It's a good week if I'm asking myself that on Wednesday or Thursday. It's a bad week when it's not even halfway through Monday and I"m begging the universe to somehow make it Friday.
This week, the first full week back to school, was a good one. I'm completely and utterly exhausted, and I feel like a social failure for it being only roughly ten o'clock and I'm ready to crash and burn, but I could care less. I adore my dorm bed-nest-thing, love sleep, and need to see what the weather's doing in the morning to decide if I'm making the forty-five minute drive home to hang with the family and get the oil changed in my lovely Oldsmobile.
The highlight of my week - for the most part - came on Tuesday when I had no less than four people cramming themselves into my tiny, under-the-stairs single as the Fire Marshal returned to see if I could actually live in the room. He took measurements, snubbed any and all questions I had, treated me like I was five and his job was incredibly difficult and required absolute quiet and concentration (which pissed me off beyond belief), and then left after saying that this was a conversation I wasn't allowed in on.
Before that, though, a very wonderful person in our Campus Safety department (they're lovely people, as people, and very willing to help anybody) took me around to the rooms they were thinking of moving me into, and let me see them. What do I do on the way back to the car? I slip on the snow, get airborne, land on my damn hip, and spill a little of my Starbucks peppermint mocha. I sat on my hat during class the next day, and my ass is still bruised.
Anyway, they'd all left and the next thing I know, while I'm knitting, Buildings and Grounds comes knocking on my door, saying they need to look at my headboard. So, I heard from them before I heard from Residential Education that they were allowing me to remain in my room for the remainder of the semester. Fine by me. As a result, they sawed off the cross-pieces of my headboard in order to not impede my progress to the window.
Fine by me, I just wanna stay in the damn room.
Side note: People have issues walking up and down the stairs in heels. I know this because I can hear them very clearly, and they sound like elephants.
Another side note: One of the frat houses is having a Jersey Shore party. As I've never seen an episode (and don't want to) I'm quite alright with staying in my little room, finishing this blog post, checkin' out Facebook updates, and then crawling into bed and sleeping for roughly ten hours. That sounds like a fantastic plan.
I feel kind of bad, though, in the mornings, because we have a little coffee pot (only four cups) and, well, what I consider a cup of coffee is actually probably two, maybe two and a half to anyone using a mug that might have come from your mother's cupboard. It's kind of like I'm making coffee for myself, as I seem to be the only person in the house drinking it on a regular basis. Or, more like dumping it into the travel mug right before I head out the door to my first class. But that works, too.
Then again, maybe I make up for the monopolizing of the coffee pot by baking every Thursday. Last week it was vanilla whoopie pies, and yesterday it was molasses cookies. Next week might have peanut butter, as I don't have any food allergies to work around.
I didn't realize there were more than one Sherlock Holmes movies recently produced, and therefore had Netflix deliver the wrong one. Takes a special kind of person to pull that off.
Side Note: Elephants. That's really all I have to say.
Knitting is a wonderful stress relief. Just throwin' that out there.
And on that note, I'm going to crawl into bed and not crawl out for another ten hours.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Shape
Not only does this tell me there are people out there who have it worse, but, no matter what shape we're in, we're doin' all right. The sun will always come up in the morning.
An Unhealthy Combination of FUBAR and SNAFU
[Kind of exciting news, especially if you're actually on campus with me - the first issue of martini and this article will be in there. I know it's rehashing something I've probably hashed to death, but, I wanted you to read what the rest of campus is going to read, because, well....it's a little more general and not so biased. Sort of. Anyway, until I hear whether or not I'm actually going to be moving, this is probably the last of this whole damn thing you'll be reading.
I wanted to share this with you. Then I'll find something fun to share with you, too.]
I wanted to share this with you. Then I'll find something fun to share with you, too.]
I’d like to think it takes a lot for me to get sufficiently and significantly pissed off. That being said, under no circumstances do I allow someone to walk all over me, but I’m not going to flip at the smallest thing, either. I’m pretty even-keeled. And over the course of my three years at this institution, I really haven’t much to say regarding how things are run, or even the policies. Ironic, considering I wrote for martini, the most opinionated publication on campus, and probably within a thirty-mile radius, too. I don’t normally, in a lot of cases, openly criticize our campus, either. Only when they’ve made a fairly big oopsie, do I really feel the need to say something.
At this time, it is entirely appropriate for me to say, to Res Ed, of all places, you need to get your shit together when dealing with students.
The first thing to keep in mind, whether dealing with someone who’s recently returned from being abroad or whether they’ve no plans to live anywhere but sunny Geneva for four years, is to remember that they are, first and foremost, a person. A living, breathing human who deserves to be treated as such, and not simply as a building name and a room number. I understand that we’re considered “residents” but, I do have a name, and I do have feelings.
Right now, I’m feeling incredibly frustrated and, honestly, disgusted.
Namely because you’ve given me a room, allowed me to move into it, and then, for some unknown reason, our buddy the fire marshal has deemed the space unlivable. Now, I’m not an idiot – I get there are certain regulations and codes the fire marshal has to follow, but what I don’t understand, and what nobody’s really answered for me yet, is why the room I’m currently occupying (writing this article, to be honest) was used regularly only a couple of years ago, used a bit last semester, previously okayed by the fire marshal, and suddenly, with only a change of tenant, has become a big freakin’ issue.
I’d be a little more understanding of this whole clusterfuck, if someone could actually tell me what was wrong with room and, maybe, how we could fix it. Like if someone in JPR has an extension cord, they simply remove the cord. Someone in Odell’s has curtains, they remove the curtains. These are violations that have a set rule to follow. This? This is pure asshattery on someone’s part because I’ve no idea why in hell I’ve got to move from a place that was offered to me by Res Ed (once cleared through the fire marshal to be active as a room again), which I took, moved in, and have been living here since last Tuesday, and in that time, nobody’s given me a damn answer.
