The only reason I am even remotely excited to move back in with my parents: my apartment: a review

Sitting dead center in a swarm of fruit flies, I can't even make out the walls of my apartment enough to find the front door. Luckily, the hallway is so narrow that I can easily reach out and touch the wall regardless of where I am standing in the hall. I stumble my way into the bathroom only to discover that the light, which is cleverly hidden behind the mirror, has been haunted by the phantom in our apartment again, which doesn't  allow a light bulb to last more than a week before blowing. If hideous were a physical being, it would look like our bathroom. Our small, need-to-stand-on-the-toilet-to-shut-the-door bathroom that's trying to look cute with the pink vomited on the floors and walls, but just looks like it's trying too hard. A lot of people think that my roommate and I have destroyed the bathroom with our lack of cleanliness, but the mold in the shower is the product of years of neglect. No one could do that much damage in a year.

Exiting the bathroom, you'll notice that you're conveniently located in the kitchen, only it isn't convenient at all because who wants to be cooking a meal when their roommate is literally right beside you using the bathroom? That thought aside, the kitchen is well equipped with an Easy-Bake Oven sized oven that will surely make preparing a meal difficult despite the overwhelming growling in your stomach. You could always use the microwave you bought on sale at Kmart, but that generally causes a power shortage for the whole apartment, so it's probably easier to wait the hour longer than the box suggests to cook your food in the oven. Just don't expect to host Thanksgiving dinner at your place this year.

Leaving the kitchen, you're back in the way-too-narrow hallway, making your way to the bedrooms. You have two options here: the teeny tiny room with the built-in shelving complete with cow pattern and no lights, or the much larger bedroom where the heat doesn't work and the window has a terrible draft. Don't worry too much because both rooms are equally unappealing aesthetically and you won't want to walk around without shoes in either room. The choice really can be decided by the flip of a coin.

Last, and certainly least, you'll find yourself in the living room. The living room with the closets in it because the bedrooms are too small to house them, and the living room which could be a nice sized room if only the ceiling wasn't slanted in such a way that you can barely stand up. Tall people: proceed with caution. In the living room you will find our "dirty" coloring book wall and a poster of Barbie and Ken, which came with the apartment. The furniture is all Recycle North and stolen from Spinner, which adds a very homey Poor College kid vibe that both comforts and repulses.

The moral: when looking for apartments in Burlington, choose your apartment for the apartment, not for the price tag.

Me, myself, and I

In honor of yesterday, my roommate Leah and I hosted an "I hate Valentine's Day" potluck at our apartment and, of course, watched Garry Marshall's Valentine's Day as a part of the festivities. And there was one scene that actually made me stop and think. One character insightfully said: "When you love someone, you love ALL of them. Not just the good parts, but the bad ones too." It's a wonderful sentiment, and a particularly optimistic one, but it's completely untrue for me. I find one reason to hate someone and let that eat away at me until there's nothing left. And I hate that about myself. I always tell myself when I meet someone new that I'm not going to do it, but I find that once we've stopped speaking that I did do it without realizing that I was. And then I say that at least I'm self-aware. But what has that really gotten me?

All that being said, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. I was wrong.

I think it's important to know where your strengths lie and what your weaknesses are, and consciously try to improve on them. I think it may be the most important thing. Because no matter how many relationships you have in your life, you'll be with yourself the longest. And that's the one you really need to work on. So, in honor of Valentine's Day and the romance and couple-ness that goes along with it, I'm going to review myself.

In the words of the immortal Marilyn Monroe, "I'm selfish, impatient, and a little bit insecure."

As much as I love you, I love me more and I always will. The only thing I love more than myself is my cat, Clutch, and that's only because she doesn't need me. I'm independent to a flaw, or at least I want everyone to think that I am, but I'm also the loneliest person that I know. I get annoyed when you talk to me too much, and I get annoyed when you talk to me too little. I will never admit to you that my thoughts contradict each other.

I don't talk about my feelings and I don't want you to talk about yours. I won't tell you when something is wrong, but I will expect you to read my mind. I have an extremely short temper and tendencies towards the dramatic. I can be really unforgiving and a total bitch.

