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.

Working Some Magic

Below is the entry I wrote, ohhhhh, I don’t know, less than seven hours ago, and I was going to publish except that I was so distracted and aggravated that I couldn’t think how to spell “tyrannosaurus” and I wanted to call it “Tyrannosaurus Tuesday” because that was the first alliteration I could think of that went with Tuesday.  Right.  Anyway, because I double-checked the spelling of the old title (I had the double n as a double r) and my mood was vastly improved after going to work (unnatural, highly), I thought, “Eh, why the hell not?” and went on ahead with the publishing.  This is, to warn you, fairly stream of conscious, frustrated, angry, irritated, upset me, not bothering to censor myself or make anything funny or well-articulated.  And because I’m also kind of sleep-deprived, I will tell you that it took me a minute to decide if I needed “accept” or “except” up there.  All the English majors say heyyyyyyyy!

Today has just been full of frustration, and it’s the kind of frustration that makes me feel lame for even complaining about, because it’s silly stuff that normally wouldn’t get in my way, but I’m getting hung up on it, for some reason, today.  I’ve had this feeling before, like my insides are unsettled and are shifting against each other, grating and trying to right themselves, and while they do that in there, out here I’m a raving bitch.  I am usually slow to anger and slow, even, to annoyance, but today everything is setting me off on rampages.  It starts with being awake too early, which guarantees grumpiness, then with not eating regularly, another way to make sure I’m irritated, which then leads to feeling sorry for myself because I always have a weird eating schedule, I never get to eat with my friends because of schedule differences, and nothing is ever going to get better EVER.  Adding to the two surefires are minor roommate issues, a bitchface TA, and the fact that I can’t even really finish this entry properly because I have to go to damn work and be pretend-happy, and the thought of forcing myself to act cheerful and fake is making me nauseous.  What I know would make me feel better is going to bed.  Unfortunately, after work there’s German sentence revisions and a reading quiz for Biology yet, plus a shower and possibly Stats homework.  Yikes.  This day has been fucking bleak.  I desperately need to have a sense of humor about all this, but that which is usually quick to come to me seems out of reach too.  I don’t got jokes.  Not today, at least.

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.

Basic Training

So tonight I talked to a really huge asshole on the phone who basically made me sit there fuming for a good half hour because he was telling me all this shit about not looking a gift horse in the mouth and patience wearing thin and how dare you even think about calling at Christmastime? because yeah, we do that just to piss you off, clearly that’s our aim when contacting alumni.  Right.  Anyway, so I thought I’d just go ahead and publish this, but do know that when I’m bitching about my job, it’s usually in good fun, because I know I got really lucky with this job coming to me out of left field and that financially, things could be alot worse for me and despite what some people may think (Charles), this is one pretty huge gift horse whose mouth I don’t want to look in.  And so I present:

Things I Have Learned While Working At The Fund:

• There seriously are people out there who do not have or use e-mail.  This is unimaginable to me.  I’m such a child of the 90’s.  I talked to one lady who graduated in the 50’s who didn’t even own a computer.  IT IS 2008, NOT THE STONE AGE.  What is with this, people?!
• There are people in this world who would prefer that you call them “B-rent” instead of “Brent”.  There are also people in this world are not going to call you that, ever.  Added bonus: This guy is most likely going to end up being my supervisor one day.
• Dude, people who graduated from here in the 70’s are basically all douches.
• Computer monitors from the 90’s?  Yeah, those’ll trigger a migraine.
• Some people do not like to be called during dinner.  I get this, I really do.  My family doesn’t like to be called during dinner, either.  You know what we do about that?  DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE, YOU 70’s ASSHOLE.
• Saying “I understand” is basically like swearing at someone on the phone.  Seriously, it’s a big no and that is not something I ever would have expected.
• People will really tell you the most personal things while trying to avoid giving you money.  You had a terrible four years here at the University because the faculty was too liberal for your liking?  Um, ok…?  You’re holding a vendetta against the University because we did away with our track team eight years ago, even though you graduated in 1976?  Sensible!  You’re getting a divorce?  Sorry to hear it, mostly because I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS.
• Evidently, my phone voice is totally Palin-y.  Shit.
• I am not one of those people who will make their four-year-old record the answering machine message.  Not ever.
• I mean, I guess I basically already knew that people could get really, uh, creative with spelling and stuff, but today I dealt with someone whose e-mail address had to do with charisma@aol or whatever, except that for the “charisma” part, there were definitely z’s involved.
• I used to think that I had a lot of patience for graceless assholes, but now I find that I use up all of my patience for that particular type of person while at work, so that when I come home, I don’t have one iota of willpower to deal with someone who steps to me with shit.  Maybe I’m not as patient, then, as I thought?
• Tedious tasks are always made better by a great song running through your head.

