Wandering Sparkle

reminiscent overdose

2009-01-09T16:16:00.002-06:00

Describing an eccentric high school buddy to a friend last night, I broke out my senior year scrapbook to demonstrate through pictures. And there, on pages 7-8, I entered my existential ex-boyfriend hell. On the right, the boy I was still heartbroken over, and on the left, you, the boy I was just beginning to fall in love with.

There was a letter from you tucked behind our prom picture, and it took me back. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I see clearly now what I did. You thought they were all your friends, but I knew they weren't, and I isolated myself from my own to protect you from the hurt.

My closest friends stuck with me anyway, pretended not to mind that they had become an afterthought, penciled in when I wasn't with you. No, thank God, I didn't lose them. But I lost a piece of myself. I lost the part of me who loved to be surrounded by people and allowed you to replace the crowd, settling instead for quiet nights in front of the TV. An old woman at eighteen.

Which was unhealthy, but not unpleasant, until we came to college and you found your niche (which happened to be the restaurant working, ecstasy popping scene). You quickly distanced yourself from the pseudo-friends and found new ones who thought you were fun and interesting. And then I was an afterthought.

It's like when Aleksandr talked Carrie into ditching her dinner party to hold his hand at his art show, then left her standing alone as soon as he felt confident. I could tell the story of my life through Sex and the City scenes.

I fell asleep last night listing to myself the ways in which I've changed since you left me, and the most important lesson I took away, by far, was to never, ever, put a man above myself again. Even if I am about to marry him.

Nick and I will stand side by side, but the day he steps in front of me is the day I walk away.

My second biggest satisfaction in this little reverie? I now own a cat. I wanted one then, but you were allergic.

I can't think of a single way in which my life was better with you than it is now. And yet I still feel so much resentment towards you. I think it has less to do with the fact that you wasted three years of my life, and more to do with the knowledge that you still perceive me as the same desperate girl as I was when you left.

Even though I'm finishing grad school this semester and you never finished undergrad. Even though you supervise the serving of chicken fingers to drunk college students for a living. Even though I now enjoy a vibrant and incredibly meaningful network of social support. Even though, six months from now, I'll be walking down the aisle to marry a man you could never even compare to. No matter how beautiful the life I've crafted for myself, your sense of superiority is a black stain on my existence.

Maybe that says as much about me as it does about you. That I need you to acknowledge my success in order to fully enjoy it.

I had a dream that you came to my house and I was showing you around, telling you about my life. You were quite pleasant, commenting appropriately about how well things seemed to be going for me. But something didn't seem quite right, and when I looked into your eyes I understood. I saw pain there and realized that you knew long ago that I'd done well for myself and you were still stagnant. You were always most polite when hurt.

Hearing you say that I'm better than you will bring me nothing but guilt. What's holding me back from enjoying my success completely is not your refusal to acknowledge it, but instead my need to have you validate it. I need to get over it. It just feels unnatural to not know you at all anymore.

2008-12-12T15:48:00.005-06:00

Best Friend Ex Roommate wanted me to title this post, "Let It Sneaux," because she's been gone from Louisiana too long and feels reminscent about our affinity for knowingly misspelling anything with an "oh" sound as "eaux" because we think it's precious.

It snowed yesterday! Like, more than I have ever seen in my life! I've never seen northern snow, just the pathetic little flurries we get so excited about when the forces of nature converge and they appear every few years. These were big, fluffy flakes that fell from the sky en masse and actually stuck to the ground. The weather had predicted a "slight possibility of light snow" in the early morning, so I'd set my alarm for 6am to check it out, but my mom called me at 5:45 exclaiming that the news said it was snowing in Baton Rouge and I had to get up and go outside to play! I flicked on the lights and forced Nicholas out of bed, then bundled up and spent the next two hours standing outside staring at the sky, leaving my post only to make more hot chocolate.

Nick had to go to work, poor thing, but Cassie and my sister came over and we stared some more and made a snowman, whom we dubbed Lieutenant Dan. Since I was fresh out of carrots, we figured any small produce would work and gave him a brussel sprout for a nose.

My sister and I with Lieutenant Dan.

Me in front of my house.

The view from my front porch.

updates

2008-11-15T23:21:00.001-06:00

I've lost thirteen pounds in eight months. Slow and steady wins the race.

I found a wedding dress that makes me feel like a woman, not a cupcake. I love the way I look in it so much that I wish I could share the picture of me wearing it here, but I'm just too nervous that Nick may stumble upon it and I want him to be surprised.

After some soul searching and consulting with the Committee of My Life, I decided to no longer continue with my thesis. Writing a thesis is not mandatory in my program, and in fact the vast majority of students choose to take the comprehensive exam instead. I'm learning that I don't always have to make things more difficult for myself to have a meaningful experience. I feel extremely relieved to have it off my shoulders. I had too much going on, and it just had to go.

So maybe dropping the thesis means I'll get back to posting regularly. Maybe not. Maybe I'll have time to actually rebuild my readership beyond my mother and my best friend. Or maybe I'll continue to ignore an endeavor which has proved incredibly fulfilling and cathartic for me in the past. I don't know. I'd like to say it's a goal, but right now I really am focused pretty intensely on finishing graduate school, marrying the best thing that ever happened to me, planning for a rock star career in social work, improving my physical health, maintaining a vibrant and meaningful social network, and advancing peace in my personal environment. Just a few goals of mine. No wonder I felt overwhelmed.

Political Partying

2008-11-01T18:06:00.001-05:00

I've donated what little money I could spare and proudly sported my bumper sticker. I've harassed friends and family, called complete strangers in Florida, and signed up to go door to door for Obama on Tuesday. I've watched every single debate, from the primaries on up, and spent a ridiculous amount of time researching policy, polling, and possibilities. And now, now it is time for me to plan a party.

I am so excited. And nervous. And I've found that purchasing liquor helps ease my anxieties. And no matter what the outcome of the election, I know that mine will be the best election night party in the history of such events.

For example, my party will feature democratic napkins, various festive and patriotic food items, Obama cocktails, a blue jello shot for each state, 100 toothpicks with miniature American flags affixed to the tops, and HATS. Nobody else I know has hats. To conclude the evening, I've purchased cigars and champagne for everyone, which we will hopefully have occassion to enjoy. If things don't go my way, I plan to drown my sorrows in the vodka left over from the jello shots.

keeping my path aligned

2008-10-21T23:42:00.002-05:00

I, again, haven't posted in a shameful amount of time. My last post was rather bitter, and I apologize for that. Things are mostly getting back to normal. A few upturned trees still littering my neighborhood, but this is Louisiana and we like to recover slow.

I've been feeling overwhelmed as of late, but I won't go into the details. My thesis, graduate school in general, the election, planning a wedding, being maid of honor in another...I'll get into it all later.

What I want to write about today is that I am seven months from completing my graduate degree, and I've been thinking about where I want to take my career.

I've had a commitment to juvenile justice for some time now. I have a personal attachment to it (those high school sweethearts just stick with you forever), I'm writing my thesis on it, and I feel passionate about it.

But in a practical sense, I'm doing my internship this year in child welfare, and liking it. I work in the state office doing what we social workers call "macro practice," which basically means learning about and helping with all of those activities that make work on the ground possible--accreditation, policy, coordinating with federal funding sources, etc. I've been thinking, this isn't so bad. It's related to my overall goal of helping troubled youth become successful adults. Their hiring and personnel management are set up to favor social workers. And, most importantly, they're a mess and they need brilliant young people like me.

Then, yesterday, I found out I'd been awarded a small ($1000) scholarship in memory of a social worker who pioneered corrections reform. I was selected because of my commitment to forensic social work. And I remembered that the reason I chose a profession so publicly disrespected, so meagerly paid, so prone to burnout, is that I wanted to spend my life doing something I love, not just like. Juvenile justice brings together two things I feel very passionate about changing--the future of at-risk youth in our communities, and the disaster that is our current justice system.

Choosing a career path is akin to selecting a spouse. The warm fuzzy feeling isn't enough to last forever, and neither is compatibility alone. I will spend more of my adult life at work than I will with Nick. I'm not choosing something I'm not sure I'll still be happy with when I'm counting the months til retirement.

the hurricane america forgot

2008-09-07T03:59:00.001-05:00

We made the drive back from Jackson alongside utility trucks from as far away as Wisconsin, and returned to a changed city. I'd seen the pictures of huge oak trees uprooted and homes destroyed, but the pictures couldn't convey the breadth of damage across the city, the fact that everywhere you go there is shit in the streets and piled along the curbs, busy intersections are four way stops thanks to damaged traffic signals, and every single house is out of power.

Things are slowly getting back to normal. About half of the traffic signals are back in working order, most, but not all, of the streets are passable, and about half the city has power (I am not yet able to count myself in that number).

I'm trying really hard not to get angry. A big part of it is my job, which means that I listen to and work to resolve the problems of several hundred people a day. There are MRE's and tarps available if you're willing to wait in line for six hours, but no one willing to help the elderly and disabled get those items, much less install a tarp on their roofs. Some of the most impoverished areas in Baton Rouge are without any resources whatsoever. FEMA is a joke and tells people to call me instead of bothering to do their job (managing emergencies, as the name would suggest). Today, FEMA announced that they were partnering with hotels to house people whose homes were uninhabitable, but didn't set up any criteria for qualifying. The hotels filled up right away with people sick of sleeping without air conditioning, and I'm telling people whose homes are destroyed that there's nowhere to go. I just spent two hours calling every participating hotel in a 50 mile radius, and not a single one has a room available for weeks.

What I think I feel most angry about is the fact that as soon as it was apparent that the levees in New Orleans didn't break, the world moved on. Katrina was not all about New Orleans. There were many areas outside of New Orleans that were very heavily damaged, and my parents live in one of them. Levee breaks aside, Baton Rouge currently looks like New Orleans did three years ago. And if the problem in New Orleans was that the poorest and most vulnerable did not have a way out of the city, the problem in Baton Rouge is that no one was even told to leave. You can make the argument that New Orleans is a major American city, and I agree that it is a wonderful city, dear to my own heart, of great cultural importance. But when it comes down to it, the population of the New Orleans metropolitan area is 1,030,000, and Baton Rouge's is 790,000. Big fuckin diff.

On a more selfish note, I'm angry that LSU has decided to resume classes tomorrow. I, obviously, have not been keeping up with my reading assignments. I've been too busy coping with the huge natural disaster that struck our city a week ago. I hope my professors understand.

hard knock

2008-09-02T18:06:00.001-05:00

While New Orleans was spared serious damage in Gustav, Baton Rouge, ironically, seems to have taken a pretty hard hit. Power restoration could take anywhere from a day to four weeks, and from what I understand basic necessities of food and gasoline are pretty much impossible to find. I've been looking at some pictures online and campus is a fucking mess. My sister went to our house and said everything's fine, and the storm even cleared an overgrown bush we'd hated since we moved in--it's completely gone. We knew it wasn't safe to go home today because there were still debris in the roadways and the remnants of Gustav were lingering, but I'm done with living out of a suitcase and killing time with cable news, pretending I'm on vacation when I'm not. I want to go home and clean out my fridge, then go to work and start answering phones. During times like this, the nonprofit I work for switches from being a crisis hotline to an information clearinghouse, and the lines are ringing off the hook with requests for tarps, food, ice, and water. I just talked with a friend from work and she said she went in at noon yesterday and just left. Nick works for a rental car company and they want him to come in tomorrow, but I have a feeling we're gonna be sitting in traffic for a while trying to get back.

2008-09-02T10:51:00.001-05:00

I really want to go home, but it looks like we're gonna have to wait until tomorrow. Friends say power will be out for week

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sadly, i'm still sober

2008-08-31T18:39:00.001-05:00

I'd kill for a fucking drink right now, but we're staying with a recovering alcoholic and, while he's been clean and sober for a few years now, I'd be blatantly using alcohol to cope with stress and that would be awkward.

I've been watching CNN and The Weather Channel pretty much nonstop, which sucks. I remember before and after Katrina how infinitely more informed the local news stations were, and I wish that I could stream them online or something, but I can't. I've heard a lot of talk about how I should turn off the TV or watch something else because it's just stressing me out, but I've been trying to find a way to justify watching anyway. My friend Laura pointed out that at times like this, you really just want to be connected to what's going on. It seems odd to me to pretend like it's not happening. It is. I'll worry about coping in a healthy manner once the dust has settled. Right now, I could use about four beers.

Geaux to Hell, Gustav, Geaux to Hell

2008-08-31T11:08:00.001-05:00

See that's funny because it's a taunt usually reserved for Ole Miss. I'll even say it now. Geaux to hell Ole Miss, Geaux to hell!

Last night I did one of the scariest things of my life. Nick and I packed up ourselves, our pets, and some important papers, and left, hoping for the best. Baton Rouge was not under a mandatory evacuation, but our house is like eighty years old and I feel like it's built out of sticks. Every single room has a window, even the bathrooms, so there's nowhere to hide, and a heavy rain earlier this summer had water pouring through our living room ceiling, so we weren't taking any chances on Gustav.

We parked Nick's car somewhere we thought would be safe and took my car, the one with only liability insurance, up to Jackson, MS. On the way up we kept hearing over and over again on the radio how this is worse than Katrina.

What's making me nervous about this is that the east side of the storm is roughest, and the center of Katrina passed right around the LA-MS state line, so my parents, myself, and New Orleans were all on the west side. Gustave is expected to make landfall just southeast of New Orleans, meaning that we are all on track to get the brunt of the storm.

This is new and scary to me. Neither my parents nore I have ever evacuated before. My parents didn't even leave for Katrina, and they regretted it. They're headed to Georgia today, and I'm sure they're scared too. Packing up the car made me realize how few of the items in my home are actually important to me. I took my computer, my iPod, and a little knick knack of a lady with flowers in her hat that was my Grandma's. I didn't even take my favorite clothes. I grabbed a bunch of t-shirts. I've got my birth certificate, my car title, and my AmeriCorps education award voucher. A couple of recent utility bills with my name on it because after Katrina I saw people in my parents' town having to prove residency to get in. What's most important is that we have ourselves and our pets.

2008-08-30T20:41:00.001-05:00

And it's official. I packed up my car and I am on my way to Jackson MS. I'll post again later.

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2008-08-30T14:06:00.001-05:00

What's more stressful than six people coming to your house to get away from a hurricane?

All of them changing their mind and heading the other direction because they think you're gonna get hit worse than they will.

Fuck.

Gustav, Gustav, Go Away

2008-08-28T23:30:00.001-05:00

I wanted so badly to throw myself into it all tonight, to lose myself in pride in my country, my party, and my candidate, and to some extent, I did. I DVR'd Obama's speech and even shed a few tears into my beer while watching. But the reality is that I missed it live because I was at the grocery store stocking up on bread and peanut butter, gallons of water, and toilet paper in preparation for the six people and six dogs who will be evacuating to my house this weekend, and I found my mind drifitng from Obama's powerful message of change for the American people to worries of what my life, or my parents' lives, may be like a week from now. Tomorrow's the third anniversary of Katrina, and I'm preparing myself emotionally for it to happen all over again.

In 2005, Best Friend Roommate and I had five extra people in our two bedroom apartment, staying various lengths of time ranging from two weeks to several months. If my family or Nick's can go home after a few days this time, it'll be a pleasant surprise. This time I'm ready for my life to be turned upside down, and if it doesn't that'll be gravy.

Vacation Pics

2008-08-22T21:35:00.001-05:00

I posted my pictures from our trip in a public album on facebook. Check it out here.

Over and Out

2008-08-19T00:09:00.001-05:00

And just like that, it's back to life sans vacation. I'm a few pounds
fatter and pretty worn out, so I guess it's about time for the party
to end anyway. As a side note, we flew in and out of White Plains, New
York and took these tiny little planes back and forth from our
connecting flight in Atlanta. We actually had to walk outside to
board, which I've always thought looks quite glamouros in the movies,
but turns out not so much in person. Maybe if I had been wearing a hat
and pearls.

Day Ten

2008-08-17T22:41:00.001-05:00

It's day ten of vacation and my pants are starting to get tight from
all this eating! Starting Tuesday it's back to mostly healthy food and
regular workouts. We drove back to Connecticut today for Abuela's
actual birthday dinner, and spent most of the afternoon playing Dr
Mario (at which Abuela is actually really awesome). Nick is starting
to realize that his return to work is only 36 hours away, so he's
pretty sad. I think he's going to start seriously looking for a new
job when we get back. I have MSW student assembly on Tuesday, and
although that means classes and thesis work are right around the
corner, I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends from school who
have been out of town or out of touch over the summer. Tomorrow's the
last day, then back to the real world we go! I wish we could just
vacay all the time.

Day Nine

2008-08-17T08:45:00.001-05:00

Four hours, three aspirin, and six tums later, we went to the beach.
The weather was perfect and the beach was beautiful, and although the
water was frigid people were swimming anyway so Nick and I got brave
and gave it a shot. It wasn't so bad. We couldn't stay long because we
had made plans to meet yet another one of his aunts for dinner and
were driving to meet her halfway between here and Boston, where she
lives. When we got back we hung out at the restaurant for a while and
then everyone started talking about going out. They said the bars
close at 1am here and it would be an early night, but I was exhausted
and didn't believe that Ed would actually come home that early, so I
stayed home and Nick went out. I was right. They took the ten minute
drive to Connecticut where the bars stay open another hour. Quick
backstory, that when Ed last visited us he and Nick got drunk and
almost bought that bar they love so much, a place called Fred's, a
Baton Rouge institution. When Nick finally came to bed at 4 am, I
asked where he'd been. "Talking to Ed," he said, "he's still talking
about buying Fred's."

