Thursday, October 29, 2009

Maybe I'll be Beyoncé.

I only wear my red suede boots for special occasions. Okay, until today I only wore my red suede boots on Thursday nights at the Townhouse which was always a special occasion because drag queens sang and danced with us to Beyoncé. I wore them today because it was Thursday and because tomorrow is my Captain's 21st birthday which she will be spending sweating in Ghana instead of consuming her body weight in burgers and Blue Moon at the Nook where we all should be on the celebrated day.
But who's to say that I will not wear them again tomorrow when I skip collegetown to Indianapolis for Halloween weekend. I like to go out with college kids, but after having spent 2 years at GirlLand where Friday nights were spent extracting ourselves from campus, searching town for any remnants of Fun and giving up at 11:30 for Rachel Maddow reruns on CNBC, it can be somewhat overwhelming to turn in at 11:30 only to have Fun knock on your bedroom door, pull you from your cozy, dress you and force you to spend time with it until dawn.
At GirlLand on Halloween, Highland Park kidlets came to gather treats at the residence halls. Here there is a party on the campus farm which the school has provided shuttles to and from until the wee hours as a "safety procaution". The farm is a ten minute walk. Tops.
So to the big city I go. Where The Future President of Africa and I will hand out fun-sized candy, I will force my post-surgical left foot back into the red boots, and hope that at some point in the future, it will forgive me.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Worth the travel time. And the fever. Kinda.

My last week at home was a much needed break from Indiana Life which I will break down for your reading pleasure in three phases.

Phase One: Nebraska
I am interested in seeing which of the Midwestern states is flattest. I have come to the conclusion that if I were dropped in any part of Nebraska, Indiana, Iowa or a remote part of Minnesota with which I am unfamiliar, it would take at least 3 days for me to figure out my whereabouts. They are all flat. Some have more trees, some have more accents but on the whole they are defined by these: corn, earth tones, humidity.
More importantly, I saw one of my high school besties (see Phase Three for vocabulary explanation) who is a theater major at a tiny school in Nebraska. At least this is her excuse for living in the state, as most people who weren't born there feel the need to justify it at some point during most days. She scored the lead in Stage Door and brought down the house playing essentially herself transported to a rooming house for actresses in the 1930s.
She came on stage and I was overwhelmed with what my friend Katie Rose calls, "Friend Pride" in which a friend of yours appears on stage for a play, a concert or presentation and you are totally overwhelmed with pride for them as if they were your own kid or you were personally responsible for their acting skills or had taught them the violin yourself. Maybe I'm biased and know nothing about the theater, but she was absolute perfection in her sassy 30s dresses.

Phase Two: Homestyle
A six-hour ride home brought me over the hills to the Minneapolis skyline, my mother's cooking, a big girl bed and transportation. I figure I spend a significant part of my Indiana life trying to figure out transportation away from campus. It appears to be one of the only problems that college students here cannot solve. Home was delicious. I paid a visit to GirlLand, was totally weirded out, saw the lakes and consumed non-cafeteria food copiously. Being back, in fact, has taught me to eat less extravagantly when I go home next because upon return, the true colors of cafeteria food will be revealed. Important observation of today: just because chickpeas and tofu are in a flat, circular formation does not warrant the title "burger".

Phase Three: Happy Camper
I spent the last stretch of break in the northwoods of Minnesota. The only thing "northwoods" about this annual adventure is the car ride in the northern direction for a few hours and some trees I saw. For the most part I spent time inside, cuddling, singing, consuming boxed snacks and talking with some seriously awesome young people who have the ability to remind me of how much less awesome I was in high school. But unless you tell them, they'll never know that Sandwich Lady and I used to go on the same trip but instead of socializing, we spent time knitting and pretending to be 80 years old. These young women are cool enough to shorten some words and add fun endings to others and make it sound cool (best friends = besties; probably = probs).

By Sunday evening I was back in my tiny room in my Indiana life, minus some old friends and family, and plus swine flu. Which is just as un-fun as people said it would be. Captain's first question about the situation was whether or not I had mutated yet- if there were gills or extra toes or anything. I'm hoping the government has the situation under control and the flu hasn't mutated to be contageous over the internet because this blog post would be like one giant sneeze in your collective faces.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Death by superficial wounds.

