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.

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.

Man I Gotta Get Out Of This Town

When I was home for Spring Break at the beginning of the month, I went through my notebooks and folders from last semester, and found a piece of writing I’d done in my Social Psych class back in October.  I remember the exact day I wrote it; it was the day I was going home for Fall Break, and I was in the most boring class I’ve ever had, at 4:30 in the afternoon.  I couldn’t sit still for the life of me because I was so excited to go home; it had been a while since I’d seen people in Dayton.  So instead of listening to lecture, I wrote this, and then just walked out of class.

5 Places I Would Rather Be Right Now

• Sunday morning, 1996, Grandma’s house, sitting down to bacon and eggs with her and Lydia and Whitney
• Home, now, lounging in the green chair, chili cooking, football on TV
• May 2008, Brooklyn Bridge, with the beer and the wind and the lights
• In bed, under covers, in soft afternoon light, Ben Lee singing in my ear
• Whenever, wherever, driving my old, wrecked Honda, windows down, music up

And then, after I found it, I stuck it in the folder I use for my Shakespeare class now and forgot about it.  Until St. Patty’s day, sitting in class listening to a boring presentation, when I took it out, reread it, and added to it:

• About 15 hours less than a year ago today, drunk off my ass with my best friends, in the room of two trashy boys
• January of my senior year, driving home from work with a song in my head and the biggest crush
• August, my sister’s, with beach hair and a book
• Springtime at OLOM, 2002 or so, outside in the early morning cool, on the bike racks waiting for the bell to ring
• 4 hours from now, taking a walk around campus with coffee and my iPod

I think this might become a thing I do.

Catch Up

It doesn’t feel like it’s been a month and a half.  I don’t understand how time is just flying by so quickly this year.  I still feel like it ought to be the middle of February, not the end of March.  I think that’s a good sign.  I’m enjoying myself.  Even though I’ve been gone for a while, and even though I know I’ve been occupied, I cannot for the life of me tell you with what.  Uhhhhh, listening to Beyonce and Ludacris on my iPod?  Yes.  Swooning after several boys?  Oh my God, yes.  Pumping the brakes as hard as I can so that this semester doesn’t ever end because I love this place that I’m in?  Yes, even though it isn’t working.  I’m just busy being happy.  Here are some things I’ve been thinking about lately:

• My Morning Jacket’s “Lay Low” makes me want to long for someone.  It makes me feel like I’m falling for someone I could never have.  I don’t know why, but it just sounds like wanting.
• I found this scribbled in my little notepad I keep in my desk drawer: “Why hasn’t Keira Knightley done Shakespeare?!”  On the one hand, something about how indginant I am over KK’s lack of Shakespearean acting just makes me laugh.  On the other: for real, though.
• Also in the notepad is a note to myself: “Meredith- You will always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.  Take this shot.”  You know, sometimes you just need a pep talk.  And even though that particular shot didn’t pan out the way I planned, I’m still gonna follow that advice.
• Can we talk about Lexi for a moment?  I don’t think I’ve written about her before, but Lord does she ever need to be written about… She’s my TA for my Bio 101 Lab, and honestly, the only positive thing I can say about her is that she hasn’t murdered anyone in her lifetime (to my knowledge).  She is condescending, rude, inconsistent, bitchy, immature, unprofessional, and all around unqualified to be teaching anyone anything, except maybe how to be an unapologetically heinous beast.  I mean, I feel juvenile saying I can’t wait to write a course eval for her, but it’s true.  I just want to give her the worst write-up for being a snot.  I don’t even know if that will affect her in any way, but it’s the only reourse I feel I have besides maybe being an ultra-bitch and talking to my lecture professor about her, which feels waaaaaaay too dramatic a step to take.  So instead, I’ll just bitch about the bitch here! 
• This is the worst thing I have seen in the month and a half I’ve been away from writing; my German professor showed it to us today during our discussion on art.  The second guy, the guy who lays his head on that block of… marble?  clay?  talcum? and then turns and breathes on it like the creepiest serial killer who ever walked the Earth is the artist we’re learning about in our chapter.  Once, he covered his head in goldleaf and honey and carried around a dead rabbit, talking to it and explaining pieces of art to it.  And called it an art installation.  Like, people actually came to a museum and watched it unfold.  What the fuck, Internet?  I was so fucking bershon about this in class today, I was legit rolling my eyes like a sullen teen.  I was pissed off.  Ha, and then my prof asked the class our opinions about it, and the exact people I had expected to like this pretentious, avant garde artsy bullshit were the ones saying “I think it’s wonderful because it holds such deep meaning for the artist” and “It’s very interesting and a unique way to express oneself outside of the normal artistic modes” and when my prof asked me all I could say was “Ich finde das sehr, sehr blod” because I don’t know the German for “drama-queeny”, “insane”, or “intolerable”.  I mean, what feelings could you possibly need to express through conversing with dead animals?  Isn’t that called having a personality disorder?
• It is crazy how into T.I. I am getting.
• My urge to drive, and the amount to which I miss driving around with the wondows down and my music up, has started to manifest itself in completely unnecessary walks around campus with my iPod.  Sometimes after classes, I don’t head directly back to the dorms, but instead loop all around campus, into the old section by the chapel and the administration building, then over by the graveyard and up the alley between Anderson and the BA building, and then home.  It’s exactly like the loops I used to drive after getting off work at night over the summer.  Sometimes I’m just not finished feeling the wind on my face or listening to my very favorite music.  I’m just not done being in motion.