Day Eight

2008-08-16T08:30:00.001-05:00

I woke up at 5 this morning with Hey Jude stuck in my head and an
intense urge to vomit. Yesterday, after partaking in the breakfast
buffet, then gambling away 80 more bucks between the two of us, we
picked up the rental car and drove to Rhode Island to visit Nick's old
roommates, Ed and Jen, who now own two restaurants near the RI coast.
Although they're a bit odd, I pretty much like them, but there's
something about Ed that makes people lose all sense of moderation in
alcohol consumption. Last time this guy came to visit us, Nick avoided
his favorite bar for over a month afterwards out of embarrassment for
all the things he'd been told he'd done when Ed was in town. So
yesterday, when we arrived in the Ocean State, we met Ed at his
restaurant on the beach, and the first thing he did was offer us beer
on the house. Eight hours later, after several hours of playing
quarters with the waitstaff after closing time, we were exhausted and
getting sloppy and it was time to go. We got a ride home with Jen
while Ed stayed behind, insisting the night was still young. I realize
this post is probably disorganized and lacking elaboration, but I'm
too hung over to edit.

Day Seven

2008-08-15T14:13:00.001-05:00

After a wonderful stay in bustling New work. we hopped a train to
Queens and hitched a ride to Connecticut with Nick's cousin Vinnie
where we met Kathy and Abuela at The Mohegan Sun, which is apparently
the second largest casino in the world. After waking around till my
feet fell off in the city, it was really nice to ride the penny plots
of drink for free all night. We even got free chocolate cake because
we were there for Abuela's 88th birthday (more free food and drinks!)

Day Six

2008-08-14T12:53:00.001-05:00

We got up and took the subway down to the southern tip of the island,
where we took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We
didn't get off at the Statue, since there's not really much to see on
the island itself, but we spent a good amount of time at the Ellis
Island Immigration Museum, which we both loved. I actually teared up a
bit when reading about the impact social workers had on the immigrant
experience. When we got back to Battery Park, we had an hour before
our next activity and didn't want to eat got dogs or anything from a
street vendor. so we waked back into the city and found a pub that
served lunch. I got a roast beef sandwich with gravy and, guess what,
we got free dessert once again. What is it about this town and giving
us free stuff? We took another boat. this time to see the waterfalls
built around the city as an art display, then took the subway back to
our hotel to get ready for Chicago. The waterfalls cruise was nice
because we also got to see a lot of the beatiful bridges surrounding
the city, and Chicago was impossibly fabulous. Overall, it was a
pretty great day to end our stay in Manhattan.

Day Five

2008-08-13T10:47:00.001-05:00

I feel like we're getting the best of both worlds on this trip. By day
we're typical tourists, by night we get hooked up like locals. We got
up yesterday and, after making some subway errors, found our way to
the Museum of Natural History. After perusing their impressive
assortment of animal remains and human artifacts, we met Holly in the
park and she showed us around. I even got Nick to ride the carousel
with me! Last night we went to eat with Nick's cousin and his
girlfriend at the brazilian steakhouse where she works. They give you
these discs that you flip to the green side when you want to be served
more meat, and back to red when you need a break. We ate a LOT of
meat--sirloin, bacon wrapped turkey, various sausages and steaks, and,
believe it or not, chicken heart. We had fried bananas, plantains with
cinnamon, and creme brulee. Since Paula works there, they charged us
for lunch instead of dinner, and comped our drinks and desserts. We
went home stuffed, drunk, and happy.

Day Four

2008-08-12T12:31:00.001-05:00

Eventually the rain died down, and we had lunch at shake shack despite
the downpour. It was every bit as delicious and fattening as we'd
heard. After lunch, we headed to Madame Tussaud's, the wax museum, it
was a lot of fun. The best part of the day was dinner. G'd researched
restaurants before we came and made reservations for us at Becco, an
Italian place with great reviews. Nick's Aunt Holly, on his mother's
side (all the greeks and puerto ricans are on his father)s side) lives
in Manhattan. Her husband, a frenchman, is the chief concierge at the
Plaza hotel. We invited them to come to Becco with us, and I'm so glad
that we did. The maitre'd, or however you spell that, was all over us
trying to impress Rafael. We got so much free wine it was ridiculous,
and the food was phenomenal. I was pretty giddy by the time we got to
the empire state building.

Multimedia message

2008-08-11T09:50:00.000-05:00

Apparently the city that never sleeps is not immune to rain. So much for our plans to lunch at Shake Shack.

Multimedia message

2008-08-11T07:23:00.000-05:00

On the express train! Kind of early in the morning for me!

Day Three

2008-08-11T07:18:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was a lazy day. I took another walk around a residential
area with Kathy (gotta get my exercise in), layed out by the pool in
her complex for a little while, then went to Stew Leonard's, an
apparently famous grocery store that felt like Ikea and Whole Foods
had a lovechild. At the pool I happened to meet some people who build
houses for Habitat in Slidell, my hometown. They were nice, but it was
odd to talk to people who think of the town you grew up in as a
pitiful place in desperate need of their help. They were talking about
how bad the public schools are there--the schools that I attended from
kindergarten through graduation. It was a good lesson for me to learn
as a social worker, though--when you're trying to help a community,
try not to insult its residents in the process. Anyway, I'm on the
train riding in for my first day in the city. I'm very excited!

Multimedia message

2008-08-09T23:24:00.000-05:00

Day Two

2008-08-09T23:20:00.002-05:00

I've been feeling pretty euphoric about the weather ever since we
arrived. It's something like 70 degrees here, and even when it rained
the humidity was nothing like Louisiana's. I am, however much less
impressed with the food thus far. Aside from Abuela's beans and rice,
it's been mediocre at best. I haven't been into the city yet though,
I'm sure it's much better there. This morning I took a long walk
around the BEAUTIFUL Connecticut coast, then we drove down to the
outer boroughs with Nick's Aunt Kathy. We went to the block in the
Bronx where she and Nick's dad grew up, and we visited some relatives
from the Greek side of the family in Queens. After that, we took the
train to Shea Stadium for the Mets game. Nick's a huge Mets fan, and
as I, oddly, have dated several men obsessed with the Mets, I've
gotten to be a bit of a fan myself. We had a really good time. I'm
blogging from my phone on the ride back to CT, but I'll try to post a
picture. It may not work. Then again, it may.

Day One

2008-08-08T16:34:00.001-05:00

The day started out with a bang when the cat got out five minutes
before we were planning to leave. We spent thirty minutes trying to
cajole him out from under the house with no success. We finally gave
up based on the logic that he's a cat, he'll be fine. We went inside
to gather our luggage and when we went back out there he was. Sitting
by the front door waiting to come in. Little bastard. The rest of the
day went fairly smoothly. We made our flight from new orleans to
atlanta on time then scurried all over the atlanta airport trying to
grab lunch and get to our gate with only an hour layover. The flight
got delayed anyway. I'm taxiing to the gate at white plains now.

The Month in a Post

2008-08-07T14:21:00.002-05:00

I had an engagement party, chose a cake baker, and cheated on my caterer by meeting with another. Best Friend Roommate and My Other Friend From High School For Whom I Have No Nickname came to visit from Atlanta. Let's just get it out there: I'm going to call her Laura, because that's her name. Laura broke her foot while she was sleeping shortly before coming to visit, so she hobbled around on crutches the entire time. We called her Hop-Along.

I got in a huge fight with my sister and we almost never spoke again, but it's all been resolved now. I made some extra cash by tutoring LSU football players. It's not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. I took engagement pictures, which are now posted on my cousin/photographer's Flikr.

And, starting tomorrow, I'll be on the best vacation I've had in years. Over a ten day span we'll be visiting Connecticut, New York City, and Rhode Island. I plan to do all kinds of obnoxious touristy things in the city, see a Backstreet Boys concert in Connecticut, and do absolutely nothing in Rhode Island.

I distinctly remember, ten years ago, camping out all night at the local mall for Backstreet Boys tickets, only to get to the front of line and be told that the New Orleans Superdome had sold out. My parents loved their two little teeny boppers so much that they actually bought us tickets for Memphis, and the whole family drove all the way to Tennessee to watch the Backstreet Boys from nosebleed seats. We also visited Graceland, home of Elvis, while in town. It's funny to me that, at 23, I got free tickets to see them at the Mohegan Sun Resort. It seems they've fallen a notch or two.

i ignore you for months, and when i return speak only of weddings

2008-06-30T21:12:00.002-05:00

BREAKING NEWS ALERT--Best Friend Roommate got ENGAGED!

...to her extraordinarily-tall-for-an-Asian boyfriend of four years. And, although she now lives in Atlanta, she will be getting married in Louisiana, possibly as soon as this October (pending date availability and financial feasibility), and I am so freakin excited.

Did I mention that we are each others' Maids of Honor? How precious!

And now, moving on to my wedding. Progress achieved thus far:

We chose a site, a motif, and a color palette (bright pink--almost fuschia, and muted olivey green)
We decided on a caterer and menu*
We met with a florist (for details, see my flikr sets)
I lost nine pounds

Next on my list:

Not-an-engagement-party at Nick's parents' house next weekend (the idea of an engagement party began to seem pretentious, so it is a barbeque consisting of family, bridal party, and close friends to celebrate our engagement...but we don't call it an engagement party)
Best Friend Roommate and our other very close friend who also lives in Atlanta now (and for whom I have not yet developed an appropriate nickname) will be coming in for the party and several days after. We'll be very busy while they're in town, trying on dresses, doing cake testings (yum!), drinking wine, etc.
Lose 10-15 more pounds by Christmas

*Menu--chicken and sausage pastalaya (like jambalaya except with pasta instead of rice), fried catfish, bacon wrapped shrimp, crab and artichoke dip, boudin balls, mini muffalettas, steamboat round beef roast, and chocolate covered strawberries. (As a side note, almost all weddings in the south are buffet-style, as opposed to a seated dinner. People eat and party and maybe eat some more after they get drunk, and nobody really sits very much.)

would you happen to know by experience?

2008-05-05T17:37:00.003-05:00

As I was leaving the gas station, brand new pack of cigarettes in hand, a man leaning out of a pickup truck shouted unintelligible nonsense at me.

"What?" Slightly annoyed, I attempted to clarify.

Again unintelligible nonsense, but I attempted to interpret nonetheless.

"Is somebody paying attention to my humps?"

He laughed, "No, I said, 'You smoke penitentiary humps.' You smoke Camels. That's what they smoke in prison."

Good to know.

pancake madness

2008-04-14T18:26:00.005-05:00

My sister came damn near close to getting arrested at IHOP this weekend, all over an order of cheese blintzes.

This has been an ongoing struggle for my family, as we fell in love with IHOP's cheese blintzes back when the restaurants still made them correctly. Over the past few years, they seem to have gradually transitioned from serving these thin pancakes filled with a delicious mixture of cheese with preserves to fresh fruit--a key factor. Although the preserves, our topping of choice, are still listed on the menu, servers often stare in confusion when we request them, usually replying, "Uh...let me see if the kitchen can do that," as if we're making some outlandish request for an ingredient not on their menu.

So of course, when Shannon visited our local IHOP in the wee hours of Sunday morning, she was annoyed, but not at all surprised, when her cheese blintzes were served with fresh strawberries, despite her request for preserves. She reminded the waitress of her order, who replied that she didn't think they had any, but she'd check if Shannon insisted. She did insist.

Instead of the waitress returning to the table, however, the manager arrived to inform Shannon that they did not have any preserves. Shannon politely reminded that manager that the preserves are, in fact, listed on the menu, and that perhaps if they do not plan to keep them on stock, perhaps they should consider removing them from the menu. Imagine her surprise when the manager responded by instructing Shannon to leave.

She did not say, "I'm sorry, is there something else I can get for you?" or even, "If you don't like it you can leave." This was a command. "We don't have any preserves and you need to leave. Your friends are welcome to stay and finish their food"

Shannon, stunned, sat for a moment after the manager walked away, considering the exchange which had just occurred. "Did she really just order me to leave?" she thought. Staring at a plate of food she did not want, and dashed of any hopes that the restaurant would replace it with another dish, she got up from her seat. As she walked toward the door, she heard the Restaurant Manager From Hell screaming across the restaurant, "STOP HER! She's trying to leave without paying!"

WTF?

The off-duty police officer hired to work security detail, likely thrilled to finally have something to do besides sit all night staring at pancakes, rushed out the door after her, and promptly declared that he had every intention of arresting her.

Somewhere between Shannon crying in frustration and her boyfriend throwing the receipt at the manager after paying the bill, the cop decided to let her go. The bill was, after all, paid, although I disagree that she should have been forced under threat of arrest to pay for a meal she did not want and did not eat.

She's now embarked on a personal mission to have that manager fired, calling everyone from the store manager to the area supervisor until she gets her way. I suggested that she instead request free pancakes for life, but apparently IHOP has lost its appeal to her.

23/you said you'd be interested

2008-04-07T14:31:00.003-05:00

I turned 23 on Saturday, which brought to my attention the fact that I have now been "maintaining" this blog for over two years. Which, likewise, reminded me that the most interesting happenings in my life are now wedding plans and thesis work.

I do still socialize, mind you. On Friday night some of my favorite girls came over and we spent the entire time on the back porch chain smoking over cheap wine and intriguing conversation. It was fabulous.

Nick gave me a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and took me to eat at my favorite fondue restaurant, and although another couple we know and only semi-like was seated directly across the aisle from us, making for an awkward meal, and our pot became overheated, causing all of our food to burn after thirty seconds of cooking, we still had a great time together.

On Sunday we drove to my parents house, where mom cooked me birthday dinner. I had asked for a scale that could measure body fat, and they got me the super-diet scale that will measure and track weight, body fat, hydration level, and goals for up to four different users. The irony of eating birthday cake immediately after opening the gift was not lost on me.

Also significant is that we have settled on a location for the wedding: The Old Governor's Mansion (pictures available here).

However, contrary to all my feminine urges to cast my career and life as I know it aside in pursuit of The Perfect Wedding, what's most exciting to me is that I drew up my thesis contract with my chair last week. I know you're all dying for the details, so I'll share it in all its glory.

1. PROPOSED THESIS TOPIC:
Restorative Justice and Juvenile Recidivism

2. RELEVANCE TO STUDENT’S AREA OF INTEREST:
I am very interested in juvenile justice, and hope to work in policy, reform, and program development in this field upon graduation.

3. DESCRIBE HOW PROPOSED THESIS RESEARCH CONTRIBUTES TO KNOWLEDGE BASE:
In 2004, juvenile courts handled an estimated 1,660,700 delinquency cases and had more than 31 million youth under their jurisdiction (Stahl et al., 2007). Guin (2004) reported that Louisiana’s juvenile arrest rate ranks eighth nationally. Guin also found that Louisiana has 646 juveniles incarcerated in state juvenile prisons and 5,275 juveniles on probation or parole.
According to McLaren (2000), about 15-20% of juvenile offenders will continue to repeatedly break the law throughout adolescence and into adulthood—meaning that a small percentage of juvenile offenders are responsible for quite a large proportion of crimes committed. Data collection by the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention (OJJDP; Snyder & Sickmund, 2006) found that about 25% of juveniles who offended at ages 16–17 also offended as adults at ages 18–19. The OJJDP also found that, of youth leaving custody, four in ten reported having been in custody two to four times before, and four in ten reported having been in custody five or more times before. This shows that of the youth sentenced to custody, eight of ten will return as a juvenile, and some will return several times before reaching adulthood. Additionally, the Louisiana Office of Youth Development (2007) reported that, in 2006, 17.8% of juveniles in custody were there as recidivists, and 221 individuals formerly in youth custody recidivated as adults.

Developing interventions to reduce the likelihood of juvenile recidivism is vitally important. Equally important is that these interventions are tested to measure their effectiveness. This study will evaluate the impact of restorative justice practices on juvenile recidivism, thereby increasing the knowledge base of potential interventions for juvenile offenders.

4. DESCRIBE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF THESIS:
1. To examine whether participation in a restorative justice program, contrasted with lack of participation in any restorative justice program, will significantly reduce the incidence of recidivism among a sample of juvenile offenders.

2. To examine whether participation in a restorative justice program, contrasted with lack of participation in any restorative justice program, will significantly impact the timing of recidivism among a sample of juvenile offenders.

3. To examine whether type of offense (e.g., status, property, violent, sexual) will significantly impact the relationship between participation in a restorative justice program and rate of recidivism among a sample of juvenile offenders.

4. To examine whether the gender of the offender will significantly impact the relationship between participation in a restorative justice program and rate of recidivism among a sample of juvenile offenders.

5. IDENTIFY TASKS TO ACCOMPLISH STEP #4:
1. Conduct review of literature on the topics of juvenile recidivism, restorative justice, and resilience theory (which will be used as a framework for this study)

2. Write proposed methodology and data analysis sections of thesis

3. Defend thesis proposal and submit IRB application

4. Upon IRB approval, obtain contact information from the Department of Juvenile Services and/or the Office of Youth Development for juvenile offenders who have participated in restorative justice court diversion programs within the past twelve months

5. Conduct mail survey.

6. Analyze data

7. Complete results and discussion sections of thesis

8. Final thesis defense

7. STUDENT’S ANTICIPATED LEARNING OUTCOMES:

1. To determine whether participation in a restorative justice program impacts the rate and/or timing of recidivism rates among juvenile offenders.

