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 (!!!).

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.

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.