Ear Worms

Hey.

I'm going to wander in and wander back out and pretend like I haven't been missing since the end of September. (I'm trying to be better. My writing has really taken a hit, for some reason, I just...I'd call it writer's block but it doesn't really feel like it. The ideas are there, I just can't seem to get them out.)

Anyway. Hello. Welcome.

If you didn't know, I absolutely adore The Piano Guys. I also happen to like Dave Matthews Band. This is kind of, for me, the best of both worlds. Have a listen.

Throwback Thursday

(Try to ignore the fact that I haven't posted in a week...)

Spring semester 2010. This is my friend J who lived across the hall and around the corner my sophomore year. Yes, the wall is most likely holding me upright. I'm not the most graceful person on the planet on solid ground, and even less so on skates. But it was fun, and that's all that counts.

I still ice skate at least once a winter.

Strangely Fun

(I'm trying to blog every day in the attempt at being a better blogger. Key word is attempt.)

I have a six-year-old niece and she watches a lot of Disney channel, and that's where I first heard this song. Then I think I heard it on the radio. It's strangely addictive, and has also become one of the songs I listen to on my walk.

Have a good rest of the weekend and I'll be back on Monday!

Moving Up and On

Sometimes it's the unexpected that does the most good. I was not prepared, Friday mid-morning, to be leaning against the counter of a souvenir kiosk and have my ex-boyfriend's wife go walking by with other members of her fire company. Really, the first thought upon seeing her was, to be honestly, incredibly shallow on my part in I was wondering how exactly she had passed the physical training aspect of it. Then I realized that really wasn't any of my business.

Even more surprising was the utter lack of emotional response the mere sight of her drew up. I wasn't angry. I wasn't sad. I simply...was. He'd moved on in a direction I had no intentions of going any time soon, and I think I finally realized in that moment I was good with who I was, and what I'd done so far in my twenty-two years on this planet.

Kind of also didn't surprise me to see said ex-boyfriend's sister on my walk back from getting coffee. She gave me a hug, there wasn't too much chitchat, and then it was back to hawking souvenirs and ringing up credit card purchases.

The ending gambit to all of this was, roughly in the same position as when I first saw his wife that morning, I saw the pair of them walking by. He looked much the same as the last time I'd seen him - only a little plumper, as not doing three sports a year like high school will do that to most of us - and, again, there really wasn't a whole lot of emotional reaction. It was like he was just another person passing by, though at one point he'd been much, much more than that.

I'm good. I'm good with who I am and what I've done so far with my life. This little series of events over the course of one day, almost totally randomly in a place where it definitely wasn't expected, proves it to me. And when I came to the conclusion that I was, indeed, not a complete wreck at the mere sight of them - together - well, I'm incredibly happy that I'm in a place where, I might not have expected a few years ago, but I'm more than okay with.

I'm more than okay with me in this moment.

A Cool Kid Friday Night

It's been a long week. Granted, I don't have class on Mondays, but I haven't heard from the teacher I'm supposed to be in with - I'm debating literally just showing up on Monday because I don't want to continue screwing around with this - and Wednesday's lab was spent making "Bouncing Putty" (Silly Putty, really), but in general, it's been a really long week. Wednesday was the day I stayed up the latest I've stayed up this entire semester - one in the morning - and then had a quick turn around to be in class at 8:45 the next morning with the entire afternoon spent at our Professor's house for food chem.

It's just been a long week.

The constant reminders coming through email and campus mail, along with the signs around campus for the Senior Event: Cap and Gown Measurements got a little difficult to handle. It was one of those days where it automatically gets filed under difficult because, you'd think with the technology we have today it would be feasible for them to get me off that email list. Hell, throw me onto the juniors list in the emails. I'm still a senior by the virtue of the amount of credits I have, but when you're not graduating, it hurts some deep part of you that doesn't quite have a handle on the fact that you're waiting a year.

I'm not entirely sure I'm making sense right now. I'm tired. It's 11:23, and I'm more than ready to crawl into bed. I hesitate to do that, though, because I told some of my friends I would DD for them. So I dropped them off a few houses down from one of the fraternity's and told them to call me when they were ready to be picked up. I didn't want to drink tonight, and I wanted them to be safe - someone was attacked earlier this week - and I figured I would just drive them rather than have them walking back this late.

Not that it's technically late. It's actually probably rather early.

Normal has become a sort of relative thing. My new normal is keeping track of my Weight Watcher's points, doing homework in nearly all of my free time so I can go to soccer, and then getting at least seven hours of sleep at night. So far, two and a half weeks into the semester, the plan is still going strong. The more you believe you can do something, the better you feel about actually accomplishing it.

And at the end of this week, while I'm really tired, I feel pretty damn good.

Planning

My train's a little late tonight, it's only now rumbling its way past the house. (Those of you who don't know, on the other side of the street I live on, down over the bank [and by bank, I mean sheer drop off] there's a set of train tracks that are active - namely, there's a train that goes by every night. Sometimes more than one a night, and it makes the house shake a little. Oh, and you can definitely hear it.)

You guys know me (or if you don't, just act like you do, and that'll be fine, too) and you know how much I avoid the word plan. And the word goal, too. I don't like them. They give me this feeling of structure, and while I'll freely admit that I like (and probably need) a healthy dose of structure in my life, I also really enjoy my flexibility in just going where my wandering feet happen to take me. I like that bit of spontaneity in my life. Not to mention I have a really difficult time planning next week in advance, never mind next month and possibly the next five years of my life.

With that being said, it's time for me to admit that, despite my ill will toward the words plan and goal, not only do I now have one, I actually have both.

This, right here, is where the universe implodes.

What's really interesting is during the first two years of my college career, I kept putting after-graduation plans to the back of my head with the idea that it wasn't time for me to think about that stuff yet. Two years later, I'm at the beginning of my junior spring, and now it's time for me to more or less think about what I've been trying to put off thinking about for two years. I won't get into the turn-around that I've gone through (though I will mention I get between seven and eight hours of sleep per night, no matter the day of the week [so if that doesn't tell you how much I've currently got my shit together, I don't know what will]) but I will say that Louise is now capable of looking at the forest and not getting lost in the trees.

That's a macro versus micro type of analogy, but basically says that there is not only a bigger picture, but Louise is actually seeing it. In technicolor, too.

One of the first things to come out of this is that I've realized I'm just as good as everyone else. And if I'm not, at the moment, then there's no reason why I shouldn't be. There's no reason that says I'm not capable of being as good as everybody else. There's nothing that says I need to stick with the system that half-assed worked for two years and let that continue to be me.

No, thank you, we'll give this a whirl, and considering that I actually sleep at night now, I'm thinkin' it's workin' pretty damn well.