2. To determine whether the type of offense impacts the relationship between participation in a restorative justice program and juvenile recidivism.

3. To determine whether gender impacts the relationship between participation in a restorative justice program and juvenile recidivism.

8. CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION:

1. Complete thesis proposal by August 1, 2008

2. Obtain contact information for juvenile offenders who have participated in restorative justice court diversion programs within the past twelve months by September 30, 2008

3. Conduct survey of juvenile offenders from October 1 to November 15, 2008

4. Work a minimum of three hours per week on this project

5. Complete data analysis by February 1, 2009

6. Complete results and discussion sections of thesis by March 1, 2009

7. Submit thesis to committee by March 2, 2009

8. Defend thesis by March 20, 2009

9. Submit thesis to SSWR, CSWE, & NASW-LA

10. Submit thesis work for publication with the assistance of Dr. Lim (thesis chair)

References

Guin, C., Edwards, M.F. (2004). Crime and corrections in Louisiana. Retrieved October 13, 2007 from http://www.socialwork.lsu.edu/pdfs/ossrd_Crime_Corr_LA.pdf

Louisiana Office of Youth Development. (2007). Profile of recidivism in office of youth development. Retrieved October 11, 2007, from http://www.oyd.louisiana.gov/test/statistics-05-oyd/1f.pdf.

McLaren, K.L. (2000). Tough is not enough – Getting smart about youth crime. A review of research on what works to reduce offending by young people. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Youth Affairs.

Snyder, H.N., & Sickmund, M. (2006). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2006
National Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Stahl, A.L., Puzzanchera, C., Livsey, S., Sladky, A., Finnegan, T.A., Tierney, N., &
Snyder, H.N. (2007). Juvenile court statistics 2003–2004. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice.

leavin on a jet plane

2008-03-13T12:43:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure whether I've mentioned here that I have never flown before. I feel so backwards southern country bumpkin saying that. Most of my family lives in the southeast and my parents always opted for vacation sites close enough to drive to. Thus, besides never flying, I have also never been west of Texas or north of Missourri (save one trip to Pennsylvania/D.C. as an infant which my parents, insanely, also opted to make a road trip). I have, however, been to Disneyworld on several occassions, despite the twelve-hour drive.

The point of this confession is that Best Friend (ex)Roommate is flying me out tonight to visit her and our friend Laura in Atlanta, as they both live there now. I have driven to Atlanta many, many times, and I must say that eight hours in the car has lost its appeal to me after a lifetime of road trips, so I am very excited about getting on a plane tonight in New Orleans and getting off ninety minutes later in Atlanta.

I am also quite comfortable with the actual flying aspect. I am a bit nervous about getting through security and to my gate and everything, since I will be by myself, but I've spent quite a ridiculous amount of time researching security requirements online and asking friends and family about procedures, so I feel pretty confident that everything will work out just fine. My dad, ever supportive, commented "Once you get used to the cavity search at security you'll be just fine." Thanks, Dad. You are the reason I was such a gullible child.

I see this as a beginning step in conquering my ridiculous lack of travel experience. Nick and I have talked about going to New York or the west coast this summer, and we plan on going to Puerto Rico for our honeymoon. His grandmother (Abuela, she prefers to be called) is Puerto Rican and still owns a condo near the beach in Old San Juan. So, hopefully, with a little patience and a little money, within the next few years I'll be able to see more of my nation, and, with a little luck, perhaps even make it out of U.S. Territory. I'm really looking forward to seeing what life is like outside of the southern United States. It's a big world out there, and reading about it in books or watching it on TV is simply no longer enough.

week #2 of blogging consistently

2008-03-03T14:56:00.005-06:00

Last week I told you that I had spent an entire day touring no less than eight wedding locations and found none that I absolutely loved. After seeing some more places this past Friday, I've got the opposite problem: two locations between which I am absolutely torn.

One is the Shaw Center, an old hotel which was remodeled and added on to, now a swanky arts center. The ceremony would be on a rooftop terrace featuring a sculpture garden, with panoramic views of the Mississippi river and its iconic bridge, the Louisiana Old State Capitol, and an historic hotel recently purchased and restored by Hilton, all beautiful structures which serve as bastions of the landscape of downtown Baton Rouge. The ceremony would be in a room directly beneath the terrace, with windows lining two walls featuring the same view.

The other site I'm considering is the Old Governor's Mansion. Also downtown, this building is referred to as "Louisiana's White House." Built in 1930 under the governorship of Huey P. Long, it appears as if it'd be more at home in a rural parish on a highway lined with old plantations. The ceremony would be held in the Rose Garden at the rear of the property, with the reception spreading throughout the first floor of the home.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these. The Shaw Center may be a little too modern for Great Aunt Edith, while the Old Governor's Mansion exudes grace and Southern charm. However, the Shaw Center is $880 cheaper--my entire dress budget. Also, my grandfather is handicapped, and while the OGM is technically accessible, it's a bit complicated, moving ramps around and such, while at the Shaw Center he can drive his electric wheelchair anywhere his heart desires.

Space is an issue at both of these sites. The terrace at the Shaw Center is L-Shaped, and I'm nervous about fitting 200 guests into the room where the reception would be held while leaving ample room for dancing. The OGM has no single room big enough for all of our guests, so, while most of the action would be in the ballroom, other guests would be lounging in the library, state dining room, etc. I'm not sure whether this is a negative or positive thing. My teenaged cousins will most likely appreciate being able to sit in another room with their dates and talk about teenage things, but I worry about people unintentionally missing out on some of the traditional things that happen at a wedding--bouquet/garter toss, cake cutting, money dance, etc. (we don't want anyone missing the money dance!). Also, if my goofy cousin Nicky busts out his white boy dance moves to "Billy Jean," for example, people will certainly be bummed to have missed it.

On another note, my weight loss efforts have thus far been quite consistent. Looking at my progress chart for last week, I can see that I drank an average of 74 ounces of water each day and burned 1,831 calories in aerobic exercise. After a week of regular exercise, I feel really good, except for in my calves, which are killing me, but even that I don't mind. I've been writing down what I eat and working to make healthy choices, although I haven't yet begun counting calories. If I don't start seeing results within 4-6 weeks, I probably will start tracking caloric intake. My logic for this is that I rarely eat junk food nowadays (cookies, chips, dip, ice cream, fast food, etc.) and have pretty much cut out coke completely since I'm too busy drinking water. I think my biggest problem lies in eating too much at mealtime. So for now, I'm avoiding second helpings and seeing where that takes me.

If y'all have opinions on which wedding site I should choose, or any non-crazy suggestions for losing weight (only healthy choices please, and preferably nothing that requires me to spend extra money or spend three days straight on a toilet), let me know!

how dare I

2008-02-25T09:52:00.005-06:00

How dare I post that I got engaged and then not write for more than a month? I have officially fallen out of love with my blog. But, like any relationship, love waxes and wanes, so I'll not give up yet.

To answer your questions, he did not pick the ring out himself. It was my grandmother's engagement ring, which means a lot to me. I was named after her and we were very close. She passed away in 2004 and I know that she would love Nick and be very happy to know that I'm now wearing her ring. As to how it happened, he proposed at my favorite restaurant, where we later enjoyed a bottle of champagne, some delicious Creole food, and scrumptious cheesecake.

I'm VERY excited about marrying Nicholas. Even though we live together already, getting married symbolizes to me the beginning of our grown-up life together. The best part is that if I accidentally get knocked up it's totally okay.

We've tentatively set the date for June 27, 2009, right after I finish grad school. The date is tentative because we don't have a place yet, but I think we're starting far enough in advance that we won't have much of a problem.

On Friday the moms came to town and we spent the whole day looking at locations. I was a bit bummed out because I didn't see any place that just swept me off my feet. We're working on a pretty tight budget, which complicates things. I had no idea how much weddings cost. I had spent the past several weeks researching and contacting dozens of potential sites and had narrowed it down to eight based on cost and aesthetics, so I felt hopeless when none of those places seemed right in person. I spent Friday night feeling sorry for myself, but on Saturday got back on the internet and found a few more places to check out. I have an appointment to go see one of them on Friday and I'm feeling optimistic.

I also, finally, have some motivation to lose weight. My strategy for the past two years has been to think really hard about getting as skinny as I used to be, but I've been successful only in slowing the rate at which I gain weight. Now that I have a clearly defined reason to slim down, I'm feeling more motivated than I ever have before. Who wants to try on wedding gowns weighing twenty pounds more than she should? I signed up for tennis lessons, started drinking tons of water, and began doing my reading for school while walking on a treadmill. Of course, the hard part for me has never been getting started, but sticking to the plan, so we'll see how it goes.

I guess what's been keeping me from posting over the past several months is that I began this blog to write about my single adventures. Now all I have to write about is monogamous cohabitation, grad school, and planning a wedding. Not exactly exciting stuff for the largely single audience I developed. Sure, I think it's exciting to get a vacuum that runs by itself for Christmas, or to choose a chair for my thesis, or to be marrying someone as wonderful as Nick, but will anyone else? I'm having a crisis of coolness. Maybe it's easier to just stop writing than to have my audience leave out of boredom.

betrothed

2008-01-20T09:11:00.000-06:00

How do you write a blog post about one of the happiest days of your life?

I don't know, so I'm just posting a picture until I find the words.

Day 2 of Dream Job

2008-01-15T11:49:00.001-06:00

I'm going to give you your own case, your own client to work with from the time he's sentenced to probation to the time he gets off. You're going to build the file from scratch, develop contacts at his home and his school, and check up on him just as a probation officer would. And if he violates the terms of his probation, you're going to go out to his house, pick him up, bring him in, book him, and follow his case through court.

I'm going to go arrest him?

Yep.

Do I get handcuffs?

Yep.

Do I get a gun?

No, you get karate lessons.

[pause]

And a flashlight.

Hot BOO'dan, cold coosh coosh, come on tigahs, poosh poosh poosh!*

2008-01-05T19:31:00.000-06:00

The glorious and distinguished football team of my beloved alma mater (also the institution at which I am currently pursuing a graduate degree) will be playing in the BCS National Championship Game come Monday at approximately 7:15 pm Central Standard Time.

I am a girl of enthusiastic school and team spirit. During four years of undergraduate education, I missed only two home football games, and compensated for these regrettable absences by attending two regular season away games, a conference championship game, and a postseason bowl game during my tenure as a student ticket holder.

I'm not sure I even knew that LSU had a football team until about six months before enrolling for my first semester, but that very year we won the National Championship title and from that day forward the bar has been set high in my mind regarding LSU's ability to out-tackle, out-pass, out-run and out-score even the most worthy of opponents.

Some of my dearest friends consider themselves to be intellectually superior to such things as football. I scoff at this notion. They're not that smart anyway.

I take it all back, they are all very smart. They just don't know how sweet it is to be a fan of the most glorious collegiate football team in the nation.

Besides, it's about more than just watching giant muscled men, many of whom I admit are attending college based solely on athletic ability, run back and forth across a field throwing a ball around and knocking each other over.

It's about taking an institution which has given you almost as much as your parents--friendships, mentors, life lessons, priceless memories, and a formal education, to name a few contributions--and showing your appreciation and loyalty by donning purple and gold head to toe and screaming like a maniac to RUN THE FUCKING BALL!!!

It's about being a part of something bigger. It's about a having three dearly held beliefs in common with 92,000 people I'm sharing a stadium with: Ole Miss can geaux to hell, Auburn girls have the clap clap clap, and USC is highly overrated. As there are generally very few beliefs I hold in common with the majority of my fellow Louisiana residents (blue vote red state), this phenomenon is very valuable to me.

I feel the need to mention that one of my dearest friends went to Auburn and, to my knowledge, she does not, in fact, have the clap. However, I choose to ignore this fact the one day each year that our two teams meet on a football field.

Quick side note: On Monday I will start my new internship at my dream job: Juvenile Probation. I've been wanting to work in juvenile justice since I was sixteen and hopelessly in love with an adorably mislead youth recently released from juvenile detention. I'm almost as excited about this as I am about the game.

At precisely five p.m. on Monday, I will conclude my first day at my (unpaid) dream job and promptly rush home to put on every garment and accessory in either purple or gold I own--right down to earrings and underwear. I will then rush to my favorite game watching venue, which is offering an amazing deal consisting of all the beer and popcorn my little belly can hold, a generous plate of red beans and rice, and a front row seat to watch the game on a giant projection screen, all for the amazingly low price of only ten dollars. Beer and popcorn in hand, I will enthusiastically observe my beloved tigers fight for what is sure to be glorious victory.

And now, to conclude my spirited rant on why my team is the greatest to ever grace the sport of football, I will share with you, dear internet, the lesser known, yet beautiful, second verse of LSU's alma mater. And if you think for a second that if I had the equipment, I wouldn't record my voice singing the entire song and upload it for you all to enjoy, you really don't know me very well at all.

All praise to thee, our Alma Mater, moulder of mankind,
May greater glory, love unending, be forever thine.
Our worth in life will be thy worth, we pray to keep it true,
And may thy spirit live in us, forever L-S-U!!!!!!!!!!

Also: A fellow blogger and LSU fan with a post I find hilarious and believe any football fan can appreciate.

*Translation: Hot boudin, cold couscous, come on tigers, push push push!

I get that a lot

2008-01-03T12:28:00.000-06:00

There was this guy that I dated on and off during my eight months of serial single escapades. I mentioned him in this post, but I don't think I ever went into any of the details.

His name was Justin, and he was, hands down, the weirdest guy I have ever dated.

On the surface, he was ideal. He was a cheerleader for LSU, which automatically entails powerful muscles and All-American good looks. On top of that, he was very intelligent, well-traveled, and spoke sveral languages fluently. Little did I know, however, that beneath the polished exterior lay a stranger truth.

This guy was a straight up freak. He had a habit of inviting me over and then taking all of his clothes off while we watched TV, then beginning to masturbate until I could be cajoled to join him. Next thing I knew, he was rubbing his penis between my buttcheeks. Face in pillow, I considered my options and decided to stay. If he wanted to go for full-blown anal, I'd probably have ample time to stop him, and at least I wasn't having to do any of the work. On another occassion, I was ambushed by an impromptu and uninvited salad tossing. Before I could protest, it was over and he had moved onto some other exotic sexual exercise.

He hated that I smoked, but instead of saying, "I'm sorry, I don't date smokers," he attempted to engage in various sex acts with me while never actually kissing my mouth. When I caught on I said, "Let me get this straight. You want me to suck your dick, but you don't want to kiss me." He nodded eagerly, pleased that I understood. I told him that's what prostitutes do and began to gather my clothing. I guess he quickly evaluated his priorities (a severe case of blue balls vs. kissing a smoker) because he begged me not to go and began kissing me passionately. I figured I was already half naked and decided to stay.

Like watching bad reality TV, I continued to engage him out of burning curiosity to see what would happen next. We only dated casually and I never actually had intercourse with him, but stories of his various quirks certainly made good fodder for girls night out. Shortly before he left to teach English to kids in South Korea for a year, I met Nick. I told Justin I couldn't see him one last time before he left because I was dating someone and it was getting serious. A couple of times since he came back to the States he's called or sent me a message on facebook, but I haven't ever replied. I thought he just wanted to hook up, and I was obviosuly still in a relationship.

This morning, more than a year and a half since I last saw him, he sent me a text message.

Justin: I miss u and want u real bad
Me: Are you serious?
Justin: Well, i just fantasize a lot about u. I remember being an ass bcuz u smoked. But i miss spanking ur cute booty and kissing ur body
Me: Well that's very flattering, but I am in a committed relationship now with someone I love.
Justin: Im glad ur in luv and said it nicely

And so, another element is added to the story of the strangest guy I ever let see me naked.

Triumphant Return

2007-12-27T13:33:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's been quite a while. Over three months, in fact, and the truth is that I haven't really been doing anything all that exciting to excuse my negligence.

Oh, I'm in grad school, of course. That's my biggest excuse. But I think a more accurate description of my absence is that I just haven't been feeling all that interesting.

Much like Copasetic Fish, I get up, I go to school/internship/work, I come home, I cook dinner, clean up the house, go to bed...wash, rinse, repeat.

I figured nobody else would find the daily exhcnages between Nick and I as hilarious as I do, or be as enthused by my choice of thesis topic as I am, or feel nearly as proud as I do that I seem to have mastered cooking red beans and rice. I've been experiencing a crisis of confidence.

But lately...lately, something strange has been happening. I'll have a thought, an idea, which I consider to be so poignant, clever, or hilarious that the urge to share it in writing is overwhelming. I wonder how I can disseminate this message to people who will appreciate it accordingly. Maybe I could include it in an email to somebody, I think, and they will believe that I spontaneously came up with such a clever thing, and from that moment on will find me impossibly fabulous. Maybe I could include it in a casual note...maybe I'll work it into my thesis...

Suddenly it came to me: I have a blog.

Blogging is essentially narcissistic, as the intended purpose is necessarily to share my wittiness with the world at large. The changes in my daily life brought about by things like graduate school, monogamy, and cohabitiation have made me no less witty and fabulous. Thus, it seems only logical that I continue to share my inner thoughts, even if the topics may have changed.

