A Year In The Life, Part Two

Alright!  I am motherfuckin’ determined to get this posted MUCH earlier than last year’s part two.  Fall ’10 is so much happier to write about than fall ’09, so that helps the process.

July was largely spent in Dayton when my BG job went on hiatus for a few weeks.  During those three weeks home, I came to a few realizations: this was probably the last solid amount of time I would ever spend working at Coldstone, and also the last solid amount of time I would spend living in my childhood home.  Both of those things simultaneously wrench at my gut and feel right to me.  I didn’t fit in with the high schoolers at Coldstone and was increasingly just short on patience with my boss, and home just seemed lackluster compared to BG.  Probably because I was in the midst of the best summer of my life here, and didn’t appreciate the interruption to go home, work a job with coworkers I didn’t really care to know, live with my parents instead of my roommates, and spend quiet nights in instead of at college bars.  Not so shocking, then, to have the reaction I had.  The majority of my July was actually spent away from BG, come to think of it.  I drank a bit with friends from home, spent the first part of the month in Dayton like I mentioned, and the last two weekends in Kentucky visiting my sister and in Michigan at a family member’s Christmas tree farm.  Yes, you read that right.  It was AWESOME.  I went tubing for the first time in Kentucky, and four-wheeling for the first time in Michigan, and loved both.  I feel like those are some quintessential Midwestern summertime distractions, right there.  Garsh.  August was a weird month of waiting for things.  The first two weeks were my final two weeks at my beautiful summer home, and I spent them alternately eagerly anticipating moving into my new apartment and holding on like hell to the place and people I was with.  And then I spent the first week in my new apartment lonesome for my summer house and my new roommate, who spent the whole week working all day, and waiting, waiting, waiting for classes to start.  And then, BAM, I was a senior.

Once my other roommate moved in and the school year kicked off, I settled in really quickly.  Summer, as a season, was winding down, but still infusing my first few weeks of school with so much sunshiney bliss.  I guess it helps that I fell rapidly in love with my roommates, as well.  I wore a dress every day for the first week of classes.  Someone professed their deep and intense crush on me, and then left for Europe.  The feeling was not mutual; in fact, I was so weirded out that I shut that person out of my life entirely.  Sometimes I’m kind of a dick.  Don’t worry, though!  Things are better now!  But that’s for next year’s recap.  Late August and early September are practically indistinguishable in my mind.  It was all just breezey warmth, learning my routine, starting to figure out what the year was going to be like.  Mid-September, my grandmother passed away.  Ugh, I remember that morning so clearly.  The texts from my sister implying something was wrong, until I just snapped “WHAT is going on?”  Crying alone in my room, before I told anyone.  My half-hearted attempt to cheer myself up by going to the football game.  It was so terrible.

Fortunately, things did look up from there.  I did not descend into the depths of despair.  The rest of September was a little gray, but October really livened things up.  I think I managed to drink every weekend, despite being the sickest I’ve been in a while mid-month.  I know I started the month off terribly.  TERRIBLY.  Let’s not revisit the decision I made that night.  I kissed at least three different coworkers this month, so you know it was a shitshow.  I think we can measure the stability of my life in any given month by the number of coworkers I kiss therein.  SCIENCE.  Anyway, October, hummmmm, hewwww hawwwww.  God, I think this is the shortest year in review segment I’ve ever written.  It’s not that October wasn’t good, or that first semester wasn’t good, it’s just that second semester was SO MUCH BETTER.  I don’t even give a shit about October, I wanna talk about January and February!  That’s when the real adventures were!  But, okay, focus, focus.  Fall break happened.  It started out really promisingly, with a visit to one of my best lady friends in Cincinnati, where men ten years older than us tried to pick us up at the bar and what we drunkenly thought were members of an opposing campaign (my friend was an intern on a Senate race) ate in a booth behind us at a diner at 3 AM.  Duh, we tried to spy on them.  We were drunk, so I don’t think it was spying so much as me leaning back verrrrrry obviously and then whispering everything I could hear back to my friend across the table.  And then I went home for a few days, got in a HUGE fight with my dad about green olives because my life is funny that way, and drove back to BG angry.

