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.

End Of An Era (Or At Least A Decade)

OK, so I did this post last year, and it remains one of my favorite pieces of writing I’ve ever done, both in the experience of actually sitting down to do it and the part where I get to go back, re-read, and remember everything all over again, so here I am at the end of ’09, fixin’ to do the same thing  (fixin’?  Lord?  Who am I?).  I actually should be reading Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwhich for my Brit Lit class right now, but this sounds so much more fun to me, so I chose it instead!  That’s like a core tenet of my being: do whatever the hell I want at all or most times, regardless of how hard it fucks me up the ass in the long-run. But seriously, who in their right minds would choose Margery Kempe over, ohhhhh, anything?  Maybe I’d rather read her than fall in that acid lake from Dante’s Peak….maybe.  But there’s no way in hell I’d choose her over examining the last year of my life in excruciating detail, so let’s begin! 

 So January is where it started, and boooooy, let me tell you, January ’09 was a complete 180 away from January ’08 in that I did not, in fact, hate everything about my life this year.  Cheerful!  In fact, I really, really liked my life, despite the fact that the first really clear memory I have of 2009 is cleaning puke out of my best friend’s new basement carpet.  That was not so super.  However, one of my favorite January memories, which I had actually stored away and forgotten about until just last week, involved a night spent at one of my closest friend’s houses.  We were supposed to be doing some all-night bedroom painting (not a euphemism!), but instead we drank margaritas and watched Vanity Fair and made snow angels at 1:30 in the morning.  There was muffled shrieking and cursing and awesomeness, and this memory helps explain why she remains such a wonderful friend.  One of the overwhelming impressions I have of January in my mind is curling up at the Union to read and drink coffee.  I had a new class schedule and a funky, long but not-long-enough-to-make-the-effort-and-go-back-to-my-room  hour and a half-long break between classes, so I’d take Edgar Sawtelle, get Starbucks, and read.  This routine ended after that book made me cry in public.  Awkward.  Anyway, January was such a happy, golden month.  I was so overjoyed to be back in BG, and fell in love all over again with that place and those people.  February, though, started to get a little rough.  I was sick of winter, I think, and work, and school a little, too.  For some reason, things from February don’t stick in my mind very well.  I DO remember going dancing on Valentine’s Day weekend, and coming home with what appeared to be blood on the back of my dress.  Yes, blood.  From someone else’s body.  So I spent a few days fearing for my health in February, for sure.  I know I also started to get a lot closer to a group of my roommate’s friends, too, and they are one of the reasons the next few months were so fucking great.  I can’t even guess at the number of nights the whole group crowded into our room and convinced each other to stay awake until 2, 3, 4 in the morning just so that we could keep laughing and enjoying each other’s company.  I also for the life of me do not know how we were never written up for a noise violation in that tiny, cramped dorm room, especially when my bookish, quiet, stern RA lived only two doors down. 

Anyway, March.  I know I stayed up all night one Saturday reading Looking for Alaska.  Great read.  I also had another birthday that was mostly underwhelming.  However, I did come back to my room that night from preparing for bed in the bathroom to find four close friends holding a small cake with burning candles just for me.  They sang and I made a wish, and I think it came true.  Is that too much?  Maybe a little.  I’d like to remark in the discussion on March that I was also in the midst of seriously one of my favorite classes I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking here at BG: History of Jazz.  My professor just derived so much joy from teaching, and I got totally immersed in this music to which I had never given a second thought, and all of a sudden I found that I liked it, and wanted more of it, and I wanted to be able to speak intelligently and in an informed manner about my opinions of it, and also there was this a-DORABLE bass player in that class whom I am still kind of in love with, but mostly I dug the music.  Yeah, that’s what it was all about.  It might sound cheesy, or nerdy, or silly to say, but whatever, when have I ever given a fuck about that, but I seriously think I enjoyed spring semester so much because I had a class that I just wholeheartedly loved and threw myself into.  That’s been the case every spring for me here, and since I’m writing this practically one year later, I can say that the trend is holding true for the third year running.  But that’s for next year’s update.  Some favorite activities from March were: playing Sudoku and lounging in my next-door neighbor’s blue chair, drinking Starbucks and walking around campus with my iPod every Tuesday afternoon like clockwork, listening to Beyonce and TI, being consistently silly with my roommate, watching Gossip Girl, going to charity events drunk (OK, that was just once), and sleeping.  March and April flew by.  April was definitely the best month of the year, and if we’re being brutally honest, maybe one of the best of my life.  Again, too much?  This time I’m gonna go with probably NOT.  It’s so true.  I can’t remember an upsetting memory from April.  Everything was rainbows and butterflies and puppies and sunshine and also good music, good classes, perfect friends, totally situated life.  I walked four miles to and from my bank one day, which in and of itself is insignificant, but helps to explain how I had the time to discover and get really into my two favorite albums of this month and May: Ben Folds’ Way To Normal, which, in my humble opinion, is his best solo effort to date, and Bishop Allen’s Charm School, which I should have been listening to all school year.  Two of my best friends came up for a weekend, and we spent the night drinking and dancing and the next day exploring the outskirts of the town.  I had a song dedicated to me by a saxophonist.  Shit, that might be the highlight of my LIFE.  He was so charming! 

I spent my last few weekends in BG drinking, dancing, goofing, lounging, absorbing the presence of my wonderful floormates before it all changed and fell apart, and just generally being one cheerful motherfucker.  Moving out in May was so, so terrifying.  I already wrote about why, so I’ll just say that it rained on move out day again, I broke the zipper on my suitcase, and the very instant I turned to hug my roommate goodbye I burst into uncontrollable sobbing, and so did she.  Also, I found out later that day in a McDonald’s that someone was suing me.  I was back in Dayton for a few days, and then my family embarked on a road trip to Florida.  I fucking LOVE road trips with my family.  My eldest sister got married, I went swimming in the ocean, and my dad drunkenly walked through a screen door.  Needless to say, everyone enjoyed themselves.  The rest of May was taken up with hanging out with home friends, some of whom were leaving soon for various parts of the world, and working, working, working.  And not driving.  I didn’t get a car until JUNE, and God, the day my dad picked me up from work and asked if I wanted to go look at some cars was probably the best of the summer.  OK, not really, but I was overjoyed because I had been under the impression that he was not doing a damn thing to find me a car, and wouldn’t take any suggestions from me, and was secretly plotting to see how long I could go without one before having a full-blown mental breakdown (The answer: probably about two more weeks).  Anyway, two of my very best friends left the country and I was bored out of my mind.  I already covered a lot of my summer in the summer post and I’m trying to come up with things I didn’t include there, and honestly, I don’t have much because I was SO inactive this summer.  In June, I made the only post here that I wrote ALL SUMMER, and it was on a night where I was probably doing what I spent most of the beginning of the summer doing: staying up late re-watching the first two seasons of Gossip Girl.  Not kidding.  I’m not complaining; I mean, I love that show, I just, now, looking back, wish I had gone out a little more.  I wish I had more stories. 

Well, that’s the first six months of 2009 covered.  I have yet to even begin July-December, so who knows when it’ll go up.  Things got quite a bit more eventful in August, and have yet to slow up, even now, in 2010.  Just a little something to look forward to!

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.

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.