So, my friends, I'm back. And while I know I may have lost many of my readers in my absence, I'm hoping some of you will return, and maybe I'll even make some new friends.

That said, I have nothing particularly clever to say today. But I promise it will be soon.

One of these things is not like the other...

2007-09-17T21:16:00.001-05:00

Over the labor day weekend Nick and I drove to Atlanta to visit Best Friend (ex) Roommate and her boyfriend. While we were there we went to Ikea, which I had been looking forward to for weeks. We didn't have a dining room table and Ikea presented an opportunity to get an attractive piece of furniture at a very reasonable price. We ended up spending like $700, but we got an assload of stuff.

We finally got around to putting together all the furniture this weekend, and lo and behold, we made a mistake. Five black chairs and one red one. Oops. I still like it.

a love like no other

2007-09-06T16:28:00.000-05:00

When you grow up with someone, when you share a home with someone from the early days of childhood, you grow to love them, care for them, think of them as a member of the family. You feed them, give them water, take them for walks, pet them and sing to them and give them treats.

When she gets old, you put diapers on her, cover her with a blanket if it's cold, carry her up and down the stairs when her arthritis is acting up. You sing close in her ear so she can feel the vibrations after her hearing has gone.

She'll have good days and bad days, sometimes bad weeks. But eventually, a bad day will come that simply never ends. Instead of carrying her down the stairs, you'll lift her from the blanket and carry her all the way to the yard, then back to the blanket when she's done, and there she'll stay. You'll bring food and water to her. Only her eyes will follow you as you move about the room. And you'll know that your friend's time is near.

Then one night, after seventeen long and happy years, she'll go to sleep and never wake up.

But although the sadness is nearly overwhelming, the sense of relief for her is pronounced. And through your tears you try to remember the good days, when she was young and vital, frolicking 'round the yard and sticking her head out the car window.

This life is circular, and everything that lives must someday die, taking a little piece of our hearts with it.

There's no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There's such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one's heart...
-Charlotte Bronte

Coming of Age in Louisiana

2007-08-07T19:29:00.000-05:00

Several significant events have happened in my life since my last post, but I haven't seemed to be able to find the right words to share them. That's not to say that I've now found the appropriate words--the time has simply come to write it out, eloquent or not.

Best Friend Roommate moved to Georgia. The nature of our friendship dictated that we say goodbye casually, a quick hug and "See you in a few weeks," neither of us really knowing whether "a few weeks" meant six weeks or sixty. Had we not outwardly denied the significance of the occassion, it most certainly would have become an emotional ceremony of farewell, similar to the tearfests with which we would send off friends whose fathers had gotten new jobs which took the whole family cross-country back in high school, when moving out of state seemed like the end of the world. Nevertheless, this is the end of an era. Lauren and I have been friends since seventh grade, and have spent what are thus far the best years of our lives together. Certainly we will remember when we are old and gray the time that I punched in the face a guy more than twice my size to defend her honor, the years that we shared an apartment, and the time that she ran from the cops in her mom's Chevy Corsica. They could have shot you!

In high school, we dubbed ourselves The Three Beautiful Blondes. Laura went to college in Alabama, and then there were two. Now, the three of us are spread across the South, and I am the only one left in Louisiana. I can't help but wonder if I've been left behind, if I let opportunities pass me by because I could never quite talk myself into leaving. But then I remember that if nobody brilliant and fabulous stays behind to fight the good fight, our state will remain at the bottom of every good list and the top of every bad one. Nothing will change, and the brilliant will continue to emigrate to the North or the West or the cities of the New South, leaving Louisiana to stagnate like the bayous and swamps punctuating the terrain.

No, it is not enough for me to merely visit Louisiana. This is my place, and I have a purpose here. An already meaningful career takes on a new sense of importance when your state is 44th in Education, 3rd in infant mortality, 9th in violent crime, 2nd in unemployment...the list goes on.

What this boils down to is that my life is shifting. My friendship with Lauren will now be based on phone calls and road trips, no longer coming home and re-enacting the events of my day. Also, I'm a college graduate now, and I have decided to stay in Louisiana--something I believe comes with a responsibility to use my education to make our state a better place (they did pay my tuition, after all). And let us not forget the shift which has the most significant impact on my day to day life--I moved in with a boy. Ladies and gentleman, I believe that I am becoming an adult.

self portrait

2007-07-16T22:20:00.000-05:00

My mother's body, head to toe. My father's coloring. My grandmother's forehead. A bit heavier than I used to be. Noticeably petite. Blue eyes, easy smile. Skin that has grown up a bit, but still shows the scars of adolescence. Tiny feet--the pinky toes curve in and under just a bit. Rounded face, dark blonde hair. Breasts that are small but full, proportionate to my frame.

Precocious from the day I was born. Stubborn like my dad, emotive like my mom. Often irreverent, frequently affectionate. Love to eat, hate to work out. An affinity for crime drama and a weak spot for juvenile delinquents. Friend, daughter, sister, girlfriend. Graduate student. Crisis counselor extraordinaire. Blue vote. Red state. Joker, smoker, midnight toker. No more lovin on the run.

Big southern family. Big southern butt. Living in sin and loving it. College football is damn near close to religion. Pets are necessary, shoes are often not. Always dreaming, planning, waiting, for periodic somedays to arrive. They get here, I build new dreams, plans, wishes. Always around a boy or a cause or an image I have of myself being rich or lying on a beach or charging forth as an urban crusader. I've got an open heart and a capable mind and a million possibilities lying before me.

Always genuine. Mostly happy.

would you like some lube with that?

2007-06-18T21:23:00.000-05:00

Best Friend Roommate and I had gone out for pasta and a pep talk in the midst of my post-breakup crisis of self-confidence. The chain restaurant was nearly empty, the pasta was mediocre, and I was in a funk of self-pity. But the waiter...oh, the waiter. He was tall, dark and handsome, and paying an awful lot of attention to us.

He kept coming back to our table, unnecessarily refilling our drinks, making small talk, meeting my eyes with his and smiling.

"He's flirting with you."

"No he's not."

"Yes he is, and he's hot."

He returned to the table and we quickly pretended we hadn't been talking about him.

"So, what are y'all doing tonight?"

I, of course, had no plans. I was finally beginning to deal with the fact that Bryan was not coming back to profess his undying love for me, and spent most of my spare time eating ice cream in front of the TV. I made up something vague and noncommittal about going out with some friends as Best Friend Roommate hid a smirk behind her glass.

"Oh, well I'm going out to Fred's tonight, y'all should come by."

A flutter in my stomach and positive I would die of awkwardness, I managed what I thought could be construed as a flirtatious smile and, again, remained positively noncommittal. Best Friend Roommate and I debated about it the rest of the meal, but when we left that night, my name and number were scrawled on the back of the receipt.

An hour later, my phone rang. It was Will, the waiter, and though I didn't go out with him that night, we did make plans for the weekend.

Turns out Will the Waiter was 27 and a veteran who had gone back to school, and we had a spectacular time seeing his friend's band play at a local bar. I'd been to bars plenty, I could do the bar scene, but when we got back to his place I was totally out of my element. I hadn't dated since high school, and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Where should I sit? How should I act? Was I going to be expected to have sex with him? And if I wasn't staying the night, how would I be getting home? I was drunk, which helped my anxiety, but didn't do anything to improve my decision making skills.

Before I really even knew what was happening, we were kissing, and moving into his bedroom, and in a moment of panic I awkwardly blurted out that I didn't want to have sex. Fortunately, he said okay, and my fears that I'd be fighting him off like a bad actress in a sexual harassment video subsided.

What I'm going to share with you next gets a little graphic, but it's so worth it.

I thought things were going well. Everyone was...you know...touching each other, and I was inwardly congratulating myself on successfully navigating the nuances of sexual behavior in the college environment. Suddenly, however, he took his hands away from me and began to focus his attentions on himself. Drunk and frighteningly ignorant of typical dating behavior, I had absolutely no idea as to whether this was normal and what I should do about it. I weighed my options. I was drunk, and didn't have my car anyway, so driving myself home was out. I could go across the street to where some friends of mine lived, or I could just stick it out and see what happened. I decided that while decidedly odd, his behavior didn't seem to be endangering me at all, and perhaps when he was, um, done, he'd return his attentions to me.

So I decided on the least awkward course of action, which was to go along with it. I'm kind of grossed out now writing about how I actually kissed him while he masturbated, but I really had no idea how normal people operated in this sort of situation and, after all, I had told him that I didn't want to have sex, so maybe this was an appropriate response and I was just so out of the loop that I had no idea. Maybe we were supposed to take turns?

But alas, no dice. He finished up, turned off the lights and rolled over to spoon with me. Now I was really confused. I'd just watched this guy masturbate on a first date and he wanted to spoon afterwards? But it was 4 a.m. and I was still drunk, so, again, I went with it.

When I woke up in the morning he was still wanting to cuddle, and soon started kissing me again. Always the optimist, I figured maybe he'd just been drunk the night before and in the light of day things would be different, but, once again, homeboy was flying solo. Again, I weighed my options. I was lying in bed next to a guy who was masturbating in my presence for the second time in twelve hours, and I was yet to receive any satisfaction.

"What the fuck," I thought, "He's doing it, I may as well do it too."

And so ended my first date after re-entering the realm of singledom--mutual self-gratification in bed with a guy I barely knew. He drove me home and I never answered his phone calls again. Disastrous as it was, I'd dated somebody new, and that was huge. I can honestly say that that experience went a long way toward preparing me for some of the weird shit I'd see over the next few months of dating that I can't believe I never blogged about.

de-cluttering

2007-06-13T07:17:00.000-05:00

Thank you everyone for all the kudos on my new house--and to Charming for that little pep talk! I'm really very glad that I decided to stay in Louisiana, and excited about starting school. As Charming said, I'm going to be studying social work, fixing the world and all that. It'll be fun.

I've gone a bit Suzy Homemaker ADD and have put down the sweater I was knitting in favor of preliminarily decorating my new house. So far I've collected more than thirty fabric swatches, drew a diagram of my furniture arrangement on graph paper(with colors!), and made up a list of plants I would like to grow in my new backyard. I get a bit excited about these kinds of things.

What I don't get excited about, at all, however, is the actual process of moving. I'm a terrible pack rat, and I've been in the same apartment for two years. I've got so much random shit it's ridiculous, and I refuse to move all of this junk. The last time I moved I actually went to the trouble of moving a TV that no longer worked, just because I hate that much to throw things away. This time, the broken TV goes. I went through and cleaned out my clothes a few months ago, so that's under control, but I'm beginning to realize that I may have a bit of a problem with, uh, crafts.

I want to make something, I buy stuff to make it; I see something random I think I could use, I stash it away for the day I'm sure it will come in handy; there's a sale on yarn at Hobby Lobby and I buy twenty skeins--then buy more when I actually get to knitting something. My love for crafts, or more accurately craft supplies is beginning to take over my life.

I've been doing this for as long as I can remember, collecting things, and giving up my collections of junk only when it becomes so intrusive that I absolutely must take action. My dining room table is covered in construction paper, acrylic paints, various cutting instruments and types of glue, batting, gauzy fabric, piles of yarn, and a collection of knitting needles in all shapes and sizes, just to get started. The small plastic chest of drawers I purchased specifically to contain the evidence of my craft fetish is no longer adequate, and no way am I moving a bunch of mess from my old place into my new one. But alas, I'm moving in a week, with work and family commitments between then and now, so I suppose I'll be haphazardly sorting things out as I toss them into a box on moving day, and maybe in my new house I can have an entire closet devoted to craft paraphernalia.

2007-05-31T09:47:00.001-05:00

I've been having blogging anxiety.

For some reason I think that I am only able to write well when I'm feeling angsty and existential, which probably has some truth to it. I've been feeling cheerful and satisfied lately, so I feel inadequate to put something worth reading on the internet. However, I gave myself a little pep talk this morning, reassuring myself that there are, in fact, interesting things happening in my life. Like the fact that I've begun my third attempt to knit a sweater.

Okay, maybe that's not that interesting.

I'm starting grad school at LSU in the fall. I know many of you will be disappointed that I'm staying, but I decided that it was best (or maybe just easiest) for me. I was talking to someone I know who has lived all over the world and is old enough to be my mother, if she weren't a lesbian, about the fact that I've never been able to talk myself into leaving Louisiana. She responded, "As long as you leave in your mind, that's all that really matters," which I thought to be rather insightful. Ignorance is rampant everywhere in one form or another, but if there's anyplace in need of more people who are educated and open-minded it's Louisiana. What kind of person would I be to abandon the homeland in favor of Yankee accents and Ikea?

I'm going to dinner tonight with Nick's parents and mine for the first time. I'm anticipating that it will be the most awkward two hours of my life. I'm also, hopefully, moving into a new house in a few weeks.
We found a really cool, really old house in the garden district for a good price. I put in the application and deposit yesterday, so now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that our slacker leasing agent pulls through and everything goes as planned. What's most interesting about this is that Best Friend Roommate and I will be going our separate ways and I will be moving in with Nick and my sister. This is such a huge change for me, and I'm a little bit terrified, but with change comes growth, and someday I'll be better for it.

(The picture is of our living room. It's a double shotgun house.)

school's out for summer

2007-05-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

The papers and the tests are all over, and a phenomenon has begun which can only be understood by someone who lives in an area almost entirely populated by college students--summer traffic.

I love summer traffic. I love summer. But neither do I love nearly as much as being done with college. I've been irrationally anxious over the last two weeks about graduating, convinced that some unforseen disaster--a teacher on a rampage, perhaps, or a misinformed academic advisor--would crush all my dreams of finally being done with English Literature. But I woke up this morning to find all of my grades posted, far from failing, and commencement instructions in my inbox. I couldn't be more relieved.

So Friday I'll be walking my happy little ass across that stage and getting my diploma. Don't I look happy? That's because grad school's still three months away. Just kidding. I love school...

interrogation room

2007-05-10T12:53:00.000-05:00

Copasetic Fish cornered me in a poorly lit room and told me I had to answer her questions, or else. She's vicious.

1. if you could only be remembered for one thing, what would you like it to be?
Making a life out of helping others. And my mad dance skills.

2. what is the one memory that truly makes you squirm?
Junior high. The entire two years were nothing but a series of awkward events.

3. if five of your closest friends were each asked to describe you in one word, what would those five words be?
I did research on this: bootylicious, free-spirited, charismatic, caring, compassionate. Aren't my friends so nice? Accessory responses were: reckless, adventurous, dedicated, and activist.

4. if you could tell any one person a particular thing, what would that thing be? include the person if you want.
My grandma, that I miss her. =(
5. what draws you back to any particular blog?
Mostly feeling like I can relate to the person writing. I've scaled back the time I spend in the blogosphere quite a bit, so there are really only two blogs that I read devotedly nowadays, although I still check in on all my other buddies from time to time.

So, if you'd like to be interviewed yourself, simply leave me a comment or email me, and I'll email you back with five questions of my choosing.

I'm tryin to get rich 'fore I leave up out this bitch

2007-05-01T21:25:00.000-05:00

Well.

On Friday I almost hit a pedestrian with my car traveling at a speed of approximately 50 piles per hour. Fortunately, my catlike reflexes and the unexpectedly effective brakes of the Suzuki Esteem thwarted disaster.

Today, I contemplated the possibility of making a ridiculous amount of money by putting pornographic images of myself on the internet and implying that I was a minor. As I am not a minor, only look like one, I think this would be legal, but I dismissed this idea when it occured to me that any evidence of this type of activity in my past may preclude me from someday running for public office, or even securing a job in the social services industry. I decided that I would make my fortune as a life coach instead. I'm starting after finals next week. If you know anyone in need of a life coach, send 'em my way.

on emotional well-being and relative accumulation of wealth

2007-04-23T21:25:00.000-05:00

I have what may seem to some an unhealthy obsession with economic prosperity. This is a problem in that I have no money, have never had money, and, in all likelihood, will never have much money, and yet, I spend a significant amount of time each day pondering how badly I want to have a filthy amount of money.

Seeing someone my age drive around in a Mercedes literally ruins my mood. It really just kills me that they're rich and I'm not. I work hard, I study hard, I've got an assload of experience in my field and a commitment to changing the world, but I feel like I'm never going to get ahead unless I marry rich or win the lottery.

So, to make myself feel more affluent, I spend a lot of money I either barely have or don't have at all. I have this irrational sense that someday I'm gonna be livin' large, despite the fact that my career path, while noble and rewarding, will barely allow me to pay off my student loans.

I guess I could have gone pre-med, but I'd probably end up working in some community clinic for half my med school tuition anyway. I could have majored in finance or investment banking or something like that, but I'm pretty sure I'd be miserable. It seems that between my spending habits and my habitual attraction to career paths which will earn me absolutely no money (teacher, writer, social worker), I've doomed myself to a life of relative poverty.

I guess what it boils down to is that, subconsciously, I chose happiness over money. But right about now, it sure does seem like a big pile of money could bring me a great deal of happiness.

ten days

2007-04-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

I'm posting en masse nowadays. Lemme tell you what I've been up to.

Wednesday, April 4th
Pre-birthday partying, I got so drunk I sang karaoke, making up whatever I lacked in vocal ability with booty shaking to the beat of Respect. Sitting on the patio smoking a cigarette, I knew I was in a hipster bar when some 19 year old with too much hair drawled existentially, "All that exists is your dreams...I have dreams." I asked him if one of his dreams was to cut his hair. He wasn't amused.

