Softly, Sweetly

I'm not quite sure how many of you actually follow my Twitter, but I said something the other day that there was nothing to calm me down quite like good classical music. My tune of choice? Pachelbel's Canon in D. A couple minutes of scouring YouTube (and time to listen, of course) had me with this absolutely beautiful six minutes and change. Enjoy.

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.

Murphy and Me XXXII

[Happy Tuesday, Heather Ann.]

Hot water over sore muscles? Absolutely heavenly. Even on the forming bruises. And there were plenty, too. A couple on the sides of my calves, a few on my biceps, and one hell of a blob on my right quad. That sucker was little over softball-size, complete with hexagons. It's what happens when you stuff someone's on-goal shot at the top of the eighteen. Which was also on par for playing U of R. They were tough. They had probably called us every name in the locker at half time that we'd called them. And weren't nice.

Collegiate soccer isn't pleasant. We take no prisoners. It's how we made it to the Final Four last year.

And it's the type of mentality that we need to make it there again.

If the body took a beating for the cause, well, hot showers and ice did the trick. Usually.

I turned the water off, reaching through the gap in the curtain for the towel and thought of nothing. Well, maybe not nothing. More like went over the conversation from dinner at Friendly's with my parents again.

Namely, I'd bucked up and told Dad about Murph. It went better than expected - there were no Irish jokes or anything that made me instantly red. Nothing at all, really, except "How old is he?" and "Is he a nice boy?" The last one was more from my mother, but I told them the important stuff: history major, sweet guy, football player.

Under no circumstances did I even hint at our first ER visit or that we'd slept in the same bed multiple times. Also that he'd seen me with no shirt on.

Some things, really, are better left unsaid.

I wrapped the towel around my almost nonexistent boobs, dumped my face wash and all-in-one shampoo bottles into the shower basket on the sink, grabbed that, and squelched down the hall. The communal shower flops were left outside the room; I opened the door and stepped onto the indoor/outdoor rug, automatically bopping along with the DMB song coming through the open laptop.

My after-shower routine was solid muscle memory at this point. Comb out the hair (now almost even with the bottom of my shoulder blades), clean out ears, and find something comfortable to wear if the shower comes at the end of the day (whereas real clothes are required for start of day ones).

What wasn't routine was the knocking on the door.

As long as the towel covered the important bits, I could care less who was on the other side of the door.

Unless, of course, it was tall, dark, and Irish with the name of Murphy.

"Hey, Ol - You need me to come back when you're...not so naked?"

I gave him props - the hazel eyes never went further south than my nose. "Murph," I said, clutching the towel for safety reasons, "you've seen me more naked than clothes could ever show."

He turned a very pretty shade of red. "Ollie...."

"It's true."

Murph chuckled. "So...have an interesting day?"

"Quite." I leaned against the edge of the door. "Let me put some clothes on and clear off the bed, yeah?"

He shrugged, backing away from the door frame. "Or you could clear off the bed and skip the clothes part, but I'm good either way, really."

Cue flaming cheeks. "Murphy," I laughed. He grinned, sinking into the armchair in the pseudo-lounge as the door swung shut. For as sweet, funny, and overall wonderful as Murph was, this was proof he was, somewhere deep down, still a guy. One who enjoyed looking at his girlfriend in a towel.

There was no need to get fancy with Murph; a pair of sleep shorts from Wally World's men's department and a tank would be just fine. The towel went in the basket under the bed - along with the clothes on the comforter - and for the hell of it, I left my hair down.

He was staring at the wall when I opened the door. "Hey."

"Hi." Murph came through the door like he owned it, nudged it shut with his foot and cupped my head under my hair with both hands so he could commence kissing me like this was the last he'd see of me.

"You are a force, you know that?" he said against my cheek before he made himself comfortable against my pillows, his sneakers in the bottom of my closet and Edgar in his lap.

"What? How?" I vaulted onto the bed after putting the laptop on a reasonable volume, back against the dresser.

"You blocked a rocket of a shot, got up, organized the troops, and then slide-tackled some chick like it was your job."

Technically it was. "Yeah, and I have the bruises to prove it, too."

He shrugged. "They'll fade." He hiked up the side of his long-sleeved shirt - there was a massive bruise on the left side of his chest.