The second thing to happen is that, and irony of irony for me, things don't always go according to their first plan. When you factor in the only luck I have is bad luck (Murphy loves me, and I don't care which Murphy you pick, in this case) it's no surprise that the tentative idea of going to grad school somewhere (tentatively John Jay in NYC) the fall following graduation has kind of shifted.

Grad school is still the idea, it's just been put off to the spring following graduation, or the fall a year from graduation.

Namely because I don't have an entire free semester in which to do my student teaching before I graduate. Not if I want to graduate with a degree. So what the Colleges allow you to do is take a ninth semester and use that as your student teaching semester. You graduate, then find someplace to live (though my education adviser and I are going to see what we can swing, and we'll probably get a pretty good deal in the process) and do your student teaching.

At this moment, that's the plan. How I went from having no plan to having one that's cementing itself more and more each day is beyond me. I still can't believe it, and I'm the one actually living it.

Damn terrifying, truthfully.

The bottom line is that, when you start to figure out what you want to do, you start to plan things. You start to absently set goals that become a little more concrete the closer you get to them, and while I enjoy flying by the seat of my pants just as much as the next wandering Sagittarius, the idea that there's a bigger picture? It's a really nice motivator.

When I say, right now, that life is good? I mean it. I really, honestly, mean life is good.

And if you wanna bring up the fact that it took me roughly three years to figure out, well, to that I say better late than never.

P.S. - For those of you currently living in the path of the snowstorm - whether you're beginning to get the mass amount we're supposed to get - be careful. We're not invincible. Maybe tomorrow is the day to stay in, make some hot chocolate (or coffee) and curl up with a good book. If you need one to borrow, I have everything from quantum mechanics to Terry Pratchett. But please, honestly do remember to travel safely if you absolutely need to, and if you're curled up somewhere with a good book, all nice and toasty, remember me slogging through the snow on the way to class because HWS hasn't quite heard of the concept of a "snow day" yet. Oh well. There's always next winter.

Wordless Wednesday

The room under the stairs. (The picked-up, straightened, and tidy version.)




What you're not seeing is the "bathroom" in which you can sit on the toilet and whack your head on the sink when you sit.

Things Louise is Tired Of

Self-explanatory title. I'm a little....peeved, at the moment.

- Dealing with people. Specifically the ones I live with.

- Feeling like a foreigner.

- Being told it's just British humor and to get over it. [It's not - in some cases, it's incredibly offensive, you asshat]

- Hearing the phrase This isn't America, or This is my country, or Things are different here. [No shit, Sherlock, but cut me some slack, I've done damn well to adapt]

- Dishes. And people who don't do them, and expect other people to do exactly as they are told in relation to said dishes.

- The double standard that seems to have cropped up from the previous.

- Having it insinuated every time I'm shaving my legs with my electric razor I'm doing something else [Get. Over. Yourself. It wasn't funny the first time, it's still not funny three months later.]

- Painfully thin walls.

- Being the bigger, better person because that's how my parents raised me [they did it amazingly, too, because 9.8 times out of 10 I'll be the bigger person.]

- Feeling hurt that my ex got married. Really, I'm sick of feeling this way.

- This damn country. Love it, but I'm ready to go home. Now.

- Being proverbially stuck.

- Not having a car.

- Things not staying open past seven. [Seriously. WTF?]

- Trying to make nice when no one else seems to want to.

- Trying to blend in.

- Crying and itching because I'm so frustrated I could scream.

- Having nowhere to go when things get too much.

- Being left out when other people take people to the store or town.

- Feeling bad when I ask but, well, nobody asks me.

- Listening to someone have a conversation in Welsh when I only speak English.

- Being left out in general.

- Feeling this shitty because I can't win with these people.

- Having every conversation I have with a certain someone end up incredibly sarcastic two exchanges in.

- Not wanting to go into the kitchen or another communal space because I don't want to have to make nice with people because I'm still hurting or they're still pissed off.

- Missing things; home, family, etc.

- Fighting with my toilet to flush and dealing with a shower that doesn't drain, filling nearly to the door in a little under three minutes.

- Being disrespected.

Icicle Man [Scene II]

[The second scene for Icicle Man or The Icicle Man, depending on where you first read it (BB or elsewhere)]

HANNAH: That girl is useless. Should have been back by now to see to the animals. Walk’s not that far. One would think I’d raised her better than to go wandering off without so much as remembering she needs to come back. (Throwing slop from a bucket into the pig trough, fully concentrating and not noticing Jack sitting on the pig pen fence.)

JACK: The piper’s children are slow to return.

HANNAH: (Glances at him) Piper’s children? Mari ain’t no piper’s child and watch out for them pigs, they bite sometime.

JACK: That’s life, darling. Most things bite.

HANNAH: (Puts down her bucket) What do you want, Jack?

JACK: (Brightening) You remember me.

HANNAH: Everyone knows of you. You live in these woods, you have to.

JACK: Your daughter didn’t.

HANNAH: (Pauses) How do you know my Mari?

JACK: Everyone knows of you, you live in these woods you have to.

HANNAH: She never made it to my mother’s, did she?

JACK: Not quite, darling. Not quite. She ran into the Father’s herald and he, well, convinced her it would be rude to not accept his invitation to see his latest works of ice.

HANNAH: So you’ve got her.

JACK: (Calmly) In a manner of speaking, yes.

HANNAH: Give her back!

JACK: (Slides off the fence) Now, Hannah, wouldn’t want you to forget what happens when something’s demanded of me. And so rudely, too.

HANNAH: You know I’ve never been anything but kind to you, Jack. I have been since I first met you.

JACK: Rather unfortunate that was, you getting turned out and all that. And in the coldest part of winter, too. Dear, if you hadn’t been found by a certain someone, well, things might have turned out differently.

HANNAH: I know that.

JACK: Good, then you’ll remember to keep a handle on your tongue.

HANNAH: (Tiredly) What do you want with her, Jack?

JACK: I don’t quite know yet. Give me some time, there’s a dear.

HANNAH: What do you want with her, Jack?

JACK: (Peevish) I don’t know yet, Hannah. I don’t. Maybe I want her company, maybe her opinion on where to hang my newest sculpture? In the dining room or the front hall, next to that statue that looks remarkably like/

HANNAH: Don’t!

JACK: (Walking to her, leaning in close) Don’t what?

HANNAH: Don’t bring her into this.

JACK: She has a name, dear.

HANNAH: Don’t – Don’t bring Megan into this.

