I have been spending, lately, an inordinate amount of time wishing I were 19 again.

I want it to be spring, but like the perfect weather spring where the temperature is always just warm enough but never makes you sweat, and it’s always bright and sunny, blue skies all around.  I want to be discovering Bishop Allen’s The Broken String for the first time and playing it on repeat in my old Honda.  I want to have just come home from a miraculous trip to New York City.  I want Starbucks to be included in my meal plan.  I want to go camping with my high school friends.  I want to harbor a crush on the older guy that works at the music store downtown.  I want my only worry to be when my next shift at Coldstone is.  I want to feel the immense relief of the loneliness letting up.  I almost want to be too young to buy alcohol, so that it feels like a thrill when my best friend’s older sister invites us to a party.  I want to have so much time left in college.  I want to feel like a kid and feel like it’s ok to feel like a kid.  I want to steal the neighbor’s wireless because my parents still use dial-up.  I want to be able to look out my window and see the highway.  I want to work at the freaking AIR SHOW this summer!  Oh man!

I really just want to be 19 again.

So, yes, I am still at home, and yes, I still miss my apartment/Athens like crazy, but I gotta say, this break has been pretty great lately.  My sisters are all home, and I’ve spent the last several days with all or most of them, mainly just sitting around in various rooms drinking, talking, and laughing.  I wrapped presents with them just before the holiday, escaped early Christmas Eve craziness with them (and wine), and just today, went shopping and spent an admirably small amount of money, even though we were out for something like five hours.  And, about an hour ago, my oldest sister marched into my room, rolled around on my bed, announced, “I’ve had four glasses of wine!”, and read the back of one of my new books in a ridiculous English accent.  I’m going to miss her when she’s gone.

Another great thing about being home is that I get to see my niece SO MUCH.  Like, every day for the past week, I think?  I’m going to have withdrawals when I head back to school.  I’ve never been one for babysitting or being around infants, so it’s pretty astounding to me how much I love her and want to hang out with her, and miss her when I don’t see her; sometimes, a few hours after she leaves, I’ll already be lonesome for her.   And, watching her grow and learn new things, even just since I’ve been in town, is one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced.  She has huge cheeks, fingers I love to munch on, and the loudest baby yells EVER.  Ugh, I love her so much, you guyssssss!

Nevertheless, I was daydreaming in the shower about how I wish there were a way to scoop up my whole apartment in my arms when I get back and hug it.

Grim

Something about late October and early November has just been really bleak.  I think it’s because this whole grad school Big Girl Adventure thing doesn’t feel so much like a fun adventure anymore.  The last bit of August and all of September and even the beginnings of October were bright and fun and exciting and fresh, but now…I’m not unhappy, necessarily, but I’m not as happy as I was.  Something is just off.  My classes are still wonderful, and my program still feels like the right fit for me, and the people in it are lovely, but…sigh.  I miss my close friends, and my town, and having a social life.  Practically all of my social interactions now come in class, and when I get home I just watch TV or read, and it’s all a bit gloomy.  I know part of this feeling is just the way the daylight’s been changing, and that things will look up, and that December will be spent with family and friends at home in Dayton, but UGH.  Add to that the frustration of watching my money run out and having to tell myself again, like I did for most of September, that things will be better when my loans come in again in January, and you get a girl who’s tearing up on her couch several nights a week, and getting migraines the rest.

I suppose I should recognize, too, that it isn’t all bad.  My weekends have actually been somewhat busy for the last month, with family and friend visits and trips home and to BG, so it was nice to have a lazy weekend with absolutely nothing to do but a few school things.  Also, I called home tonight when my family was finishing up dinner, and my sister’s family was there, plus another sister, plus two dogs, and my mom, dad, and a third sister who are always there, and there was chaos and laughter and I could hear everyone talking to everyone else, and it gave me heart pangs a little, but it made me much more excited for being home for a month.  Thus far I had just been looking around my apartment going “I don’t want to leeeeeeeave you!”, but hearing what’s waiting for me on the other end of the phone line did me some good.  And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab a few beers and my novel and take a BATH, which I haven’t done since I don’t even know when, and it’s going to be exquisite.

WWW

Today was the kind of day that was inevitably going to end in wine, weeping, or wall-punching.  I chose the first, but that doesn’t mean the other two are off the table just yet.