Halloween weekend was one of my favorite weekends of senior year.  The Halloweens of my freshman, sophomore, and junior years were, respectively, the first time I ever kissed a boy at/got drunk at college, completely unmemmorable, and relatively underwhelming with a side of regret.  But this year, we (and every time I say “we”, I’m most likely referring to my roommates and best friend A.) went out and went hard Thursday, Friday, Saturday.  My favorite part, which I didn’t tell anyone about, was drunkenly holding hands with the guy I liked on Saturday’s walk home.  We got lost, peed in a front yard, A. knocked over a mailbox on a post, and all went our separate ways eventually.  This is kind of a bittersweet memory now, but again, that’s something for the Spring ’11 recap.  And then November rolled in.

One of my favorite people, my friend C., came up to visit just when I needed someone around to whom I could confess this burgeoning crush I had goin’ on.  She was in a remarkably similar situation, and it was incredibly comforting to me just to hear her story.  We were ladies unlucky in love together that weekend.  Then I went to a concert with said crush, and….MISTAKE.  My darling roommate H. has a hypothesis that it’s dangerous territory to listen to songs you love with or start to recognize the smell of the guy you like, because that’s when the heartstrings REALLY start to get tangled, and….yep.  That’s all I can say.  Yep.  I was a bit lovelorn in November.  But I don’t mean to make this sound more serious than it really was, because I still managed to flirt with some bad-idea people and crush on yet another coworker (this one the worst idea of all, no lies). 

Jesus.  From the way I write in these recaps, you’d think all I ever did was flirt and make out with coworkers and develop crushes that go nowhere.  I promise you, in November I did do some positive, productive things.  I fucking rocked out on the GRE!!!  I scheduled myself a much-needed haircut!  AND my classes for the spring!  What else, what else.  November seems pretty unmemorable, too, which is frustrating because I know I was happy and the world felt sweet, I just can’t remember any of the specifics.  I was listening to crappy music, spending time at the summer home, seeing movies for cheap, going to classes and doing homework, TFunding.  Regular life.  OK, so I did some Facebook excavating, and also roommate M. and I were really obsessed in November with that one AFLAC commercial with the goat, too.  So there’s your random memory for the month.  Thanksgiving was lovely but uneventful.  I went, as I have for the past I-don’t-know-how-many years, to the Christmas tree lighting in downtown Dayton, and then got STUPID drunk by ten that night and confessed that huge crush to A., who was a mutual friend of the guy and me.  OK, so December.  I got a haircut, I drank some wine, I went to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party, I kissed a pretty consistent KUI, and struggled through finals week.  Roommate M. actually needed emergency transporting home mid-finals-week, which led to my first all-nighter of senior year.  That was an eerie night.  All of us had been in our beds, but none of us had been sleeping when the bad news hit.  We drove her halfway, to be picked up by a family friend, and then roommate H. and I drove home in the wee small hours of the morning, wailing along with Tegan and Sara, and ate breakfast together while the sun rose.  I had a paper to finish, she had a final to study for.  Shortly thereafter, we had finally, mercifully made it to Christmas break.  And within a few days, I had figured out my future in more clearly defined ways than ever before, so that was neat.  I feverishly shopped for Christmas, loved on my family, got in a lot of good sister time, and was overall a decently happy girl.  Nevertheless, I was still overjoyed to come back to BG for a night on December 31st.  I spent the day with A. shopping for dresses, and then started drinking.  I was a little blue welcoming in 2011, because of that GODDAMNED crush, but not to worry!  In just a few days, life got AWESOME and so so so so much happier than I realized was possible.  I thought, throughout all of fall semester, that I knew what happy was, but the fall just doesn’t even compare when I think about the last five months.  Stay tuned for 2011, Part I, y’all, cause everything got SO GOOD.