JACK: (Caressing her cheek) Was that so hard? It was, wasn’t it? But I don’t understand why. You never liked your step-sister, did you, Hannah? And when your step-mother send you out into the cold, alone and defenseless, she never expected you to return, much less endowed like a queen. So she sent her own daughter out, hoping to reap the rewards, and then what happened, hm? Rude, selfish, she was a nasty girl, wasn’t she, Hannah? And when she met me, well, I wouldn’t put up with it. I made her body match the cold heart she already had, didn’t I? And your step-mother, oh how she wept and wept when her daughter didn’t return, and the temperature dropped and it grew dark. No one came looking for her, so I kept her. And you – You were secretly happy weren’t you? Megan was gone and you moved away, met a man, and had only one child. And moved here. Where is your dowry, Hannah? Where is your legacy?

HANNAH: It’s set aside for Mari. When she marries.

JACK: If she marries, you mean.

HANNAH: Shut up.

JACK: Manners, darling.

HANNAH: Jack, if there was anyone who could get away with telling you to stuff it, it would be me and mine.

JACK: Eh. You’re grasping, Hannah.

HANNAH: And you’ve attempted to fall for a human, unless I’m mistaken.

JACK: (Peeved) Shut up.

HANNAH: (Placidly) Manners, Jack. And admit it; that’s why you took Mari. Because you liked her.

JACK: She reminds me of the piper’s children.

HANNAH: Jack, every child reminds you of the piper’s children.

JACK: She stays with me until I’m done with her.

HANNAH: If you harm one hair on that girl’s head, I’ll/

JACK: You’ll what, Hannah? You will what? You forget too easily who and what I am. What I can do and what I can take. You daughter will do for now, but you might want to start sleeping with the pigs, as you never know when a cold snap might crop up. Wouldn’t want them to freeze, would we? (Leans in close again) Do not forget, Hannah. You are human. I am something entirely different. (Kisses her cheek and strides off, mixing with the snowflakes as he does so)

HANNAH: If ever a child should have been stole, there was one. (Looks to the sky) Watch my daughter, Father. Jack Frost can’t be trusted with a warm heart, even one that’s begun to melt his own.

Things I Learned in High School

[In no particular order.]

- Taking independent study band sucks.

- Especially when you take it so you can take ACE US History, and normally this wouldn't be a big deal, only the ACE history book is so damned dry you'd expect it to light itself spontaneously on fire.

- Even though you have friends that you could tell anything to, there are some things that you simply can't tell them.

- When your math teacher and your sophomore English teacher are married to each other, it's a little difficult to get away with writing in a composition book in class because she knows it's the novel.

- It's okay to have the same teachers for multiple classes multiple years.

- Unless you sit there in AP English wondering why she couldn't have retired before you got there.

- Trumpet plungers were not meant to be thrown at the wall for entertainment, unless of course they were, and yours truly still has the record for the longest distance from the wall and Andrew has the record for how many times in a row he could get it to stick.

- Of course I have a band lesson this period, and not just because I want to miss class.

- It's okay to "kill" people if you're going to process them in Forensics class soon after.

- Though it's not very helpful when the dead body keeps squirming because he doesn't like bugs.

- How to hawk baked goods in the crowds on vintage weekend outside the bars because they were the easiest people to get to part with their pocket change.

- FYEX (First Year Experience) had to be the more worthless "class" ever.

- One of the trumpets falling off the risers every year during the first week of school.

- "A wooden clarinet is the orgasm of clarinets."

- Being Raggedy Ann for Halloween my senior year and lifeguarding IAC's still wearing my red, hand-made yarn wig.

- Powderpuff Football. Only we forgot most of the time to go for the flags as it was simpler to flat-out tackle people.

- Scuba diving in the pool.

- The massive bruise on the inside of my thigh from the giant's ladder in Lifetime Sports

- Jesse's face when he found out I'd sprained my ankle playing indoor soccer in the middle of basketball season.

- Though, the above didn't really matter because it's not like I played in the games, anyway.

- Having whooping cough as a sophomore and continuing on with life like I wasn't trying to hack up a lung simply by walking from class to class.

- My love of films can probably stem from film analysis sophomore year.

- I can write flash fiction; it might not come out very good or make much sense, but I can do it.

- I vowed never to take any more business classes ever after sophomore year.

- Though we made the family "dream" of having an ice cream boat kind of come true that year, with the magnets to prove it.

- My classmates weren't as unobservant as I once thought.

- Humming the Vonage theme song in public yields a lot of interesting looks from boys in leather jackets.

- Music Club trips to NYC were, in some ways, the highlight of the year.

- Riding three hours to Buffalo on a school bus was an interesting experience, especially for my rear end.

- I got really good at getting on the bus in the morning, leaning against the window, and falling back asleep for the twenty minutes it took to get to town.

- I cemented how easy it was to live out of a Jansport backpack on a daily basis, in an academic sense.

- It's a bad idea to let your friend fake-bleed you at the Freshman Humanities Renaissance Fair in the courtyard because it somehow leads to higher-ups thinking that you and two other girls have been cutting yourselves.

- In order to get out of there as soon as possible, showing said higher ups the slightly oozing patch of psoriasis you've digged open on your ankle will do the trick nicely.

- You might think you have things under control, but until you break out completely and totally in itchy bits that may or may not leave scars because of something that you have no genetic control over, you find out just how much you really have to keep your head high to live with things.

- I found out that, sometimes, when you really love someone, you let them go to make sure you don't hurt them.

- The above, however, does not ensure that they will be there when you return at a time convenient for you.

- Eating school food made me the fan of tacos that I am today.

- I think I wasn't too far into my sophomore year when I realized that I didn't want to be one of the popular girls; I just wanted to be me, whoever that was going to develop into.

- How not to sugarcoat things.

- Sunday in the Park with George is a truly awful musical when you're eighteen and there's such shows like Avenue Q and Monty Python's Spamalot to be seen instead.

- I don't like rye bread, and while it might look similar to wheat, it sure as shit isn't.

- Never had the urge to drink illegally while in high school.

- High school is a different ball game that takes a bit to get used to, and it doesn't help when you're about as down as you could get when you get in there.

- I learned how to temporarily shut up and go with the flow because that's what it took to do a good job on a job that needed to get done.

- You can be a bit busted if you know how to sit there and superglue yourself back together while paying attention in math.

- How not to give a damn about certain things.

- How to make my mom understand that being in the nineties in calculus might not be something that I achieve, and how to settle for high eighties when I'm still trying my best.

- How to play alto saxophone because who ever heard of a clarinet in jazz band?

- The opening to Colt 45 while tooling around the nation's capital for senior trip.

- That it's kind of cool to think about double calculus as double potions, but it's nowhere near as cool.

- I can't stand Ernest Hemingway.

- How cool having a sister is, and how much we do, despite our age difference, have in common.

- Going to Open House still in a uniform and cleats is perfectly acceptable.

- Trying to get to first base in softball to listen to your dad give you advice and tell you bad jokes to make you giggle.

- There are things in life more important than soccer.

- The new basketball uniform shorts were the most comfortable things in the world.