Hell, Res Ed’s gung ho to move me outta here without telling me why I need to move, other than repeating over and over “the fire marshal.”
The fire marshal is a man who looks for infractions in the regulations and rules set down by the fire code. The regulation can tell me there’s something to fix; the man has to tell me the regulation I’m breaking.
So far, communication sucks.
Then again, that seems to be a growing trait on this campus.
What really frustrates me is that when you have an issue in your housing, Res Ed encourages you to go to your RA or to your Area Coordinator, or to their office because they want to help you. They want to provide you with an environment in which you can study and achieve what you want to achieve. They want to look to help you in small ways, to start at the bottom of the action ladder and work their way up; to avoid drastic action for as long as possible because they want you to see if you can stick it out with your roommate and make things work. If you have roommate issues, you’re going to through this whole process before they’ll commit to moving you to a different location. It’s almost like you have to fight to move from a situation that you’re not benefitting from, that’s hurting you.
In this case, we’re bypassing the whole damn ladder and starting right in with the drastic action that should, usually, be avoided. The truly frightening thing about this whole mess? Well, let me put it this way. When the fire marshal does his first rounds at the beginning of each semester, if you have something that infringes on the rules – say, an extension cord – you get a letter on your desk or your bed that informs you of your violation and then gives you a certain amount of days to make it go away. That or he just takes your extension cord. If you don’t remove the infraction, or fix it, in the certain number of days, you get fined and then, well, you’d damn well better get rid of whatever’s upset him. Or, rather, upset the regulation.
There wasn’t a paper on my desk or my bed, and there was nothing in my email, either, about any infraction that the room – including how it was laid out – or the stuff in it, was in violation of any fire code. Or any part of the fire code, as the thing is quite massive. Again, that’s a massive breakdown of communication right there. I’m living in a space suddenly deemed unlivable, but with no idea why it’s unlivable. I haven’t got ESP, I don’t have a direct link to the fire marshal’s brain, and I can’t tell what the hell goes on in the administration on a daily basis, and, quite frankly, I don’t want to. I have enough to deal with being a student.
And you don’t need a degree to realize you can’t fix something when you don’t know or understand how it’s broken to begin with.
Moving someone is a last resort, not a first option, no matter who they are, what grade level, and whether they live in the little room under the stairs or a forced triple in Jackson. And that, by the way, is just absolutely insane.
So, if Res Ed really has my well-being as a student and as a resident – and maybe as a person, too, as that’s also important – at the forefront of their actions, they’ll leave me the hell alone in the room they offered to me and let me continue to function as I’m currently functioning both socially and academically. That would be in my best interests.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Round Two
One of the good things about writing and doing layout for the campus's alternative publication is that, well, other than controlling what goes on the front page and maybe doing the horoscopes on the back, is that you have the opportunity to inform the campus. How else can you get semi-important to important (and stuff that's by no stretch of the imagination important at all) to nearly everyone on campus, staff and faculty included? We have a lot of readership on the campus (more than The Herald) and, well, a lot of the time we come jam-packed with a sense of humor, even if it's slightly cynical.
Which is why I'm very happy I took the time and figured out how to write a semi-neutral article detailing the issues and lack of communication between the students and some of the departments on campus. My own battle at the moment? Still with Residential Education. The fire marshal makes round two to my room tomorrow, along with a person from campus security, and someone else on behalf of Student Activities.
If this wasn't important, I'd be a little worried about fitting all those people in this small but lovable room. As it is, we'll be crammed in here and, honestly, if there's a violation, I can't fix it if I don't know about it.
Namely, don't just tell me I can't live here, give me the concrete reasons why. Give me a legitimate reason that you're going to uproot my social and academic center of stability and attempt to move me - possibly into someplace smaller - because this whole we don't have to give you a reason for why we say you have to do something stopped being a valid form of communication with me past the age of eight. As a legal adult who can not only buy cigarettes (not that I smoke) and lottery tickets, as well as legally drink? You owe me a little bit more than it's unlivable.
As a full-time, living-on-campus student paying a near-ridiculous amount of money for this education, you damn well better have a legitimate reason for upsetting my apple cart.
It's a good thing I have a handle on everything else, otherwise I'd be more of a spaz than I already am on a regular basis. As it is, to get out of this place for a bit, I'm going to go sit in the living room with my knitting and just practice my Shakespeare lines. Then I'm going to go to bed and tomorrow, I'm going to do what I normally do and get up and go to class. Then come back here, be invaded by a bunch of people who don't know me, don't know my situation and background, and don't know that I've already gone through this frustration once in the past month. Heathrow, anyone? That was fighting to get home, and now I'm fighting to keep the home that I've made on campus.
There is something seriously wrong with this picture.
On the bright side, at least they respected my request to be present when the man comes back. It only took about four emails.
So. For right now, I still live where I live and do what I do. Right now, that's enough.
Which is why I'm very happy I took the time and figured out how to write a semi-neutral article detailing the issues and lack of communication between the students and some of the departments on campus. My own battle at the moment? Still with Residential Education. The fire marshal makes round two to my room tomorrow, along with a person from campus security, and someone else on behalf of Student Activities.
If this wasn't important, I'd be a little worried about fitting all those people in this small but lovable room. As it is, we'll be crammed in here and, honestly, if there's a violation, I can't fix it if I don't know about it.
Namely, don't just tell me I can't live here, give me the concrete reasons why. Give me a legitimate reason that you're going to uproot my social and academic center of stability and attempt to move me - possibly into someplace smaller - because this whole we don't have to give you a reason for why we say you have to do something stopped being a valid form of communication with me past the age of eight. As a legal adult who can not only buy cigarettes (not that I smoke) and lottery tickets, as well as legally drink? You owe me a little bit more than it's unlivable.