Back In The Saddle

Boy, less than one week back in BG and I’m already drinking away paychecks, and kissing inappropriate people in front of even more inappropriate people, and walking myself home at 3 A.M., and being hungover until 9 o’clock at night, and barely managing to feed myself real meals regularly.  Home sweet home.  I guess I just know that all of this will disappear overnight when I move into my new apartment by myself in Athens come late August (which I promise promise promise to write about soon.  The search was…interesting, to say the least), so I might as well drink in my last few weeks of genuine college-town antics while they’re still available to me.  But still.  Maybe if it could involve a little bit fewer attempts to break into my own house with my debit card in the middle of the night, things would be swelly.

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.

The Bitter End

Well, hello there!  I am officially a BGSU alum! 

That still doesn’t feel right.  I still FEEL like a college student, and as I will remain in BG all summer again, I’d wager that I won’t really feel properly graduated until I move in August.  Oh, did I mention I’m moving in August?  Yeah….about that.  I’ve been accepted into OU’s mental health counseling program and will, more likely than not, be moving down to Athens come late August.  But!  We’re not here to talk about the future because, as always, the future is a big, scary, gaping black pit of a place I prefer not to face until I absolutely must.  So let’s talk graduation instead.  After I finished my thesis (which: that was fun, wasn’t it?) I had just one more exam to take before wrapping up my undergraduate college career.  I drank more than I studied for that exam, as anyone should, finished in about fifteen minutes, chatted with a cute boy who had lingered outside the classroom until I came out, hell yes, and then started drinking.  My family came up, we went to dinner, I went back out to the bars, I got about four and a half hours of sleep, and then all of a sudden it was graduation morning. 

I was the only one awake in my apartment, which was probably the first time that had happened all year long, no joke, and I was in a flurry.  Shoes were flung around my room, makeup was hastily reapplied and touched up (I graduated wearing the ngiht before’s makeup, oh yes I did), and my key was somewhat precariously hairbanded onto my bra strap.  I actually ended up walking my own ass to graduation, which felt like a pain in the ass until I was actually doing it; then, I realized it was actually the perfect way to go out.  I left carrying nothing but my cap and gown, and walked in the slightly chilly sunshine one last time (total sentimental exaggeration) the familiar path to campus.  Sounds like a misty water-colored memory, but really my walk takes me past the utility shack that houses hissing gas pipes, a dumpster that smells like rotting peanut butter, and a construction site on campus.  But still.  I was surprisingly happy to be by myself, taking in the sights and sounds, feeling a little reflective and a lot grown up.  This place has become home in a way I absolutely never expected, and this year has been one of the happiest of my life, and having that fifteen minutes to soak it all in just a bit more was exactly what I needed.  I was literally the only person around until I started approaching the building where the ceremony was being held.  And….it definitely wasn’t momentous at aall.  I sat next to one of my supervisors from work, actually, who reeked of booze, was wearing the wrong robe, and acted completely obnoxious throughout the entire ceremony until the end, when I think he started to pass out a little, chin resting in hand.  Our speaker was an explorational geologist who sure did love a tortured adventure metaphor and went on about us getting our “compasses” from the university and setting out to explore the peaks of discovery and the valleys of disappointment, etc.  And then it was over, we were recessing out, picture were taken, lunch was had, a nap was taken, and the partying began.

A week ago I was turning in my thesis.  Now, I’m a college graduate alone in her half-empty apartment.  Roommate H. is on a trip with other students from her major and won’t return to move out for another week and a half, and roommate M. just packed up and left about two hours ago.  I sat for a good two hours in the corner of her emptied-out room last night, listening to Mumford and Sons, eating my hobo dinner, chatting about boys and avoiding saying goodbye or reflecting or doing anything that would allow us to tear up.  We made a half-hearted attempt at a bar crawl, but it was Tuesday, and a lot of our favorite places were closed, and we were chilly and tired and had to be up early this morning.  So we came home, got ready for bed, and said our roommate goodnights one last time.  That’s when the tears really hit me.  I’m terrible at change, loss of routine, and goodbyes, and this is all three wrapped up in one monstrous package.  So here I am, missing the two people I’ve been closest with all year, feeling the full weight of the realization that I’ll most likely never live with them again, and certainly won’t ever have an experience like this again.  I know this is veering into maudlin territory, so I’ll put it to bed soon.  I’m very, very sad today, and at quite a bit of a loss, BUT, I have a full-blown BG summer ahead of me, and we all know the potential that lies therein, and then, beyond that is just the next chapter of my life.  Somethng ends, something new begins, circle of life, etc.  I just know I’ll be here, chronicling it all as I figure it out.