- Riding on the bus with the baseball team wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

- Riding the bus, period, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

- How to feel like you're stretched in fifty different directions, but still together enough to get everything finished that you need to, and well enough that nobody thinks twice about it.

- There's only so many times that you can say, "Eh, tomorrow" because your tomorrows start to run out.

- What it feels like to finish something significant.

- Writing a senior thesis in five weeks absolutely sucks.

- Being yourself, no matter how crazy and unconventional that might be, is so much easier and so much more worth it than trying to be anyone else.

- I'm about as bad at economics as I am at math.

- I like dressing up and looking decidedly female every now and then.

- Coffee is not only lovely, but also a necessity.

- Going to Europe and then returning and having the opening night and subsequent three performances of the school play when you have no voice makes life very, very interesting.

- Graduation is one of those things that always seems like it'll never get there, and then when it's looming, you wonder where the time's gone.

- A locker only holds so much stuff before it decides it won't shut, open, or even move.

- The instructions, "Put in your combination and then continue to turn like a doorknob" would have been really helpful that first time standing by 477 and wondering how to get into it.

- I don't think I was ever late to English my first year because my locker was right across the hall from the English room.

- I took one art class, and that was more than enough for my four years in that building.

- Sadly, cafeteria food doesn't get much better when you hit high school.

- Cafeteria's came with vending machines.

- Get there early enough so that you have a parking space.

- Doesn't matter what kind of car you drive, just as long as you have one to drive.

- How I ever passed my Earth Science regents is beyond me because there were eight seniors in a class of sophomores, and most of us, since it was the end of the day, slept through most of it.

- AP Calculus, AP Economics, and AP English was going to be the death of me my senior year.

- New York State Regents are, for a lack of a better phrase, the shitty things on the face of the Earth.

- The SAT's are just as bad as everyone says they are.

- Giving blood is fun. What's not so fun is passing out and scaring the living bejeezus out of your two best guy friends when you fall out of your chair.

- Playing softball after giving blood is always advisable - when half the team has done it, what else can you do?

- Things weren't always easy. Do the best you could, and hope for the rest to sort itself out.

- NYSSMA is a great excuse to miss school, though they'll flay you alive when you have whooping cough and are trying not to hack up a lung while you play classical music.

- When in NYC, one must visit in a Starbucks. That is nonnegotiable.

- I was the band geek, the writer, the athlete, and the chick with enough brains to graduate tenth out of ninety-seven. It hasn't always been easy, but if you stick to what you know and follow your instincts, the end result is pretty good.

Things to Know: International Edition VI

- I'm down to four more weeks - a little over maybe - of living in Wales.

- Thursday is Thanksgiving.

- Thursday is also the day when Louise turns one and twenty.

- One and twenty is olden talk for twenty-one (thank you, Horatio Hornblower).

- Have I mentioned lately how much I love Jamie Bamber?

- So, we made handprint turkeys in my primary school class today - after a Powerpoint about Thanksgiving - and I took my bracelets off so I wouldn't get paint on them. Then forgot to put them back on. Therefore, I feel kind of naked and you can totally see my tan line. Or tan chunk, rather.

- My next-door-neighbor has gone home/to visit his girlfriend for the week.

- Due to the previous, Louise can actually shave her legs now.

- I haven't shaved in approximately three weeks.

- Give or take.

- On the housing front, I just send the Res Ed people an email saying that I wanted to be placed in Beta Sigma, which is the Hope House, the theme house in support of the American Cancer Society.

- The room is actually the smallest single on campus, but it would be an assured single, and I could figure out what to do about a meal plan - doing a possible partial one, which might save my mama some money this upcoming semester.

- The piece that I want to do titled Things I Learned in High School is definitely going to happen, but there's no release date yet.

- Who does release dates for blog posts, anyway? Books yes, blog post? Eh. Possibly.

- Anyway, I know that's probably going to make you giggle, which is another reason to write it, too.

- My wrist looks really, really naked without my bands.

- It's kind of freaking me out.

- My handprint turkey I left in the classroom, but when I get my bands, I'll nab my turkey, too.

- Yes, I have plans to hang him on the fridge using my Mind the Gap magnet.

- Whether he will come to New York with me or be left to live with the flat mates for the rest of the year has yet to be decided.

- I've made a home here. And I have to leave it in a month.

Move Yourself

I was going to title this Musically Inclined, but I'd already used that and I honestly don't feel like making it a series or anything. I figure I have enough of those already.

For those of you still waiting on that massive London post - I'm getting there. That's my next thing, right up there with typing out my reflective journals from where they're written longhand. All while I have my nightly beer and wonder what mayhem I can induce on Inkpop. Model citizen, I am.

On a side note, I hope you're enjoying the new Murphy segments.

I like P!nk. She's got some good stuff, though I'm not a big fan of everything that she does. Just like while my favorite band is Matchbox Twenty, there are songs I'm not crazy about. Anyway, one of my online friends (who's also recently my Facebook friend and has been a fabulous blogging/internet friend to my sister, Heather) Connie, over at The Young and the Relentless had posted P!nk's new video on her Facebook wall. I just kind of skimmed over that in my list of updates the other day, and, when I had some last week, actually looked it up on YouTube (because you know how much I like YouTube these days).

I'm a big fan of this song. It's one of her more tamer pieces, though it's still got that beat. And if you listen to the lyrics, I think you'll be surprised. I'm going to share with you what Connie shared with me.

Murphy and Me XXVIII

[I wrote this and then had a craving for a Wegman's cookie. If anybody wants to send one to me, that would be great.]

"Stay calm. You have an hour."

Pat tucked his hands into his yellow cardigan and rocked back on his heels.

Great. An hour to prove I couldn't do physics. Deep breath. Don't panic. I flipped the test over to the front and looked at the first question. Vectors. Vectors and force. I had a formula for that. I think.

Oh, I absolutely despise physics. Even if I was allowed a calculator and one side of a three by five notecard, covered in formulas. All of which was starting to look like a language other than English. Didn't really matter which, honestly, but holy hell this didn't make much sense.

And I had fifty-five more minutes to make it resemble something coherent. Just to answer the damn question, too. Why, exactly, was I a science major again? Because, for some odd reason, I enjoyed torturing myself. Mentally, at least. Did that classify me as a masochist?

Dear God, I was so going to fail miserably.



"Don't even friggin' ask because I do not want to talk about it," I snapped at Sasha as I sat heavily on my stool in the locker room. She looked at me blankly, waving away the other girls. Sasha knew how to deal with me in a snit - ignore me and give me something to use as an outlet.

Like soccer practice.

First day back to full contact and I was volatile as hell. I pitied whichever teammate I slide tackled first.

There was more than a hint of violence in the way I pulled on my socks; the way the electrical tape snapped like it couldn't handle the aggression after it wound around my shinguards.