Internet, I got stung by a bee. What the hell. I didn't know that even happened anymore. After that whole killer bee incident, I thought the species had pretty much lost all credibility. But apparently they still sting, and it still hurts as much as that one time when I was seven at Gramma's cabin.
Plus, after a run in with a hair straightener, I am sporting a burn mark on my face. Let it be known that there is no opportune place for an inch-long burn on one's face. That's right. Clumsy is my name, superficial wounds is my game. And don't even get me started on the blister my new friends, Gray Suede Boots gave me.

This weekend I think I'll lock myself in my room to avoid any more catastrophes, yes catastrophes. I'll read the 200 or so pages of Thoreau (see: sleep) that I've been neglecting and feed my addiction to Triscuits that has become rather unhealthy. Love those woven wheats, people.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Welcome to a new and kind of weird adventure.

Okay. I've been here eleven days. Here's the breakdown, Interwebz:

On Learning:
All classes have been solid. That is why I came to this place. I have an International Relations prof that spent 30 years as an international diplomat for the U.K. and has a law degree from Cambridge. You know what that means? "Duty" in a British accent. One peace studies professor and everything that implies ("What language do you dream in?"), one shy bunny econ prof, and a timid but totally lovable English professor who loves Gary Snyder. Except for when that last one assigned 80 pages of reading for the weekend and apologized that it was such a light load. Oh, hey college. Why are we friends again?

The Digs:
Loving the single. Finally found appropriate storage for headbands (upside-down fedora) and the Sharpies and photographic adventures from the summer have all found their home in this little room. I have one picture on my phone of when the bed is made and things are orderly-ish for my cluttered but cozy lifestyle. It will come to you via text message upon request.

The Peeps:
Apparently there are only 700 people on campus this year. That means just over my high school graduating class in which every third or fourth person sports some form of ironic eye wear, drinks herbal tea, doesn't believe in religion, has a strong opinion between Sigg, CamelBack and Nalgene, and thinks PBR is a trendy beer. And most are a pretty good time. There are more social things here than I know what to do with. Captain and I used to get weird looks from people when we sat on the Quad at GirlLand, and heaven forbid throw a frisbee around or lay down on the grass in the 80 degree May sun. Here there is never a calm moment on the Heart (EarthLand's version of a quad. They're Quakers. It's funny.). A few nights ago a saxophone player soft-yazzed me to sleep while random guitarists, procussionists and vocalists joined him throughout the night. The Quad was a mostly deserted grassy place whose purpose was a gateway to classes. The Heart is intimidating to walk through 23 hours a day because activity is leaking at the seams.

Those are the basics. I'm still an awkward transfer student with a boot cast. My first impression is still poor. I still have a dinosaur pillow case and live in a single. And only one of those things is going to change this week (!!!).

Friday, August 14, 2009

Now maybe I'll consider living past 55. Maybe.

When my great grandmother died almost three years ago, I got a tiny peek into the life of the oldest generation of my mother's side of the family. And after seeing my inevitable fate of being a crotchety old woman with pack rat and poor gift-giving habits, I slammed that window shut and closed the blinds. Being old was for old people.

I inherited GGMA-M's 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass, in which "inherit" translates as something that nobody could be paid to take. I sold that car last month a little because of the holes in the sides of it, and a lot because of the burgundy velvet interior. I upgraded last week for a beautiful little 1991 Geo Prizm. I call her Dot and she belonged to my great aunt Ruth. Ruth is 88 and has dementia which has shrunk her short term memory to approximately that of a goldfish cracker. I spent 20 minutes with her the other night and told her my name, age, major and familial position 10 times.
Despite the fact that she can't remember her cataract surgery three days ago, my name or where here glasses are, she is a complete and total firecracker. I saw her for the first time in my memory the other day and was astounded at how much of myself I could see in someone so incredibly different from me. She gave me shit about going to GirlLand, regaled me with stories of Macalester (her alma mater), and told me remote controls are ridiculous inventions that are for losers.

The picture below is my aunt Ruth. It's blurry because that's sort of how she sees life these days. Memory disorders scare me more than most forms of cancer and disease, but seeing this woman in all of her fiery glory was like a giant sigh of relief. Because at the end of the day, if we don't have our humor and sass, strong women have nothing.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Can I put deodorant on my foot? Will it work the same?

Ok, so this surgery bidniz was supposed to go down like this:
Phase One: Sedate me heavily, poke me, sedate me more, cut my foot open, do some gross stuff, sew me up or something else gross, boot cast me.
Phase Two: Boot cast for four weeks.