And now that you're all really turned off, let me try to think of the positives, which are a lot more difficult for me to talk about.

My memory is selective. In your favor. I may get mad and blow up at you with a laundry list of complaints, but the following day, week, month, year I will ALWAYS only remember the things I did wrong and the things you did right. You just have to wait out the anger.

I am shockingly, almost unbelievably undemanding. (Although some people may disagree with this one.) I can count the number of things I have asked boyfriends to do for me on my fingers and toes. That being said, if I do ask you do something and you don't, I will pout, sulk, yell, explode, and generally not be please with you. I may not like all the things you do, but I will never tell you not to do something. I hate making decisions, so I will go along with almost any idea you come up with. If you ask me to try something, I have to really not want to do it to say no. I will try to make you happy even if it makes me less so, relationships and friends alike.

Even if I am terrible in a relationship, I am a really good friend. I may talk until your ears bleed, but I'm also a good listener. I ask people how their day is because I honestly want to know. I may be a bitch, but I also care about people. If you lie, I will swear to it. If you need to hide a body, I will help you and not tell a soul. And I know how to take one for the team. If you have an annoying friend who needs to be kept company while you hit a cute guy/girl, I am your girl. I can smile and make nice with the best of them.

I know how to laugh at myself, and I do often. I can take a joke at my expense and I'm not easily offended. I love beer and sports, and I adore any cat, dog, fish, hedgehog, snake, or any other pet that you may have. Except spiders. A girl has to draw the line somewhere.

I tried to make it fairly balanced, but I'm starting to think that posting this is going to blacken my future love life considerably, but life is all about risks, right? And I've got to say, this is the most narcissistic thing I've ever done. It was kind of fun.

Happy day after Valentine's Day, everyone <3

Pills Rattle

I am not a poet. But I am trying to get myself ready for a semester of Capstone work, and this is what came out from thinking about my Capstone this evening. Maybe posting this is the therapeutic part of writing it. Enjoy!

In her dreams
He's
One giant pill
The big blue rectangle, not the harmless white circle
And she can’t tell the difference
Between that
And the real thing

She thinks she should stop him
But there’s nothing you can do, she tells herself
You’re only 16, she says to the mirror
He did this to himself, she whispers to her teddy bear
But it doesn’t help
Dull the pain she feels
For letting it happen to him

The guilt keeps building
Everywhere she is, Guilt is too
Until she thinks she’s going to break
Burst at the fraying thread seams
And the burden of keeping it a secret cripples her
And she wonders how they don’t know

Pills rattle again and again
Disappearing one after another after another
Until there is nothing left of him
Her parents don’t notice
Until it is much too late to save him
Mother cries, Father yells
Then Father cries and Mother yells
And they ask her: did she know?

Did she know?

A little rant

I hate texting. No, not hate, loathe. If I were to ever meet the person who invented texting I would give them a big ole' Archie slap right across their face. (Side note: if you don't know what an Archie slap is, check out Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla immediately.) I would slap them and then I would storm away in a huff.

Sure, texting is useful for some things. When my roommate's at work and I need to remind her to pay the bills when she gets home, it would be inappropriate to call, but I will probably forget before I actually see her, so I send her a quick text to remind her. When I'm bored in class, I occasionally text to pass the time. The other day my mother sent me a picture of their Christmas tree and it was nice because a phone call describing it would not have done it justice. If I want to tell someone something quick that doesn't need any sort of response, a text works nicely. So, I admit that it's useful at time, but in general, I hate it.

And I can't escape because that's the primary way that people are communicating. I can't remember the last time my phone rang and it was anyone other than my mother or father calling. People text, so I text. I'm just like everyone else--I want to be kept in the loop and I'm afraid that I'll miss all the gossip and invitations to do stuff if I didn't.

I hate how fake everyone is through text. It's like how I imagine online dating to be--you're only going to show your best side and hide away all your craziness and neurosis to unleash at a time when you are having that actual, rare face-to-face interaction. I hate getting to know someone through texting. It takes me an hour to think of something clever, yet casual, to say, and then another hour analyzing what I sent and thinking of all the better things I could have said. And by then he's responded and I have to think of more endearing things to say.