As a full-time, living-on-campus student paying a near-ridiculous amount of money for this education, you damn well better have a legitimate reason for upsetting my apple cart.
It's a good thing I have a handle on everything else, otherwise I'd be more of a spaz than I already am on a regular basis. As it is, to get out of this place for a bit, I'm going to go sit in the living room with my knitting and just practice my Shakespeare lines. Then I'm going to go to bed and tomorrow, I'm going to do what I normally do and get up and go to class. Then come back here, be invaded by a bunch of people who don't know me, don't know my situation and background, and don't know that I've already gone through this frustration once in the past month. Heathrow, anyone? That was fighting to get home, and now I'm fighting to keep the home that I've made on campus.
There is something seriously wrong with this picture.
On the bright side, at least they respected my request to be present when the man comes back. It only took about four emails.
So. For right now, I still live where I live and do what I do. Right now, that's enough.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Irony. Oh, the Effing Irony
Thank. God. It's. Friday.
That was my first thought after I turned on the coffee pot this morning before getting in the shower. Starbucks cinnamon coffee in a travel mug to warm my hands while walking to my first class of three? Absolutely amazing. The rest of my classes today - great. Even the one where physical chemistry II is a synonym for quantum mechanics was great, and my two geoscience courses? They're going to be a nice change of pace. I have my first line of my Shakespeare monologue memorized, and, as Hatch says, if you do a line a day, you'll have that thing memorized in no time.
Academically speaking, life is groovy. As I have a potential goal for after graduation, this, right now, puts me on a great track. I feel confident and I do the reading, and it makes sense - even the chemistry - and it just works.
What's not working so well right now is this complete and total asshattery that's between me and Residential Education. Which, incidentally, also involves the room I moved into upon arrival on campus three days ago.
Let me say, right now, for the record, and as I have said many times to many people of varying importance in the past day and a half, I absolutely love this little room. I was a little leery of it when I first saw it, but after I moved in, got settled, got unpacked, and made it my own - as I have this habit of making home wherever I go - I've made home in this little room in this wonderfully awesome old house.
The Fire Marshall, on the other hand, has deemed this room that was offered to me, that I have moved into, and that I have been living in since I arrived, unlivable.
There is so much wrong with that previous statement in terms of details and cases and things that happened last semester - including someone living in a room that's apparently unlivable - that it just blows my mind.
I feel a little like I'm living on borrowed time. That I'm going to settle further into my routine, into my campus and collegiate life where I'm at, and then they're going to, if they continue like this, uproot me and move me somewhere where I get to start the whole process over again. There are a few things that I've learned while trying to make nice with people, and trying to understand how one thing can work one day, and the next it simply can't function the way it should with nothing broke.
The only good news to come out of this - along with immediately helpfulness and a let's see what we can do to fix this, or make this less frustrating and painful for you attitude from Student Affairs - is that the Fire Marshall and someone else is going to come back on Monday and reevaluate the room. Sadly, I won't be here when they do. Which means, they won't be able to ask the student that lives, works, and generally lives in the space what she feels, how she likes it, and what options she has.
Reminds me of a bunch of aging men trying to decide in Congress what to do in regards to a young woman's body and her decision of what do with it. Last I checked, they didn't have the means to grow another human inside of them and continue to help the species flourish and have never had to have a gynecology appointment. Quack, quack, anyone?
That, however, is a matter for another time.
Ironically, my academics I'm fine with - I have a handle on those. The other side of the coin? Living and socialization? With the exception of this absolute clusterfuck, I'm good.
Maybe someone should ask the student living there what's best for her in terms of keeping her on an even keel so that she can continue to do her studies and achieve what she can hope to achieve. I am, after all, a full-time student paying full-time student fees. Work with me a little bit.
That was my first thought after I turned on the coffee pot this morning before getting in the shower. Starbucks cinnamon coffee in a travel mug to warm my hands while walking to my first class of three? Absolutely amazing. The rest of my classes today - great. Even the one where physical chemistry II is a synonym for quantum mechanics was great, and my two geoscience courses? They're going to be a nice change of pace. I have my first line of my Shakespeare monologue memorized, and, as Hatch says, if you do a line a day, you'll have that thing memorized in no time.
Academically speaking, life is groovy. As I have a potential goal for after graduation, this, right now, puts me on a great track. I feel confident and I do the reading, and it makes sense - even the chemistry - and it just works.
What's not working so well right now is this complete and total asshattery that's between me and Residential Education. Which, incidentally, also involves the room I moved into upon arrival on campus three days ago.
Let me say, right now, for the record, and as I have said many times to many people of varying importance in the past day and a half, I absolutely love this little room. I was a little leery of it when I first saw it, but after I moved in, got settled, got unpacked, and made it my own - as I have this habit of making home wherever I go - I've made home in this little room in this wonderfully awesome old house.
The Fire Marshall, on the other hand, has deemed this room that was offered to me, that I have moved into, and that I have been living in since I arrived, unlivable.
There is so much wrong with that previous statement in terms of details and cases and things that happened last semester - including someone living in a room that's apparently unlivable - that it just blows my mind.
I feel a little like I'm living on borrowed time. That I'm going to settle further into my routine, into my campus and collegiate life where I'm at, and then they're going to, if they continue like this, uproot me and move me somewhere where I get to start the whole process over again. There are a few things that I've learned while trying to make nice with people, and trying to understand how one thing can work one day, and the next it simply can't function the way it should with nothing broke.
The only good news to come out of this - along with immediately helpfulness and a let's see what we can do to fix this, or make this less frustrating and painful for you attitude from Student Affairs - is that the Fire Marshall and someone else is going to come back on Monday and reevaluate the room. Sadly, I won't be here when they do. Which means, they won't be able to ask the student that lives, works, and generally lives in the space what she feels, how she likes it, and what options she has.