Note that neither phase one nor phase two involve crutches. Everything went according to plan until the aforementioned splint. And now everything has gone askew. No, no, reader. The surgery went fine. That's not the point. The point is that I am entering week three of crutches, during which I have unintentionally flashed several people on several occasions trying to extract myself from a vehicle and discovered that I cannot be in houses with more than one level and am more or less a useless human being. Run-on sentence, you say? Suck it.

Boot cast will be coming to school with me, apparently. Because transfer student orientation isn't already spelled "w-e-i-r-d-o". Oh. And apparently the girl I'm supposed to live with has a case of the sluts. Woop! Yet another reason that I don't believe in living with strangers in small, confined spaces.

A silver lining: if ever you were looking for a reason to steal a wheelchair from a church, a friend on crutches is a good excuse. Your friend will get the sad sigh from strangers around the lake that says, "Ohhh...but she's so young..." and you will get the knowing nod of, "She's such a great friend". And your day will be a little bit better.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Gauchos are the pants of the crippled

I had surprise surgery last week, and while I spend approximately 19 hours of every day in bed, I somehow have found more important things to do than blogging. Like take Percocet and Google Image search puppies. My orthopedic surgeon uncle gave a loosey-goosey tendon in my ankle a home. I would like to take this opportunity to form a public complaint about the lack of a program comparable to Microsoft Paint on Macs. Because you have to believe this would be a good'un.

I am currently sporting a plaster splint that is the most counter intuitive crapshoot on God's green earth. In its free time, when it is not producing leg sweat and making me feel claustrophobic, it enjoys personally trying to pull apart every stitch or staple or whatever grossnasty post-surgical thing they use these days.

Everyone is showering Dog Breath with praise, because the reason she won't leave my side is because her dog-sense knows that I'm in pain. Right. And totally not because my side is in bed 19 hours of the day.

I must go now, because last week in a weird prescription drug comatose, I ordered orange pants online. I was just looking at my receipt email to assure that this actually happened and track the order when the UPS dude pulled up. It's fate. Orange pants fate. The pants gods are looking down on me saying, "Yeah. You deal with this."

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Guilty Face

Summer camp always looks worse on paper. And then you commit to going out of guilt, get there and have fun and the guilt is redistributed. I spent the week with 30some high school girls up at summer camp last week, personally showing seven going-to-be seniors the Jesus light via copious amounts of fruit snacks, dancing, flatulence and brownie batter. Not the kind you eat, but the kind you put in kiddie pools and throw at each other for extended periods of time. You can find my fellowshipping methods in Deuteronomy.
I spent approximately 2 hours combing fellowship out of the hair of Wit-Knee! and The Future President of Africa:


Isn't the first thing that comes to your mind, "Wow, I wish I went to college with someone as loving as that one in the orange!". I know, I know. But we can't all be that lucky. Just me. I'll be joining her and all of her hippie friends at EarthLand next year. GirlLand, I will miss so many aspects of you, but most of all, I will miss your company.

Monday, July 06, 2009

There is a road that meets the road that goes to my house

Yesterday at Mass "we" sang America the Beautiful and the national anthem. I dig freedom, but the kind of freedom that keeps my Jesus life separate from my America life.
My America life last night made a surprise appearance. I tend to not like holidays that I'm not really old enough to celebrate properly, so I usually find myself meandering with Colleen to and from our houses on foot in search of seasonally-appropriate foodstuffs. Last night we made as usual, plus several ghosts of our elementary school lives past, which always makes for uncomfortable hugs. It's hard to ask someone what they've been up to since you last ate crayons together. It's maybe easier to just bring your own new box of 64.
I am headed out tomorrow to be a camp counselor for a week. I haven't been to this camp in a few years, because last time I was there, I ended up with foot juice in my eyeball. I'm going this year in confidence that I will still hate the field games and will still come back with enough freckles to make me look Monet-tan. But knowing people who are involved in the programming of big events like this always guarantees extra laughs and extra pride. I'll be sure to tell the kids that only one of those is a deadly sin.

OH! Unrelatedly, you can now find Roommate Tréza elephant parading herself around these parts. She is my captain of misadventures and debauchery. She will keep you updated on everything you need to know about pop culture and will give you one song with each post. In writing this, I'm realizing she is a lot cooler and more useful than I will ever be. Zonino!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Real-life Precious Moments doll: 100% cute, 100% pure evil.