Trip Around The Sun, Part Two

Aaaaaaaaaaaand, apparently I have so much to say about last year that I ran out of room in one entry!  There’s a reason my father nicknamed me Gabriella von Flappingtongue when I was little.  So.  Here’s the second half of my year, in riveting detail:

July….man, the summer months run together in my head a little.  July brought my best friend to town unexpectedly, so you know it was good.  Honestly, most of the things I remember from June and July are things I already wrote about on here, which cemented them in my brain, so it feels kind of cheap to keep this up.  So let’s move onto August.  The Olympics happened, and I was in Florida with two of my sisters and several cats.  I spent my days at the beach, then reading, showering, napping, and snacking in various combinations, and my evenings out to dinner and then in my sister’s apartment watching the Olympics with some of the people I love most in the whole world.  It was pretty perfect.  It was exactly what vacation should feel like, that feeling of wet beachy hair and old armchair comfort while you just sit and listen to the people around you talk because you’re too golden to function at the moment.  In sad news, August brought the death of the best car known to man, and this death is on my hands.  I have still not dealt with it fully.  I miss that car so hard, all the time.  She was so… so stalwart.  And if I hadn’t totaled her, I know she would’ve stuck with me for at least the next three years.  I’m sorry I’m so serious about my car; I’m not sure how it happened, but I am sure I can’t stop.