Reminds me of a bunch of aging men trying to decide in Congress what to do in regards to a young woman's body and her decision of what do with it. Last I checked, they didn't have the means to grow another human inside of them and continue to help the species flourish and have never had to have a gynecology appointment. Quack, quack, anyone?
That, however, is a matter for another time.
Ironically, my academics I'm fine with - I have a handle on those. The other side of the coin? Living and socialization? With the exception of this absolute clusterfuck, I'm good.
Maybe someone should ask the student living there what's best for her in terms of keeping her on an even keel so that she can continue to do her studies and achieve what she can hope to achieve. I am, after all, a full-time student paying full-time student fees. Work with me a little bit.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
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.
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.
Dichotomy
I've wanted to do this post since I was staying in a hotel room in central London nearly exactly one month ago. Now I'm finally doing it.
dichotomy: division into two usu. contradictory parts or opinions
See the following:
Before
After
It's not a trick of the light. The shoes really, in this case, do say it all. Very eloquently, too.
dichotomy: division into two usu. contradictory parts or opinions
See the following:
Before
After
It's not a trick of the light. The shoes really, in this case, do say it all. Very eloquently, too.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Murphy and Me XXXIII
[Happy Wednesday, Heather.]
"Was it awkward?"
I looked up from my miserable attempt at physics homework to see Murph turned around in his desk chair. It was a change of scenery for me, doing homework in the fishbowl as opposed to the lounge on the fourth floor. Dev was at a mandatory movie thing for Soc and Murph was workin' on something. Or flat-out Facebookin'. Not that it mattered.
Well, okay, maybe it did matter in the grand scheme but right now neither of us gave a shit.
"Was what awkward?" Call me clueless. It should have been my default setting.
Murph closed the lid on the laptop and turned to straddle the uncomfortable wooden chair the Colleges provided in every room. "Being at the game by yourself."
Oh. That. Ridiculously awkward, truthfully. "Not bad."
His eyebrows crawled for his hairline.
I ducked my head, cheeks burning. "Okay, it was awkward as hell." Put aside my papers and grinned in a slightly chagrined way. "I didn't know where to sit." Which had been the least of my problems that afternoon. Between that, wearing Murph's hat (the sweatshirt seemed a little much), and having no one to talk to between plays, it had been more of a nightmare, really. A semi-social nightmare I didn't want to repeat anytime soon.
"You didn't know who they were, did you?" There was only gentle amusement in his eyes. And a kind of understanding.
"Not a clue. And, I don't want you to feel bad, but I probably wouldn't have sat with them because it would have been the first time meeting them and I'd like to have you there for that."
The unspoken just like when you meet my parents hung between us, practically tangible.
Which, actually, led to my next question. When I worked up the courage to ask it.
"Yeah," he said. "I know what you mean."
Glad one of us did.
I twirled a curl between two fingers. I'd been leaving my hair down a lot more recently. Murph liked my curls and, well, it made me feel more feminine in contrast to slide-tackling an opposing player a couple times a week and generally channeling my more manly side. It was also one of those easy ways to make my boyfriend's hazel eyes soften without much effort. Not that I wouldn't make an effort, but sometimes the easy stuff was worth just as much as the stuff that required a ton of effort.
Murph, however, would always be well worth whatever I needed to give.
To a point. I wasn't a completely moron about some things.
"Murph." I looked at him fully, fighting the urge to fidget with Smokey. The stuffed dragon sat to my left, balanced upright by dark red pillows. "Look, you don't have to answer right away, and I won't mind if you say no, but I just wanted to ask you because it might be something you want to do. Or you might not want to because it might be too soon." Rambling much, Olivia? Holy shit.
Murph stood, crossing the three steps to the bed and planting his palms on the mattress on either side of my hips. He brushed his cheek against mine as he whispered in my ear, "Breathe. Slow down, and breathe." He backed up enough for me to look at without going cross-eyed. "What's up?"
"What are you doin' on Sunday?"
He shruggled. "Nothin'."
"Practice?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
Took a deep breath. Then another. "Do you want to come with me to my house for dinner?" Where I'd found the focus and courage to ask that much was a total freakin' mystery.
"You mean where you live when you don't live here?"
Maybe I wasn't the only one with...issues. "Yeah. With my parents, and my sister and niece, probably, too and if you don't want to I understand and it's fine, really - "
"Yes," he blurted, stopping me mid-ramble. I stared. "Yes. I want to come to dinner at your house. With your family."
Could I kiss him? Was that a good way to show relief? Either way, it was what I did, and I don't think he minded.
He touched his nose to mine, hands now close enough to rub the outside seam on my jeans with his thumbs. "Stay tonight?" he asked softly.
This was the first time - other than when that creeper had tried my door - that we were considering spending the night together during the week. It was usually only on the weekend - Friday and Saturday - and the other five nights I slept in my own bed with only Edgar to snuggle with. We hadn't talked about keeping it strictly to weekends. We hadn't talked about it at all.
Then again, with my tendency to over-think and subsequently freak out, maybe discussing things like that wasn't something we should do. Seemed to be doin' just fine on our own.
I was nodding before my brain had worked out I was saying yes. "Yeah, I'll stay tonight. The room's locked."
There had been a bit of time to kill once lab had gotten over with, and having the necessary books and things - in preparation of some time between that and practice - had meant spending a couple hours in the library had been a necessity. Which meant I hadn't been back to the room since leaving that morning.
"I've got stuff you can borrow." He pulled back, flushing. "If you want. If you'd be more comfortable in your own, I get that - "
Cue flaming cheeks. "I'm a little lazy right now, so if you've got anything you can spare, that'd be fine by me."
"I think I can find somethin'." He kissed my jaw. "How much do you have left?"
"Bit more physics and maybe some reading for T-S Britain." Which, considering he was a history major, why wasn't he in class with me? "Murph?"
"Yeah?" He retreated to the dresser. "Shorts, sweats, boxers?"