This post is sponsored by Mason Jennings and Lemon Grove Avenue. Because if M. Jennings and his bababas about the sea and the tree and the breeze and coming home do not get you into summertime mode, you do not believe in the spirit of summer.

More adventures from this summer:
  1. Three days in Northern Wisconsin with 8 children aged somewhere between 2 and 13 plus my mother and her sisters.
  2. On said adventure, in a fit of pure, 2 year old fury, my nephew bit me. The crime? Looking at him. But, come on. How could you not?
  3. Northern Wisconsin is beautiful. Who knew? Nobody told me about this. It's like that time I went to Virginia and there were mountains. WTF.
  4. New pet peeve: People who are afraid of seaweed. It's like being afraid of trees.
  5. This post is also sponsored by gas prices. My mother broke her right foot and all of her time in the passenger seat is giving her way too much time to read aloud any sign that we pass on any highway. "$2.42...wow!" "Route 32" "TGI Friday's." At what age does this start? Now accepting applications for the job of hitting me when I start to do this.

Monday, June 08, 2009

This summer has a sepia-toned loving

New low. One post in the month of May. Shiiiiiit.
My summertime resolution (the lesser known resolutions) is to give the blog some more love. I've now written it down, so I should start to care more, or at least feel extra-badly when I fail. Probably. I am so far unemployed for the summer beyond volunteer gigs, helping my parents move and teaching myself to utilize the rating column on iTunes. This summer is going to be ALLtime. It's looking like a lot of free time and not a lot of cashmoney. Mr. Sutliff taught me that was called a "tradeoff" in 9th grade. I'm livin' the dream, Mr. S!

In my first 2 weeks of summer I have:
1. Been accepted to 3 colleges away from GirlLand
2. Had one application sent back due to "deadlines". Clearly Macalester never met the Totzkes.
3. Made 2 important Savers purchases: a) Orange cashmere J.Crew sweater ($7) b) Polaroid camera ($6)
4. Failed at finding film for said Polaroid camera.
5. Refused to accept that Polaroid film doesn't exist anymore.

Stay tuned! More futile battles and summertime misadventures to come!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The cutest solution to all of your sticky honey bear problems.

It's finals week here which means two things: list making and procrastination. I can accomplish both of those things with this post.

Top Ten products I cannot live without right now; or top ten reasons to live in the first world in my life.
  1. Back to Basics Raspberry Almond Reparative Haircare. This shampoo and conditioner smells AWESOME without wanting to eat your hair. It's also good for those of us who only get our hair cut on odd-numbered years.
  2. Honey. This goes on my bagels, my granola, yogurt, oatmeal, fingers and whatever else needs a little extra sticky.
  3. Kiss My Face Olive/Aloe Moisturizer. Again with the smell- this one is olivey but not salty and thus, pleasant. This lotion is super thick and best for nighttime when you won't be touching technology for awhile. Best for those of us who only shave our legs every other full moon.
  4. Whitley. This band is like moisturizer for your brain. Some of the songs on their album "Submarine" will make you cry with their sweet melodies and sad relationships. Keep tissues close.
  5. Russell + Hazel To-Do Lists. This store in general is in its own caliber of beauty, but these notes already have bubbles for you to check when you've completed something. They are minimalist in color and font plus are sticky enough to stick more than once.
  6. Starbucks Black Iced Tea Lemonade. Get half ice and a pump of classic sweetener and you've got yourself a summer day in a cup for less than a lot of their lattes.
  7. Frisbee. This sport is much more low-contact than I anticipated and is helping with my hand-eye coordination. Plus, there is minimal running, minimal shoes and maximum low-impact outside time.
  8. Pilot V5 Pens in Black. These are my go-to note taking pens. They don't bleed through notebook paper, write perfectly without being too inky, and I've yet to use one in its entirety.
  9. Kiss My Face Sport Lip Balm. These people are awesome and their lip balm tastes like lemonade. Plus SPF 30 for we whiteys.
  10. English Tea Store Earl Grey. This brand of earl grey flies out of our pantry faster than we can have it shipped. The tea bags are huge and good for at least 2 cups of caffeinated, bergamot goodness.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Spontaneity is my name, hard to spell is my game.