"Don't you have pads?"

"That's not from football."

I ogled appropriately. "What did you do to your brother?"

Murph turned sheepish. "Accidentally gave him a black eye." I stared. "Not as good as yours, but enough that he got a free hit before practice."

This might be why Izzy and I are thirteen years apart.

"I take it you were at the game." I wrapped my lower legs around his calf.

"Yup. Yours and the boys'." He nudged the inside of my thigh with his toes (striped socks today). "Ma likes you."

My chest stuttered. "What?"

"She likes you." He smiled. "You don't take any shit."

There was more to it than that. "I - "

"She asked us if you carried yourself the same way off the field that you do on." He leaned forward, handed me Edgar, and coaxed me forward against his chest. "Liam and I said yes."

Oh, Murph. I didn't carry that central defender confidence with me all the time. Physics would be a prime example. "I still get freaked out."

"Yeah, but you handle it."

Like hell. I turned, resting my back against his right thigh and the wall. "No, I don't. I freak out completely."

"But not the point where it compromises your grades," he said softly, twirling a damn curl around his finger. "I think I know which ones were your parents."

Abrupt topic change much? As this was heading into better territory, I jumped on the bandwagon. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Your dad is a little taller than you, a good-sized man." He bit his lip. "He had a camo jacket with him. He hunts, doesn't he?"

Time to come clean with that. "Yeah."

"Multiple shotguns?"

"And a muzzleloader."

Murph winced. "Right."

I yanked his outside leg into my lap and tapped his kneecap gently. "What about your dad? What does he like to do?"

"He's a glassblower, but he's done odd jobs here and there to help pay the bills. He doesn't have his own studio or anything, but he makes all kinds of stuff outta glass."

"Why Lake Placid, though? Why not Corning?" There was a huge museum of glass there, and Corning's nickname was the Crystal City. Pyrex had also been spawned there.

Murph shrugged. "I have no idea."

Couldn't argue with that. "What does your mom do?"

"She works in an insurance office - All-State, I think - as a secretary." He smiled softly. "What about yours?"

"My dad makes asphalt and my mom's a treasurer. My sister's in marketing and I'm a waitress over the summer." That was me and my family in a very fairly small nutshell. "Did you - ?"

"Nope." He leaned back against the wall. "Neither Liam nor I inherited our Da's talent with glass." He blushed. "Neither of us are creative, really."

"Really?"

He raised an eyebrow in a very Spock-like manner. "Da thought it would be a good idea for Liam and I to make Ma an ornament or something for Mother's Day. Well, we blew the bubble of hot glass on the end of the stick to pieces. We haven't been allowed in the studio since."

I fought not to giggle. "How old were you?"

"Twelve."

It was like Napoleon at Waterloo; I broke into giggles. The situation was not improved when Murph started tickling me in retaliation.

And if one of us rolled off the bed in he commotion, well, we just laughed harder. After he'd confirmed I hadn't broken myself, of course.

"Just Like Guinevere"

This is kind of a companion post to the one below titled Dear Baby Binsk. Not to mention, I just love this song.

Dear Baby Binsk

[This is a letter to my younger self from me now.]

Hey Binsk,

It's me. Sorta all grown up. We just turned twenty-one a little over a week ago, on Turkey Day. Yeah. You, me, our cartilege piercing, and our tattoo we've more or less named Otis. He's still rockin' the tan line from this summer, still lookin' for that horizon. Much like us, really.

Anyway, there's something that I need to tell you. Or rather, we need to talk about.

It's about Al*. I know you're going to have a hell of a time believing me on this one, but, Al got married yesterday. Before you freak out that I've somehow estranged us from the family and eloped in Mexico or anything, we're still single. We've got crazy curly long hair (though, I kept chopping it all off at one point, and now I'm letting it grow back) and, well, I'm currently in Wales. Yeah. You'll enjoy that, trust me.

Anyway. Yeah, Al got married yesterday. Don't look at me like that, all wide-eyed and whatnot. I remember just as clearly as you do freaking out in the kitchen when he came to the back door looking to drop off a can collection bag for Scouts and we thought he was there to see us and we freaked, royally, because we didn't want Mom or Dad to see him because we hadn't told them. I remember him and his dad and his friend turning up in the driveway during Italian Festival one summer, wanting to know if I wanted to go with them while I sat writing The Crossing from composition book to Word. I also remember being smooshed in the backseat, too, with the cake we'd made for Saint Mary's.