Taking a shit day out on others wasn't right. Taking it out on a ball with black hexagons? Perfectly acceptable. Anything else could be classified as collateral damage.

"Have you seen Murph today?" Sasha asked when she knew I'd calmed down enough not to rip her head off.

"Nope." Focused on winding the laces under the flattened arch of my cleats, cinching them tightly. Did the same to the other and thumped my right heel against my brace. It wasn't fair of me, but I wanted my starting spot back with minimal effort.

Not likely to happen, but a girl could hope.

Sasha tried a few more times to get me to talk to her with limited success. By limited, I mean none. Simply not in the mood. She finally gave up as we headed toward the field, clacking along the floor in tight silence. We weren't supposed to wear spiked shoes inside. Our theory was that if the boys could do it, so could we.

That philosophy actually got us more flack than anything else, really.

Which always brought me back to a card I'd seen at CVS one time while looking for a birthday card for my sister. It very succinctly stated the obvious: We learned it all in kindergarten; Boys are stupid.

Considering our boys listened to techno, I'd be inclined to agree with that line of reasoning.



I needed another day like that much like I needed a hole in my head. Casey hadn't said who was starting Saturday as the other central defender now that I was back, and I could handle that. Would drive me nuts for the next day and a half, but I'd deal.

What might make me certifiable would be waiting for the results of my first physics test. After taking a few moments to look back at my notes while trying to unwind with Glee playing in the background, I could see it quite plainly scrawled across the top of my notebook. Congratulations, you're utterly useless at vectors and have failed. Do not pass physics 150, do not graduate. Little more significant than missing out on two hundred dollars by not passing go.

My phone rattled against the bed frame. I tipped sideways to lie curled on the comforter, fumbling for the power cord. There was a knock on he door.

"Open," I called, flipping open the little black box. Text from Sasha asking about my current mental health. Considering Murph had just made an appearance, it couldn't be all that bad.

"Hey." He shuffled his feet on the carpet before leaning down to kiss me.

"Hi." I'm no fairytale princess. Murph's presence didn't instantly make all my troubles go away. Didn't make me feel any more chipper or happier about my damn day. He helped, sure, but he wasn't a miracle cure.

"Rough day?"

No shit. "You could say that."

He leaned his hip against the mattress. "How'd the physics test go?"

I stiffened. "It didn't." Leave it alone, Murph. Please.

"Couldn't have been that bad." He took one look at the expression on my round face and flinched. "How do you think you did?"

Fact: Death glare is less potent on boyfriend than best friend.

"I think I failed." And really, putting the fear that had been bugging the shit out of me all day out into the open air? My chest felt lighter. Not by much, though. Just enough.

Enough to realize I'd been an absolute asshat to everyone I'd spoken to since the test. Including my bestie and, as of very recently, my boyfriend.

"I'm sorry."

Murph moved to the foot of the bed, raised himself on his toes, and sat. Nudged off his shoes and swung himself around to put his back against the dresser and slip a leg under both of mine to rest my knees on his calf. "For what?"

I yanked one of my pillows from under my head to prop my chest on to look at him better. Faded blue jeans and a green plaid button-down, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He was a sharp contrast to my soccer shorts and over-sized long-sleeved shirt. Not that it mattered.

"I've been the world's biggest bitch since my physics test."

He shrugged. "Everyone's entitled to an off day."

I sat up, looping one of my legs around his and letting the left one dangle off the bed. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean I get to take it out on everyone I come across. Which I did. All damn day."

"She still speaking to you?"

The Sasha reference threw me a little. "Yeah."

"No problem, then."

Did he eat a bowl of stupid for breakfast today? "Uh, not the way it works."

Murph snorted. "Have you heard the saying that those that matter don't mind, and those that mind don't matter?"

It was a Facebook bumper sticker. Course I knew it. "Yeah."

"Apply it here, then," he snapped, rubbing distractedly at his forehead.

I sucked on the inside of my cheek. "What the hell happened that upset your apple cart?"

He flushed and looked over at my desk, Rachel belting it out in the background as we lapsed into a tight silence. "Had a shouting match with my brother."

Well. That'll do it. I'd had a few of those with my sister. Izzy has the ability to make me feel incredibly small with very little effort. I could only imagine the brutality that could happen between twins. Izzy and I used to hit a point where mom would just punt us into the backyard and tell us to fix it without a trip to the ER.

"I haven't told our parents yet," he said softly, head thunking sideways against the wall. "I mean, our dad knows, but Ma? I haven't told her yet." He looked at me helplessly and then away again. "And he let me know that wasn't fair to you. Wasn't fair to you and Ma, and told me to get my head out of my ass." He nudged my thigh with argyle-clad toes. "Also told me that if I was going to run around in your sweatshirt to at least change my status."

"We can fix that." My own conscience was gnawing at my belly.

"Ollie?"

I chewed my lower lip as I looked at him. He gave me a slightly hairy eyeball and then snorted. "You haven't told yours either, have you?"

"My mom knows. I haven't told my dad. Yet." I was going to tell him. Just maybe not in front of Murph so that whatever he said in response wouldn't embarrass the boy. Or me.

And I definitely wasn't going to tell Murph that my dad had been hunting for years and owned multiple shotguns. Not that he'd actually shoot my boyfriend...

He chuckled. "We're a pair, aren't we?"

That we were.

"How did your physics test really go?"

I fell back onto the mattress with a thump, glad for my flexibility. "It sucked. Plain and simple."

"Did they let you have anything?"

It was my turn to snort. "A calculator and one side of a three by five index card with whatever you could fit." Which wasn't much when you panicked and tried to squeeze everything in your notebook onto that tiny space.

Not the point, probably, though that was how I'd used it. I curled on my side, facing the computer, suddenly dying for a cookie with frosting.

"Hey, Murph?"

"Hey what?"

"Wanna go to Wegman's?"

The comforter rustled. "Now?"

"Yeah." I rooted for my phone and clicked the side to light up the front screen. "It's only ten-fifteen."

"Liam has the car in Medbury."

Not that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure Murph knew I had a car. Of if he did, which hunk of metal in the parking lot was mine.

"I'll drive." Never mind that I looked more ready to go to bed than on an errand, barefoot and still somewhat grumpy. Didn't care, since I was going to wind up with a cookie.

"Alright." He untangled his legs and slid off the bed. I dismounted sloppily and pulled on the nearest sweatshirt before stuffing my feet into sneakers sans socks. Murph slipped on his own shoes - his dress ones - and followed me out the door once I'd grabbed both my Vera and the Brine lanyard. I had two sets of keys - my car keys, house key, and stuff like that, and the keys to my building and room.

We held hands on the way to the parking lot; I had to remember where I'd parked my Oldsmobile. Oh, look. Between an Audi and a new Honda. Fabulous.

