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.

It’s Skyline Tiiiiiiiime

I realize that since I came back to school, I’ve sort of been neglecting any actual writing here in favor of short, 5-ish line posts, and I am sorry about that Roast Beef, but honestly I really do have at least four pieces also being neglected in my “Drafts” folder, plus about seventeen other ideas floating around in my head.  I realize that I keep making these promises to write longer posts about the deep thoughts and feelings I have about my life as a sophomore (and beyond!) and I continue to fail at coming through, but I really really really am going to give it the old college try.  Any day now.  Honestly.

That being said, let’s continue the tradition of bare bones posting, shall we?  Yesterday I found myself alone in my room with two people who had never heard of Skyline Chili.  This moment served to remind me of just how big the world really is, which I tend to forget sometimes becuase I live in Ohio, where it sometimes seems like everyone knows everyone else’s aunt, or old schoolteacher, or  brother’s best friend’s ex-girlfriend.

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.