Care to add a stroke to that list with that last option? I'm not good with too many choices - picking a phone during my two-year upgrade? Takes hours. "Why aren't you in my class?"
"Well, you're a chem major, and in the science group for the teaching cert - " Forgot about that - "but for Kennessette's class, I've already taken it." He held up a pair of plaid boxers. Red plaid to match the comforter. Probably not intentionally. "These okay?"
I nodded. "How did you manage that?" There's a whole lot of information that comes through the newly made college email account in August - stuff about roommates, meal plans, and general information about campus - and there's also pre-made academic schedules that seem like they don't come with much wiggle room to change anything.
Then again, a science major has a pretty set, slightly unmovable path, anyway.
"I was supposed to take this four hour film course thing and that was not something I wanted to do." He held up the shirt I'd worn my first nap during pre-season. "So I took two of Kennessette's classes concurrently." He grinned. "Add-Drop forms are great."
That they were. "Oh." He tossed my new pajamas to my left while physics and I got reacquainted. And promptly decided this was a head-desk moment of epic proportions. Hate physics. With a passion. "Would that be why you get the Tudors and the Stuarts backward sometimes?"
"Like you flip the noble gases and the alkaline metals."
Touche. And why that happened was still a mystery to me.
Murph slid into his chair and opened the lid on the laptop; I went back to physics - half-assed using vectors - and more or less zoned out until he started chuckling.
"What?" Looking up at him was not required.
"Do you always swear like a sailor when you get frustrated with homework?"
That made me look up. He was straddling the chair again, smiling. "Was I talking to myself again?" Wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.
"More like swearing at every physics-related thing under the sun." He grinned. "I think it's cute. Funny, but cute."
Only for Murph would my potty mouth be cute.
I bit my lip, ducking my head. "You are somethin' else, Murphy." Somethin' else which had completely stolen my heart.
Somethin' else to break me in a couple months when this invariably went south.
"You know what?"
He rested his elbows on the back of the chair, curling his ankles around the legs. It was really the only way to be comfortable in those godawful chairs. He gave me his hit me look.
"I'm thinkin' I'm done for the night." Seriously. Freakin' despise physics. Snuggling with Murph? So much better than vectors and shit I don't understand and therefore get frustrated with.
"I like that thought."
Really? No kidding. You like almost everything that involves me pressed against your chest. Which is fine by me, too.
It took a couple minutes for me to repack my bag - so as not to forget anything in the morning - and he was the one changing in the bathroom this time. The boxers had to be rolled, the t-shirt was...big (no other way to accurately describe it) and everything smelled almost overwhelmingly of Murph. Tonight it was my clothes piled in his desk chair, my wallet next to his on the desk. I leaned against the bed, barefoot and contemplating how much and how well we fit.
And how hard letting go would be.
If there was a way for me to not be so uncharacteristically pessimistic, that would be fabulous.
"Murphy?" That was Dev's voice out in the hall. "Lock yourself out again?"
"Funny." Murph this time. One good - and bad - thing about living in a the fishbowl is that someone could be sitting on the couch on the other side of the lounge and sound like they were standing at the foot of the bed. That was with the door closed. "Ollie's in there. Changing."
"She staying?"
Maybe this was not a conversation to be overhearing.
"Yeah. I - I asked her to. I know we usually do this on weekends - "
"Murphy. Not a big deal. S'not like you're attached at the hip. You guys have a better balance than you and Manda did last year."
That was heading into dangerous territory; could practically see Murph bristle through the blinds.
"Yeah. Ollie's not Manda. She's..."
"I know. I get it. So shut up before you embarrass yourself."
I grinned. Then padded across the room and opened the door, startling the boys so much Murph nearly dropped his jeans, Dev having found him waiting after he'd changed. "If you two are done having a bromantic moment, I'd like to steal my boyfriend and get around six hours of sleep."
Figured to catch hell from the bromance remark, but Dev slid right past that, pointed to my thighs, and asked, "Are you wearing pants?"
Murph did drop his jeans at that one - shirt, too - and punched Dev on the arm.
"What? It's a valid question," he squawked, rubbing his arm and gesturing in my direction. "It looks like you don't have any pants on."
I lifted the shirt hem, giving him a half-assed stink eye. "Pants." With that, I went back in the room, crawled in bed, curled around Smokey, and started slowly counting to ten. Murph and Dev were in the room by four, Murph in bed by nine, and thanking Dev for getting the lights shortly after he finished curling around me. He kissed the back of my neck.
"For the record," he murmured, "I don't have a bromance with my roommate. We're not the lacrosse team."
Oh, snap! I snorted. "Don't let them hear you say that."
He chuckled, one hand up under the shirt and flat on my belly. "They're good guys." He shrugged impossibly closer; Smokey was nearly strangled against my chest. Dev tapped quietly on his laptop, Beethoven barely audible in the quiet. Neither of us minded - it was almost like a lullaby.
"Was it awkward?"
I looked up from my miserable attempt at physics homework to see Murph turned around in his desk chair. It was a change of scenery for me, doing homework in the fishbowl as opposed to the lounge on the fourth floor. Dev was at a mandatory movie thing for Soc and Murph was workin' on something. Or flat-out Facebookin'. Not that it mattered.
Well, okay, maybe it did matter in the grand scheme but right now neither of us gave a shit.
"Was what awkward?" Call me clueless. It should have been my default setting.
Murph closed the lid on the laptop and turned to straddle the uncomfortable wooden chair the Colleges provided in every room. "Being at the game by yourself."
Oh. That. Ridiculously awkward, truthfully. "Not bad."
His eyebrows crawled for his hairline.
I ducked my head, cheeks burning. "Okay, it was awkward as hell." Put aside my papers and grinned in a slightly chagrined way. "I didn't know where to sit." Which had been the least of my problems that afternoon. Between that, wearing Murph's hat (the sweatshirt seemed a little much), and having no one to talk to between plays, it had been more of a nightmare, really. A semi-social nightmare I didn't want to repeat anytime soon.
