ever for a mere $8

Cons:

• it is hotter than the depths of hell in this room, JESUS GOD
• Bones might or might not be making me tear up a little right now; I blame the Christmas music, so shut up
• my intestines or something are revolting and attempting to scrabble their way out of my body

But really, my life isn’t even that bad right now.  Sometimes it helps to get that shit into perspective real quick.

Love In This Club

Ok, so I’m just sitting here minding my own business and listening to my “In The Cluuuuuub” or whatever mix on iTunes, when that Janet Jackson song comes on.  You know, that one where she has a lisp when she says “sexy” those million times?  Yeah, that one.  Well, she was talking about how she has a lot of swag, which, I mean, you’re Michael Jackson’s sister so I should hope so, when she busts this line: “I’m heavy like a first day period”.  Whoa.  Whoawhoawhoa.  I actually stopped, rewound, and listened again, vainly hoping that she was talking about like a class period or something?  Surely she’s not mentioning the menstrual cycle in song!  That’s just absurd!  But no.  She really, really went there exactly, so let’s just evaluate.  You and me, Janet; let’s discuss this.  I mean, Janet, lady, are you sure you want to draw this comparison?  To blood from one’s uterus which exits the body through the vagina?  Have you thought this through?  Because having mad swag and being similar to the flow of a period are….not the same thing.  At all, in anyone’s world.  One is admirable, the other is horrifying.  Perhaps having flow like a period….. no.  Not even that.  I’m sorry, I tried.  Comapring oneself to blood and tissue exiting the body just will not fly.  Not today, not ever.

In other “In The Cluuuuuub” news, do you know how often I find it appropriate to mention someone “hatin like a city cop”?  Embarrassingly often.

You Tell Me

Is it ok to not understand why Donny Osmond is so famous?  I mean, what has he done?  Tell me his accomplishments, somebody.

Summa Summa Summatime

Hello.  I’ve missed you.  Like, a lot.  Only for some reason I didn’t realize it until it hit me hard in the face this morning.  And then I had to go to four hours of class.  Figures.  But because of my lack of writing over the summer, I decided that I should definitely do an extensive recap, in the same vein as this, but totally way better.  I’m trying to type fast here, which is hard on a practically empty stomach, plus I’ve got this funky Batman ring on, which is all sorts of awkward, but also all sorts of awesome, but I want to finish this soon because I feel like I owe this to…somebody.  Maybe myself.  So let’s talk about this summer, in depth and in detail:

