“You were right, now let’s just move on with our lives” February 8, 2010

Right now I’m pretty sure my eyes are still a little  on the puffy side after my full blown mental, and apparently physical, meltdown at the charming hour of 7:00 am. You see, I am an irresponsible, impulsive twat who needs to get her way when she desperately wants something regardless of how imbessilic it may be. This being said, my car, my beautiful glorious cute new little sports car is currently stuck, wedged atop what I can only describe as an aggravating frozen mound of ice and my crushed hopes and dreams. Luckily it’s in my parking spot at my apartment, but it’s completely immobile, I can’t move it forwards or back, so now it’s permanently at the awkward, ass- out in the street angle that it decided to stay at when I was pulling out for school a few hours ago. I tried everything: turning it, rocking it, kitty litter, screaming like a banshee- nothing worked. Finally I decided to pretty much give up on my will to live and ask John for help after 15 minutes of this maddening shit, and on my way in to the house I slip on ice on the front step on smash my knee into the entryway tile.

At this point I’m just hysterical, crying in pure defeat. He tries to help but no such luck, I’m stuck, like, just- kill -me- now stuck. So he goes back inside and I grab a shovel and just start stabbing at the impenetrable ice fortress that has been put there to make me realize my utter stupidity and lack of useable common sense. The sheep irony is that until this point I hadn’t had an issue driving in the snow and winter yet, not anything dramatic really, and I had been mentally composing a blog entry titled “Suck it haters” as a tribute to all the shit that people gave me when I bought the car. It was going to be my less than subtle way of saying that I’m not so stupid after all, but rather badass and savvy, naturally this couldn’t stand and now here I am: swollen knee, puffy eyes, and the biggest sense of defeat just eating at me.

I did make it to school, but only because John took pity on me (it may be the only way I’ve actually survived for 25 years) and today we are a one car household, so I took him to work then came to school, then I have to pick him up at 4:30, then we have to come back to OSU so I can take a 5:30 midterm and he has to wait around an hour for me and then he has a class that we have to go to a different college for. It’s going to be a miserable day, especially since after mentally admitting defeat I did it out loud, I told John he was right, and more devastatingly, I was wrong. God I hate it.

whilst on the bus… January 27, 2010

On my way to class  this morning I rode the bus and enjoyed the self imposed silence that is customary, and looked around at strangers in judgement as I usually do. Right in front of me I see a disheveled guy who had clearly rolled out of bed and rushed to school, as was evident from the 3 inch smear of encrusted toothpaste emblazoning his right cheek. I was exhausted but strangely fixated upon this wonder, how do you not realize that half of your face is a charming  light blue tint, flaking in shame? I stared at his cheek for a good five minutes pondering if I should tell him. In the end I decided that I was perfectly ok with not interrupting our mutual peace, and to let him go the rest of the day looking like a gay porn star.

The tight pants debacle January 22, 2010

About two weeks before the glorious pig-out time that was Christmas I made myself a pact: I was allowed to gain up to five pounds over the holidays and I wasn’t allowed to think about it until post New Year. John’s mom does this crazy spread on Christmas Eve of about 15 different appetizers, the glory of that whole night is profound. I was estimating that I would easily be two pounds heavier come Christmas morning, but I was ok with that for two reasons:

1. Every single day for about two works before and after Christmas there is nothing for me but the rich, decadent food that I crave all year. Not indulging in such happiness for the sake of a few pounds is stupid.

And 2. I figured that once I got back home that I would return to my normal eating habits and I would just burn the weight right off with the obscene amount of walking that I do at school.

My plan was genius until the first day of school, which was the start of a terrible 2 1/2 week cold freeze and slew of blizzards. Turns out that when you aren’t lost or exploring campus, as I often was fall quarter, then you really don’t have to walk around much if you don’t want to. I’ve figured out all the shortcuts and ways to avoid being out in the cold more than absolutely necessary. As such my plan has failed. I could force myself to walk around more, but at this point I’ve started to consider the five extra pounds as merely an extra layer- like a sweater, a lovehandle sweater.

