Archive for October, 2005

Everyday Feels like the Last Day of School

October 20, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” ~Louis Hector Berlioz

I’ve been reminiscing about last fall. Not about pumpkin spice lattes, apples, Halloween or turtlenecks. About business and being crazed and working myself to the point of exhaustion. Nothing screams “Kill me now, please” like working seven days a week for about 14-15 hours a day, while attempting to take and pass a semester’s worth of classes. Last fall was one of those times, when I wished everyday that it was November 3rd. There was an end point. We would be victorious. But November 3rd couldn’t come fast enough. There was an end point, but it felt like the sheer hell I was in would never end. I look back to a year ago and now know that it feels like eons ago. Was there really an election just one year ago? I also know that we would not be victorious, but not something that I care to dwell on. People, make fun, but seriously, it felt like a death in the family. But I digress.

This entire summer, I’ve been bored. So bored that I needed to write about it and remember exactly how the first few months out of college felt. Everyday felt like the last day of school. You’re somewhere and you have to be there, but you’re not doing much. Just kind of hanging out. Everything is casual and nothing feels too pertinent. I complained about that feeling. I also complained about being super busy. I complain a lot. But what I need is a happy medium. It’s like BAM. School’s back, except no one to take me back to school shopping or get me the things I need to make me feel better.

Today has been one of the worst, in terms of madness and craziness. It’s all I can think about. Not about the Friends of Hillary Event or eating dinner at Acadiana or dessert with the so very cute waiter at Vidalia or Happy Hour last night, with some of my new favorites. All I can think about is when this day will be over and that it is possible to eat a roll of Toblerone and a bag of goldfish crackers in one sitting. Where can I get more? The Toblerone, was the worst part though, because it just made me think of Amsterdam last Valentine’s Day.

I complain all too much that things are moving too slowly or how much I want something to end. Why can’t it be over now? The end date is so far away. I did that with the Election, with being in Europe, my birthday, and now with work. How many times have I sat and said to myself “I can’t wait for my birthday!” Now it’s coming and the plans have felt rushed, but I’m sure it will be ok.

I need to relax. Bliss will be nice next month. I’ll need it. Just sit back and enjoy the Toblerone. Things truly do go faster as you get older. Or is the time flying while I’m having fun?

A Great Way to Piss Me Off

October 20, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

…Be someone that I vehemently abhor to the point where there are no words for how I feel about you, then have the audacity to cut in front of me at Starbucks and order some stupid complicated shit (WTF is triple venti??). THEN, stand thisclose to me while waiting for your coffee. Which in turn will cause me to speed walk to work, because I have been so angered by you and just do not like you that much.

Happy Thursday…

Addendum: I promise, promise, promise to write about last night. I have become the least prolific person ever (and I know you have high expectations of me). But for now read here, here and here.

Comfort Levels

October 18, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

“I just wish my mouth had a backspace key. ” ~Author Unknown

I attended Girl Scout camp for 13 years. I went to college in DC for four years. I went to Spain for study abroad. I’ve had six jobs/internships in the last four years. Despite all of these things, I don’t do new people. I don’t like change. Mind you, I make friends easily and I am relatively outgoing. It’s the anticipation that gets me and drives me into the ground. Anticipation that leads to anxiety as to whether or not I’ll do well or if so and so will like me or if I’ll like this new place that I have ended up.

I know that I cannot stop change and new things. Try as I might, that shit keeps coming and I keep bobbing and weaving, hoping to avoid a train wreck that is me completely fucking up, therefore causing others to dislike me. I may not be the person that “they” (whoever they are) were hoping to meet or to work with or to deal with. I stay in my own little comfort zones in order to keep myself from getting hurt.

Slowly though, I am starting to deal. It’s not like I’ve never endured change before or a new place before. I am re-navigating my way around DC, trying to find new places and new things (like the Whole foods with ALCOHOL on P street). Not thinking about what I come across. I want and must meet new people that aren’t part of my core group of friends that I went to college with. Must move on. Wednesday night I’ll be making a big step and meeting people who may absolutely despise me. This will be completely out of my normal comfort level. So far though, they relatively like me, but with this group, there are new dilemmas and questions of “so what do I call you in real life?” I’m getting nervous just thinking about it, but at least I know that we have one very similar thing in common. Well, two if you count a shared like/love of alcohol to be a similarity that will bring people together.