Wait, scratch that last part. Sort of.
I took a spontaneous trip to Indiana this weekend on a mission to surprise The Girl Who Has To Pee and was totally successful. I threw pebbles at her bedroom window and yielded great surprised-face results. Hating surprises is totally a one-way street for me. Giving is WAY different than getting.
Anyway, I checked out the stomping grounds while I was there and I have, apparently, been incredibly misinformed of Indiana's climate. It was 75-80 degrees and sunny the entire time I was there and my flight home was delayed due to rainstorms in Minneapolis. Very suspicious.
I also had a very pleasant run-in with Ohio, where I'd never been before. And thankfully The Future President of Africa knows that I like to know when I've crossed state lines. Blog, sometime remind me to tell you about the time I was in Washington and didn't even know it until I was on a very crowded lazy river at a pool and capsized my tube when I saw the Washington flag. Actually that's kind of the whole story. Me. Swimsuit. Shouting. Splash. Whining.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Easter Candy. (From this year). (Probably).

My room is fittingly messy right now. It is a reflection of my present mental state. I am currently re-doing my junior year of high school. Less AP U.S. History and more college search engines. It turns out this process is just as stressful the second time around, although I'm glad there isn't an upcoming dance occurring that I have to fail to pretend to like.
If you're a college, I will take your application and application fee waivers. If you are a trash can, shelves, or hangers, please come to my room.
It may be messy, but at least it is intuitively so. I call the left front corner "Boots" (4 pairs). The right front corner is "Black Sweaters I Wore Today" (3). The general center area is called "Books" (22, various sorts: Novel, Novella, Note, Lesbian, Amish, Travel, Ecology, Travel Ecology, Collegiate Handbooks, Uncategorized).

Friday, April 03, 2009

And then Sonny popped out. How metaphorical.

I can only speak for my own college experience, but being friends with Sandwich Lady and That Girl has taught me that perhaps my college experience is a little more...mild than most. Clubbing and dancing are things that happen in Dirty Dancing and Thursdays are usually prefaced not with "Thirsty" but with "Sleeping" or "Cookies" maybe "Grey's Anatomy Reruns".
I avoid most of this because every time I do go out, I spend my time failing to convince women that I'm not gay and perfecting my awkward presence in a room. So imagine my roommate's surprise when I told them last night that I wanted to go to the Townhouse. My surprise on the matter was more or less equal to theirs, but judging by their reactions, you would have thought I'd told them I was actually gay. And that I was also going to write a personal check for $5000 to each of them.
So they put on their vests and ties, and I put on my newly inherited boots of confidence, and we made our way down Snelling. I saw my first real-life drag show (all of those movies in my Lesbian Context lit class did not due these women justice) and personally congratulated the woman who did Britney's "Circus". But it was the one dressed up as preggo Cher that convinced me that this is perhaps something that I need to be involved in.
Stay tuned- this girl goes out on THURSDAYS!

Monday, March 30, 2009

Mother Hen

"Kelsey, this new soap smells like shampoo."
"..."
"Kelsey, did you and Rachel put shampoo in the soap bottle while I was gone?"
"..."
"Kelsey, why did you and Rachel put shampoo in the hand soap bottle?"
"Well we didn't know where you kept the soap!"

I wouldn't say that it's "good" to be back, because while I lugged six or seven books around France, none of them were read because they were all "mandatory" and thus, "boring". I am now using the jet-laggedness that I thought I had sneakily avoided for productivity and paper-writing. And soap-filling and fridge-cleaning and milk-smelling because it appears that some of my roommates have forgotten how to live civilized lives.

Currently taking advice on how to confront one roommate about her dating habits and how she's not allowed to bring DudeBro over here not because of his backwards hat, but because we do not support cheating and other-woman-habits in this living space. And maybe also because of his backwards hat.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

After School Special

This terminal of the Charles de Gaulle airport is shaped sort of like what I imagine Noah's Ark was like. Except two fewer giraffes. Although I did find out what a giraffe is in France, and I like it almost as much as I like giraffes the giraffes. What's that? This post is seemingly random thoughts strung together by an excuse for punctuation? Oh. Right. Lack of sleep is kicking in.