A History Of Intoxication

A few weekends ago I celebrated my 22nd birthday.  I was really excited for all the festivities that ensued, but honestly, I was a little hesitant, too.  The past year, pretty much from the day after my last birthday, has been the happiest of my life, easily.  I made new and better relationships, I spent a summer living in BG, I moved into my first apartment, I started to actually actively enjoy going to my job, I fell rapidly in love with my roommates, and I went out much, much more.  Don’t get me wrong- there have definitely been mistakes made, heartaches, losses, tears, fights, and disappointments.  I’m just so much better equipped to handle all of the above than ever before, and the good has far outweighed the bad, like to a ridiculous degree.  And of course I also realize that it’s not like I only get some finite amount of happiness- one year and that’s it, it’s over.  I know that I’ll probably continue to be just as happy at 22 as I was at 21, but this is the first 365 days of my life, from birthday to birthday, that I can remember not having a significant blue period; in fact, this is the first year that I have been acutely aware from day to day and week to week how blissfully happy I was.  Sometime around June, I started realizing just what a good year I was having, and began chronicling my weekends, since those tended to be when the most adventures happened.  And so I bring to you today, without further ado, my year’s most memorable, fun, or just all out wild weekends:

• March 19th:  My 21st birthday was actually kind of a mess, and not the joyful occasion I had been looking forward to; thankfully, the next night a few friends from home came up to BG and took me out and got me properly wasted.  It was a beautiful shitshow of a night.
• April 1st:  April Fools’ Day.  This is kind of the kick-off of a spree of heavy (for a girl who went out probably about five times throughout fall semester) drinking on my part that lasted allllll the way through summer.  I made stupid decisions, had Corner Grill, a local haven for hungry drunks, for the first time, and mildly regretted my life the next morning.
• May 7th: This was quite possibly one of my favorite days of the past year.  I woke up in my empty, lonely dorm room, did a half-ass job on a take-home final, then started packing up my things to move out to my summer home.  My best friend from home called and announced her intention to come up and drink with me that night.  She arrived just in time to help me pack my car for the haul across town, and just as we shut the last load up in my backseat, the tornado sirens starting wailing.  It was barely spitting rain, so we looked at each other, shrugged, and said “Eh, let’s just start driving”.  We piled all of my shit in my new room in a new house, changed, and headed to dinner and the bars, where an all-out end of the year party was taking place.  There were many shots taken, many co-workers drunkenly clutched at, and someone that looked like Tiger Woods hit on my new roommate’s 18-year-old sister.  Summer had officially begun.
• June 18th-19th: My absolute FAVORITE summer weekend.  Also, incidentally, the first weekend I had Four Lokos.  It’s probably for the best that they revamped the drink and took out the caffeine.  That Friday night, we weren’t even sure we were going to go out.  It had been storming all evening, the tornado sirens were going off again, and the sky was the color of a four-day-old bruise.  However, things had cleared up by about 11:00, so we threw on sandals and sundresses, went to a party to play flip cup with the aforementioned Four Lokos, danced like maniacs, lost the key to my car, threw up in front of the city’s courthouse, recorded drunken videos, nearly concussed myself with our shower curtain rod, drunkenly solicited a boy I had had a crush on, and laid in my bed all day Sunday nursing a hangover and watching the World Cup.  Weekend of epic proportions.
• July 8th: We developed this bad habit over the summer of running through a fountain on campus at the end of our drunken nights, and around the middle of the summer, the BG cops started to realize this.  That was why, this night, the water in the fountain was blue.  The Four Loko is why, this night, I didn’t realize it and woke up with a white skirt with blue swaths all over it.  And that blue fountain water was why, this night, I slipped, ripped open a rather long strip of foot skin, and limped around for literally the next two weeks.  That’s now one of my favoite scars.
• August 27th: It was the weekend after classes started, and I got a ride to the bars on the handlebars of a French man’s bicycle.  Let that sink in for a moment.  I took jaeger bombs with my roommate’s business fraternity, went to a party for international students, and kissed a stranger on the sidewalk after the bars let out.  Totally auspicious start to my senior year, right?
• October 28th-30th: Not only was this Halloween weekend, but it was also one of my best friends’ birthdays.  We went hard Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  We’re talking shots everywhere, boys boys and more boys, texts like mad, drunken walks home.  All that, PLUS costumes.
• December 31st: Ok, confession time: I’ve really NEVER had a proper drunken New Year’s celebration, so I was motherfuckin determined this year to do it up right.  Well.  That backfired somewhat.  There was this boy…. God, how many sad, sad stories of fucked up nights begin like that??  Anyway, I had really counted on seeing him at a New Years’ party that night, but we ended up never making it because my roommate didn’t want to go to a party with a bunch of people she’d never met before.  We went to the bars instead, and come 1:30 in the morning, I was definitely that girl stumbling down stairs and crying.  It was raining, I was drunker and unhappier than I had wanted to be, and I ended the night by throwing every single thing on my bedside table across the room.  Happy 2011.
• January 8th: Ooooooh, but the next weekend I spent in Ann Arbor visiting a friend of a friend and I got the perfect amount of tipsy and just danced my ASS off at this club, and mannnn it was such a good night, I still daydream about it sometimes.
• February 12th: Really, all of February was one drunken, adventurous mess.  February was a great, rdiculous month.  But this night….this was probably one of the better drunken nights.  It was the formal for my job, which is not nearly as lame as it sounds.  It was basically an excuse for us all to get drunk together.  And did we ever.  There was pre-gaming and post-gaming at this guy’s apartment, Iwas coming off the rush of the weekend before, where many many happy events occurred, and I was surrounded on all sides by people who seemed intent on hitting on me.  Late February was kind of messy and things got weird around Spring Break, but this night my life was still just at that precipice, about to head into free-fall, but still at that okay point.  Looking back, it’s kind of a “If I knew then what I know now” kind of nights. 