I remember all of that, just like you do. Just like I remember the way I felt junior year when I put on the dress I'd worn at Heather's wedding to go to my first prom. Eventually we'll be able to look at those pictures - and the ones from senior year - without tearing up quite as badly. For now, we'll leave them in the picture box in the living room with the ones from Music Club trips to NYC and other places we've been.

We're quite the wanderers, you and I. But that doesn't really hit us until we get to college and start blogging. Originally, we're Confessions of a College Coffee Addict but being a Wandering Sagittarius is what we are, so we change it.

I know it hurts, Binsk. I know it just tears at you to let him go that last time because you don't want to hurt him when you go away to college, and that's fine. I understand that. We don't regret that. We just thought he would wait for us. Can't really blame him for finding someone else, even if we think things moved a bit fast for them. And we were suitably stunned when we found out he was engaged.

Yesterday was their big day and you're over three thousand miles away living a very, very different life.

There's nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to regret. I know it's hard. Really hard. But you've done great things. You've got, at this point, 1,994 pages of composition book filled with a novel; you've got thirty parts on a blogging series that's more or less turned into a book called Murphy and Me; you've recently celebrated a birthday and can legally drink the US now; and you've turned out to be one strong, confident, bluntly honest person who, at all times, remembers to be herself before anything else. Because that's all we can do. Just be us. Even if it hurts.

I thought of how I was going to tackle this particular subject, wondered if there was a line I was going to cross that I shouldn't cross, and then decided, like with a lot of things, to screw it. Life is about crossing lines and this? This is hella personal, but at the same time, it's not. Don't ask me to explain that more fully because, well, I probably can't.

We're a little bitter, some days, I won't lie. We wonder how we can write such a wonderful romance between fictional characters, but can't live it in our own life. Our sister tells us to be patient, that God won't give us more than we can handle. But boy, it does seem like a lot sometime, if not in physical things, than especially with emotional.

Of course, this comes roughly two weeks before we head back to the US from spending three months in a foreign country. Because, well, if we didn't have bad luck we wouldn't have any luck at all. Coincidentally, that was the inspiration for Murphy and Me. And we haven't stopped writing since.

That, Binsk, is the biggest thing. We haven't stopped writing, living, breathing, loving, and wandering. We haven't stopped being us because of this fiasco. And it is a fiasco. It threw us for a loop when we got that random friend request, and it threw us for a loop to realize yesterday they got married. What we can do, though, is to recognize it, and not let it be more than a fading thing.

We can also sit back with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and wait for the wedding photos to crop up and crack up (in more than one way, probably) but that's a normal reaction.

The other normal reaction for us to write him into whatever we're working on, and we have. In little ways, we have. We'll listen to music, cry a little, and keep writing.

This will, eventually, be just another day to us. Another Saturday because, honestly, it doesn't have specific meaning to us. It's not our wedding day, not our anniversary (or one that we should be keeping track of, at any rate) and it's really not important to us. Mean? Slightly. Truthful? Definitely. And that's one thing we refuse to do, is lie to ourselves. Not when it counts the most.

We've come along way. And you've come further yet to get here. We've got more to go, too. More wandering, loving, writing, and most importantly, living. Live it up, kid, cause this life? It's the only one we've got. And to spend it freaking out about a path we didn't take? Not worth it, no matter what we thought he was worth to us back then because there's a Murphy out there for us somewhere. We've just gotta run into a few cars to find him, first.

Love,
Louise

Murphy and Me XXXI

"Quite a few of you seemed to struggle with this. As far as first exams go, well, those of you that didn't do as well as you'd have liked have three more to work toward." Pat was impressive as ever in his yellow cardigan, the stack of papers on the table at the front daunting and innocent. "Right, I'll just hand them back. The answer key is posted in the hall, and any questions - or if I added wrong - come see me after or in office hours." With that, he started handing back exams.

I left mine face down as long as I dared before finally flipping it when I was sure I wasn't going to lose my breakfast.