I've been traveling Han Solo for somewhere around 15 hours now. There were trains, there were connections, there were transfers. There was French I did not understand, there were made up hotels that I'm sure translate to "Hotel Shady" directly, and there were bus rides. Angry French people mocked me, some nice French people helped me, and one French person offered me a tiny wheel chair to sleep in at the airport- for which I was grateful.
So. Here I sit. In the Ark. Waiting to board my plane to Detroit in...3 hours. I've decided that there is a whole lot of waiting in the traveling experience. And while I'm not a particularly patient person, I've learned from this adventure that I don't mind waiting in this situation. Waiting means that I am in transit from point A to point B, or now, point T to point U (time passed in the thought process of what comes after U). I like the waiting because it means that I am not crying to a stranger who speaks a different language than me. Crying while waiting on public modes of transportation is mostly okay, crying on the borrowed phone at a hotel who doesn't recognize my confirmation number is harder.
Traveling alone falls in the same category as packing, public speaking, important conversations, and seeing someone for the first time in a long time. General, unadulterated stress. Often requiring medication or tears or, as in this adventure, both. I wish I had come up with an answer last night when Jacob gently asked me what about situations like this make me cry uncontrollably, but I was without explination. It's not like I think I'll never get home. I'm actually 100% certain that I'll get home. Or at least...90% certain.
But even when I've bent further than I thought my breaking point ever was, I would gladly get on the same planes for the same long flights, even the hotel confusion and night at the airport to do this adventure again. I guess that's the thing about fear, no matter how scary it is, most speeches go well, important conversations are ones that are crucial and seeing someone for the first time in a long time is usually not horrible, but a massive relief. Because let's face it, some of these tears are for the anxiety, but most are because I'm leaving this place.
So, here's to being brave. Because maybe that's what I do now. I will cheers you with my Orangina and chocolate French cookies that I have re-named "Tummy Ache Cookies" and we will enjoy my airport breakfast together.

Monday, March 23, 2009

My Taylor Sweater is the perfect warmth.

I would describe the weather here as relatively comparable to the weather at home, except...better.  When they say "fair" and "partly cloudy" here, they really mean "sunny" and 54 degrees seems to be an underestimate or possibly in Celsius...I never was good at that conversion.   In St. Paul, "54 and partly cloudy" typically means "40 degrees and you can sometimes see evidence of a blue sky in the small holes between the clouds.  Also, probably anticipate frozen rain and smelly, post-snow ground".  
I've spent a fair amount of time outside because of this warm front, even though Jacob insists that he is "disappointed that the weather isn't nicer".  Friday was spent on the beach getting sand into every page of my book and body and watching beachlike sports.  The weekend mostly involved cooking and consuming various foodstuffs and convincing certain parties that Gossip Girl is a worth while show and was importantly the 2nd thing I packed before leaving (1st: my broken watch that I brought to France to be fixed instead of walking the 2 blocks to the crotchety old man in Highland Park).  
Other highlights include:
  1.  The current smell of the banana bread cooking in the oven.  Resisting urge to see if it's done...again. 
  2. French Mass. Still comforting, still don't know the Apostle's (Nicene? Damnit!) Creed without the entire congregation backing me up. 
  3. First Limoncello experience.  To be followed by more Limoncello experiences. 
  4. Bisous.  I'm still struggling to figure out when they're appropriate, but it's turning into less weird and more fun. 

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Trying to remember that bisous are totally normal. Personal space, mershonal shpace.

Salut! 
I hear that's French for...something.  And in the ten days or so that I'm hanging out in Western France, the least I can do is figure out how to greet people when I walk into a room.  They think I'm awkward because I would speak negative French if that were possible, but they've only just met me and don't know that's my natural state.  In due time, Frenchies. 
I'm currently sitting at a big wooden desk using a computer that has almost entirely Frenched Blogspot and has degrees in celcius.  I came back from a walk this morning with half a warm baguette in hand and walked into the house that I'm staying in to middle age woman who seems out of place in this here student house (Read discription here, as written accurately by my host).  I'm walking in alone, without my transla-erh...Jacob and am instantly vulnerable.  She mumbles what is likely yet another greeting I don't know and I say something mousily (?) under my breath that I hope sounds greeting-ish.  It appears that she is cleaning, so I scamper into a room and rip pieces off of my baguette and catch the interwebs up with my adventure, trying to gague where Middle Age is in the house, and if that place is the bathroom because I can't hold it a lot longer. 

Ahhnnyway.  France (first typed: Franch. That could totally be a grossnasty salad dressing) is fantastic.  After a solid 345309 of traveling, Jacob and I spent yesterday in Nantes walking around in the sun and drooling over H&M finds and small, well dressed children.  My flight times were on my side for the time change, so assuming I stay awake for the next two hours, there is a beach with my name on it.  
More later, nothing motivates increased posting like international adventures! 