Thursday, April 5th
The 22nd anniversary of the day I graced the world with my presence. I got $200 worth of clothing storage accessories from my parents and told everyone I was too busy cleaning my closet to go out. It's now the cleanest room in my house.

Friday, April 6th
My grandpa had sent me a $100 Visa gift card, and I resolved to get the most out of it I possibly could. I think I did pretty well:

A Burger Kind combo meal
A pack of cigarettes
An oil change, an answer to why my check engine light was on, and a cute mechanic shamelessly flirting with me thrown in for free
Three shirts, a pair of cute brown heels, and new sunglasses

Saturday, April 7h
Anytime I get to stay in a hotel is vacation to me, even if it is only a few miles away, so Nick's birthday present to me was a night at Embassy Suites. We brought champagne and chocolate and got take out for dinner, and basically just enjoyed the opportunity to be slothful. We had a lot of fun.

Sunday and Monday, boring boring boring, except for a delicious italian dinner with my sis and her friends.

Tuesday night I packed my bags and headed down to Nick's, an hour away now, to see him before spending the rest of the week in New Orleans. He's on a bachelor party cruise this weekend, so our routine of spending our weekends together has been interrupted.

I was in New Orleans for the American Association of Suicidology conference all week, turns out my workplace is the rock star of AAS. I learned a lot about how to do my job more effectively and I met this guy. They put us up at the Hilton and we had a lot of fun. On Wednesday, we got done pretty early, so two friends and I headed down to Bourbon for a late-afternoon pick-me-up. Walking down the street with our hand grenades, we made friends with a tattoo artist named Dominic and followed him back to his shop, where we apparently drew quite a bit of attention. Even the old guy in the corner came over to show us his tattoos, mumbling about how everyone still recognizes the picture of his ex-wife, Rose, on his arm. When one of Dominic's co-workers handed Cassie his phone number and told her to call him later so they could take a shower together, we decided it was time to leave.

Walking down Canal Street back to the hotel, we made more friends, this time Dominicans inviting us into their cigar shop. We all bought cigars and sat in big leather chairs smoking them while surrounded by old men in fedora hats. I felt irreverently posh.

Yesterday, Cassie and I skipped the morning sessions to have brunch at a place I just love in the French Quarter, which turned into a midday stroll through Jackson Square and the Riverwalk in the midst of French Quarter Fest, and got way out of hand when we decided to take an afternoon nap. Come dinnertime, we hadn't been to a single session, but we met up with everyone else for dinner and nobody seemed to have noticed much. There was a Tapas bar we wanted to go to down in Marigny, and asked the front desk to look up the address for us so we could direct the cabbie. Several circular routes and twenty dollars in cab fair later, we asked the driver to please just drop us off and we'd find the place ourselves. We found it, and it was awesome. My boss got a little tipsy and started spilling secrets and gossip, that was fun.

Now I'm back in Baton Rouge, hungry and exhausted, but for some reason I'm having a lot of trouble motivating myself to get up off the couch. The sudden realization that I'm graduating in five weeks has inspired an overwhelming sense of slothfulness.

sexual health for teddy bears

2007-04-02T22:08:00.000-05:00

Let me tell you a story about a friend of a friend...

My friend Jackie has two roommates, let's call them Anne and Esther. Anne is a friend of Jackie's, and Esther is a friend of a friend who happened to be looking for a new place when they were looking for a roommate. Esther, despite being in her early 20's, often speaks in a high-pitched baby voice and has a collection of teddy bears. Her favorite bear is Prayer Bear, and she brings him everywhere with her.

One day she comes home from her boyfriend's house, Prayer Bear tucked under her arm and hands on her hips, and says with a pout, "I'm so mad! Brent threw Prayer Bear in the trash!"

Jackie and Anne do their best to hide their rolling eyes and ask politely, "Esther, why did Brent throw Prayer Bear in the trash?"

"Because I put signs up asking him to stop masturbating in front of me."

Anne and Jackie practically choke on their food, and, as they are now much more interested in what Esther has to say, ask her to continue.

"He masturbates in front of me all the time and he won't stop. It's not like we're even making out when he does it. Like, I'll be sitting doing my homework and he's sitting next to me masturbating, or we're watching TV and he's over there masturbating, or we're taking a shower together and he's off in a corner masturbating!"

I want to pause here to say that I don't believe this is, by any stretch of the imagination, normal. A guy's in a shower with his wet, soapy, and naked girlfriend, and he's off in a corner masturbating, completely disinterested in her. What's even funnier to me, however, is that homegirl retaliated by putting post-it notes all over his apartment asking him not to masturbate in front of her anymore, and he got back at her by throwing her teddy bear in the trash.

Anytime I start to think that my interpersonal relationships are dysfunctional, I think I should remember this story and be reassured that it could, in fact, be worse.

this is your life/the end of an era

2007-03-19T23:40:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, I was asked to enter each and every post-secondary course I've ever taken, one by one and in sequential order, onto a computer screen. A daunting task for the sentimental at heart. So much has happened, so much has changed, over these last four years, that it seems odd to reduce it all to a list of departments and course numbers. The cold descriptions don't do it justice.

The list doesn't include people like my friend Jesse (who is so oddly interrelated with every aspect of my life at LSU it's a bit creepy), or the time I skipped a midterm to see 311 in New Orleans, or even my freshman year dorm roommate who had sex with a 16 year old (who went to a Catholic all-girls school, no less) while she thought I was sleeping. There's no mention of the three years I spent in a relationship doomed to fail, or the strength I summoned up to get over it. All the Mondays I went to class after working till dawn on the crisis hotline, or the Fridays I dragged myself to campus after 80's Night at Spanish Moon. The summer I learned to drink beer, the summer that I smoked too much pot, or the summer that I sold my soul to AmeriCorps. All the wonderful people who have come and gone, or had the good fortune to stick by my side a little while, are omitted as well. I'm not ready to leave all this behind, but I know that if I stick around too much longer, it'll all leave me soon enough.

Alright wordy people...

2007-03-16T20:36:00.000-05:00

I did this activity in one of my classes today as a group-building activity, and led my group to massive victory. I know how obsessed some of you are with words, so I thought you'd get a kick out of it as well. No cheating!

Directions: Reduce these sentences to familiar proverbs.

1. A period of preeminence is passed through by each and every canine.
2. It is fruitless to be lachrymose because of scattered lacteal fluid.
3. Similar sire, similar scion.
4. Articles which coruscate are not fashioned from aureate metal; at least not necessarily.
5. Prodigality is produced by precipitancy.
6. Pulchritude does not penetrate the dermal plane.
7. It is not proper for mendicants to be indicative of preferences.
8. Your immature gallinaceans must not be calculated prior to their being produced.
9. A pterodactyl ungulate mammal may be addressed toward aqueous fluid, but it cannot be compelled to quaff.
10. It is fondness for notes of exchange that constitutes the tuberous structure of all satanically inspired principles.
11. Lithoidal fragments ought not to be hurled by tenants of vitreous abodes.
12. Beholden vessel never exceeds one hundred degrees Celsius.
13. A feathered creature clasped in the manual members is the equivalent, value-wise, of a brace of the bosky growth.
14. A detached fragment of the terrestrial lithosphere, whether of igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic origin, and whether acquiring its approximation of sphericity though hydraulic action or other attrition, when continuously maintained in motion about its temporary axis and with its velocity accelerated by an increase in the angle declivity, is, because of abrasive action produced by the incessant but irregular contact between its periphery and the contiguous terrain, effectively prevented from accumulating on its external surface an appreciable amount of the cryptogamous vegetation normally propagated in umbrageous situations under optimum conditions of undeviating atmospheric humidity, quiescence, and comparative sequestration from corrosive-erosive agencies.

Find the answers here

Denim

2007-03-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

I will never name my child Khaki.

It's the type of name that, upon first encounter, seems oddly likeable, mysterious, unique. You think that it's special, has a nice feel to it, and most importantly, seems so original. You think there can't possibly be another Khaki in the world.

Then, one day, you meet another Khaki, and you're just an ass named after a color. Not even a really solid, legitimate color, but a color ranging from off-white to army green.The color for which you are named not only has a complete lack of focus, but is primarily reserved for clothing. You are an unfocused pair of pants.

on confidence, courage, and change

2007-03-13T00:12:00.000-05:00

I got invited to a final interview with Teach for America. I'm, like, totally stoked.

It occurs to me occassionally how much I've grown over the last two years. Back then, I never would have thought myself capable of many of the things I've done since. I don't know where the jolt of self-confidence came from, but somewhere along the line I told myself I could do it, and I did. I'm not sure now what the next two years will hold for me, but no matter what, I think I can take it on. Whether it's teaching inner-city kids or selling my soul to graduate school, I've totally got this. Breaking down, breaking up, moving out, moving up, eating ramen every night and changing lives--my world is going to be turned upside down over the next two years, even if I never leave Louisiana. Maybe someday I'll work up the courage to go live somewhere new, but for now, I can find plenty of challenges right here at home.

"everything changes, nothing perishes"
[omnia mutantur, nihil interit]
-Ovid, Metamorphoses [15.165]

a boycott, a smile, and a sunset

2007-03-08T10:43:00.000-06:00

I broke my Wal-Mart boycott Tuesday night in a state of crisis. But after eight months, three weeks, four days, and about twelve hours, I think I had a pretty good run. I'd bought a pair of super-hott Chinese Laundry shoes to dress me up a bit for my interview the next day, only to get home and realize I couldn't walk in them because the backs kept slipping off my heels. So, Wal-Mart being the only place that was open, I begrudgingly broke the boycott with Best Friend Roommate. But alas, in typical Wal-Mart fashion, they were fresh out of heel grips. I had to settle for some ball-of-the-foot pads that I thought might push my feet up a bit, but only succeeded in making my shoes a little more squishy. The entire experience reassured me that my boycott was, in fact, justified, as even at 11pm Wal Mart is miserable. I was competing for aisle space against men armed with forklifts and hand trucks, I could have sworn the electronics section was being robbed for the constant, rhythmically beeping, ear-piercing noise, and, of course, I waited in line for twenty minutes to check out. When I swiped my card I was randomly selected to evaluate the cleanliness of the store, and you better bet I said it was filthy. I wish it'd been an open-ended question--I would have written an essay on all of the reasons I hate their store.

Fortunately, I had enough time to run by Payless on my way out of town yesterday and grab some heel grips. I got down to New Orleans about thirty minutes early, plenty of time to find the building and a parking spot. Now straighten that skirt, girl, stamp out that cigarette, and act like those shoes don't kill you. I marched in like a champ, my ambivalence about the job itself hidden by my sparkling charm. I got a quick tour of the building, my shoes making what seemed like quite a clamor on the ancient wood floors. It was all winding halls and nested offices; I don't think they even had air-conditioning. Very nonprofit, very New Orleans.

They were great, awesome, amazingly cool people, but about halfway through the interview they broke it down for me--they really liked me, but the position had already been filled by a former intern, and they want me to intern for them instead. It's basically the same job, full time, but unpaid. I told them I'd keep it in mind, but I'm sure they know better than to hold their breath. I left with a smile in my heart nevertheless--I'd gotten the chance to meet some really cool people, I'm always happy just to drive around New Orleans, and I had time to go see an old friend before meeting Nick for dinner.

I'd never driven across the Causeway before, as I'm always taking either the twinspan or the spillway out of the city. It crosses the longest part of the lake, over to Mandeville where Nick lives now, and I realized that for several miles in the middle of it, you can't see anything but water. You might as well be in the middle of the ocean. I was driving at dusk, and could follow the sun setting into the water through my window. It was awesome. I had a beautiful day.

and yet I'm blogging

2007-03-06T17:54:00.000-06:00

Oh my gosh, I've been so busy.

I've been working out, working late, applying and interviewing, reading, writing, studying, testing, aceing. I've got three minutes to write before my web-conference begins, after which I'm off to the mall to find that perfect pair of shoes for that job interview tomorrow, and no time at all to figure out whether I actually want this job. My boyfriend moved an hour away and I've barely noticed, except that he keeps calling to say he misses me, which is really starting to interfere with my productivity. These antidepressants have really given me a kick to get more done, but it seems like I've hardly been coming up for air.

I'll come back to write more soon. I promise.

Monday Monday so good to me

2007-02-26T20:05:00.000-06:00

On Friday, I went to the doctor...

"It looks like you've had a bit of weight gain. You've gained eight pounds since you were here in December."

Ouch... And then it got worse: "How much did you weigh when you started college?"

105. And, according to his scale, which I, personally, question the accuracy of, I now weigh 132. "Twenty-seven pounds over three years, I'd say that's some pretty significant weight gain," he says. I need to start working out, eating right, he says, or I'll continue gaining weight. Obesity runs in my family, but I never thought I'd hear my doctor telling me I need to lose weight at 21.

Friday wasn't one of my better days.

But today, today was a good day. Today, I got offered a phone interview with Teach for America. Later, I got an email regarding a job I'd really wanted but gave up on weeks ago since I'd never heard back from them. They want me to contact them to schedule an interview. Today, I did not go work out, but I did blow dry and straighten my hair for the first time in more than a week.

Friday sucked, but Monday was pretty damn good.

the answers...

2007-02-25T21:15:00.000-06:00

The answers from this post

1. Every dog has its day.
2. No use crying over spilt milk.
3. Like father, like son.
4. All tha glitters is not gold.
5. Haste makes waste.
6. Beauty is only skin deep.
7. Beggars can't be choosers.
8. Don't count your eggs before they're hatched.
9. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
10. Love of money is the root of all evil.
11. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
12. A watched pot never boils.
13. A bird in the hand is as good as two in the bush.
14. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

you are so not significant in my misery anymore

2007-02-22T21:13:00.000-06:00

Earlier tonight, as I sat on the steps outside my front door, I was smoking my pink cigarettes that I think are just so cool and it hit me, that you wouldn't have thought they were cool at all. You would have told me they were stupid.

You never stopped trying to make everyone else around you feel as small as you did, and it worked. You made me feel like nothing. I thought I was nothing. Only when you were gone, when you'd knocked me down until I was barely existent and then walked away, did I begin to learn just how big I really could be all on my own.

That's what this blog was really all about: figuring out who I'd forgotten to become while I was so wrapped up in you. I've gotten over my co-dependence now. I've got plans and backup plans and love and laughter in my life, but still something seems to be missing. I'm searching to find it. I think this is about more than any man or boy who has ever come and gone in my life, any family member or awkward adolescence or otherwise outwardly affected affliction. The more my future moves toward becoming my present, the less apparent the peaceful, happy satisfaction I'd put together for it seems to be. I guess it doesn't all come in a neat little package upon graduation.

So I'm working on it. I've got an appointment with my primary care tomorrow to ask for a little help from a prescription, and I signed up for a women's spirituality group that starts in a month. Maybe I'll even join Curves. I'm cutting back on my obligations. I've gotta trust that someone else will save the homeless kids. I need some "me" time.

What I'm trying to say is, as weird as it seems, I'm not blaming my problems on you anymore, and I think that means that I'm over you. My problems are all mine now, and all mine to fix.

Photoblogging Mardi Gras

2007-02-18T22:06:00.000-06:00

So, Copasetic Fish came and visited me this weekend for Mardi Gras! We partied hardy. I took pictures.

First, we parked the car and walked to meet Nick and his friends at our spot on St. Charles. Then we took some pictures, but you don't get to see any of them except for Nick and I. I like this picture.

Then, some time later, the floats came. There were marching bands and flambeau dancers as well and even Styx and Journey and Taylor Hicks were there playing music for us, but since it was dark and everything was moving I couldn't get any good pictures.

There were masked men throwing beads at us, but we just kept asking for more.

Don't they look frightening? They're really very nice. They give you beads if you smile and yell and wave, which I do very well thanks to years of practice on the mean streets of St. Tammany Parish. I even caught a pair of panties. And a spear.

Then they threw beads at my face. They thought I was smiling too much.

But no worries, after a very brief recovery period, I was ready to go again. Don't you even think I wasn't catching beads with my free hand. The cold beer to the forehead inspires sympathy and amusement, which earns me extra beads.

We gave a bunch of our beads away to little kids, but we still had a lot left over. They're pretty much useless come Ash Wednesday. I always have the hardest time figuring out what to do with them, because I hate to just throw them away. This year someone told me I could donate them to charity, so I'm going to look into that.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

2007-02-16T21:29:00.000-06:00

Copasetic Fish is coming to visit me tomorrow, and we are going to go par-tay on St. Charles for my favorite favorite favorite parade, Endymion! Maybe I'll take the camera along and do some photoblogging, I have to be careful not to post any pics of my partying companion, however (not everyone exposes their identity to the animalistic fury of the internet as freely as I do)

give me a king cake baby
give me a beignet kiss
give me a french quarter morning that looks like this
give me the endymion krewe
give me the times-picayune
give me a drunk and lazy crawfish boil in muggy sticky june
give me a six pack of dixie
give me some assorted abita beers
give me a city where it only snows once every 10 years
give me a green neutral ground
give me a Mardi Gras ball
give me a medium rare burger at my grand old Port of Call
give me a glittery drag show
give me the streetcar line
give me House of the Rising Sun
give me a Tchoupitoulas sign
give me a shrimp and oyster poboy
give me lovebug season in May
give me my New Orleans-I will definitely stay.

quite possibly the bravest thing I have ever done in my life

2007-02-15T21:58:00.000-06:00

I've worked in inner-city schools and soup kitchens. I walk around the ghetto looking for homeless kids. I go pretty much anywhere I think the poor people are, dangerous or not, figuring if they have to be there then I can be there too. Sometimes it's scary, but that's nothing compared to this.

