My Moccasins

In case anyone is curious, this is the world as I experience it in my moccasins. Or shoes. Monday through Friday I wake up, roll out of bed to make a cup of tea and some toast (cinnamon toast, with raspberry jam, please) and stare at the television for approximately an hour. If I'm lucky I've dvr'd something I actually want to watch, like Eat Street, Unique Sweets, or the Daily Show, and I don't have to suffer through an hour of music I don't listen to on VH1 Jump Start Music, or worse, that infomercial for wen hair products. 



I go to work and sit behind a counter of delicious things. Delicious things that I can smell. Most of the time, I get through this just fine but other more stressful days, like the majority of this past week, make working in the bakery like working in the seventh circle of hell. Because people like me, who can't eat from stress then stress binge-eat, should not be placed in front of a platter of cupcakes. It's just not kind.

So most of the day is taken up by sitting with this here computer on my lap, its batteries burning lovely little stripe-y marks into my legs. Occasionally I read (though now that it's crunch time with school it should be more than occasionally, it should be every day and be my reading list).

This week was incredibly stressful because my school for next year finally saw fit to tell me, after I applied in April, that they could not offer me housing next year. Needless to say this threw my parents into a panic (and me as well). The idea of going overseas with no set place to live made the whole concept of studying abroad that much more unnerving. After scouring the internet for 2 days, trying to figure out based on internet sources what good areas of London are and what the best prices are (shout out to Alysia and yelp, they were a huge help), I am now the proud renter of a little room (and bathroom) in a student complex in a rather hip neighborhood. Allegedly. I'll be sharing a kitchen with 5 other students, which is intimidating because I don't have the best track record with good roommates (or tidy ones, and a tidy kitchen is a must).

 

And now it's essentially August. I only have work for another month, then it's a flurry of family visits, slapdash adventures, packing up everything I have, and boarding a plane for the unknown.  It's very real and it's very unknown. The regulars that come into my work all know about my grand travel plans, and they all say "that's so exciting" in a way that suggests that nobody ever does this. They sort of wonder at me, like I'm this odd child for wanting to leave everything behind to try a new culture, a new city. It makes me very a little alone, honestly. Even if I know that I'm not. That there are loads of people who travel all sorts of places and move all over the place. I just haven't met a lot of these people yet.

 

 

Travels, on a microcosmic level

Well, not super microcosmic. I went into the city via metro to visit with a friend that I haven't seen in quite some time. She's absolutely wonderful and I adore spending time with her! We've been discussing something that I can't quite talk about yet, but essentially it boils down to the worry and stress of a dream going from a concept to a reality and all the nit-picky little details that start to plague your mind (even if they're months down the road). Anyway, I snapped some pictures on my Blackberry on the way home (not the ones I really wanted to take, because . . . well, the train was moving quickly. 



I just find public transit to be sort of peaceful, oddly enough. When you're not stewing in other-people-are-too-close juices/feelings/general squiky-ness, that is. A nice seat, an iPod, maybe a good book, and the world rushing by you = a nice time to contemplate the universe.

and yes, I realize that I am a smidgen of a hipster. but just a smidgen.

Today, my big sister and her fiance are getting married. I couldn't be happier, honestly. They are fantastic together, in every way. In honor of the occasion, I thought I'd post a picture of my parent's wedding, 30 years ago. My mom's dress was a gunne sax prom dress that she found on a rack hanging outside a regular shop, on sale for like, twelve dollars. My dad will moan and groan if/when he sees this, saying "I'm in a white tee shirt!!" (he was wearing a tux during the ceremony and reception. I've seen the pictures!). But I chose this one because to me, this is my parents as they exist in their everyday life. My dad makes lists and plans, and my mom sits around (just like that, actually) and laughs at him. Kindly, and with love, of course. 

So this post is essentially just a shout out to my two favorite couples in the whole wide world, one of which is just starting out together in life (legally) and the other, who are just as crazy about each other now as they were then, and are each other's best friends.

This is pertinent to my life . . .

 . . . so I thought I'd share it here.

source: we heart it

my heart fell at your feet.

It's been raining for over twenty-four hours, and only now have the skies really opened up. Thunder is rolling and crashing in great booms. I'm slightly exhausted, slightly anxious, and slightly excited about things to come so I figured now is as good a time as any to give a little update on the personal side of life.

I've gotten a part time job at a store near my house. It's not particularly glamorous (i.e. not at all) and definitely not in an area that I want to pursue for the rest of my life. But it gives me something to do, a little money in the bank, and most importantly it means that I interact with all sorts of different people every day. In my relatively brief stretch of unemployment I discovered that not only does sitting around all day lead to inertia and an overall lack of desire to do much of anything at all, it also makes it unbelievably easy to succumb to selfishness and a rather sullen attitude. 