"You didn't know who they were, did you?" There was only gentle amusement in his eyes. And a kind of understanding.
"Not a clue. And, I don't want you to feel bad, but I probably wouldn't have sat with them because it would have been the first time meeting them and I'd like to have you there for that."
The unspoken just like when you meet my parents hung between us, practically tangible.
Which, actually, led to my next question. When I worked up the courage to ask it.
"Yeah," he said. "I know what you mean."
Glad one of us did.
I twirled a curl between two fingers. I'd been leaving my hair down a lot more recently. Murph liked my curls and, well, it made me feel more feminine in contrast to slide-tackling an opposing player a couple times a week and generally channeling my more manly side. It was also one of those easy ways to make my boyfriend's hazel eyes soften without much effort. Not that I wouldn't make an effort, but sometimes the easy stuff was worth just as much as the stuff that required a ton of effort.
Murph, however, would always be well worth whatever I needed to give.
To a point. I wasn't a completely moron about some things.
"Murph." I looked at him fully, fighting the urge to fidget with Smokey. The stuffed dragon sat to my left, balanced upright by dark red pillows. "Look, you don't have to answer right away, and I won't mind if you say no, but I just wanted to ask you because it might be something you want to do. Or you might not want to because it might be too soon." Rambling much, Olivia? Holy shit.
Murph stood, crossing the three steps to the bed and planting his palms on the mattress on either side of my hips. He brushed his cheek against mine as he whispered in my ear, "Breathe. Slow down, and breathe." He backed up enough for me to look at without going cross-eyed. "What's up?"
"What are you doin' on Sunday?"
He shruggled. "Nothin'."
"Practice?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
Took a deep breath. Then another. "Do you want to come with me to my house for dinner?" Where I'd found the focus and courage to ask that much was a total freakin' mystery.
"You mean where you live when you don't live here?"
Maybe I wasn't the only one with...issues. "Yeah. With my parents, and my sister and niece, probably, too and if you don't want to I understand and it's fine, really - "
"Yes," he blurted, stopping me mid-ramble. I stared. "Yes. I want to come to dinner at your house. With your family."
Could I kiss him? Was that a good way to show relief? Either way, it was what I did, and I don't think he minded.
He touched his nose to mine, hands now close enough to rub the outside seam on my jeans with his thumbs. "Stay tonight?" he asked softly.
This was the first time - other than when that creeper had tried my door - that we were considering spending the night together during the week. It was usually only on the weekend - Friday and Saturday - and the other five nights I slept in my own bed with only Edgar to snuggle with. We hadn't talked about keeping it strictly to weekends. We hadn't talked about it at all.
Then again, with my tendency to over-think and subsequently freak out, maybe discussing things like that wasn't something we should do. Seemed to be doin' just fine on our own.
I was nodding before my brain had worked out I was saying yes. "Yeah, I'll stay tonight. The room's locked."
There had been a bit of time to kill once lab had gotten over with, and having the necessary books and things - in preparation of some time between that and practice - had meant spending a couple hours in the library had been a necessity. Which meant I hadn't been back to the room since leaving that morning.
"I've got stuff you can borrow." He pulled back, flushing. "If you want. If you'd be more comfortable in your own, I get that - "
Cue flaming cheeks. "I'm a little lazy right now, so if you've got anything you can spare, that'd be fine by me."
"I think I can find somethin'." He kissed my jaw. "How much do you have left?"
"Bit more physics and maybe some reading for T-S Britain." Which, considering he was a history major, why wasn't he in class with me? "Murph?"
"Yeah?" He retreated to the dresser. "Shorts, sweats, boxers?"
Care to add a stroke to that list with that last option? I'm not good with too many choices - picking a phone during my two-year upgrade? Takes hours. "Why aren't you in my class?"
"Well, you're a chem major, and in the science group for the teaching cert - " Forgot about that - "but for Kennessette's class, I've already taken it." He held up a pair of plaid boxers. Red plaid to match the comforter. Probably not intentionally. "These okay?"
I nodded. "How did you manage that?" There's a whole lot of information that comes through the newly made college email account in August - stuff about roommates, meal plans, and general information about campus - and there's also pre-made academic schedules that seem like they don't come with much wiggle room to change anything.
Then again, a science major has a pretty set, slightly unmovable path, anyway.
"I was supposed to take this four hour film course thing and that was not something I wanted to do." He held up the shirt I'd worn my first nap during pre-season. "So I took two of Kennessette's classes concurrently." He grinned. "Add-Drop forms are great."
That they were. "Oh." He tossed my new pajamas to my left while physics and I got reacquainted. And promptly decided this was a head-desk moment of epic proportions. Hate physics. With a passion. "Would that be why you get the Tudors and the Stuarts backward sometimes?"
"Like you flip the noble gases and the alkaline metals."
Touche. And why that happened was still a mystery to me.
Murph slid into his chair and opened the lid on the laptop; I went back to physics - half-assed using vectors - and more or less zoned out until he started chuckling.
"What?" Looking up at him was not required.
"Do you always swear like a sailor when you get frustrated with homework?"
That made me look up. He was straddling the chair again, smiling. "Was I talking to myself again?" Wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.
"More like swearing at every physics-related thing under the sun." He grinned. "I think it's cute. Funny, but cute."
Only for Murph would my potty mouth be cute.
I bit my lip, ducking my head. "You are somethin' else, Murphy." Somethin' else which had completely stolen my heart.
Somethin' else to break me in a couple months when this invariably went south.
"You know what?"
He rested his elbows on the back of the chair, curling his ankles around the legs. It was really the only way to be comfortable in those godawful chairs. He gave me his hit me look.