"Murphy, meet Fred." Yes, I'd named my Oldsmobile. What of it?

Murph looked at me over the roof of the car, expression unreadable, and trying not to smile as I unlocked the doors. Fred was in a generous mood tonight, starting on the first try. Murph had some issues with the seat belt - everyone did - and reached for the radio as I backed out of the parking space.

Country flared immediately through the only functioning speaker on the passenger side.

I glanced at him as we sat at a stop sign waiting for a gaggle of girls to cross. Where the hell they were going on a Wednesday night was beyond me. "Yes?"

"No idea." He leaned back, stretching his legs out as best he could. He might have tried to look like country wasn't his thing, but I caught him bobbing his head to Rascal Flatt's Summer Nights and couldn't help but chuckle. He flicked my elbow where it rested on the middle console - as I have a habit of driving one handed - and I outright laughed.

"Only for you, Ol," he said as we pulled into the Wegman's parking lot. "Only for you will I listen to country."

"I know."

It was natural for me to park my car, lock it, and sucker myself to Murph's side on the walk into the store. They'd already started setting out the Halloween stuff even though it was a couple of weeks until the big night.

We bee-lined for the cookies, and I untucked my hands from the sweatshirt cuffs to sort through what was left of the cookies-by-the-pound.

"Ladybug or butterfly?"

Murph mulled it over like I'd asked him to recite the English monarchs. He could do it, too, though he'd sometimes flip the Stuarts and Tudors on accident. I could easily do the equivalent with the periodic table.

"Butterfly," he said, looking over my shoulder in such a way as to have my back flush to his chest. Feeling anything but comfortable would have been a waste of time and energy. "Blue, please."

I handed the cookie over my shoulder and snagged one of the ladybugs with the hand he hadn't claimed, feeling a little lighter.

Every day wasn't always going to be rainbows and sunshine. Contrary to popular belief, life wasn't a Disney movie set to a Taylor Swift album. Things - like physics tests - happened. And I gave Murph credit as most people would have taken one look at the foul mood I'd been in and come back when I'd re-entered Earth's atmosphere and suitably mellowed out.

Murph, though? Murph was either fearless or stupid when it came to me. He could weather me. And there he went again, makin' my heart hurt because of it.

I was going to attempt to be a lady and wait until I got back to our building to inhale my cookie, and therefore almost missed Murph attempting to rip his fingers off on a locked door handle since I was more focused on other things.

Keys. Right. Concentrate.

Considering I wasn't wearing legit pants, rummaging through pockets I didn't have would be fairly stupid. They weren't in the kangaroo pocket, they weren't around my neck...

"Shit," I breathed, tossing my plastic-wrapped cookie onto the hood so I could cup my hands around my face to see in the window. There, barely visible in the yellow fluorescent light, was the Brine lanyard hanging from the ignition. "Um..."

"Tell me there's a spare key in your room."

"There's a spare key in my room." We looked at each other over the roof of the car. "Seriously, there is." And since he was looking appropriately skeptical. "Really."

He held his hands up, butterfly cooking dangling by its cellophane sleeve. "Okay. So do we walk or catch the trolley?"

A flash of green and gold by the traffic light at the other end of the parking lot - head-level with Murph - caught my eye. "That trolley?"

Murph didn't even turn around. Instead, he walked to the trunk and held out his arm in a very gentlemanly way with a flourish. "Shall we?"

I have a faux curtsy before I threaded my arm through his. "Let's."

We set off more like a two-man marching band than a romantic moonlight stroll. But that's more our style, anyway.

Musically Inclined

Sometimes when I'm getting around in the morning - or afternoon, depending on the day - I like to put on music. Usually from YouTube so I can look at the videos, too, if I'm getting dressed. Makes me feel like I'm at home or in Geneva watching CMT in the morning to get ready, because, well, that's what I do. I like to more or less dance around my room in the morning. Puts me in a good mood.

I was looking for Sara Bareilles's King of Anything and found this instead. I have no idea who they are, but for an a cappella group, they're pretty good. And they're young, too. Reminds me of watching The Sing Off, in a way.

Anyway, long story short, I thought I'd share this with you. I liked it, and figured that one of my followers or lurkers (I know you're out there, I can feel you, and if that's not creepy I don't know what is) might like it, too.

Happy Friday.

Fresh

There are days when I love my editor and there are days when I'm glad she's on one side of the Atlantic while I'm on the other. The latter usually happens when I'm supposed to have an article in, I don't, and am more or less scrambling because she's usually got empty space to fill and is looking with all the fury of nature at the screen waiting for an email with an attachment. Well, I did good yesterday. She graciously extended the deadline, and lo and behold, in her inbox sat an email with an attachment.

After I had accidentally emailed myself of course, since I'm still more or less getting used to working the new-fangled version of Exchange the school thought prudent to upgrade to.

And because I'm writing about my experiences abroad, and because I haven't done a meaningful post that introspects in a while, you get my martini article. Sadly, when the issue comes out tomorrow, I'm not going to get it until I come back from London on Sunday.

I'll just have to have a martini before I go to my internship on Monday. Which should be quite fun.

So, without further ado, the latest bit of publishable shenanigans from The Abroadest.



There are a few different types of people in this world, if you couldn’t already tell. You can start to see the divides in high school, if you look right. You can tell the ones that are bound for Ivy League schools, those who will wind up in some private institution much like ours, those who will enter the SUNY (State University of New York) system, and those who will, upon graduation, be entering the workforce because that’s what they need to do. Due to goals, expectations, finances, and a whole host of other factors, some paths might not be accessible to certain people.

A college like ours, however, puts you on a semi-level playing field. I say semi-level because not all of us are athletic enough to play on the varsity sports teams, talented enough to be in Chorale, or have the slightly psychotic and almost overwhelming patience when dealing with kids to go into the teacher education program.

And not all of us are able to step outside of our comfort zone to do something like study abroad. If you’re fully willing to step outside your comfort zone, but you just can’t make it happen with your major, that’s understandable. Your situation is different than mine. Just like that kid in high school who thought it best to enter the workforce straight off the stage, my decision to enter into four more years of academia was what was best for me.

I respect all those on campus that don’t have the right situation to study abroad, or simply haven’t go the interest. For those of you who do, welcome to the club our campus truly enjoys flaunting.

But being on home soil and saying, “Yeah, I’m going abroad” is way different than being on foreign soil and going “Holy shit, I’m here.” What matters is what you do after the latter – whether you stay in the little circle of what’s become known to you – your room, the other internationals, your fellow students from your home university – or if you step completely outside that zone and cease to become a spectator in the whole study abroad experience. The CGE tells you before you go that you make of the experience what you will. This is one of those occasions that you will reap what you plant.