The Great Debate

October 18, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

Besides abortion, the death penalty and whether or not taxes should be considerably higher for the upper class, there is a debate going on in regards to work bathroom styles. Do you prefer a specific stall or do you just go for the first one that catches your eye? Do you prefer to go while no one else is there or does it not matter? Do you rush in and out or do you take your sweet time and do add-ons, like teeth brushing and make up fixing? These are important societal questions that need to be answered. And by need to be answered, I mean to cure my general curiosity. Is there a bathroom personality that everyone has? Is it predetermined or is it something that people come up with on a whim?

Peg says that as a baby, while in a grocery store, in the frozen food aisle, I picked that exact moment to have what they call a ‘blowout’. Right there in between the frozen peas and eggo waffles. She had to drop everything and leave the cart in the middle of the store. It was in that same grocery store, years later, when she taught me the importance of putting toilet paper on the seat as a barrier, “it’s germy. You don’t want to catch anything.” These were the pre-toilet seat paper cover days. Since then I have been a faithful believer that a public toilet needs to be covered, lest I want some venereal disease. Just do it.

13 years of Girl Scout camp and a love of taking a canoe out for a week of camping, taught me how to pop a squat in the woods. I’ve mastered the art of peeing while in a bathing suit, in pajamas or in shorts and a bathing suit, without getting pee allover myself. I was so proud of myself. This art form has carried well into my formative years and beyond, so now I can do so, while drunk. This is so key, as no one likes a drunk girl with pee allover herself.

Dormitory/roommate life, has taught me that truly everyone poops. There’s no shame in my game and I’m not going to hold it, while 14 other people are in the restroom or if the roommate is home. Going abroad and living with someone else kept the crap in me though. This was someone else’s home. I don’t know these people. And God forbid, they think I’m some ridiculous American who has a problem with her digestive tract. That fear went away after the first week. Hell yeah, I held it for that long. After that, I didn’t care if Teresa and Victor and the entire freaking family were in the house. If I had to go, I went. My abroad experience was sandwiched between living alone, where the only person confronted with my bathroom issues was me and I didn’t give a shit. Pardon the pun.

And finally work. Oh, work. I like the second stall. I put a paper cover on it. I don’t enjoy it when anyone else is in there. And let it be known, that if someone else is in there, I will go back and tell, that you were in there and that it freaked me out. Because seriously, no one else is EVER in there.

Now I question myself and my thoughts of bathroom matter. My mother would be mortified that I am speaking of it in such a public matter. Because in reality, it doesn’t matter, because everyone does it. But I have forever wondered if there is more than a biological science to it or if everyone has their own little quirks about it. The great (bathroom) debate continues.

Anti

October 18, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

“There is still no cure for the common birthday.” ~John Glenn

I hate to play woe is me. Really, I do.
I turn 22 next Wednesday. This feels more like a nuisance than anything else. This is the first time EVER that I haven’t cared about my birthday. Maybe it’s the effects of today that is causing it. Work makes me uneasy, but you already knew that.

In general though, I am not into this birthday. Last year, I was counting the days. I even had a little countdown going on in my profile. I was pumped and I didn’t give a shit that it was exactly one week before Election Day. I was going all out.

This year? Ummm yeah. I’m contemplating not doing anything at all, because a) I really don’t feel like it b) my friends are all being weird and going through this weird “I’m all about work and/or my significant other phase” and I’m too busy rolling my eyes about it and c) it’s such an insignificant birthday.Feel free to berate me now though for being a whiny brat, because in actuality I need to suck it up and do whatever I damn well please for my birthday and if people can’t be happy, then that’s their thing, not mine. Why is it that I can write about it and type it out, but I cannot seem to convince myself of this?