Rough Sleddin’

Hello.  I feel like I’m reporting from a war zone or something, because things here?  They are rough.  I woke up yesterday already feeling like I had lived the longest week of my life, and it was only Tuesday.  Here are some things from the past few days that make me feel like my soul is slowly being sucked from my body and scattered on the four winds that blow across the frigid plains of BG all day long, right in your face, never ever ever stopping, no it doesn’t matter if you turn around, the wind will still be blowing DIRECTLY IN YOUR FACE.  Ahem.  Sorry.  The list:

• I have this cough, and it’s not like I’m even sick or anything, it’s just that I have this nagging cough, and it only chooses to be really horrendous when I go to lay down and make an attempt at sleep.
• My German teacher seems to think it’s totally cool to give us 30000 things to do, all to be turned in Friday, including: a take-home exam, a listening exam in class Friday, and three pages of homework.  Why does she seem to think this is at all an ok thing to do?  Dude, I don’t know.  Maybe that’s how they operate in Austria.
• I’m really just worried about a friend from home, and I got distressing news Monday that just reinforced the idea that , man, break cannot come soon enough.
• Along those same lines, my room has been the scene of an awful lot of tears recently.  Like, at least three people cried in here on Monday, and at least one of them was me.  We’re falling apart at the seams, all of us, and just trying like hell to not to go flying apart in all directions days before finals.
• So, Monday is called Pasta Monday around here, which is extremely inventive of us, because Monday’s the day they serve pasta at the Dial.  So anyway, this is usually a highlight of our otherwise crap-ass Mondays, but this week?  This week was sent straight from hell, so of course this is the week where a boy I rejected romantically ends up as the pasta server, thus leaving me with a measly one and a half stuffed shells to eat for dinner, because apparently this is prison camp junior high, where you torture those that heartlessly refuse to go out with you by withholding food from them, even though it’s your job to do exactly the OPPOSITE OF THAT. 
• Five hours of sleep the night before what will probably be the hardest exam you take this semester?  Not the best idea you’ll ever have.  And then, when I came back from classes and took a nap for an hour and a half, I woke up with a headache that morphed into a migraine while at work and ended up putting me to bed at 11:30 last night like soemone’s grandma.
• It poured all day long yesterday, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s rain when there ought to be snow.  Plus, I spent way too large a chunk of the day yesterday with soaked socks and frozen toes.
• I don’t care to discuss the details, but yesterday also saw me stick my hand in my own pee.
• And then today I come to find out that the bookstore doesn’t buy back lab books.  Motherfuckers, I spent over $100 on this fucking book to do eight experiments out of it?  We didn’t even get halfway through the damn thing!  Are you kidding me?  And you can’t even give me like $20 for it?  And really, the person I should want to cut right now is really my asshole professor who insisted we have the manual and not just make photocopies of the pages, for some unexplained reason which will remain forever locked inside his 87-year-old head.
• I also accidentally skipped ou mandatory floor meeting last night because items just flit in and out of my head at random, and it’s never a sure thing just what will stick in there and just what will go flying out my ear, never to be remembered again. 

I realize all of this is pretty depressing, or maybe just irritating, because I guess most of these are pretty white bread complaints.  I do find it important to note that whenever I yell “There is NOTHING good about this day!” my neighbor Cassie makes me name at least three good things about that day.  Some of them are pretty scant, like “I did not wake up dead” or “I like my socks” or something, but some of them end up being pretty legit.  Today is better than yesterday because I got to sleep in late, remembered that I had a check from work that I hadn’t opened, and realized that I can stay up late tonight because I don’t have class until one tomorrow.  So it looks like, against all odds, things might just be looking up.

Weighing My Options

Reasons I Should Not Work At BG Sub:

• shitty pay
• I’d be working with food
• it’s a bit of a walk from my dorm
• I already have a job
• I can’t even stand the way they write the name (technically BGSUb; how clever)

Reasons I Should Work At BG Sub:

• Man, the boy who works the register has a nice smile