I turned down the lights, cranked up the music, and pretended I was Mimi. I swiveled, I shimmied, I shook. I dipped and swung and grinded (grinded? ground? What's the correct past-tense form of the dance move, as opposed to the food processing technique?). And I bumped. Oh, did I bump. But mostly I just rolled my hips.

I threw coy looks over my shoulder, trying not to collapse into a lump of embarrassment. I'd seen the instructional DVD with real life white trash strippers, and I knew what to do. I had the moves, I could fake the guts. Just like that time I got drunk and thought we were playing strip poker, not regular hold 'em. Except this time wasn't quite so awkward.

And that's the story of my first-ever lap dance.

full circle

2007-02-08T11:15:00.000-06:00

Remember this guy?

It started yesterday with an early morning email, "I need you to call me," and a phone number. Worried, I nervously dialed the number, and there it was, that voice I hadn't heard in at least three years. He said my voice sounded different, I sounded so grown up. I thought his voice sounded different too--he sounded so strung out.

His live-in girlfriend dumped him and his heart is broken. I figured he was socially isolated and needed a friend, so we talked. But I can't drop everything in my life to be there for an ex-boyfriend that I hear from only periodically and haven't seen in years. I had plans for the evening, so I said I had to go. He sounded hurt, but I wasn't budging. A few minutes later, the boundary was crossed with a simple text: "I miss u," and later, "I still love u. I want to be with u."*

When I was seventeen I would have killed for this. All I wanted was to be with him forever and ever. To fix him and love him and have cute little babies together someday. But I grew up. I'm not the same girl he knew back then, and my bad-boy phase is long gone. I've fallen in love again--twice. He was my first love, but he most certainly was not my last. Sometimes it's best that our dreams don't quite work out as planned.

*It seems that if you were going to attempt to win back the affection of a long-lost ex-girlfriend, particularly if she has gone to college and you got your GED in jail, you would make the extra effort to spell out your words completely, even if they are three whole letters long.

afterglow

2007-02-03T11:45:00.000-06:00

There's a reason why I don't plan fundraisers or write budgets or delegate funds. I suck at money, I don't care about money, all I care about is the products and services that money can buy me. When it comes to nonprofit management, this is not a strength.

However, because I AM an effective leader, I have delegated all of these responsibilities to Sarah: someone who thrives on bossing people around and thinking about money. The past few weeks, I have reveled in the fact that I didn't have to know all the details, I didn't have to check up on her to make sure everything was going well. I could just trust her.

So last night, we held our first benefit and it was GREAT! There was comedy, there was music, there was...ribbon dancing? I have no idea how to estimate profits--I was thinking maybe we'd pull out with $500 bucks, but when we got the final count it was $1200, and I couldn't be more ecstatic.

picture this face on a valtrex commercial

2007-01-30T09:25:00.000-06:00

There's a secret that I left off of my little list the other day...

I have had four--count 'em, four--sexual partners in my 21 years. All committed relationships, no one night stands or random hookups. On sexual partner #2, I contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

I'm the kind of girl who has to be taken out to dinner before giving up even a kiss. A girl with standards and big plans, who washes her hair regularly and never goes home with guys she just met. The kind of girl you bring home to your mom. And I have an STD.

This will stay with me all of my life. I take medication every day to reduce my chances of spreading it to others, and I'm honest with potential partners. Believe me, some of them have not been okay with it.

People are usually informed of this on a need-to-know basis, but recent events have led me to think maybe "need-to-know" could be a bit more loosely defined. Think of it as a public service announcement. Be careful who you stigmatize, folks, and wrap yourselves up, STD's aren't just for sluts anymore.

every eighteen minutes

2007-01-29T21:23:00.000-06:00

I work at a suicide hotline. I talk about suicide every day. I'm used to it, I understand it. But when the issue suddenly surfaces in my life outside of work, it still seems just as shocking as before I had any training.

It appears as if one of Nick's friends tried to kill himself today. Nobody really knows for sure, because he's still unconscious and breathing on a ventilator, but it's pretty obvious that his wreck was no accident. I barely even know this guy, but it just seems so preposterous to me. He's really good looking, has a beautiful girlfriend he's been with forever, a college degree, a great job, lots of friends...it's such a glaring reminder that crisis can happen to anyone. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among people my age. In the United States, twice as many people die each year by suicide than homicide. Despite these outrageous statistics, it's largely ignored and stigmatized by the general public. It makes me very sad.

When I was in training, they told us that when a group of people who had actually survived jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge were interviewed, every single one of them said that at the moment when their feet left the bridge, they absolutely, positively, wanted to die. But by the time they hit the water, they'd changed their minds, and they were grateful to have survived. Jarod's in ICU now, fighting for his life. I hope he's one of the ones to wake up and feel happy to be alive.

UPDATE: Jarod died Thursday, 2/1/07.
“Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.”
http://www.hopeline.com/

the secrets that I keep...

2007-01-28T13:00:00.000-06:00

Copasetic Fish (WHO, by the way, is coming to VISIT ME for Mardi Gras! I'm so excited!) tagged me, so here are five things you don't know about me:

1. I grind my teeth when I sleep. I have no idea what exactly it is that I do with my jaw, I can't recreate the effect when I'm awake, but apparently it's loud enough to raise the dead.

2. I'm incredibly messy and disorganized. If it weren't for having a roommate, I'd have my crap strewn all over the apartment, and honestly, having a roommate only helps with that a little bit. My bedroom floor is covered in random crap and piles of clothes, the interior of my car is about six inches deep in papers, fast food packaging, and empty cigarette packs.

3. I have some credit card debt. I hid the card from myself and am working on paying the card off before I have to start paying student loans. I've got it down to about $1600.

4. I'm very self-conscious about my skin. I started getting acne when I was ten and struggled with it all through adolescence. I still have some problems with it, even though I think I should have outgrown it by now. I can manage it much better now than when I was younger.

5. My Christmas tree is still up, and will probably still be here for Mardi Gras. Last year, it was up through March. It seems so sad to take it down, and I'm lazy.

So, time to tag? Megan and Fisch, just to see if I can get him to post.

should I stay or should I go now

2007-01-24T21:41:00.000-06:00

A new semester has begun, my last one as an undergrad. The classes will be fairly easy, a good thing considering the kind of grades I need to make up for last semester. As graduation day draws near, I've been trying to figure out what exactly it is I'll be doing six months from now.

I go back and forth...school...work...school...work. I work at school, I learn at work...The options seem rather similar to me, except one pays me and the other I have to pay for.

There's an element of uncertainty to taking some time off before grad school. Will I get a good job with just a BA? What will I be doing, will the people be nice, will the work be meaningful to me? On the other hand, I know a lot of people who are in or who have graduated from LSU's MSW program; I know I'll get in, and I know what to expect once I get there.

But man, I am just so sick of school. Sick of racking up student loans, mostly, now that I think about it...

My love affair with Literature has been over for some time now; it's deteriorated into a marriage of convenience. I've been cheating on my major of choice with electives in sociology and communication for at least three semesters. F. Scott Fitzgerald doesn't even know that I've left him for Merton. But alas, dear Literature and I both know that it'll all be coming to an end in May, and I may as well put aside my dissatisfaction with my previous educational experience and look forward with optimism to a field of study I'm more likely to enjoy and appreciate: Social Work, also known as "Saving the World".

Today I'm feeling more like going to grad school. Tomorrow I may change my mind. My application's due in less than a month, so I better settle on one soon.

saving the world is killing me

2007-01-16T14:21:00.000-06:00

Thanks so much e. for the comment and the link, it means a lot to me, and that really is exactly what I've been thinking about for the past few days.

I talked with my counselor about this yesterday. She did some math and told me that I'm essentially working a 57 hour week right now. I really don't want to stop any of the things that I do, so the solution is for me to manage it better. I've got a bit of a plan and I'm pretty excited about it.

I think it's just important for me to remember that I have a right to a life led for me. I've always thought that if I'm capable of doing something, and I have the opportunity to do it, then I should, and that's just not true. Just because I'm able to do something doesn't mean that I have to, or that if I don't do it nobody else will. And if I don't make time to take care of myself, I won't be saving the world much longer. I'll be turning tricks to pay for my psych meds.

philanthropy and inner peace

2007-01-13T21:55:00.000-06:00

I was talking with a friend tonight over martinis, and I started thinking that...from where I am now, I don't think I can ever go back.

I've come to think of my time and my money as political power--some small little bit of influence that I can use to enact change. I don't shop at Wal-Mart anymore--June 10, 2006, was my last monetary donation to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.--I bring my business to locally owned establishments whenever I can, I bust my ass building a program to get homeless kids off the streets, and walk around the ghetto looking for them without a second thought. Even my job, the one that pays, is all about improving the lives of others.

But it certainly takes a toll. Imagine yourself trying to have an orgasm, but you just can't clear your fucking mind of wondering where those danged homeless kids are hanging out, and how to tell the difference between them and regular kids, and maybe you didn't do your best in that suicide call earlier today, and damnit you should have sent that email before you went to bed tonight, and are you sure you're not a bad person for still getting your prescriptions from Walgreen's since they're putting all the local guys out of business? And you still feel guilty for not helping the AIDS orphans in Africa.

I'm a firm believer in never doing nothing because I can only do a little. I will do what I can--all that I can--and leave the rest to other people to fix. I'm not dropping anything. I don't think I've taken on too much, I just need to work on using all of my potential, and part of that is knowing when to put it all to bed. So, what? No more work after 9pm? No more working on weekends? Time spent relaxing isn't really relaxed if my mind's still racing. I tell callers who are in caregiver roles how important it is to take care of yourself so that you can be there for others. Time to take my own advice.

I don't know what this post is really all about. I just know that I really can't orgasm the way I used to, and I really do struggle to shut my mind off at night. I don't think I should have to cease any of my activities to get back my sex life or my good night's sleep. And I'm all about problem solving, so I'm just gonna have to find a way around it--making sure "me" time really is about me. I started by ordering a second martini.

managed care covered insight

2007-01-08T18:04:00.000-06:00

Between me and them, I know at least one of us has got to be crazy, and I decided I was ready to find out once and for all whether it's me.

So today was my first step in unraveling the dysfunctional familial dynamic that seems to unexplicably bring me to tears any time I'm compelled to discuss it. I learned a thing or two this afternoon about passivity. I've known somewhere inside for a while that the solution lies not in "fixing" them, or trying to change the things that they do, or telling them over and over and over again how I feel. I've been using "I" language like a pro, delicately expressing my feelings in a manner designed to minimize conflict, hoping that they'll hear what I'm saying clearly and rationally, but it just doesn't work. And no matter how much the experts say it's an effective mode of resolving conflict, if it doesn't work with them, it doesn't work, and I've got to move on to something new.

I've got to stop bitching about how it's not fair, it's not healthy, it should be different, and just work around it. I can't fix them. I can't change them. They're going to do and say whatever they want, whether I think it's right or not. If I ever want any peace, I've got to stop whining and be the bigger person. Even if it not fair.

no seriously, this really happened

2007-01-05T10:43:00.000-06:00

Ya know, I was just thinking last night how nothing particularly noteworthy has happened in my life over the past few weeks, at least not anything I'm willing to put on the internet. And then, mere hours after my boring post was published, real disaster struck. The kind of thing that inspires nervous adolescents to whisper urban legends--sexual, painful, traumatizing, and most certainly worthy of placing on the internet.

It all started with a little trim in the shower. I must admit I'm responsible for the progression from scissors and a razor to lotion hair remover. I thought it would be more efficient, and as always, I disregarded the label as irrelevant and overrated. However, it seems I may have missed a few bits of important information on the label, mainly being the capitalized warnings to NOT RUB IN, and the caution against placing on any kind of genital area (come on, if they don't want you putting that stuff on the genitals, it's basically worthless). Next thing I know, Nick is screaming bloody murder, pushing me out of the way so he can get his balls under the water, and before long I'm on the phone with Poison Control: "Those products are generally very alkaline and should never be applied to that area [yeah, does me a lot of good now, bitch]. He probably has a chemical burn. You need to get him to an ER right away."

I stood in the bathroom door looking at him, still lying on his back in the shower, and knew that I would rather have my fingers dipped in acid than take him to the hospital for this. I could just imagine his mother, a nurse, demanding to know why I could be so stupid as to put lotion hair remover on her son's testicles. He was still carrying on about the excruciating pain he was in, and the aloe I'd tried applying had only worsened an already nightmarish scenario, so I decided to seek a second opinion. I went ahead and called the hospital, telling my story to various healthcare professionals until finally they put a doctor on the phone, who asked me several questions about the condition of the balls. Apparently I wasn't answering to Nick's satisfaction, because by then he'd mustered the courage to get out of the shower and grab the phone from my hand. The doctor said that since there was no blistering, swelling, or bleeding, just a lot of redness, he'd be okay in the long run, and he'd feel a lot better if he applied some vaseline to it.

And what have we learned from this tale, boys and girls? Don't apply beauty store chemical products to any area you'd be embarrassed to show your mom. You don't want to end up the guy bringing his balls into the emergency room.

insert witty title

2007-01-04T21:48:00.000-06:00

I've taken the Myers-Briggs several times in my life, always promptly forgetting my results as soon as I get them, but I took it again the other day just out of curiosity, and it was freakishly accurate. I'm an ENFP. There were two links to descriptions at the end of the test, one of which listed pretty much everything I like to think about myself. The other one, with a disclaimer at the top reading, "The following comes partially from the archetype, but mostly from my own dealings with ENFPs," was written by someone who is obviously not a fan of folks like me. One phrase, in particular, was straight out of my mother's mouth, accusing me of "neglecting [my] nearest and dearest while flitting around trying to save the world."

Whatev. Saving the world's going pretty well for me these days. I'm getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, with meetings and web conferences and outreach sessions all lined up for my last two weeks of semi-freedom before classes start again. We were supposed to go out to the streets today, wandering the bad side of town handing out information to store clerks and posting fliers in mall bathrooms in hopes of making contact with the oh-so-elusive homeless youth population that we can't seem to get our hands on (they work pretty hard to be invisible so they don't get picked up and taken back to abusive homes, which makes them tough for us to find). But alas, it's been raining all day, so we couldn't go. No way am I asking my volunteers to go tredging through the ghetto in a thunderstorm.

And, of course I must mention the fact that I went to the Sugar Bowl yesterday, and it was awesome. I went down Tuesday night, got a horrible night's sleep in a hotel on Canal Street (I paid nothing for the room, so I can't really complain that the others were obnoxiously drunk and kept me up all night), ate the best Eggs Benedict I've ever had in my life in the French Quarter, and had more than a few beers at The Bar That Never Closed During Katrina, then headed over, drunk off my ass, to the Superdome to watch my beloved Tigers beat the piss out of Notre Dame. It was bittersweet, as it's the last game I'll ever attend as a student, or as an undergrad at least, but I'm so glad it was in New Orleans and I was able to go, and I had a lot of fun.

Christmas cash and cookies

2006-12-20T22:17:00.000-06:00

Last week, my friend Cassie's mom handed her ten crisp five dollar bills, and solemnly pronounced that for the past decade or so, she's been roaming around Dollar Trees and K-Marts, handing out cash to children who look underprivileged. She decided this year to split the money up between Cassie and her brother, instructing them to go distribute the Christmas joy on their own. "If you spend any of the money, God will strike you dead right then, and you'll go to hell, and I'll be very disappointed with you.

I've been to Wal-Mart only once in the last six months, to ask the detail cop if he knew where the homeless kids hang out in the area (those little suckers are hard to find). But today I went to Wal-Mart and took twenty bucks of my own out of the ATM, and went around with Cassie handing ones and fives to little kids in ratty clothes. It was so much fun, and I thought the parents would be suspicious or insulted, but half of them were just so surprised, and the other half just smiled and said thank you. One mom was looking away when I gave a five dollar bill to each of her sons. She looked up just as I was walking away, and I heard them telling her, "Mom, this lady just said 'Merry Christmas!' and gave us money!" And I smiled.

Then I came home and made Christmas cookies, which didn't go nearly as well. I first tried to make them yesterday, but I didn't have any baking soda, so I searched the internet for a recipe that didn't require any, and found one, but it turns out baking soda is a pretty vital element. So I went to the store this morning and got some, but by the time I started rolling the dough I'd run out of flour and my dough kept sticking to everything and refused to maintain any sort of Christmas-y shapes, so back to the store I went. So I finally got home tonight and was ready to go, pulled my dough out of the fridge, cut it into bells and stars and santas and trees, popped it in the oven, and approximately 12 and a half minutes later took my first bite, and it was disgusting. Too much baking soda. Bleh. I'm now covered in flour and completely disillusioned with baking, so I'm giving up on cookies for the night and going drinking instead.

did you know budweiser sponsors free cab rides during the holidays?

2006-12-19T02:09:00.000-06:00

Tonight was completely random.

I'm still very drunk mind you, so please ignore any typos or inconsistencies.

Nick's Christmas party for work was tonight. He works at a pizza place. First off, this girl, her name is Grace, who used to be good friends with Bryan, my ex, apparently used to work at Mellow, where Nick works. So she was at the Christmas party, but that was cool, because she's very nice, and I like her.