I went on a little shopping excursion last weekend with another international from Texas and I wanted to know if she thought of Carmarthen as home. There’s this habit I have where I tend to make home wherever I go. When I move back to Geneva in January, wherever I live on campus – and that’s still up in the air, by the way, which is going to get real interesting next month when I get to deal with Res Ed – will become a home. First and foremost home is a little town in central New York that nobody’s ever heard of unless they’ve looked at my Facebook page, but since I’ve been living on the opposite side of the pond? Home is a certain flat in Carmarthen.

So when I asked her if Carmarthen was home, she looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Hell no. Home is in America with my boyfriend.”

Alrighty then. I mean, I’m used to the whole lookin’ at me like I’m crazy thing, but I really wasn’t expecting that. And for a moment I really floundered how someone who was thousands of miles away from home, in a foreign country, seeing and experiencing things they might never again get to do, could say – reading between the lines – that they’d rather be home with their significant other. Granted, I don’t really have that problem, but I do have a niece that I get to see on a regular basis. And I get a little homesick every now and then where I miss my parents.

Then I look around, realize I’m not in New York, and want to know where we’re going next for a weekend trip, or what I can do in the spare time that I have to further explore. Where can I further break out of my comfort zone? And the one that I have, it’s not the one that I came with.

When you go abroad, you build yourself a new place. A new comfort zone. It becomes your flat, the people you live with, the classrooms you have class in. Hell, even the mile walk to the grocery store becomes normal. I’ve been here not much more than a month and when I watch movies set in the States, I think the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the vehicle, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. French fries are chips; potato chips are crisps; and everybody drinks enough tea to have a second Revolution. That’s normal. It’s also normal to hang out in the kitchen or in the lounge with the Wii. It’s normal to pull pranks on each other, accidentally sneak up on each other, and regularly take the piss (make fun of) out of one another about the foods that we like to eat and therefore eat too much of. My flat mates have named me Wallace from Wallace and Gromit because I really like Welsh cheese. I think they eat too much pizza and way too many sausages.

To be honest, I spend about ninety percent of my time with my flat mates, our mutual friends, and others whom I have class with. Ten percent of my time is spent with the other internationals be it in the Welsh heritage class that we’re in together or on our weekend trips, or if I randomly see them while out on Wednesday nights. Am I purposefully snubbing them? Nope. I’m simply choosing to meet other people. I’m choosing to meet the friends of my friends and get a better experience. Some of us went bowling as a flat a few weeks ago. When I go out on Wednesdays, I go out with the girls I live with. All of us look after each other in a way.

I know that situations like that don’t happen often. I know that I can probably consider myself lucky. Incredibly lucky since, even though it’s not a holiday they readily celebrate over here, they’re ready and willing to do a Thanksgiving dinner and then help celebrate my twenty-first birthday. I’ll tell you right now that what I remember of that night will be epic.

When you break it all down, it becomes choice. You can choose to go to college; choose your major; choose to study abroad; choose where to study abroad; choose to meet new people and expose yourself to different things; choose be an adventurer instead of a spectator, and choose to make the most out of what you’re given. Yeah, it’s going to sound corny and cliché, but, honestly, you get one life.

What exactly are you doing with yours?

Murphy and Me XXVII

[Two new Murphy's in two days? That must be a record.]

As usual, I had papers sprawled from over almost the entire surface of the round table in the common space outside my corner single. The only difference was that it wasn't physics homework. It was my major declaration form.

For a bachelor of science degree in chemistry.

It's not unusual for college kids to switch majors. My cousin at Potsdam switched at least four times while he was there. It was odd, though, for science majors to switch, as they normally know they're going to be science majors by the end of high school at the earliest, middle of their first year at the latest. My saving grace was that bio and chem majors shared so many courses. Intro chem, both organics, and two semesters of physics.

Really wish the physics was debatable. Not a big fan.

I'd already switched advisers, Yeng to Montrose. Even gone so far as to tell my parents that I was no longer a bio major but that underwater basket weaving had yet to be approved as an acceptable course of study. Since my sister and I like to joke about having degrees in underwater basket weaving - utterly useless in the so-called real world - I chuckled.

And started filling in classes on the little lines.

And tried to ignore the fact that this may or may not be a life-changing process. In a quiet kind of way.

Ten minutes and some slightly complicated choices later I had, more or less, planned out the rest of my collegiate career. Minus my minors. With teaching as a back-up plan, it provided me an automatic education minor. This happy fact meant that I technically didn't need an interdisciplinary minor to go with my disciplinary major. So while I might not need my creative writing minor, I wanted it. Just to go with my three-year work-in-progress I happen to call a novel.

Which I hadn't touched in about four months.

The shower kicked on down the hall; music flared as a door opened while another thumped shut. There was some shuffling; I looked up to see Jo come 'round the corner.

"That time already?" I unearthed my phone and verified that it was nearly five-thirty. It didn't seem like that long ago - almost six hours now - that Murph had crawled out of my bed to head downstairs to get some work done. After about five minutes of last kisses, of course.

"Yeah," Jo said, flopping into the beat-to-shit armchair with a thump and a cloud of particles only visible in the shaft of sunlight. She pointed to the papers. "You leavin' us?"

"Yup." I gathered everything and stuffed it back in its manila folder. "I've gone to the dark side. The pull of the cookies was too strong."

"Drat," she deadpanned.

I went back into my room, dumped the folder onto my laptop, pulled on my sneakers, and started to hunt for my WS soccer hoodie, the one I'd bought when Izzy had taken me to the Open House that cold day September before last. The same hoodie I'd had to cut the neck of to get my head through comfortably, despite it being an XL. Funny, I'd thrown it over the back of the moon chair, last I knew. And there it was, predictably where I'd left it.

Second thought, what I'd found wasn't mine. It was too big, and -

Oh. Hold the phone. I looked at the front. That sneaky, sneaky....sneak.

Jo knocked on the partially open door. "Ol?"

"Be right there." I tugged the sweatshirt over my head and shoved my arms through the sleeves. It was a bit big, but I wasn't swimming in it. I pulled the neck up to my nose and breathed in while I grabbed my Vera.

The scent was pure, unadulterated Murph. I could drown in that.

And run the risk of whacking into walls in the process. Which was an acceptable risk.

"That's a new one," Jo said, pointing to my chest.

"Not mine, if you can't tell." I locked my door. "See, there's this guy that hangs around and he's pretty good-looking, and he stole my sweatshirt."

She snorted. "And left you a present."

"Yeah," I chuckled, "much like an elf."

And if she had to wait by the second floor door for me to get over my fit of hysterics at my own cleverness, well, she wouldn't hold it against me. Not until later, at least.



I'm somewhat used to being stared at but this was ridiculous. All because of a sweatshirt. When Mike nearly ran into some half-terrified first year with a tray, I was ready to stand in the middle of the second tier and yell, "Grow the hell up, people!" Counter-intuitive, that is.