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

New Vocabulary

I spend most of my time wishing I had gone to college further away from home than I do. Like, in Holland or Romania. Or one of the poles. But okay, I guess sometimes it's nice to be able to come home for a little lovin' when you get homesick 20 minutes away. Or when three of your four roommates have the flu. Or when you want a small terrier to cuddle with you on the couch. Or when you're out of quarters, detergent, dryer sheets and underwear.
I came home tonight for all of the above reasons, plus to see the most recent face lift on the house. It's an adventure every time I come home now, but most recently, I've decided that if someone dropped me blindfolded in any room of the house I grew up in, it is likely I wouldn't recognize my surroundings. I'm sitting in my bedroom right now and the sound of my fingers slapping the keys is echoing off my shiny new wood floors. Which, apparently, were hiding under the grass green shag carpet I had for 20 years. My mother told me someone offered to buy my bedroom set. I didn't really know I had a bedroom set. There's new carpet running around most of the house, a type called, "berber" which, to me, is only a funny word. I found new furniture in the room that I think is called the living room, but it's now one of those living rooms that you don't really live in because the furniture is much too fancy for humans. I think there is leather in there, but I've been too afraid to actually sit on it and see.
So, yes, it's nice to be home. It is home because it has the same rickety old mailbox and now fancy, but still scary basement whose steps I still must run up. And the snoring. Snoring definitely makes a house a home.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Purging my soul of sin before ashes!

Blog, you are an instigator of procrastination. But if Sunday nights are not for procrastination, what are they for? Mass? What? Haven't been in weeks? Shhh.

Hey! I went to the casino this weekend! That's right. High roller playin' Blackjack. I now know how to play one card game, and won money in the learning process. Then I went to the slot machines and decided that pulling that lever is just as fun as I always imagined, but more expensive. It is likely that throwing money from my pocket onto the carpet at Mystic where cheap beer and cigarette must mask the tackiness of the pattern, would have been a slower way to lose cash money*.

I also went to a Timberwolves game on Friday night. Swanky, delicious raviolis were consumed beforehand, shortly followed by the realization that basketball players are a lot bigger when they're only a few feet away. And not feet from the TV to the couch. Although we didn't make it on the KissCam, apparently sitting behind the only Pacers fan in the stadium gets you some screen time in Indiana. It took the first half of the first quarter for Drunk Pacer Dude Fan to convince us to cease our Timberwolves "support" and put ourselves behind the Pacers. Which obviously worked when they won.

Abrupt ending! Homework time! It's like Tool Time but with less Tim Allen and more Google searches of Johnathan Taylor Thomas!

*Totally enamored with Lil' Wayne right now. Google that man and learn about his cough-syrup consumption, the time he shot himself at age 9, and his prolific rap career. Lil' Wayne says "cash money", so I say "cash money". It's a street cred thing. You might not understand.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Working hard to avoid unnecessary abbreviations.

Hiya.
Realizations for 17 February 2009:
  • Today is not Monday.
  • Why are things with fewer things more expensive? Fluoride-free toothpaste, for example. Who am I paying to remove things from my things?
  • The level of aloofness in my apartment may have allowed for a boy to move in. That is the only excuse for the level of disgusting the kitchen has risen to.
  • Birthdays go on as long as the streamers are kept up.
  • Stone Butch Blues: too sad to read before bedtime.
  • Honey Nut Cheerios: giving me dreams about family members dying.
  • Perhaps have discovered a way to bottle post-Honey Nut Cheerios milk for resale.
  • Twitter: it's a good time. You may have noticed how the previous seven bullet points could have been seven separate Tweets. At first, I didn't know if I could channel thoughts to 140 characters, now I feel as though they have a 140 character limit. Working on drawing the line between Twitter and Blog.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

"Welcome to your twenties"

Hey Blog! Sorry I promise I didn't forget about you, I was just very busy turning one year older. As birthdays go, this one rocked. Although if you're a public surprise-hater like myself, you know that quiet birthdays are never a good sign. You know they haven't forgotten...they've made casual, obligatory, awkward references to the day:
  • "Oh. Yeah, your birthday is next week...that's right..."
  • "Do you have plans with your family on your birthday? I mean, I was just....wondering."
  • "Don't make plans the day after your birthday."
  • "Hold on. I have to take this call in the hallway. Away from you."
I've decided I should start telling people I love surprises because the second you tell people how much you hate surprises, they start planning. I'll admit, there is no joy like totally exploiting someones hate for surprises, but I think there's extra time in purgatory for getting joy out of such angst.
I woke up to Isle Bun & Coffee from Wit-Knee! because she knows me well and knows that you should need a special license to indulge in something as delicious as these cinnamon rolls. The next night was a roommate fest of piñatas, streamers, Turkish food and toxic amounts of fun.