Then, the girl that Nick fucked while we were together, is apparently, like, best friends with some guy Nick works with now, so homeboy brought her to the party as his date, and Nick had that guy for secret santa, so, present time rolls around, and Nick turns and looks at me, and I tell him, "I'm ready, let's go." So we go up to them, and I made eye contact, and I smiled, and I was perfectly pleasant and polite for a good five minutes, at least, or as long as it took for this guy to stop fucking talking so we could walk away, because either he was oblivious to how incredibly awkward the situation was, or he was drunk, or he just didn't care, or something. So then finally it was over, and so we walked away.

And then it turns out Grace and this other girl know each other, which is even more weird, because say Nick goes to the bathroom, and I don't know too many people at this party, so I look for Grace, but she's busy talking to ho-bag over there, so I gotta fuck around near the bar and look busy so I'm not too terribly awkward and socially inept, until Nick comes back from the bathroom. Not ideal.

Then there were these lesbians. Nick knew they were lesbians because he works with one of the girls, and he knew she was gay, and the girl she was with was her girlfriend, and I said we should ask them if they wanna come home with us, because I'm totally into lesbian porn, so I'd probably be into real lesbians, then I asked him if my face was shiny, because we can't ask lesbians to come home with us if my face is shiny, I'd have to go to the bathroom and powder my face first, and he said it wasn't shiny, but we couldn't ask them to go home with us, I'm not sure why, but it was probably not a good idea in the first place, the kind of thing I'd regret in the morning when I woke up to find my bed rather crowded, so I'm glad he shot me down.

So overall, it was a good night. I had good makeup and a cute top, my only drunk dial was to Best Friend Roommate, I was the bigger person with a girl I really don't like, and I didn't ask any lesbians to come home with me.

much better

2006-12-16T18:09:00.000-06:00

UPS actually called and apologized yesterday, assuring me that my package will, in fact, be delivered on Monday. The fridge is fixed; turns out I got an 89 on my Sociology final, although I'm still quite sure I did very badly on Brit Lit, and finals are over, which excites me to no end.

So today I decided to treat myself. I went to the Paul Mitchell School and paid twelve dollars for a fabulous haircut, then went to MAC and ended my short-lived thrifty streak by spending $74 on makeup, but I got a free application! So now my hair's been styled and my makeup's been done, but I came home and promptly changed into pajamas and settled in to watch some cheesy Christmas movies on ABC Family, so I don't look quite so glamorous as I did a few hours ago, but I sure am feeling cheery.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a very relaxing and rejuvenating month off of school. I can really focus on StandUp For Kids and taking care of myself and catching up on all the things I've been putting off for eons.

worst day ever

2006-12-14T19:06:00.000-06:00

A series of unrelated events have led to what seems to be a day that can't get much worse, at least in my somewhat sheltered little world.

Go back, way back, to last March. While scheduling my courses for the fall semester, I thought to myself, "I only have 30 hours left, I'll just take all the hard ones in the fall so that I can really relax during my last semester."

Then skip to the beginning of this semester, when I decided that I was superwoman and could do anything I wanted to and never drop the ball.

Now we're at about two weeks ago, when I logged into my energy company's third-party online payment website to pay my bill. I clicked, I payed, I left. Simple as they say.

Now Monday, I come home to a UPS slip on my door, announcing the attempted delivery of a highly anticipated package. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to commit to staying home to wait for it at all this week, I used the automated phone system to schedule it for delivery on the 18th.

So yesterday afternoon, I'm sitting in my living room, putting off studying by playing sudoku, when suddenly my power turns off. I call to report the outage and, lo and behold, they didn't receive my payment. Fuck. So I pay over the phone, they say they'll put in a request for it to be turned back on. It's still not back by 11pm, so I spend the night at Nick's.

Today, I get up, go to work, leave work, bomb my Brit Lit final, go back to work, leave work again, bomb my Sociology final, come home, no lights, fuck around looking for breakers in the dark, get my lights on, see a new fucking UPS slip on the door saying today was their final attempt at delivery and I have to go pick my package up beyond fucking Egypt, turn on my laptop, find my internet's not working, resetting the modem doesn't fix it, go to get some food, see my refrigerator still isn't working, flip the breakers some more with no luck, and finally say FUCK IT and eat some spaghettio's, since at least the microwave works.

I have made one C in my college career, and I'm completely convinced that I bombed two tests today. That, in itself, brings me close to tears.

I called UPS, got my package straightened out, called Cox, scheduled a technician to come out on Saturday, called my property management firm and had the answering service page the on-call person about my blown fuse, or whatever it is, and now I'm stealing my neighbor's wireless to bitch at the internet and play sudoku, as this is apparently my new favorite coping choice.

I think, post spaghettio's (I'm scarfing them down in intervals as I type), that I'm going to run down the street to get some cigarettes and Cherry Garcia. Nothing like cancer and animal fats to cheer me right up. And I think I may actually just go over to Nick's, even though he's at work, and wait for him to come home, because I'm just kind of disgusted with my own apartment at the moment. Nothing seems to be working for me at all right now.

it's tuesday in apartment C

2006-12-12T19:05:00.000-06:00

Wooohoo! I'm going to the Sugar Bowl! I got an email last night letting me know that I got a pair of ultra-coveted student tickets. I'm thrilled, pumped, ecstatic [continue terms of excitement as you wish]. Although I must admit, I'm a little confused about why this game matters. I've never been to a bowl game, and while I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, I don't really see what the difference is whether we win or lose. We're not playing for any title. This is why the BCS should have a playoff system, but whatev.

I realize most of you could give a fuck about college football, so I'll move on. It's finals week at LSU. I've got two down and three to go. The fact that this semester is finally coming to a close excites me to no end. This time next week, I'll be home free, spending most of my time sleeping, knitting, and catching up on a plethora of random tasks, such as my brake tag (read: inspection sticker, for those of you who aren't from New Orleans) that's been expired for about eighteen months now, and cleaning my room/closet/entire apartment, which has fallen into such a sorry state of chaos that I'm afraid Best Friend Roommate's been buried under the rubble; I haven't seen her in a few days, and I thought I heard someone mumbling something about "Don't eat my chips and salsa," from beneath a pile of dirty clothes.

ups and downs

2006-12-09T22:33:00.000-06:00

Just a few hours ago, I literally thought to myself, "You know, if I happened to die in a horrible accident right now, I'd be okay with that. I've had a pretty good day."

I can be a bit morbid at times. Trust me, I'm not suicidal, although if I were it'd be quite ironic, considering I work at a suicide hotline. No not suicidal, I'd just had a great day. I woke up this morning next to my favorite person in the world, then got up and actually did my hair and makeup for maybe the third time in as many weeks. I can barely remember the last time I spent more than ten minutes on my appearance. Then I went to lunch at one of my favorite places with Best Friend Roommate before going to see a classic feel-good chick flick. Despite the nature of a relationship implied by the term "roommate," she and I rarely see each other for more than a few minutes at a time, so it was great to have a little girl-date nestled between dead week and finals. After the movie, I went over to Nick's to spend some time with him before he left to spend a few days at his parents house, and on my way home gave my leftovers from lunch to a homeless guy sitting outside the gas station where I stopped to buy cigarettes. I was in a pretty good mood.

Another old friend of mine, Jesse, texted to ask if he could call me for some advice when he got off of work. I told him sure, but I had plans at eleven to go see my friend David's band at one of my favorite bars with Cassie. Ten o'clock rolls around, and I still can't get in touch with Cassie, despite the fact that she called me yesterday just to make sure that I still wanted to go. Jesse called when he got off as promised, but five minutes later his girlfriend beeped in and he hasn't called me back. I guess the problem was resolved. My backup date for Dave's show, Sarah, is "a bit tied up," apparently; she says she'll tell me about it later. I called Carleigh, to see if she wanted to go, but she wanted me to come meet her at another bar instead. I thought about it, but I've got my sister's dog for the weekend and I'd have to lock her up (she's still a puppy) and really only Dave's show would be worth locking her up for.

So Nick's at his parents' house, and Cassie flaked out on me, and I'm going to bed before eleven on a Saturday night. I'm feeling oddly lonely. I didn't give the guy outside the gas station the cheesecake I'd had for dessert, so maybe I'll go pig out on some calories for good measure before bedtime.

"can't" just isn't in my vocabulary

2006-12-05T00:51:00.000-06:00

I can help someone who's considering suicide find a way to stay alive another day.

I can write a paper of any length analyzing pretty much any aspect of literary theory, at an average rate of a page per hour, without a problem.

I can lead a group of volunteers, ranging from 19 to 48 years old, to build a street outreach program from the ground up, charging bravely into the night to find and reach kids living on the streets.

I can manage meetings, make executive decisions, delegate responsibilities, and balance infinitely conflicting schedules, all with grace and composure.

And yet, I must admit, there are some very important relationships in my life which I'm not able to fix. This is what I do for a living--I build connections with people, manage conflict, understand emotions...and here I have failed time and time again with two of the most important people in my world. I'm too close to it, too personally invested in the conflict, to be able to reach through the screaming and the fighting and the crying to find some grain of hope.

I'm trying to sort this out in my mind. I know that our expectations of what a parent-adult child relationship should be are different. At the same time, I'm not sure how to reconcile these two divergent ideals. I'm not able to fix it on my own, and it's hard to tell whether they're willing to meet me halfway.

All I know is that something's gotta give. It seems that things have been this way for a long time now, with brief interludes of outward peace and no change in the foreseeable future. If I don't do something to at least try to reach some sort of peace with the situation I fear that this will always be a source of contention and pain in my life. It's too important for me to let it go.

saving the homeless kids is kicking my ass

2006-12-04T22:04:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you're all convinced by now that I've been mourning the explosive diarrhea/crippling illness/death of my beloved bunny over the last week, drowning my sorrows in cheap wine and country music while staring longingly at his empty cage. Au contraire, my friends; he was released Tuesday afternoon and is back to his normal routine of eating, pooping (cute little pellets, no more diarrhea), and chewing on things he is most certainly not supposed to chew on. They never figured out what the problem was, but it seems to be gone now, so all is well.

In related news, I'm a blogging slacker. I've been crazy busy this semester, and it seems like whenever I get a chance to rest it's all I can do just to get myself up off the couch to piss, much less invest intellectual energy into composing a thoughtful post--or comment, for that matter (man I'm a bad blogging friend). I used all my brain cells on Paradise Lost and nonprofit management.

The good news is that I'm practicing avoidance of the ten gazillion things I have on my to-do list by cranking out another post that I'll publish later on tonight. Also, the semester is almost over, thank God, and then I'll be left with just two jobs: the one that pays me and the one that doesn't. Then maybe I'll have time to shower and comment (interesting the things that get sacrificed during times of stress--cuddling is a priority for free time, showering is not).

my invincible ball of fur is having diarrhea

2006-11-27T23:19:00.000-06:00

Harold the Bunny has fallen ill, my friends.

I'm not sure whether I've ever mentioned him here before, just because there's really not much to say about a rabbit unless something's wrong. Now something is definitely wrong, and I'm very worried.

My poor little baby seems to have some kind of gastro-intestinal problem that's causing diarrhea. I called the emergency vet line last night and brought him in today. The poor little guy soiled himself in his travel carrier on the way there. I listened carefully to everything the doctor had to say, struggling to understand every word through his thick Latino accent. They're not really sure what's wrong with him, apparently, but they know that he's sick. So he's staying there for at least tonight and tomorrow night so they can monitor him and run tests. I went in there terrified that this was the end for my furry friend, but those three dreaded words, "putting him down," have yet to be spoken, thank God. I'm just really hoping it's something that can be fixed.

I'm almost as worried about him staying there as I am about the illness. Rabbits are really big on routine, and having a major change like that can really stress them out. I know he must be terrified. I almost called their emergency line tonight just to ask how he was doing, but I figured they probably wouldn't appreciate that. The vet student assigned to his case is supposed to call me in the morning. I wish I could go in just to visit him, but since it's the LSU Vet School and they're huge I'm sure they don't really accommodate that sort of thing.

It's weird to see him so vulnerable, usually he's a total smart ass. He's slightly belligerent and thinks he's stealthy. It hasn't occurred to him that hopping doesn't really equal stealth, but I'll give it to him that he does have some speed. I've spent an embarrassing number of hours chasing him from one end of the couch to the other as he runs back and forth behind it, trying to catch his rebellious little ass.

Poor baby.

not quite as peaceful as I'd hoped for

2006-11-24T23:29:00.000-06:00

Let me begin by saying that I’m writing about this because that’s what I do—I write about things on my blog. I’m upset, I write. I’m happy, I write. It’s a coping mechanism. I work hard not to censor my blog based on various individuals in my life who may or may not read it. This is my space, and, quite frankly, it’s all about me here. I’m upset, so I will write about it, and that’s that…

My plan to drink lots of wine and not fight with anybody didn’t exactly go as planned.

It seems like everything I know about life just gets turned around at this house; it’s like stepping into an alternative universe. Nothing I know to be true holds up. The things I do to serve my community are a liability, something I have to defend, instead of something to be proud of, and working hard to get an education isn’t hard work at all—I’m not sure what they think it is, but it sure isn’t considered anything special, despite the fact that they never did it. If I were working hard to build a career and support a family at 21, now then they’d be proud. But going to school and working part time, that’s easy stuff, and I’ve no right to comment that I’m busy or broke if I choose to volunteer. That’s a choice that I make and, frankly, one that my parents seem to resent.

What pisses me off is that that’s not even what this fight was about. But it gets brought up, regardless, just like it does every time we argue. And it frustrates me beyond belief.

Sometimes I just don’t know how to get things to work out the way I’d like them to. It seems like I’ve learned so much about communicating: choosing my battles, using “I” language, talking openly and honestly about feelings…none of it works. What do you do when it seems like everything you say is taken as criticism? When people say things to you that hit below the belt? When no matter what, the skills you’ve learned can’t prevent what should be a rather peaceful conversation from turning into a huge blowup?

I tried, I really did. I kept trying to deescalate the situation to no avail. Eventually, I lost my cool, said some things I didn’t mean, and now my dream of being the bigger person is blown all to hell.

Every time this happens, I tell myself, “Ya know, sometimes you just have to give it up. You’re never going to win this fight, so stop trying. Let it go. Realize that, in fact, you are still an intelligent, capable, worthwhile person—and most importantly, a sane person—and that fixing this is beyond your control.” I know that while I’m not always able to control the situation, I am able to control my reaction to it, and I reacted in a way that wasn’t worth the result.

I just want so badly to fix these relationships, and it’s hard for me to realize that I’m not necessarily able to. There’s some dissonance between what they see in me and what I see in myself. It’s so hard to say that the people who raised me don’t know the me that I want them to, or that they want something so much different than what I do out of our relationship.

I’m done for tonight. I’m taking some ibuprofen, smoking a cigarette, and going to bed. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

home for the holidays

2006-11-20T23:26:00.001-06:00

I've been slacking on my posting lately. My how quickly a week can fly by.

In approximately 18 hours, my 96 hour stretch of leisure will begin. I've decided that time spent with my family will always be more about what I make of it than what actually happens, which has given me a whole new perspective on things like Thanksgiving. Consequently, I've set some ground rules for this week:

I will spend the time that I'm at home drinking wine, eating free food, and hanging out with my family.
I will not drive anywhere. There is no place important enough for me to go that no one else is going to as well (remember the wine).
I will not fight with anybody. Not my mom, not my dad, not my sister, not my boyfriend. Any bit of stress or irritation will roll off of me like water on Rain-X. The wine will help with this.
The most strenuous thing I will do is knit. And maybe write a paper.

I'm really excited about this little bit of family bonding/mini-vacation. Since my actual level of compatibility with my family has reached a status previosuly unheard of thus far in my life, it'll be very refreshing, I think, to spend four days at my parents' house and not argue with anybody at all. I actually like my family a lot more now that I'm older (not that I didn't always love them, I'm sure you understand), and so I'm feeling very optimistic about spending time with them.

And my plan for coping with the stress of introducing Nick to my extended family, is to just relax. Whatever happens happens, and I have faith that he can handle it. This week is happy time, and nothing's going to mess with that.

happy as a pea in a pod

2006-11-14T10:06:00.000-06:00

In the Spring of 2005, I found myself in a room of about twenty people sitting in a circle*: We were to take turns introducing ourselves, and then tell a little bit about the supports we had in our lives. Everyone else talked about friends, family, a boyfriend or girlfriend here or there. When my turn came, all I could say was my boyfriend, and I wasn't even sure that he was a support. I knew something was wrong with this picture.

It's not that I didn't have friends and family. I think I just didn't use them the way I was supposed to. I had a lot of acquaintances and a few close friends, but I found myself keeping people at arm's length. And my family was just that--my family. It was rare for me to call my mom or sister just to chat.

I had this boyfriend who just sucked the life out of me. One person refuses to bend and the other ends up breaking. I avoided commiting to new friendships because I didn't want to risk not being there when my schmuck of a boyfriend finally came home. My self-esteem was nonexistent and I rarely pushed myself to believe that I could change my life. The relationship didn't affirm who I was as a person, didn't support me or encourage me--it held me to who I'd been when I was seventeen. It wasn't working for me anymore, but I was too scared to do anything about it.