This summer was so so SO different from last summer.  It was not the best summer of my life, and while I was in it, I didn’t appreciate it at all, but now, looking back, it was pretty fucking golden.  This summer started with tears in the arms of my (now ex-) roommate over having to leave so much of what I had loved and grown comfortable with.  The beginning of summer brought an end to something else; it brought an end to my “rescue year”.  The people and places I encountered through the year saved me time and time again, and leaving them behind was so scary because I knew that when I returned in the fall, everything would be different, would have changed.  And change is very hard for me.  So this summer was a little scary.  This summer I readjusted to being in Dayton, to working there instead of here, to being with those friends more often than BG friends.  This summer I didn’t have a freakin’ CAR for the first month-ish of being home, so I felt isolated and bored and frustrated alot.  My dad took me to and from work, so this summer was kind of like being 14, only I didn’t work when I was 14, so maybe not.  Anyways, this summer there was a Florida family vacation for my oldest sister’s wedding, which was understated and perfect and made me believe in true love and all that icky stuff.  This summer was waves and sand and dinners out and lots and lots of family time in the evenings.  This summer was Coldstone, Coldstone, Coldstone day in, day out, working with some people I knew and loved from last summer and some new people whom I now know and love, too.  There were regulars, Virgil the ice cream machine, a broken freezer door, and in general alot of fun that consisted of the last memories I may ever make there.  This summer was also pretty fattening.  This summer was a drunken late-night walk up ghetto Main Street in search of food; instead we found goth kids and prostitutes.  Not a bad trade-off.  This summer two of my very best friends in the whole wide world left for month long trips to Spain and Cameroon, and I felt stranded without them.  I threw myself into working as much as possible because there was not a whole lot else to do.  This summer I spent so much time with Martha, trying to make up for the fact that we won’t see each other a whole lot this year.  I think the people working at the local cheap movie theater started to recognize our faces this summer because of the sheer amount of nights we went to see crap like Obsessed and 17 Again.  Yes, I paid money to see both of those films.  We all know how I feel about Beyonce, people!  And Zac Efron…well, that was a sacrifice I made for Martha’s sake.  This summer I got Lost in Austen, and MY GOD it was horribly wonderful, and I highly suggest it.  This summer saw the return of the trip to Indian Lake for Martha’s yearly family reunion, which oh my GOD, I have missed.  Her family is HUGE and doesn’t mind when I get drunk on whiskey, and her cousins and uncles all do their best to charm me.  It always works.  This summer was a spectacular camping trip involving sangria and apple pie, as well as dirtbikes and whole flaming tree branches.  I like a mix of classy and hillbilly, sometimes.  I saw this band in concert this summer, only to be severely disappointed when their lead singer acted like a total dick, insulting other bands and actually criticizing the way Columbus was laid out, like when was the last time you worked professionally as a city planner, dude?  Shut your trap.  I spent alot of time this summer lonely for school and school people, which meant I traveled back and forth to Springboro alot to visit my future/now current roommate, after, oh yeah, I GOT A FREAKING CAR!!!  That might have been the highlight of my summer.  That or the time I threw up in an East Side Wendy’s parking lot.  Oh yes.  Highlights galore.  This summer was Gossip Girl, Dorm Life, and Mad Men at the very end, so this summer was super dramatic and award-winning.  Because I was so lonely for BG, this summer I also took a trip up here to see some of the people I missed the most.  The trip involved me touching snakes and lizards, standing by while a train sped past my face, eating dinner with a motley crew of friends and friends of friends, and having the exact same conversation with a drunken co-worker while he was well and truly plastered and then sober the next morning.  This summer was baseball, like every other summer, which is not bad, but cozy.  The Cold War Kids and My Morning Jacket came into my life this summer, so as far as music goes, this summer was pretty damn satisfactory.  You would probably be surprised how many times I carted drunk friends to Waffle House this summer.  Once, the cops were called, and the giant, imposing chef bellowed at people to get out.  They listened.  With good reason, trust and believe.  This summer I almost skipped the best barbeque of my life.  Thank God Martha is so persuasive, otherwise I wouldn’t have the memory of waking up (miraculouslyalone in my own bed at home, to an alarm someone had had the good sense to set for me) still drunk in purple frog pajama shorts on backwards with puncture wounds in both my arms.  No, it wasn’t heroin.  It was almost as trashy, though.  Sigh.  Can that be the motto of my summer?  Or, better yet, my life?  “No, it wasn’t heroin.  It was almost as trashy, though.”  That’s the life of every Daytonian.  This summer…wasn’t all that bad.  I’m glad to be back where I am, but part of me now misses it a little.  This summer, I was spoiled, working at an easy job, making decent money, driving around in a new-to-me car, seeing the people I love as much as possible, while still having PLENTY of me time.  So in the end, this summer was pretty OK.

Hang In There!

Oh my gosh, I’m attempting to work furiously on getting a couple new updates posted here, since it’s been, ohhhhhhhh a solid 3 months since the last time I bothered to write shit.  And I don’t even know why, because this summer I was completely listless the majoity of the time, but more on that later.  Just bear with me; I’m writing in the cracks of time I have free from class and work and homework and my life up here, but new things are coming soon, and hopefully with much more regularity than they did last spring and summer.  Fingers crossed.

Verbatim, Out Of My Mouth Two Minutes Ago As I Spotted A Large Winged Insect Creeping Across My Floor

• “Motherfucker, what is that?”
• Heading to closet to retrieve shoe/murder weapon: “Oh no, we are NOT doing this tonight.”
• Smashing the nasty thing violently: “Guh!  DIE!”

Just so you know, I’m still alive here in Dayton.  That freaky bug, sadly, is not.