My pants are still a little too tight for comfort, you know when you have to do the jump thing to fully get into them, and then after a while you clearly have the imprint of the waist band firmly imbedded  in your squishy flesh? That’s me now, and yes, it’s just as sexy as it sounds.

 I’m starting to think of those extra five pounds that people just can’t seem to lose post-holidays as being like house guests: Around the holidays you’re like “The more the merrier! Come on in guys, it’s a party!”, then a few weeks later you’re like “What the?!? What are you guys still doing here? New Years was three weeks ago, this is just getting ridiculous!”. So my house guests have much overstayed their welcome and I’ve gotten annoyed enough to actually begin caring. The sick thing is that I have full use of the enormous, state of the art, brand new gym here at OSU. Hell, it’s included as part of my tuition, but I’m ashamed to say that though this is my second quarter here I’ve actually never stepped foot inside it, so I suppose that there really is no one here to blame but myself, and cheese. I’m pretty sure that cheese had a rather large hand in the state of my bloated gut.

As a final note, please don’t misconstrue this for some sad, attention seeking rant about being fat, I know I’m not fat, but five pounds gained or lost on me really does make a notable difference. And mom, I know you’re reading this, I swear upon all things sacred that if you make one comment about me being too skinny anyway that I will start a new blog and hide it from you. So help me God I will!

It might be a little tougher this time…. January 13, 2010

About a week and a half ago I started classes and now I’m beginning to realize that this quarter is clearly to make me its bitch. First off, I’m taking  another 5 credit class than I usually do, leaving my credit hours at a painful to process 20. Plus, all my classes are definitely harder so far, and some of them really aren’t screwing around with the homework, quizes, papers, etc.. My main issue is that it’s fucking freezing, it won’t stop snowing, and all I want to do is sleep. All day, every day since classes began, I want sleep more that food, which is how you really know it’s an issue. I’ve come home after class starving and chosen to take a nap over satiating my poor starving belly. (Not to say that I’m clearly not taking care of that at other times, so no worries there). 

I also have to leave even earlier than I used to because now the normal moronic drivers of Columbus have reached a level of painful ineptitude since the snow has begun falling. It’s like these people go needlessly slow and get into accidents as a form of fun, or sport. So now it takes me forever to get anywhere. I left my house at 7 am this morning, not woke up, but left, which may seem ordinary to many of you but I have to go to work and close a bar tonight, so sitting at rush hour traffic at 7 in the morning is basically as gross as it gets for me.

 Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps it’s the classes, perhaps it’s my infantile need for constant naps,  but I’m really not feeling it this quarter, it’s going to be significantly harder for me to get through and do well I think. Stay tuned I suppose…

what a difference a month makes January 13, 2010

One month ago if I had been asked to describe the current weather my response would have been: “Brrr! It’s almost freezing! I can’t believe that it’s 36 degrees! So cold!”, like the pussy bitch that I am. But now after a miserable three weeks where it’s snowed every single day since New Years, I found myself exclaiming gleefully yesterday upon seeing a blazing hot 29 degrees on the thermometer, ”Oh my God! It’s almost freezing! So nice!”.

This isn’t really noteworthy, or I guess even interesting upon looking over it, but I’ve slacked too much on my posts lately, so you suckers get whatever nonsense creeps into my brain and takes a big crap.

I almost just died January 5, 2010

After school today I get in my car and gleefully remember that I still had half a little bag of the ever glorious Haribo Gummi Bears in my console. I excitedly pull them out to have a snack while my car is warming up, but upon my first bite three fly out of the bag and fall. Naturally I gasp dramatically, because what is more terrifying than the thought of loosing candy shaped like animals?

 But in this overly dramatic gasp I manage to suck in, and detach from my head, one of my foot long red hairs mid-chew. This things shoots down my throat but is still held above stomach level because it has imbedded itself into my precious gummi bear. Suddenly I’m feeling an unexplainable sort of discomfort; wheezing, and choking and gagging  all at once. I start to pull out what had to be the world’s longest hair after I’m pretty sure it had reached my spleen, my eyes are watering uncontrollably and I’m making this intense animatistic hacking noise, feeling very much like a cat whose attempts to eat tinsel had gone terribly awry, resulting in the silver strand of  death being ripped aggressively out of its stomach and mouth by a frantic owner. That is literally what I thought at that exact moment- “I’m like a cat who ate tinsel”, while I was still choking. I was mentally comparing myself to a house cat while choking.