 
Just before Halloween I went back to my old university stomping grounds, to do some research for a line of thinking that I may or may not incorporate into my graduate studies (if, that is, I get into graduate school!). It was wonderful to see some friends that were still around campus and very nice to be doing something academic again 
. . . but I felt so separate from everything. Like every fiber of me knew that this place is no longer my sanctuary. That I had to move on, whether I want to or not (pretty sure I do). But it's little downtown area still holds a very special place in my heart, and is continuing the renaissance that it began my freshman year. It's become quite the little indie enclave, I'm happy to say!

But despite all of that, what I actually enjoyed most was wandering around by myself. I've started carrying my camera around with me everywhere and am trying to get into the habit of being able to take photos without feeling self-conscious. I'm not sure how it's going . . . it's just a little point and shoot . . . but I am starting to feel more comfortable with it! 

They now have a lovely store for knitting, crocheting, and the like. I tend to just do it for myself, but I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to knitting . . . I picked it up in middle school (my mom taught me) and I haven't really stopped. When I recently bought (my mom bought me) J.Crew's trench coat in dried parsley for my sister's upcoming nuptials, a knit scarf and mittens were clearly in order. The woman allowed me to quietly peruse the store, where I came upon this amazing hand-painted wool that I just fell in love with. I've chosen a moss knitting pattern (I believe). Essentially, you cast on as many stitches as you want in an even number, than do two rows of knit stitch, purl stitch, knit stitch, etc. and then two rows of purl stitch, knit stitch, purl stitch, etc, until you reach the length you want! I find that I prefer the simplest patterns . . . but that's probably because that's all I can do!


Here's a little progress shot . . . and I pseudo-made my bed, just for anyone who might come across this!

Anyway, that's what's going on over here . . . a bit of cooking, a bit of knitting, a bit of studying, a bit of applying myself. A whole lot of waiting for life to start. But that's ok! As long as it doesn't take too long . . .

Touch Somebody's Life Today

{image found via Not Your Average Ordinary via fffound}

Glee

Let it be known, I am in LOVE with this TV show. I don't watch it on TV, but I get it off iTunes when I can. The music is fantastic and I admit that I can relate, slightly, to the trauma of high school experience. Granted, nobody threw a slushie in my face but I can definitely understand feeling animosity towards you, and not being entirely sure why it's focused in your direction. I still don't get it. Yesterday, I bought dish towels for the kitchen. Not just regular dish towels, but dish towels that I knew would absorb water rather than push it around and match the only thing that had a discernible color scheme--the salt and pepper shakers. Plus, I bought wine. And drank it for dinner. Nothing like a little Pinot Grigio with your Kraft Macaroni & cheese. That I forgot to save in the fridge. Dammit. There goes dinner tonight. I dunno, just . . . making lists, budgeting . . . going to grocery shopping for REAL food, not just peanut butter and eggo waffles, struck me as very adult today. Even though I've been doing it for awhile now. Kinda makes me want to go back to my own Glee club. And the hot older boy that was in said Glee club. Though that was all rather hopeless pining on my part.




maybe I don't want to go back to high school, on second thought.

Fake Conversations on a Nonexistant Telephone

So, it's dawned on me that I'm a senior in college, and will have to figure out the rest of my life very shortly. I don't really want to be in college for much longer, but I don't want to leave either. I've figured out my classes for the next year, but just the idea of filling out my intent to graduate application, ordering my cap and gown . . . I don't know what to feel. Hopefully, I'll feel better about it when we get closer to the actual launch date.

"One can never be sure if it's good poetry or bad acid."

You know those songs that you hear randomly and you never manage to run across them again? And yet all the same they manage to define a series of events?

When I had just graduated high school, my parents took my sister and I on a trip to Paris. We lived in an apartment in the student district for a week or so. I remember lying on the couch, the open window allowing that specific Parisian wind to blow and billow my skirt out about my knees. I had discovered French MTV, and with it, a rather captivating (i.e. creepy) music video by a band called Indochine. Upon my return to America, I searched and searched for the song, with zero success.

Until today, just now! I finally found and purchased the song on iTunes, and have included the video here.

Tightly Contained

Today has been filled with further unpacking, my new flatmate moving in with her six-week old, yet-to-be-named kitten, and other lovely surprises like the discovery that the sound of water dripping in the walls of my best friend's room was NOT water dripping, but the hive of yellow jackets drilling . . . whatever they drill. Watching the premiere episode of Project Runway and a nice large ice cream cone made us feel a bit better, however. As does this new Metric video.

Shine on our Wandering Kind

Bad things about this past semester:

+History 395 class kicking my ass
+finding a place to live
+running out of milk for my instant breakfast
+erratic weather
+my hair growing out into that funny awkward stage
+no $$
+living in a tension-filled jack-in-the-box that smells like a bar

Awesome things about this past semester:

+my sociology class
+my early england class
+my schedule for next semester (evolution in victorian society? sweeet!)
+great conversations
+good movies/music
+getting fantastically drunk on Halloween, dressed up as a werewolf
+watching corpse bride with my boyfriend the next day b/c i was too sick to go out again
+its almost over