And now…. here we are.  I thought about including my birthday night on the list, but it was really kind of lackluster this year.  I got drunk, don’t get me wrong, but one of my roommates had a friend in from out of town, my summer roommate stayed sober, I had been teary and sad earlier that day, I texted someone I should have not texted, etc.  It was a bit of a let-down.  BUT, I’ve got the rest of the school year ahead of me, as well as potennnnnnntially another summer spent here in BG (??) and then who the FUCK knows, so I really do believe the next 365 days hold a lot more crazy, adventurous, ridiculous, fun, drunken weekends, too, and i kind of can’t wait.

Numbers Game

• At this time one week ago, I was heading to the bars with my roommate, M.  That night ended at Corner Grill, and MAN, I just cannot express to you how much Corner Grill reminds me of last spring.  I fully plan on spending many more hours and dollars there before I graduate, because I just feel so fondly toward it.
• At this time last Friday, I was already in bed, 100% exhausted, and getting drunk-texted by roommate M.
• At this time on Saturday (technically Sunday? I’m not playing this whole “technically the next day” game all post, so just roll with it.) I was cozied up in a booth at The Pub, drinking with two of my oldest friends and various cohorts.  THAT night ended with my car getting puked in and a trip to the hospital.
• At this time on Tuesday night, I was watching Inception for the first time.  Mind.  Blown.  That night ended with Ican’ttellyou, a drive around BG, and cereal at 4 in the morning.
• At this time last night, I was gettnig drunk on vodka crans with my roommate, H., and our 31-year-old neighbor.  He hit on us and bought our drinks all night.  That night ended with karaoke at a dive bar and a rowdy, drunken photo shoot.  Also, my determination to not see four in the morning again for a WHILE was clearly weak sauce.
• At this time tonight, I’m in my bed in my underwear, doing some general internetting and texting, happily getting some much-needed me time.  This night will probably end with finishing (?) Emma, which I’ve been reading since Christmastime, and maybe some sexting?  Just kidding.  But really.  Am I serious?  Am I not?  THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW.

After This Weekend:

• I would be happy not to see 4 AM again for a while.
• My car smells like vomit and there’s baking soda sprinkled all over the back seat and floor.
• I have a nasty scratch on the back of one leg that manages to get bumped, brushed, or scraped at least once every 24 hours, making my eyes well.
• There are at least four fresh inches of snow on the ground.  FUCK that.
• My computer keeps intermittently making noises like an air raid siren.
• My post from the 13th still holds true.
• I’m relatively sure I’ll never get Sean Kingston’s “Letting Go” out of my head.
• I am so many, many, many, many, MANY dollars lighter.
• I can’t wait to see what spring has in store for me.