This might be the lamest thing I have ever admitted to.

United we freeze: shoveling, scraping, and shivering in solidarity January 5, 2010

Right now it’s abnormally cold here in Columbus, a fact that randomly seems to bring the wussy people here together. Since moving here years ago I have lost any sort of tolerance  for dealing with the cold, after years of growing up in Colorado and Wisconsin you’d think that I’d have adjusted, but no, within two years of being out of the wintery hell that is Wisconsin I am quite certifiably a pussy. I am a giant pussy.

However, this character flaw has now linked me closer to my fellow Columbusites, who are also, giant pussies. The last week it has been unusually freezing, with bitter winds to boot, but in comparison to other parts of the country, and midwest, we don’t have nearly the worst weather right now. To look around here you’d think that the Arctic Circle had moved dramatically southward based upon how bundled up everyone is. For example, today I am wearing two pairs of socks, long underwear, jeans, a t-shirt, a button-up, a hoodie, knee-high leather boots, a scarf, a parka, and leather gloves. And yet… I was still cold. Watching everyone get re-bundled after classes is like watching people getting ready to go to war; stern and serious, as if those mittens are the only thing saving them from certain death.

I also find it amazing how being in the same miserable situation compels strangers to strike up a conversation. I was scraping off my car at the mall yesterday, as it had gotten covered after only an hour and a half there, when a guy who was scraping off his car next to mine starts talking to me for a good five minutes about my life, it was incredibly random. You see, I, like so many others who live in large cities enjoy the fact that you don’t have to talk to people if you don’t want to, there’s no obligatory forced politeness that comes when living in a small town where you run into the same schmucks weekly. It’s not me being anti-social, this is just how people are here; avoiding annoyance by avoiding interaction, and I think it works out pretty well.

 However, this way of life is utterly ruined when there are other variables, notably bad weather, which just seems to turn people into Chatty Cathy’s. People seem to think that since we’re stuck in freezing cold together, we are as bonded as the icicles are to our cars. I get it; it’s cold, cold sucks, we’re all cold, we’re all miserable. There’s really no reason to make a big deal of it, this is just winter, not the apocalypse.

This happens every winter here: after the first blizzard all the neighbors creep out, like survivors of a bombing, and solemnly begin shoveling and scraping, looking at each other knowingly as if they too were equal victims of this atrocity known as snow. We stand there, no longer alone, but joined in solidarity against nature, and the two inches of snow that are ruining all of our lives.

there is a possibility that I might just hate Christmas. December 17, 2009

Ok, well ‘hate’ is a rather strong word, perhaps… ‘dread’? Yes! I dread Christmas. Not everything about it mind you, I enjoy the base concept of getting together and seeing friends and family you rarely get to spend time with. I enjoy the eating and drinking, and the shooting of the shit. I enjoy the cookies and the pie, I will never dread the pie. I even enjoy playing outside in the snow, because ever since the city of Columbus has apparently outlawed it to ever snow on Christmas the whole thing has become a bit of a fun novelty for me.

However, that’s where it ends. Christmas music? Crap. It’s either something that I’ve heard literally thousands of times since I was a child, or worse: pop Christmas music, or country Christmas music. There is a very long list of things that I’d much prefer to do over voluntarily sitting down and listening to that crap- including cleaning up animal feces and slitting my wrists.

Music aside it’s really shopping and presents that are my main dread of the holiday season. First off, Christmas shopping sucks so hard I need a stiff drink, or two, after doing it for four hours. It’s crowded, people are rude and weirdly focused about “getting the deals”; I just can’t enjoy myself whatsoever, and when I can no longer enjoy shopping then you know that something has gone terribly awry in the universe.

But mostly I hate that Christmas shopping has become this whole thing. Who do you buy for? Do you get a gift for someone just because they bought one for you, even if you don’t think you’re close enough to exchange gifts? How much do you spend? Do you spend less on people whom you think are spending less on you? Or if you spent a lot would it seem condescending? My main complaint here though is that I’ve quite officially reached the age where I don’t want people spending their money on me, if I want something I’ll just buy it for myself.