C+

Could've been better, could have been worse. Not great, but it wasn't an F. Bottom line for me? I'll take it and run. Preferably without looking back.

I filed it in my folder with my other papers and cracked open my notebook, red and black pens at the ready. Bright side of life, bright side of life, bright side -

Holy hell, Pat, is that even English?



Problem sets are an absolute joy. Stuff that makes perfect sense when the man is at the front of the room but gets absolutely ridiculous when figuring it out alone in the confines of a dorm building.

Hence the books and papers over the entire table yet again. Thankfully I worked in pencil with stuff like this. And had one of those big erasers.

Mostly though, it was to double check things. Some of the old stuff from last semester and a little of the new. A nice respite before plunging into the unknown and being totally confused.

Reminds me of doing my calculus II homework in the second floor lounge, papers all over the place and swearing under my breath. Which I used to do in algebra in eighth grade. The swearing part. Very quietly. And I hated graphing with a passion.

Resonance forms haven't reached that level, but give it time.

There was a thump on the other side of the wall; Jo came around the corner a moment later. "Hey."

"Hi." I ruffled through some papers. Couldn't find the one I wanted.

"Orgo givin' you hell?" She flopped in the beat-to-shit armchair.

"When does it not?"

"True." She rested her elbows on her knees. "Did you find out the physics?"

"C plus." Found the paper and held it up. "See? This is what you get to look forward to next semester." Jo was a year behind me in terms of of her chem courses. This was my second semester of organic and she was in intro. We'd already agreed she'd use my books (she currently had my copy of Molecules That Matter) and would also inherit my physics brick. The only that sort of annoyed her was that I used highlighter when I read. It helped me hang onto the important parts better.

"Goody." She sighed. "You parents coming up for this weekend?"

"Yeah. We have a game Saturday." Honestly, I was tryin' not to think about that too much. Mostly because Murph and I hadn't talked about how we were going to handle that. My dad didn't know about my boyfriend, my mom was probably going to want details, and Murph hadn't told his mom yet. It was, really, best left alone for the moment in terms of having our parents meet.

Course, I had yet to talk to Murph about it.

"You and Murph gonna do the whole meet the parents thing?"

Damn her. "I dunno. Probably not, but I need to talk to him about it."

"Ah."

Eloquent as ever, Jo. No wonder neither of us were into public speaking as a pseudo-elective. Maybe that was the reason we were both scientists. Would explain a lot, too.

"Yeah." I fished for my phone. This whole Parents Weekend thing needed to be crossed off the To-Do List. Preferably yesterday.

And yes, I had a legit To-Do List to cross things off of. Made me feel like I'd accomplished something, even when I'd most likely done nothing remotely close to productive.

Of all the ways college students had thought to lie to themselves, this was possibly the best.

"You should talk to him."

Thank you, again, Jo. I know. "Preferably before the weekend, yeah, I know." Checked the time on the phone when I found it - early enough by collegiate standards and late enough for him to be home.

She waited while I typed and then said, "He gonna come up?"

"Don't even know if he's back." I checked my problem set against my notebook, was satisfied it was correct, and shuffled every paper into a pile and stuffed it back in the folder. Should really do some reading for T-S Britain.

Could, should, probably wouldn't.

On that note -

"Hey, ladies."

I stacked the folder on the ottoman to my right and then swiveled to look at Murph, lounging carelessly against the wall. "You should know me well enough to know I'm no lady."

Murph pushed off from the wall, moved my folders from the ottoman, and straddled it. "That's right." We were damn close to lookin' each other in the eye. "You're a heathen, aren't you?"

"Filthy little," I smirked, looking at Jo.

"Savages, savages, demons to the core," she said, rolling her eyes with a grin.

How we'd gone from saying hello to a half-assed Pocahontas sing-along, I'd never know. Nor would I care to. It was damn obvious Murph had a movie-lover for a girlfriend.

"What are you doing for Parents Weekend, Jo?" Murph asked.

"Going home." She shifted in the chair, drawing her legs up. "I'm leaving Friday."

As she had a six-hour drive, yeah, I can see why she'd leave on Friday.

Murph nudged my leg with is foot. "And what are you doin' this weekend?"

"Playing U of R on Saturday."