"I'm thinkin' I'm done for the night." Seriously. Freakin' despise physics. Snuggling with Murph? So much better than vectors and shit I don't understand and therefore get frustrated with.
"I like that thought."
Really? No kidding. You like almost everything that involves me pressed against your chest. Which is fine by me, too.
It took a couple minutes for me to repack my bag - so as not to forget anything in the morning - and he was the one changing in the bathroom this time. The boxers had to be rolled, the t-shirt was...big (no other way to accurately describe it) and everything smelled almost overwhelmingly of Murph. Tonight it was my clothes piled in his desk chair, my wallet next to his on the desk. I leaned against the bed, barefoot and contemplating how much and how well we fit.
And how hard letting go would be.
If there was a way for me to not be so uncharacteristically pessimistic, that would be fabulous.
"Murphy?" That was Dev's voice out in the hall. "Lock yourself out again?"
"Funny." Murph this time. One good - and bad - thing about living in a the fishbowl is that someone could be sitting on the couch on the other side of the lounge and sound like they were standing at the foot of the bed. That was with the door closed. "Ollie's in there. Changing."
"She staying?"
Maybe this was not a conversation to be overhearing.
"Yeah. I - I asked her to. I know we usually do this on weekends - "
"Murphy. Not a big deal. S'not like you're attached at the hip. You guys have a better balance than you and Manda did last year."
That was heading into dangerous territory; could practically see Murph bristle through the blinds.
"Yeah. Ollie's not Manda. She's..."
"I know. I get it. So shut up before you embarrass yourself."
I grinned. Then padded across the room and opened the door, startling the boys so much Murph nearly dropped his jeans, Dev having found him waiting after he'd changed. "If you two are done having a bromantic moment, I'd like to steal my boyfriend and get around six hours of sleep."
Figured to catch hell from the bromance remark, but Dev slid right past that, pointed to my thighs, and asked, "Are you wearing pants?"
Murph did drop his jeans at that one - shirt, too - and punched Dev on the arm.
"What? It's a valid question," he squawked, rubbing his arm and gesturing in my direction. "It looks like you don't have any pants on."
I lifted the shirt hem, giving him a half-assed stink eye. "Pants." With that, I went back in the room, crawled in bed, curled around Smokey, and started slowly counting to ten. Murph and Dev were in the room by four, Murph in bed by nine, and thanking Dev for getting the lights shortly after he finished curling around me. He kissed the back of my neck.
"For the record," he murmured, "I don't have a bromance with my roommate. We're not the lacrosse team."
Oh, snap! I snorted. "Don't let them hear you say that."
He chuckled, one hand up under the shirt and flat on my belly. "They're good guys." He shrugged impossibly closer; Smokey was nearly strangled against my chest. Dev tapped quietly on his laptop, Beethoven barely audible in the quiet. Neither of us minded - it was almost like a lullaby.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
WW What?
I haven't actually made any New Year's Resolutions. Then again, you don't really have actually write that resolution that everybody tries - and sometimes succeeds - in taking part and actually doing each year.
Losing weight.
The idea is kind of always in the back of my mind. Shed a few pounds, maybe get back into some of the dresses I used to wear when I was transitioning into high school/those early high school years. Or, if you really want to put a point to it, when I was a three-sport athlete and running a schedule that nobody in their right mind should really run on for more than a couple weeks. Not to mention I have a 5K in the spring to run with my sister.
So, tonight, Louise finally did something definitive about losing weight. Nothing like stocking up on weight loss pills or ordering weight-loss food off the internet or anything, but, well, my mom's been a part of Weight Watcher's for a year (maybe, I think, I'm not too sure on the specifics) and I more or less inherited some of the stuff that she doesn't use anymore (and she's going to try and get me some of the newer stuff).
Yup. I've become an unofficial, on my own, member of Weight Watcher's. I've calculated my daily points - I get 26 - and I start the whole kit and kaboodle tomorrow. Which means that last bowl of Neapolitan ice cream I'm going to eat tonight isn't going to count for my points total.
I'm excited at this. This is something definitive. Something that is, with me sticking to it, going to help me lose some weight. Coupled with exercise that I'll have available on campus (walking to class, Zumba [if I can make it on those nights, and depending on my homework schedule]) this just might work.
So, in a way...I guess this means I can start a sort of series about keeping on track. Or, if I can get really cheesy, on point. Yeah, I know. This is a little new for me, too, and it's a little bit freaky.
I'm on the same weight loss program as my mother. If it worked for her, might just work for me, too. And she's done so well and lost a lot of weight.
In other news, I got a haircut. Which I completely and totally love. When I get a photo of it - namely when I find my camera somewhere in this house - I'll post one.
I think that's all I got for now.
Losing weight.
The idea is kind of always in the back of my mind. Shed a few pounds, maybe get back into some of the dresses I used to wear when I was transitioning into high school/those early high school years. Or, if you really want to put a point to it, when I was a three-sport athlete and running a schedule that nobody in their right mind should really run on for more than a couple weeks. Not to mention I have a 5K in the spring to run with my sister.
So, tonight, Louise finally did something definitive about losing weight. Nothing like stocking up on weight loss pills or ordering weight-loss food off the internet or anything, but, well, my mom's been a part of Weight Watcher's for a year (maybe, I think, I'm not too sure on the specifics) and I more or less inherited some of the stuff that she doesn't use anymore (and she's going to try and get me some of the newer stuff).
Yup. I've become an unofficial, on my own, member of Weight Watcher's. I've calculated my daily points - I get 26 - and I start the whole kit and kaboodle tomorrow. Which means that last bowl of Neapolitan ice cream I'm going to eat tonight isn't going to count for my points total.
I'm excited at this. This is something definitive. Something that is, with me sticking to it, going to help me lose some weight. Coupled with exercise that I'll have available on campus (walking to class, Zumba [if I can make it on those nights, and depending on my homework schedule]) this just might work.