Shoving at one of my half-assed bangs as it dropped onto my nose, I deposited my Vera at the table Mel and Em had already claimed and high-tailed it toward food before they could ask any questions.

There was shrimp alfredo at Hal's station. Which sounded like a winner. One quick trip through the veggin' line for some wheat penne and a quick wait at Showtime Hal's with his typical "Hi, lady," and my "Hi, Hal" and then it was on to the wolves.

"That Murphy's?" Mel asked as I pushed up my sleeves.

"Yup." Barely restrained my Captain Obvious reply. "And yes, before you even ask, he has my sweatshirt and yes, this smells like him and it's wonderful." I looked up at three somewhat dumbstruck faces. "Any other questions?"

"When can you start practicing with the team again? Like, full contact?" Em asked. She was poking delicately at her shepherd's pie - the part that wasn't smothered in gravy - her lithe dancer's form hunched slightly. She might have slouched at the table, and I'd seen her sink and sprawl at her desk in T-S Britain, but from what Sasha told me she was the most form-correct dancer Sasha had ever seen. And Sasha had danced for as many years as I've played soccer.

"We're looking at Tuesday, though it'll be light contact. Then Mac'll do his thing and if he likes what he sees we might go full on Thursday. Whether I play on Saturday is still up for grabs." That happy fact stung. Much more than one would think. And I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to slide back in like I'd never left or if I was going to have to fight. I had no issues fighting for my position - and starting spot - in practice, but I really wasn't up for an all-out battle, either.

Mostly because there was a physics test on Wednesday.

That I was more or less not-so-quietly freaking out about though Pat - some professors insist you call them by their first name and won't even answer to professor - had told us repeatedly it wasn't something to freak out about. Then again, considering that Pat was, and still is in some ways, a physics major, how valid is that opinion? Seriously. I'm physics stupid.

"Hope you do play," Mel said softly.

"You and me both." I looked at Em. "How did auditions go?"

She grinned. "From what I could see, Sasha and Cara's dance is going to be awesome."

I nearly choked on a shrimp; Jo thumped my back as I coughed.

"She tried out?" I gasped when I could breathe.

Em snorted. "Auditioned and kicked butt."

Which was no surprise, honestly. Cara was a ridiculously good choreographer and Sasha was a sick dancer, especially jazz and ballet. Odd combination, sure, but no odder than a chem major with a penchant for creative writing.

"How's the bio goin', you two?" Mel asked as the silence stretched. She was an unrepentant computer science major coupled with a taste for foreign language. Specifically Russian.

"Well," Jo said sadly, "we've lost another to that crap called chemistry."

I kicked her foot under the table. "Grump. Least I didn't move to something like English."

"Hey!" Em shot me a dark look that softened into a half-smile almost immediately.

"I could have said it sucked."

She shrugged. "True."

An awkward silence descended; Mel, Em, and Jo looked pointedly behind me. I turned in my chair, narrowly avoiding dragging my sleeve through alfredo sauce, and openly stared. Colby was standing at the opposite end of the third tier and motioning toward us to someone out of view. He wouldn't - He wasn't -

Yeah. They would.

Sure enough he was joined by Liam, Dev, and Murph. And they headed our way.

"Can we join you ladies?" Colby asked as they gathered 'round.

There was some generally shrugging and scuffling in agreement, and we pushed the nearest table together with ours. There was some squeezing and the line between cozy and rubbin' elbows? We were flirtin' with it.

Majorly.

"Uh, Mel, Em, Jo," I started and then looked at what Murph was wearing. My sweatshirt. On him. Honestly, it fit him better than it did me.

And oh, did that boy look downright sinful.

"This is Colby, Murphy, Liam, and Devan," I said when I'd found my voice. "Guys, Mel, Em, and Jo." Murph had met Jo accidentally that morning, and this was the first time his friends were really meeting mine.

To call me nervous was an understatement.

"So, do you all play soccer?" Colby asked while mixing his shepherd's pie and gravy. It resembled soup more than solid food.

Em shook her head; I desperately wanted ice cream.

"Ollie's the only soccer chick among us," Mel said with a grin. "Though I play a mean game of badminton."

"Jo likes to ride horses," I added quickly, moving my shins away from her feet. The table jiggled a few seconds later and she winced.

"Liam tried that once," Murph chuckled.

Seven stares turned to a furiously blushing Liam.

"The soccer thing or the horse thing?" Em asked innocently. She pulled it off better than I could.

"Murphy - "

"The horse thing." He grinned at his positively flaming twin.

Colby's eyes lit up. "Oh - I think I remember that. Weren't we at my grandpa's farm?"

Dev, caught between Liam and Murph, wisely kept his mouth shut. His expression said everything quite clearly.

"What happened?" Mel leaned forward on her elbows.

"We were at my grandpa's farm and he asked if we would take the horses out for a ride since the guy he pays to do it normally - since he's got bad knees because of his arthritis - couldn't make it because of a family obligation." He looked at Liam and stifled a laugh. "It'd been a couple of months since I was in the saddle and taking two horses out was not going to feel good later. SO I ask Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum if they know how to ride."

Murph cleared his throat, trying to keep his smile under wraps. "So Tweedle Dum over there says he'll do it, no problem." There was a thunk and the rattle of cutlery; Liam's forehead was on the table, shoulders twitching with embarrassed laughter. "When the last time we were both rode was when Ma sent us to summer camp when we were eight." He paused.

"Just friggin' tell them, Murphy," Liam growled.

"And that was a pony ride at the end of camp carnival."

I pulled the neck of the sweatshirt up to my nose to hide my grin.

Colby snickered. "So, he watches me saddle one and I ask if he's good to go. He says yeah, and Murph gives him a hand into the saddle. We're only going around the paddock to start with. Flat, soft ground. We start and I look over, and his legs are clamped so tight to the mare's sides that I'm impressed she can still breathe right. We make it around the paddock a couple of times and I want to move on to the field. Let them have a bit of a run. Murph opens the gate and out into the field we go. At a trot. And I can hear Murph laughin' at somethin' and I look over and there's Liam and the saddle practically getting hang-time. Milly, the mare, turns to follow the track over a bit of uneven ground, and Liam and the saddle go sliding off the horse. Right into a puddle."

"I'm impressed he didn't break himself," Murph got out between bits of laughter. I was chuckling so hard my sides hurt.

Liam, still blushing furiously, had cracked a grin when he lifted his head. "I was bruised from shoulder to hip and on my shin where the saddle landed. And I was sitting in ankle deep water."

That must have acted as an appropriate ice-breaker because pretty soon we couldn't get the stories out fast enough.

Hell, I didn't even want ice cream anymore because I was afraid I'd miss something. And this? Definitely better entertainment than cable.