It's amazing to me how much my life has changed in the last year. I have so many wonderful people around me whom I've let into my life. Not just acquaintances, not just people I know, not even people who consider me a friend but really treat me more like a personal therapist. I've got so many people who truly do care about and respect me for who I am.

I'm closer to the people who were always there, and I've reached out to others with whom I felt a common bond. I've cut the people who were unhealthy for me out. A natural disaster taught me not to take my family for granted, and I now see my mom and sister as friends and allies, not adversaries. I even chat with my dad from time to time, something I never would have predicted. (It turns out we're just a little different, and he's not so bad after all.) I've found myself in a new relationship with somebody who actually listens to me; someone who loves and appreciates me for who I am, not who he wants me to be. I'm surrounded by love and support and respect. It's a very affirming environment.

I promise I will never let my own happiness go for a boy ever again. I feel so much better about life now, and I don't want to ever go back to where I was. I believe in myself, and I know that I control my own destiny. Things can only get better from here.

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." ~Abraham Lincoln

*No, I was not in group therapy, this was a training session to volunteer on the crisis hotline.

crazy is as crazy says

2006-11-09T11:18:00.000-06:00

I won't get on my soapbox and brag about how ecstatic I am over recent political happenings. Past experience has taught me to write about what I know--coincidentally that's fairly limited to boys, recreational substances, and the nonprofit sector--and the world of politics is entirely too volatile, complex, and completely ridiculous for me to risk calling myself knowledgeable whatsoever.

Now onto something I do know about--boys and dysfunctional families. As far as my extended family is concerned, I'm quickly approaching prime age for marriage. My opinion on this matter is as yet unclear, as spending twenty-one years in South Louisiana, combined with being the kind of girl who repeatedly seems to find herself in long term relationships, has a tendency to make one eager to marry fairly young (which in Louisiana, would not be young at all, but perhaps in the rest of the country, might be a little premature.) However, being the liberal-minded, educated young woman that I am, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of getting married in the moderately near future.

There, it's out there, for the entire internet to see, even all you yankees. Please don't think I'm a redneck.

I'm just a little bit terrified of the upcoming holiday season, because it means Nick meeting my extended family, and that makes me nervous. I would say about 75% of my family members will either completely ignore him, scare the shit out of him, or annoy him so much that he moves to sit with the ones who won't talk to him. They're an interesting bunch, without much respect or use for social delicacies. I'm positive somebody is going to ask us if we plan on getting married, which will be entirely awkward not because the idea makes me uncomfortable, but because I'm not sure whether I'm ready to take the plunge of telling aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. Because I've thought in the past that the answer to that question was most certainly yes. There were plans and talks that were not at all considered abnormal or premature by my family--we'd been together for three years. And there were pointed questions when things got bad and I wasn't ready to admit it--when they started to notice that he never came around anymore.

Telling my family that I think I want to marry this guy is as good as him putting a ring on my finger, because from here on out they'll be watching, waiting, making little notes.

I'm starting to realize that I sound as crazy as they do, so I'll stop there. As good as I've gotten to be at understanding why people think and act the way that they do, I don't understand my family or my reaction to them, and my blog is most certainly not the place to explore latent issues. Perhaps I should have stuck to politics.

Today's a big day for me.

2006-11-05T23:24:00.000-06:00

StandUp for Kids - Baton Rouge is holding its first volunteer training session this afternoon. This is the last big step toward getting out on the streets and doing Outreach. I'm so excited that everything seems to be coming along so quickly. I've been working so hard, as has the rest of our leadership team, and we've got big dreams for what we'll accomplish in the next year.

Today is Best Friend Roommate's 22nd birthday, the 9th anniversary of our friendship. It's the last of her birthdays we'll be in the same state for, at least for the foreseeable future, so I'm a bit sad. I'm pretty sure she's studying Internal Auditing all day, which is even more sad. That girl needs a vacation.

Coincidentally, today also marks a year since Bryan and I broke up. A week ago, his girlfriend sent me a facebook message telling me she feels really bad about hurting me and she wants me to call her so we can go to lunch and talk about it. She said she just wanted to get everything out in the open. While this is something I would have really liked to do eight months ago or so, I'm not really interested now. I told her I'm pretty much over it, and I've moved on from that part of my life. I'm happier now than I had been for a long time, and I wish them the same kind of happiness. It felt good to say all of that and mean it.

And last but not least, today is Nick and I's four month anniversary. I honestly wish that Bryan and I would have broken up a good two years before we did, just so I could have moved on and found this guy sooner. I spent enough time dating around while I was single to know when I've found one I like. And while he's most certainly not perfect, he comes closer to perfect for me than anyone else ever has. I'm very happy with him.

Aren't we cute?

surrogate sis

2006-10-31T12:39:00.000-06:00

I consider myself a pretty damn good big sister. Some of you may protest that perhaps conning my sis into taking on a position as my Personal Assistant may not exactly be the nicest thing a sister could do, but that's one minor transgression in a sea of good deeds. Besides, she's poor, and I'm paying her.

My sister and I are only thirteen months apart. Our closeness in age caused no small amount of vicious fighting throughout our entire childhood and adolescence. Who stole whose clothes, who lost their virginity in the other one's bed, who hogs the phone and the internet, who ate all the ice cream, etc. There was screaming, things were thrown, we were often left with scratch marks and bruises after being pulled off of each other.

Even when I moved away to college, we still couldn't spend more than a weekend in the same house without screaming at each other. I didn't come home very often after my freshman year, and although she was still living at home she wasn't around much when I was there. We rarely talked and when we did it was for a practical purpose. I guess we didn't really think we had much in common.

Then Katrina hit. To make a long story short, she stayed with me for two months, living on an air mattress in my dining room. We had to learn to act like grown-ups, to be polite to each other, to support each other through a time that was stressful for all of us. I got her a job at the place where I was waitressing and shared my car with her until she could get a new one, she cleaned up after herself and tried her best to be polite and considerate in close quarters. We helped each other out and tried hard to get along, because it was the only thing to do.

We're so much closer now. She moved back to my parents' house for about six months, but is now living back in Baton Rouge, right down the street from me. We do stuff together and hang out with some of the same people. Her boyfriend and mine are friends. When she dropped by the Halloween party I went to on Saturday, I brought her around to everybody asking if they'd met "my beautiful sister." She calls me for my opinion on whether she should skip class because it's raining, or give away her shift to go hang out with her boyfriend. I call her to feed my rabbit or get my oil changed when I have way too much to do. We depend on each other. We're nice to each other. I like it.

So today, a good friend of mine's younger sibling needs her big sister. Her sis, unfortunately, lives in Alabama and isn't here to give her baby sister a hug to help her through her first big breakup. So I called her up, and I'm taking her to dinner tonight, just like I would for my own dear sister. Because that's what big sisters are for.

my favorite part was the red lipstick

2006-10-30T04:01:00.000-06:00

What do you get when you mix a string of pearls, fancy stockings with a backseam, a white polka dot dress, forty-seven bobby pins, and a can of orange hair spray?

I Love Lucy!

Thanks to the most dedicated Personal Assistant ever, my wonderful sister (she finally accepted the position after the fact that I was willing to pay her really sunk in), I had a costume I loved. She guided me through the entire process, from the disaster of realizing another couple was already planning to go as referees, our original costume idea, to coming up with another idea only to have me whine (after she'd purchased all the materials) that a toga is not at all becoming to me after all, to finally coming up with a great idea and even loaning me some materials out of her personal collection. Yes, she maneuvered with grace and composure the delicate sensibilities of an overworked, underpaid, reluctant socialite, desperate to fake her way into the ranks of an elite group she deep down wants nothing to do with--The TKE Girlfriends' Club.

So we were Lucy and Ricky, and it was incredibly fun. If any pictures turn up on facebook I'll be sure to put one up here. I had a few too many shots and called him Ricky all night, begging him to say, "Luuucyyy, you got some 'splainin to do!!!" And don't you ever believe it was easy getting hair that's a good six inches past my shoulders and most certainly not red up into a mass of orangy curls atop my head. Don't worry, I didn't make my sister forgo her own costume preparations in order to treat me like a diva, I did my own hair.

She's been my official Personal Assistant for a total of five days now, and so far I owe her $38. It's a solid investment for the peace of mind I've gained. I should teach her to write papers on Oscar Wilde and John Milton, my life would be sweet.

What I would have my Personal Assistant do for me:

2006-10-25T23:28:00.000-05:00

Make my shirt for Halloween
Go to the bank
Pick up prescriptions
Get my brake tag and registration renewed
Bring me lunch at work
Clean out my car
Do my laundry
Feed my rabbit
Keep a calendar of my meetings and social obligations (I'm sorry, you'll have to speak with my Personal Assistant to see if I'm available)

And that's just the beginning. I'm sure I could come up with much more. Anyone know of any qualified applicants?

my life is terribly unjust

2006-10-24T21:10:00.000-05:00

I went to Houston this weekend and all I got was a bladder infection.

Well, that's not completely honest. I also got drunk. And I learned a lot. But me dancing in a hotel bar to "Born on the Bayou" is not one of my prouder moments of the weekend, so I'll move on to something much more interesting--my bladder.

The medicine for the "bacteria party" in my bladder (as the doctor so eloquently put it) makes my piss turn day-glo orange. It looks like tang, or orange food coloring, and it's rather creepy. I'm not used to associating the color of my urine with food products.

In other news, I've been considering hiring a personal assistant for some time now. Some of you may think this is a bit pretentious of me, but I consider it a vital need. I decided to recruit my sister, since she's poor and will do anything for money (give her a call sometime and see just how far she'll go--just kidding...mostly), but she was a bit reluctant.

I begged and begged until she agreed, then told her the first thing I needed her to do was make me a shirt for my Halloween costume. When she refused I fired her. She responded by saying, "Well, I'm sorry this didn't work out."

So I'm back to square one, with orange piss and still no personal assistant.

friday never felt so good

2006-10-20T11:34:00.000-05:00

I've been completely stressed this week, with way too much to do and way too little time to do it. It seems that I'm rather enchanted at the moment, however, because everything seems to have fallen perfectly into place. Assignments got pushed back, my wonderful sister put herself aside for a moment to really help me out, and I've got a little extra time to get things done this afternoon before leaving town.

I'm going to Houston this weekend for National Conference for StandUp For Kids, and, now that I'm past the point of cursing it for being such an added stress, I'm really excited. I'll get to talk to Executive Directors of other programs that have been up and running for years, and hopefully come back with a better idea of how to make my own program a success. Besides, it'll be fun. Coming along with me are two of my favorite girls in the world, and generally the national staff of SUFK are a pretty fun bunch, if nothing else.

In other news, I schedule classes for my very last semester of undergrad this Sunday. I'm so freakin excited. I'm taking fifteen hours of the easiest classes I can manage. I really just want to fuck around and take a much-deserved break this last semester, and so that's what I'm going to do. It's going to be glorious.

last November was a bitch

2006-10-18T11:53:00.000-05:00

It occurs to me that we're quickly approaching that time of year in which the event which sparked the creation of this blog occured. I think often about how much myself and my life have changed in the past year, and I feel very proud about it. I spent three of the most formative years of my life in a relationship that I didn't anticipate an end to. I never would have guessed a year ago that I'd be where I am now, and yet I'm so very glad to be here.

Someone did me a favor by breaking my heart, essentially kicking me out of a dysfunctional behavioral pattern that I was desperately clinging to. I took a look around at my life and realized that the loss of the relationship had blown apart a tenuously constructed facade barely hiding a fairly miserable existence. I had a lot of work to do, and I was doing it alone. I made some changes, had some fun, and grew up a lot.

I dated no less than eleven guys in six months. I went out almost every night, blew way too much money on fun, and smoked perhaps a bit too much pot, but it was good for me. I lightened up a bit, opened my eyes, tried to stop living the way I had been.

And now? Now I'm fifteen hours away from graduating, I've got a better job than I did before, and a plan for my future that's not entirely dependent upon the presence of any male in particular, or whatsoever. I've got a hell of a lot more friends, a smile on my face that I actually mean, and a sense of myself as an adult. Last but not least, I've got a new relationship that, while not perfect, I'm extremely happy with and am able to view in more realistic terms than the last one. I've learned that projected happiness isn't what matters, it's happiness within.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I most certainly did not let that kill me. Having a boy break my heart was the best thing that ever happened to me.

senioritis

2006-10-16T23:21:00.001-05:00

I was gonna go to class but I took a nap
I coulda studied and I coulda passed but I took a nap
I failed my fucking midterm and I said "Snap!"
Cause I took a nap, cause I took a nap, cause I took a nap.

At this very moment, I've got half a semester's worth of literary theory and Oscar Wilde to read, and instead I'm altering Afroman lyrics to describe the predicted outcome of my Brit Lit midterm. I seem to keep forgetting I haven't graduated yet...

musings on my hood

2006-10-15T12:32:00.000-05:00

My apartment community is comprised of various types of potheads.

Behind me and up a floor, with his balcony overlooking my back porch, is the Russian Kleptomaniac, as I so affectionately have dubbed him. He grew up in Moscow and moved to the States in high school, coincidentally landing in the same New Orleans suburb I spent my first eighteen years calling home. His father worked for the space program in Russia and got recruited to join the other team, now working at the oddly placed space center just over the state line in rural Mississippi. He went to the rich kid high school in my hometown, and in typical form is a misguided pill-popping genius. He got arrested recently for stealing various petty items out of cars in our parking lot in a drug-induced loss of self-control, but swears that he was just trying to do a good deed--teaching folks a lesson about locking their doors--and that he fully intended to return everything the next day, as soon as the drugs wore off. He's waiting now to see if that charge combined with a couple DUI's on his record will result in a deportment, which would put quite a damper on his pursuit of a nearly-finished physics degree from LSU.

Next door are the good ol' boys. With a rifle rack in the back window of his pickup and a complete inability to park in any manner conducive to fitting an appropriate amount of cars in an extremely small parking lot, he's solidified his standing with me as a redneck. He can often be found guzzling cheap beer out of cans on the front porch, but he keeps a good, steady job and turns the music down when we ask politely. He's got bumper stickers and yard signs for right-wing politicians on his truck and in his front window, but at least he votes. I'm much more pleased with votes against my party than with ignorant apathy.

Last but not least, are the upstairs neighbors. If they were next door, or in the next building, I might find them amusing, perhaps even likeable. But directly above my apartment they are an overwhelming nuisance. They're of a different breed of redneck--straight out the trailer park. And believe you me, I spent enough of my misguided youth in and around trailer parks to know the type. Broken beer bottles and dried up loogies litter the area below their balcony, right outside my front door. As none of them hold any kind of steady employment, they have a complete disregard for the peace vs. party schedules of normal folks, and frequently crank up a cacophonous combination of country and rap on random weeknights. Their very white friends often share with the neighborhood their freestylin' talents, rapping their little lungs out from the top of the stairs, and I have on more than one occassion had the pleasure of their admiring advances (years of experience has taught me that I am their type). I once came home to one of them sleeping on the sidewalk in front of our building. Nick and I offered to help him upstairs, reminding him that perhaps he would be more comfortable inside, and that his door had been left wide open, but he insisted that he wanted to sleep on the sidewalk, and anyone who was a real friend would understand that and leave him be. Nick went upstairs and peaked in the door to see if there was anybody we could notify of his unconventional sleeping arrangements, but found only a very large half-naked redneck passed out on the floor with a bottle still in his hand, so we let them be.

Cause the boys in the hood are always hard.

because I tend to obsess about my future

2006-10-10T10:41:00.000-05:00

Clearblue Easy tells me I'm not pregnant, so all is right in the world. Of course, everything in my body decided to get back on normal schedule about two hours after I took the test. I never thought I'd be so relieved to have cramps. I think it was just stress, thank you for your supportive comments. And Megan has a very good point about the immaculate conception thing. I'll have to ponder on that for a bit.

On a vaguely related note, I've been thinking a lot, again, about where I want to be next year. I go back and forth between going out of state or staying here. I'll make up my mind to go, and then a few weeks later, I start having doubts again. When I thought I could be pregnant, I figured I would just take a year off and then go to LSU for my master's, and the idea of sticking around didn't seem bad at all, with the whole baby thing. And this just gets me thinking, that sometime in the next five years or so, I probably will want to start a family, and the idea of doing it several states away from my mom, sister, aunts and cousins is terrifying, at the very least. I know that wherever I go to grad school is likely to be where I end up staying. If I don't leave now, I never will, and if I leave, I'll never come back.

Another point that my mother made, is that the social services industry is booming in Louisiana right now, thanks to Katrina, and my prospects for future employment here would be very good. I'm fairly close with my family, especially my sister, and I think I could be happy here. I think my kids would be happier having aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins all within a reasonable distance. And if I stay in Louisiana, it doesn't really matter if I got both of my degrees from the same school, because LSU is so trusted in the area.

I'm just not sure if I'm actually making the decision that's right for me, or if I'm rationalizing a decision to stay because I'm scared. Is it really the food, the culture, my family, that I want to stay for? Is it really Mardi Gras and crawfish boils and birthday parties at Grandma's, or is it just comfort, stagnation, fear of change? Am I staying because this is the place that's right for me, or because I've never been anywhere else?

“…because she is a New Orleans girl and New Orleans girls never live anywhere else and even if they do, they always come back…To hell with no house, no car, no job, no prospects. This is where she belonged. And her mama lives here. End of discussion.”
-Chris Rose, columnist, Times-Picayune