What’s up, Mondaaaaaaay?  I’m really starting to rather like the idea of a regular Monday-morning update.  So of course that means next week I’ll totally forget to do one.  But today!  Let’s talk about today!  Man, I am so amped up on coffee right now!

• OK, let’s start with the bad and then just climb right on uphill, yeah?  I made a terrible terrible horible no good very bad decision Friday night.  The kind you regret immediately.  The kind that makes you scrunch up your face in discomfort everytime you remember it.  Hyunhhhhh, oh man, it’s makin my stomach flip-flop right now just thinking about it.  I think my throat is closing.  The sad, sorry thing is, it was the kind of decision I thought I was totally past making.  That’s the girl I was last year; I want her to have only a very tangential relationship to the girl I am this year.  Last fall, as I have mentioned, was not great, and Friday night was a night that almost exactly mirrors some choices I made last fall, and I am kicking kicking kicking myself for it.
• But then, I really did have a soothing Saturday.  I woke up to find that pretty much everyone I had gone out with the night before had something to regret, which just served to prove that misery sure as hell loves company, because man did I feel incrementally better.  I skipped Homecoming, spent quality time with a lot of people I loved, and watched Grease 2.  It was terrible, in the best movie-sense of the word.
• Sunday happened.  There’s not much to say about it, other than I made some more scrunchy man-I’m-so-fucked faces and regretted my life.
• And nowwww, today.  I didn’t so much sleep last night as I took an extended nap.  Four hours of sleep does not a chipper Monday morning make.  And yet, here I am.  My exuberance is mostly due to the fact that I had this exam last Wednesday that I was panicking about because I literally read the five chapters of the book it was over the night and morning before the exam.  And then I got the best grade in the class, because the good Lord decided to open the Heavens and rain down some blessings on me, I guess.  (Speaking of, MAN, can you imagine if I talked that way all the time?  In full sincerity?  I have some friends on Facebook whose statuses RIGHT NOW are like “Tough day ahead, but I know I can handle it because I have the Holy Spirit with me ” and I’m like, “Ohhhhh man sometimes I really don’t miss living in Honors housing.  Too many Jesus folk.”)  Anyway.  I think I mostly just wanted to brag about my bad-ass grade.
• And it’s all fall-ish outside, and we all know how October weather makes me feel.  Even though I’m having a great morning, I was sitting in my 8:30 class just thinking about how I couldn’t wait for Fall Break because I’m really ready to just go curl up on my mom’s bed and talk to her about the last two weeks.  Fucking 50 degree weather and changing leaves have me feeling kind of misty-eyed and homesick.  I’m really just craving some support because I feel like such a doodoo head about Friday. 
• And that’s my life.  I’m pretty much on the precipice of what looks to be an extremely awesome week, despite my weekend idiocy.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Like A Bildungsroman In Three Paragraphs

Hello.  Tonight, I teared up when my roommate went to bed without saying goodnight, and then I teared up because I didn’t have the balls to upload pictures to Facebook which feature someone with whom I’m currently not speaking (of my own accord), and THEN I watched Mad Men and teared up some more.  And finally, I flipped through all the pictures again and just layed my little head down on my bedroom floor and had myself a good cry.

And do you want to know the conclusion that I drew from all of this?  I’m ready for fall.  I’m ready for bare trees and leaves underfoot.  I want to wear my trenchcoat again, and my boots.  I want to drink hot drinks, and feel that movie feeling that I always feel in the fall.  I am, indeed, ready for some football.  It’s the end of summer, and I’m just now realizing how drained I am.  Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy summer.  I did.  A lot.  Maybe even too much, which might be why I’m so tired of it all of a sudden.  I just like when seasons change, because it’s dependable change, and not at all frightening.

And the cure to all of this, the lonesomeness I felt all evening, and the feeling of wanting to be babied and cuddled, is something I’ve probably known all along but just need to push myself to put into practice a little bit more often.  The cure is to go into your friend’s room, which I just did, and talk, talk, and more talk.  About boys, or Boston, or all of your Feelings, or whatever.  I just popped a bag of popcorn, and I feel so much better now.  I’m growing up.

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.