So, in a way...I guess this means I can start a sort of series about keeping on track. Or, if I can get really cheesy, on point. Yeah, I know. This is a little new for me, too, and it's a little bit freaky.
I'm on the same weight loss program as my mother. If it worked for her, might just work for me, too. And she's done so well and lost a lot of weight.
In other news, I got a haircut. Which I completely and totally love. When I get a photo of it - namely when I find my camera somewhere in this house - I'll post one.
I think that's all I got for now.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Habit
I've got no qualms about coming out and saying I'm a bad blogger.
How long as it been since I've last posted? How much upheaval have I gone through between then and now? Downright disgraceful on my part, truthfully. Never mind that I was running on about five hours of sleep that first official day back, still trying to reset my sleep schedule, and being bombarded with family and the fact that Christmas was only two days away. Excuses, excuses.
See what I mean?
Anyway, it's post the first of the year, so welcome to the first official post of 2011! Cue fireworks and singing of that damn song. Or, you know, you could just keep reading. That's cool too.
I thought about doing, before it hit New Year's Eve, a best of 2010 post to maybe reflect on what had happened, all the exciting - and not-so-exciting - and crazy, stupid, fearless, terrifying, etc stuff that I had done over the past year, reflecting on my three months (that feel like a dream, or that they happened to someone else and I watched) I spent in Wales, and whatever else happened that might have been newsworthy or just noted.
I didn't do one. Firstly because, like I've mentioned, I'm a bad blogger and secondly, I was just too damned tired to really focus and pull something like that together. I still have moments when it boggles me that I'm currently home and not still over on the other side of the Atlantic. Moments when I realize that I can walk down the hallway to my own bed, tripping over my own black cat, and not wander around the corner into the bathroom of some hotel in central London. Or wander to a public bathroom in an airport terminal.
So, things are adjusting. Or rather, Louise is adjusting to things.
But there are changes. If you were to sit on the back porch with me (proverbially, at the moment, as it's pretty damn cold here), with a cup of coffee, and just talk with me, you'll see changes. Little things, the way I'll go to say something and have to kind of think about whether that word means the thing I want it to or it means something different. The way my Facebook stream has a mix of both US and Welsh names in it, the way that one has subtly more or less switched itself to being sort of one top and the other a sort of background. Not that any of those people are to be considered background, but I'm hoping you're understanding what I'm having difficulty putting into words.
And that's partly why I haven't really reflected. For as good as I am with the English language, I'm struggling to put this experience into something that can be easily accessed, understood, and shared with the rest of the world. I don't know how to say what I'm feeling.
I don't know how to get what's going on in my head out onto paper or into a sequence of ones and zeroes that lets others read it, too.
Which, honestly, drives me up the wall to a point. We're used to me rambling, but this? For me to attempt to get this out would be crazier than what I normally post. Yeah. That's where I'm at.
But, hopefully - namely when I can find my camera in this post-holiday slow-down - I'll put up a couple pictures of those last couple days in the UK. Namely this post that's been in the back of my mind to do. Something about sneakers and a big, fancy word that I'm going to have to double check the definition of in a dictionary. Anyway. Hope everyone out there had a happy holiday season, a great New Year, and as for resolutions? That post (sort of) will come later.
How long as it been since I've last posted? How much upheaval have I gone through between then and now? Downright disgraceful on my part, truthfully. Never mind that I was running on about five hours of sleep that first official day back, still trying to reset my sleep schedule, and being bombarded with family and the fact that Christmas was only two days away. Excuses, excuses.
See what I mean?
Anyway, it's post the first of the year, so welcome to the first official post of 2011! Cue fireworks and singing of that damn song. Or, you know, you could just keep reading. That's cool too.
I thought about doing, before it hit New Year's Eve, a best of 2010 post to maybe reflect on what had happened, all the exciting - and not-so-exciting - and crazy, stupid, fearless, terrifying, etc stuff that I had done over the past year, reflecting on my three months (that feel like a dream, or that they happened to someone else and I watched) I spent in Wales, and whatever else happened that might have been newsworthy or just noted.
I didn't do one. Firstly because, like I've mentioned, I'm a bad blogger and secondly, I was just too damned tired to really focus and pull something like that together. I still have moments when it boggles me that I'm currently home and not still over on the other side of the Atlantic. Moments when I realize that I can walk down the hallway to my own bed, tripping over my own black cat, and not wander around the corner into the bathroom of some hotel in central London. Or wander to a public bathroom in an airport terminal.
So, things are adjusting. Or rather, Louise is adjusting to things.
But there are changes. If you were to sit on the back porch with me (proverbially, at the moment, as it's pretty damn cold here), with a cup of coffee, and just talk with me, you'll see changes. Little things, the way I'll go to say something and have to kind of think about whether that word means the thing I want it to or it means something different. The way my Facebook stream has a mix of both US and Welsh names in it, the way that one has subtly more or less switched itself to being sort of one top and the other a sort of background. Not that any of those people are to be considered background, but I'm hoping you're understanding what I'm having difficulty putting into words.
And that's partly why I haven't really reflected. For as good as I am with the English language, I'm struggling to put this experience into something that can be easily accessed, understood, and shared with the rest of the world. I don't know how to say what I'm feeling.
I don't know how to get what's going on in my head out onto paper or into a sequence of ones and zeroes that lets others read it, too.
Which, honestly, drives me up the wall to a point. We're used to me rambling, but this? For me to attempt to get this out would be crazier than what I normally post. Yeah. That's where I'm at.
But, hopefully - namely when I can find my camera in this post-holiday slow-down - I'll put up a couple pictures of those last couple days in the UK. Namely this post that's been in the back of my mind to do. Something about sneakers and a big, fancy word that I'm going to have to double check the definition of in a dictionary. Anyway. Hope everyone out there had a happy holiday season, a great New Year, and as for resolutions? That post (sort of) will come later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)