I'm not witty over text. I'm not funny or engaging. I came across as soulless and flat as the piece of technology that I’m being read and analyzed over. You can't be sarcastic over text or pick on someone affectionately--you end up coming across as a snide, rude bitch. Which I am not. (Obviously.)

And then you find yourself sitting with your phone in your lap, willing it to go off, channeling all of your telekinetic powers to tell that phone to flash the message you've been waiting for. And when it doesn't, you obsessively read through your text conversation, searching for what you said wrong. Did he really think that funny story that you sent him was funny or was his "haha" just being polite? And maybe you should have been a little more open-ended and inviting with your responses to his questions. Remember all that craziness and neurosis that I was talking about before? Well it's in full force now.

I have a phone. It dials and accepts calls. Try it sometime. We can have an actual conversation. You can use that conversation to ask me out on a real date, where I can be awkward and vulnerable instead of just being a series of perfectly pieced together texts. I'll say something, you can say something back, you can ask questions, I can answer them and ask you more, and we can really get to know each other, neurosis and all.

I'm back, with my tail between my legs, begging forgiveness

I'm ashamed to have to admit to how poor of a blogger I have been, and still am. I'm young. I'm hip. Aren't I? I'm a product of the digital age. I have electricity now and a fancy, schmancy desktop that is just aching to be used for more than playing The Sims. And I'm a writer. I should be ON TOP of the blogging scene. I should be the blogging master. But I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm a paper elitist. I like to handwrite things. I don't think there's anything better than putting a pen to paper and seeing what comes out.

And I'll tell you something else: I don't like to do things half-assed. If I can't commit myself to something 100%, I don't see the point in doing it, and so I just sweep it under the rug and forget about it. I started this blog last year because one of my professors told us that we had to start blogging and what came out was stiff, rigid, and blatantly academic. You can take a look--all those things labeled, "Capstone, Core, Champlain" etc. are all assignments that I completed for a class. The blog didn't feel like mine and so I just kind of gave up on it after the semester ended. But now I'm back and I've got a whole new "taking my life back" attitude, and guess what? I'm taking my blog back.

I think I need this blog. I think it will be therapeutic to start writing again. And I mean, really writing. About more than just assignments and class work. I want to write about things that interest me and that don't involve Champlain College. I've been in a rut lately. People used to call me the Love Doctor because I always wrote love stories, but I haven't been feeling very loving for a while now, and so I've been lost in my writing. What does a Love Doctor do when they aren't feeling loving? That's something that I've been struggling with. But as I said, I'm taking my life back. I'm taking my love back.

So, I'm sorry that I've been shitty. I've been just as shitty to be around in person, I can promise you. But I'm going to try to be better now and keep this thing updated more than once in a millennia. And who knows what will happen? Maybe we can build a beautiful friendship.

<3

Fact: sometimes I feel like a fraud

Sometimes I wonder who I’m trying to convince when I call myself a “writer.” Whose approval am I after, anyway? Maybe my mother was right all those times that she’s told me that it’s pointless to be a writing major. Maybe I’m just wasting my time. Sometimes I feel like no matter what I do or how hard I try, I’ll never be good enough. I’ll never “make it.”

I look at the writers around me, the outstanding women that I am lucky enough to share a major and a classroom with, and I can’t help comparing myself to them. They all have such drive and focus on these fantastic goals that they are trying so hard to achieve, and I don’t doubt that every single one of them will be successful in their endeavors. And then I look at myself. Just the other day I was asked what I was planning to do after graduation, and I said, “I don’t know. Probably become a receptionist.”

Sometimes I think I want to become a publisher. Sometimes I want to be an editor. Sometimes I really want to review movies or book for Entertainment magazine. Always there’s this nagging feeling in the back of my head that says that I’ll have to become an escort to pay back my loans. And yes, this is a profession I have considered. I can’t dance so stripping is out, I would laugh as a phone sex operator, and it’s classier than a regular prostitute (and by classier, I mean, the men in question using the service are probably wealthier).

Am I the only one who feels this way?