August also brought my return here, to BG.  I was so panicked.  And then things turned out okay.  I don’t know how else to say it, because it really was that simple.  The world did not end, it only got better, and I know I am really one lucky bitch.  September flew by.  Really.  My sister got married and looked good doing it.  I got to see the Florida sister for the second time in as many months, which is so rare and so happy-making.  I threw up in the bushes outside of my house one night after a taxi ride home in which my driver may have popped some pills while stopped at a red light.  Incidentally, this was the night before the wedding.  Funny how these things happen!  I feel like mostly in September I just got to hang out with a bunch of cool people and get to know them better.  Did you know that I’m also at school?  You wouldn’t, from the way I would describe my September.  There’s nothing of note school-wise that happened in September, and that’s weird to me.  Anyways, September also brought a job that sort of tumbled into my lap, as all the jobs that I have ever had have.  Again, I am one lucky bitch.  October brought glorious fall weather.  It started to get cool and breezy and the leaves changed and it was gorgeous.  I love the change of seasons, so I was in bliss.  I think that in October I began to find every single boy around me attractive; there’s a lot of eye candy around here, man, and in October I took full advantage of it.  October also brought four migraines in eight days, so therefore, there was one week where basically all I did was go to bed early and lie around moaning and feeling nauseous.  But!  I also went to the doctor and got these magic pills that melt under your tongue and get rid of your headache.  I have never experienced anything that did that ever before, ever, besides an hour-and-a-half nap, and I have literally had migraines for my entire life.  Thank GOD for October, then.  I feel like October was more of the same socially, but that is the furthest thing from bad, because for once in my life “the same socially” is not crying and constantly worrying about what others think of me and wondering if I’ll ever have friends and if I’ll ever fit in and stop wanting to go home and why does nobody like meeeeeee?  Yeah.  No more of that.  As the clock changed from October to November, I cast my vote for change while listening to “Charlemagne in Sweatpants”.  And four days later, surrounded by the people that have been my saving grace this fall, I watched him give his acceptance speech and held back tears.  It was breathtaking.  I remember when the family walked onstage, smiling and waving to the adoring crowds, I freakin’ squealed with glee, “Awww, look how great they are!”  It was one of my favorite nights of the year.

I’m sorry, I know that this second part is sort of a copout on month-describing, but November too feels like it went by really fast.  I went to classes, had lazy weekends, ate lots of bacon, spent a disgusting amount of time dicking around on the internet, probably drank some beer, got new brown boots, ate turkey, called people and asked them for money.  You know.  Same old, same old.  December was a weird, patchwork month, because half was spent at school and half was spent here at home.  Exams were gross, but I attended a silent dance party (glowsticks included!) and ate Mexican food, and spent many a night staying up talking to and laughing with my adorable roommate.  And packing up to go home, I was actually sad.  I had people I loved and would miss over the next three and a half weeks, and I had trouble leaving them for home.  That was a new feeling.  And then I came home and was absolutely engulfed by family time.  I don’t see my sisters enough, but over break I got to spend a LOT of time with them, and I’m glad that happened.  There wasn’t a whole lot of time with friends because of all of the aforementioned family time, but there was just enough for me to be happy, and I know there’ll be some more here in the next few days, so it’s all good.

Aaaaaaand, that was my year.  The first four months? I’d like to keep the tags on and return ‘em, please.  But the last eight were amazing, better than I ever expected, and now I think 2009 will be absolutely magical, so anything less than the absolute best simply will not do.  Even though two hours into 2009 saw me vigorously scrubbing at carpet to get out the vomit stains, I still have high hopes for the next twelve months.  I’m wishing on an eyelash I won’t be disappointed.

