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.

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.

In Summation

Best Parts Of My Day Today:

• Two midterms, both waaaaaaaay easier than expected
• My least favorite class, canceled!
• Sunshine rain
• Tommorow’s Pre-lab, already finished
• Time to get coffee
• This sentence from my Literary Theory book: “For many of us who consider ourselves lovers of literature, phrases such as ‘the random play of signifiers’ and ‘the transcendental signified’ evoke the kind of fear and loathing the Crusaders must have felt when they learned that the infidels had taken the Holy City”.  That made me throw my head back and laugh out loud.

Worst Part Of My Day Today:

• My white chocolate mocha was totally not mixed up at all

Best Part Of The Worst Part Of My Day Today:

• It was totally not a homogeneous solution!  If you drew samples from the top and bottom sections of the drink, their properties would not be the same!  Cheeeeeeemmmmiiiisssssttttrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy!

Mrs. October

Oh dear world, I am really loving this weather.  It is all brisk and chilly and overcast and fall.  I think part of me just gets excited when the seasons change because by then end of the last one I’m ready for it to get the hell away from me and never come back, ever.  However, fall is always especially exciting because I hate summer.  Hate it.  I realize that this puts me in some sort of seasonal minority, but I honestly love the cold; I’d rather be too cold than too hot, because it’s not like you can take your skin off (like that Shel Silverstein poem, remember?) and walk around that way.  The only thing to do is shut yourself up in the air conditioning, which is no fun for anyone.  But fall is so perfect for snuggling up in your favorite old sweatshirt and going out amongst the leaves and wind and maybe you’re carrying some hot chocolate or or wearing new boots, and it doesn’t really matter where you’e going because it’s the getting there that’s fun.  I was sitting in my only class of the day today with absolutely no patience for any of this literary theory mumbo jumbo, because I was in a windowless classroom and all I wanted to do was get up and go outside.  Fall always reminds me of football, which always reminds me of home.  I want to go home and laze around on a Sunday afternoon while my mom cooks chili and beef stew and my dad watches the game.  I’ll probably read Time magazine and do absolutely ntohing else but be cuddled up and happy.  Yeah.  Fall makes me happy.