He winced. "Bloodbath?"

"You betcha." University of Rochester was always good, so it was always a close game. They were a team that if we didn't win, we tied. "Do do you play on Sunday?"

"Carnegie-Mellon." He looked at the folders he was still hanging onto.

"What are we doing about our parents?"

Murph literally growled at himself. "I still haven't told Ma. Haven't found a way to bring it up yet."

Which was the current status of the conversation with my dad. "Yup. I know the feeling."

He snorted.

"This is why I'm single," Jo added.

I turned and stared. "I thought you were single because you're a scientist and there's just no time for a man?"

She mumbled something that sounded vaguely like stuff it. I grinned.

"Do you want us to stop by and check it out on Saturday?" he asked.

I turned in the chair, hooking an ankle under his. "I don't want to - I just." How I'd ever passed English in high school I'll never know. "It wouldn't be fair to you if you guys came on Saturday and we didn't on Sunday."

He moved his right leg to the same side of the ottoman as the other, caging my striped-clad feet between his beat Pumas. Jo was still very much there, though, she wasn't. She was there but we weren't very much aware of her at the moment.

"You know that doesn't matter to me," he said, flopping the folders on the table.

"It matters to me." I didn't want him to give more than I could. For us to be uneven in any way.

He wrapped a hand around my calf. "It's not a competition, Ol." He shrugged. "If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it's okay."

Good God, how did I find this boy? And how did he end up with me?

"I - "

"I know." His thumb stroked my shin through a layer of denim. "Remember, though, I'm gonna do what I wanna do. And what's possible."

That he was. I couldn't ask him not to, and to ask him to not come if he wanted to would hurt him. And the last thing I wanted to do was hurt Murph.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I whispered.

It was going to be an interesting weekend.

Things to Know: International Edition VII

- Things to Know is a series that can be chalked up to disconnected moments of randomosity from the darkest recesses of my noggin.

- Or it can just be good fun, it's really your call.

- I love YouTube.

- I watched Cats last night on previously mentioned YouTube and have come to a few conclusions, first and foremost being that I'm in love with Munkustrap's thighs. The actor who plays him - quite well, I might add - spends most of his time in a crouch position instead of upright.

- Oh, those thighs.

- I'll be honest, that's probably about the depth of my shallowness, watching Cats clips repeatedly to see men in spandex.

- The costuming though? Absolutely amazing.

- All this talk of cats and Cats has probably freaked out my sister by this point, after her #DamnCats fiasco last weekend.

- I got home in fifteen days. By home, I mean New York.

- I found my plane ticket stub from when I came over here, and I started to cry.

- For as much as I want to go home, I'm going to have a difficult time leaving this place.

- I'm that (un)fortunate soul who makes home wherever she goes.

- I'm not entirely sure what I should do the packed but not sucked space bags currently occupying my bed.

- On the bright side, I can get the pillow out from one of them and sleep on that one more night.

- My flat mate, the one who has the vacuum, went home rather unexpectedly this morning out of fear of having to drive through a ridiculous amount of snow.

- They've canceled trains and such because of the weather - impending in places - and dumping snow in others.

- I'm hoping for snow.

- My hair's gotten longer, and this is fairly important as I've missed the amount of hair I used to rock my senior year of high school.

- It's a royal pain in the ass to straighten, but hey, every now and then is fine.

- This is going to sound a little odd, but, I think I've hit the point where wearing my incredibly curly, slightly afro-like hair down makes me feel....kind of pretty.

- Just found the missing plate.

- Said missing plate is sitting on my windowsill, with the empty Oreo wrapper on it.

- I can't remember the last time I shaved my legs and I really don't care.

- I might pack the shaver and send that home through the mail.

- My Twitter is a goldmine tonight. An absolute goldmine.

- Louise needs to go to bed.

- Once she figures out where to put the vacuum bags.

- I figured this out a while ago, but, I think there's a ghost that lives in my bathroom.

- No idea why he lives in my bathroom of all places. One would expect the wardrobe.

- Every night after I crawl in bed, he pokes his head around the corner, and then wanders back into the bathroom.

- No big deal; both houses in New York are haunted.

- I think I'm ready to go home.

-Might have to get back to you on that last one.