I hate giving Christmas suggestions because I never have the slightest clue what I want because the only things needed are things that are too expensive for another person to buy for me, at least expensive enough that I would feel incredibly uncomfortable if someone bought it for me. I just don’t want presents anymore, my siblings and I are all adults, do we all really still need to play this game? When kids, nieces and nephews start entering the picture then yes, great, give them a spectacular Christmas, that’s what Christmas is for really, the kids.

I don’t feel I’ll win the battle though, I just keep getting called a Grinch for not wanting to play Christmas anymore. I’d rather we’d just spend that money and go on a fun trip or cruise or something, wouldn’t that provide more lasting, genuine family memories anyway?

Finals done, let the laziness and blogging commence! December 12, 2009

Ok, so I am fully well aware that it’s been almost three weeks since I’ve written anything here, commented on anyone else’s blog, or really even used Facebook. In other words, for three weeks I did not exist. I appreciate the lack of heckling for my absence, and I promise to keep this thing up better, at least until school starts again on Jan. 4th, and then back under my rock I go.

So now, after the end of my first quarter at OSU I feel I can finally make a full analysis: First- I love it there. It’s like it’s the place I was always supposed to be, and once I found my way around I feel very at peace and at home.

Second- I’m actually ok with being older than the average student, because as I started to learn by watching others through the exams over the quarter, my age, experience, maturity and dedication are helping me out massively. I’m not coming in to class hungover because I’m not going to some rowdy underage party, and I’m totally ok with that. I’m not wanting to spend the class talking shit about sorority sisters and oogeling at boys, I love that I’m so far beyond any of those petty distractions. And because I have to work full-time (like an adult), I’ve learned to really make the most of any free time for studying because I have so very little, this is actually helping me prioritize more and procrastinate less.

Third- I did well, real well actually. I got my final grades back yesterday and I am the proud owner of a 4.00 GPA.

And Forth- My God am I tired! Like, real tired. On my first day post finals  I slept until 1:30 in the afternoon, as if my body had been desperately waiting to do that for 3 and a half months. I took more naps this quarter than I think I’ve taken since I was five, which only made me wonder why we ever stopped taking them in the first place. Naps are awesome! *Side note: the tiny leather seats of my Crossfire may be the worst things ever to try to sleep in, and I consider myself a sort of hobo coniseur of sleeping in weird places*.

So even with the stress, the four hours of sleep each night, the utter void of social contact, and the definite feeling that I’m slowing reaching madness, I’m really happy right now and am actually looking quite forward to next quarter where I’ll be taking 20 credit hours instead of the 16 that almost ended me this quarter. Ok, so maybe the madness has already been reached.

I’m like, pretty much a genius November 23, 2009

Last week I had to do an oral exam for my German class as part of my final. In it we had to sit down with an unknown professor, read over a text then have several conversations and a roleplay with them for about 20 minutes, without once slipping out of German naturally.

To say that I was intimated at the prospect of this is an understatement, I was scared shitless, and I let this extreme anxiety get the best of me for about a week beforehand. When the day finally came for my exam, after plenty of studying and preparing I nervously sat down to eat lunch before I went up. That morning however, not really thinking about the day’s events, I packed up leftovers as my lunch. Those leftovers however may have been the worst possible thing a person could eat before doing something nerve-wracking: sauerkraut and sausage.

I’m totally serious, it wasn’t even until I had been nervously scarfing this down for a few moments before it occurred to me that I am eating not only the world’s smelliest food, but it’s also very heavy and may make me gassy.

And to wash this sensible meal down with? I chose a mochachino, because when you’re already anxious you should totally load up on what is essentially a sugar laden hot chocolate with espresso in it, that will calm you down for sure.

Needless to say I was literally shaking for the first five minutes of the oral exam, all the while trying to not get too close so he wouldn’t smell what had to be the worst breath imaginable. Sauerkraut and coffee before an important meeting? Of course, what else would you possible eat? Sign me up for MENSA today!