Constructive Summer

This summer…. man, how can I even begin to explain this summer?  This summer was probably the best one of my life so far.  This summer was a respite, first and foremost, from the awful.  This summer was everything I needed and had been looking forward to from August to May.  I’d have to say this summer really delivered.  This summer brought the arrival of a beautiful new baby boy into the life of a not-so-close-anymore friend.  This summer saw the realization of a lifelong dream, and it was better than I ever ever ever could have imagined.  This summer I walked down Fifth Avenue, ate lunch in Central Park, drank in a cramped Manhattan apartment with one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, hailed my first taxi, and had a magical moment on the Brooklyn Bridge.  This summer another dream was reaffirmed.  This summer was work, almost daily sometimes, mostly with people I love and adore and miss to death right now.  This summer was constantly being with my three best friends, whom my heart hurts thinking about sometimes, because the three of them are together and I am here.  This summer I met some interesting characters.  This summer was driving, driving, driving, and loving every minute of it.  I miss that.  This summer was a mini-roadtrip by myself, just me and the open road, to visit someone I loved.  This summer was freedom and money.  This summer was spent partially sleeping on my best friend’s hardwood floor.  This summer was my first shot in a bar, so this summer was sort of illegal.  This summer was the burning of some significant things, things that still cross my mind from time to time.  This summer I cleaned, I cooked, I read not nearly as much as I told myself I would, I stayed up late, I drank, I saw and spent time with everyone I loved.  This summer there was a boy, just as there has always been a boy, but this summer the boy-crush turned out to be a little more lasting and intense than I expected.  Shit.  This summer involved discovering lots of new music at my new favorite music store.  This summer was The Hold Steady, The Hold Steady, The Hold Steady, The Hold Steady.   This summer I totally jinxed myself.  This summer was late night decorating for one of the most wonderful people I know.  This summer was drunken camping and lots of girl talk.  This summer was a mystery knock at the door and the best surprise I’ve ever gotten.  This summer brought the death of a kid that I didn’t even know, yet still brought me to tears during an absolutely bereft moment late one night.  This summer was a walk in the rain.  This summer was worrying about a friend who sometimes seems to be changing too fast for me to keep up with, so this summer was kind of anxious and sad.  This summer was terror at the thought of August, which means this summer was ignoring the fact that August 24th even existed.  This summer was the Olympics, and the Rinehart Olympics.  This summer took me to Florida for some quality sister time, and one relaxing, perfect week with people who share the same ideas about vacation as I do.  This summer was my first flight, but for a very good reason.  This summer was some damn crying into my ice cream in the middle of a Florida street, so don’t think this summer was not occasionally embarassing.  This summer I think I must have met more people who intrigued me or made me laugh or fleetingly crush than any other time in my life.  And finally, this summer literally ended with a bang.

I can’t wait til May.

Into You Like A Malibu

So, today I caused an accident.  And not in a cutesy “I’m so hot that when I walk down the street, cars slam into each other while trying to get a look at me” way, but in an “idiotically and blatantly turning out in front of someone” way that will get you near T-boned.  I don’t really want to talk about it, mostly because I’m embarassed and heartbroken because my beloved car is probably totaled through my own damn stupidity.  All I really want to say is that whenever I think about it, my mind automatically pictures the last panel of this.

Pedals

If I were to make a list of things I love to do, which, let’s face it, I’ll probably get around to one of these days, driving might very possibly be atop said list.  I cannot explain to you the way I feel in a driver’s seat.  I love the total control I have and the idea that in a moment I will be speeding along with my hand out the window and the wind in my hair.  I remember thinking shortly before I got my license that I would miss being driven around all the time, miss staring out the window at the world passing me by.  All I have to say to my 17 year old self is: Fuck no, girl.  I’d much rather pass the world by now.  I am a chronic speeder and make no apologies for it, although sometimes I need help in getting all the people out of my way (hence the highway boyfriend, because when people don’t get out of my way, I develop ridiculous road rage and spew curses at old men in hats.  I’ve been working on not riding people’s asses this summer.  Really.  No, I swear.)  ANYWAY, as you may have heard, I went to New York for a week, and when I got back, I found that my darling little 1990 Honda Accord had been decked out with a new stereo.  While all of you out there are sitting there rolling your eyes and saying “Pshhhh, 1990 Honda Accord?  With no radio or stereo?  Whatever, broke-ass”, let me just assure you that, while I am a broke-ass, Shonda is a hand-me-down car that I proudly drive as the third Rinehart owner and operator.  And my sister broke the radio.  So there.  So this whole “music whil I’m driving” thing is new territory to me, and at one point I stupidly thought driving could get no better and I can’t believe past me could not have imagined this.  Driving + music= sheer paradise.  There is nothing that will ever measure up to speeding down Riverside to John Mayer Trio, or rolling down Needmore at sunset listening to “Chinatown Bus”.  I’ve been able to discover and re-discover some of my favorite bands simply by popping in their CD and listening to it on the rides to and from work.  And I’ve developed this little habit, usually late at night on the way back from work, where I get the urge to just drive fast.  i make a loop down Siebenthaler, through DeWeese, and up Riverside to Siebenthaler again, and then home.  Some nights it’s mostly because I simply am not done driving yet and still feel the need to be out of the house, speeding.  But mostly, lately, it’s been the need to listen to more Craig Finn or Regina Spektor or whoever.  And I’d be lying if I told you I’d never taken an extended driving session through downtown while absolutely wailing along to Jewel.  Not that that’s embarrassing or anything!  Right.  So.  Bonus!  As if I didn’t love music enough, it also is like a little tell-tale sign that my period’s coming soon.  When you tear up at the sound of “I’m Your Man” by Wham! and the title Anyone in Love With You (Already Knows) all withing three days?  You generally know what’s up.  Naturally, this all happens days before I depart for Florida and the beach.  And I won’t even have the consolation of driving and blaring my music all the way there to comfort my cranky ass.