All in all, it was a lovely birthday, yes, maybe even with the surprises.
Although next year, I promise that if you just tell me where to be and what's going down, I will act surprised and will forfeit less sleep. Deal? Deal.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Known to Drag Feet


This is Pokey. You may remember Pokey as Gumby's best friend. You also may remember Pokey if you have ever met me, because, as it turns out, we are the same being. I have many Gumbys in my life, according to this description, and the little, bendy Pokey pictured above was a Christmas gift from Kelsey Roommate after I made her watch a few episodes of Gumby with me on YouTube (all of that emotional investment happened in a matter of minutes, because apparently all Gumby episodes were only five minutes long).

However, I scored a new job a few weeks ago walking two dogs for a lady in the neighborhood, because apparently working at a hardware store isn't the only place that will hire me with a complete lack of qualification. And these dogs? These big dogs called Franklin and Bogey (!!!)? They are muffins. And they make me think that, probably, at some, soonish point in my life, I would like to have an animal to keep this bendy Pokey company. A breathing, eating, bag-on-walks-needing, four-legged animal to be friends with bendy Pokey without eating him.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Esophageal. Only a funny word until you have cancer of it.

I am having quite the time separating dream life from reality life. But not in the way that causes me to spend $50 on a CBS TV show. The kind where I wake up unsure of my surroundings, whether or not I've had important, relationship-defining conversations, what and where my pets are, whether or not I have taken street drugs and what kind of cancer I have. This is a problem that has plagued me for several years now, and I'm thinking it's time for some pro-activity about it.

Perhaps I will try and alter my day-time habits to settle my dream life a bit. Which food is it that makes me dream that I am in Cuba learning how to cook outside in the warm sun? What time should I stop drinking tea and eating cookies? Perhaps I should pick up yoga again?

I can't say for sure that my first Planet Earth experience* last night helped. I watched "Prairies" on the big screen in our building and it was a seriously traumatic, emotional experience. Beauty? Yes! Plants growing before your eyes? Yes! Baby animals? Yes! Animal attacks? Yes! Animal attacks on baby animals? I don't know because I closed my eyes. But judging by the sounds my roommates made, the ominous orchestral music, and the somber tone in David Attenborough's voice, all signs point to dead pika babies.

*That makes it sound like I came to planet earth for the first time last night. And it was a total mind$@*#. Wouldn't it be, though?

Monday, January 12, 2009

Winter affects us all in different ways.

I'm knocking on wood while I'm still at home and there is still real wood in my life when I tell you that I don't have mono yet. Or, at least I don't think so. There were those twelve hours of sleep I slept a few nights ago, and the nap I took earlier that day. But those could totally be written off as non-mono by the following things:
  • Being tired
  • Winter
  • Darkness
  • Horizontal surfaces
  • Being myself
  • Cuddly dog who hates winter also
  • Food intake: sleep helps with the digestion
  • Absence of friends who teased me with a visit home for "break". Which my brain mistakenly translates as "home permanently".
Speaking of that cuddly dog, I found her chewing on a tiny glass shard today. And that's the second time I've found her doing this in a week. There was no evidence of blood or mouth-cutage, but riddle me this: Which is more concerning: Finding glass shards frequently in the house, or that I have a canine who enjoys glass shards as snacks?

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

IV of the C, please.


  • Communal cookie dough bucket
  • King-sized memory foam bed (I typed 'phone' at first. Memory phone bed?! COOL!) This leads to each individual having their own, personal "valley" in the mattress which your anxious bed mate will sometimes invade for a laugh at 2 am.
  • Communal tooth paste
  • Microwave bacon, fingers necessary for preparation.
  • "Can I have a drink of your water?"
  • "I'm driving, will you please feed the Cinnastix to me?"

What do these things all have in common? Things that shouldn't happen when one of you unknowingly has mono. It will be an epiphany miracle if Sandwich Lady kept her mono to herself during the weekend at this beautiful cabin. Stay tuned!