I Guess That Just Makes It Richmond… Kentucky

    So I went to Kentucky this weekend to visit my sister, and had a lovely time there, despite the complete lack of proper wasted-ness incurred.  I met her lovely boyfriend, who is vdery much like her and a completely better fit than the last one, as well as being introduced to his son, who wins the award for being the most charming child I have ever met in my life.  Anyways, going to Kentucky meant a two and a half hour drive all by myself, which I actually looked forward to.  It meant two and a half hours of windows down, music up, no one rolling their eyes at my music selection or wanting to stop for a drink or a pee. 

    And I totally acquired a Highway Boyfriend on the way there.  A Highway Boyfriend is useful if you are like me and are a terrible highway driver.  I mean, I’m not doing 55 in the fast lane or anything.  I like to drive fast, and I’m generally pretty comfortable unless it’s raining, which is when I tend to melt down and stress out and dissolve into tears.  But with a sunny, beautiful day like Friday, I wanted to get on the highway and speed all the way to my sister, I just am bad at the whole “getting around the slow traffic” maneuvers.  I mean dudes, what if someone is totally going 65 in the fast lane?  Do you try to pass them in the middle lane?  Ride their ass til they move?  Sigh, scream, roll your eyes, and eventually just put up with it?  What to doooo?  This is where Highway Boyfriend comes in.  Highway Boyfriend likes to drive fast, and if he is stuck behind a slow car, he doesn’t just take that shit.  Highway Boyfriend will weave over to the slow lane, but have faith!  Highway Boyfriend always knows what he is about.  He will weave in and amongst the slower cars, urging you to follow him, until it’s just the two of you ahead of the caravan of slow traffic with the open highway before you.  My Highway Boyfriend did just this, multiple times, and I always trusted his crazy ideas, and he never led me astray.  My Highway Boyfriend drove a purply-gray Buick and was good and loyal and steadfast and true.  I missed him after I lost him in some slow traffic near Lexington, and I tried to get one on the way home, but no one ever measured up.

    However, in Kentucky, I spent the weekend hanging out with some delightful folks my sister knows, watching movies, playing video games, eating, drinking, joking, laughing.  In Kentucky, you learn to speak Kentucky, saying things like “Estill”, “Irvine”, and “Louisville” in proper Kentucky style.  In Kentucky, you eat things like Beer Cheeseburgers and Sweet Kentucky Browns, and it’s OK to eat at Frisch’s and pump gas in your bikini top.  You can even stop in Florence, Y’all and pay for a drink from McDonald’s in nickels and dimes.  Not that I did any of these things, oh no, not an Ohio lady like me!  Except for when I did.

    And apparently it was magic weekend because I didn’t hit any traffic from the Reds game on the way home like my dad predicted I would, I remembered to look for the anatomically correct Trader’s World horse and the giant Jesus who live right next door to each other, and I wasn’t even scared crossing the bridge back into Ohio because I was blasting “Coconut Skins” and singing at the top of my lungs.  And when I got home, I found that our camping plans for this weekend are solid, and a good drunk time will be had by all.  Or maybe just some.  But that some includes me, so yeah.  This should be good.