Starting Over, Starting Out

My phone rang way too early on a Tuesday morning mid-March, but the news was good: I'd gotten the job I'd interviewed for the previous Friday, was required to be at company orientation on April 3, and start April 7. Between that time, and a trip to NYC we'd had planned since mid-January, I had to pack what worldly possessions were going to come the 55 miles from my parents' house to a new apartment I hadn't started looking for yet.

It was a lot to squeeze into two and a half weeks.

First apartments aren't supposed to be glamorous. We'd like them to be, but the truth is, a lot of the time they aren't. My first one on Tompkins Street in Cortland, NY, while being only two blocks from downtown, wasn't anything to really write home about. But it was mine. Mine to come back to each night. Mine to pay the bills on, stock with groceries, and just be a place to call my own.

 

And it worked, for a while. It worked until it didn't anymore. Until living between a frat house, a sorority (with another one across the street), and generally just being in the middle of college housing (while not in college) wasn't where I wanted to be working the kind of hours I was working. There was also the small matter of no parking, and bottom line, it didn't feel like home anymore.

It took me about a month to find a new place. This was after multiple daily looks at CraigsList, scouring the newspaper, calling various phone numbers, and trucking out to Homer, McGraw, Tully, and on one occasion, Cincinnatus. All with nothing really promising, nothing that screamed home to me until one day. Until this place. 

There were a few must-haves for me when I was looking. One of them was full-size appliances in the kitchen. Saying I like to bake is an understatement. There's still the thought in the back of my head about going to pastry school, so I spend a bit of free time with my oven. (My current kitchen, pictured above, has brand new EZClose cupboards. It was a huge tipping point.) Also on the list of my requirements was a bathroom I didn't have to back into in order to use the toilet, and that actually had a tub instead of a tiny shower stall. 

This is my apartment. All of my furniture is secondhand and most of it certainly doesn't match (not that I care, I was just happy to have furniture in general), but it's here. So is my houseplant who's been with me since my first year of college, my framed photo of lower Manhattan pre-2001, and the photo board hanging on the wall features the most important people in my life, proudly on display. But more importantly, I can say that shortly into September, a few days after I moved in, this went from being a bigger apartment in a different location with new cupboards to being my home. A place to come to recharge, to have quiet nights in, and to host out-of-town friends who stop by for a visit. A home that gives me a sense of contentment I didn't feel in that first place.

It was a struggle to find such a place. I'm pretty sure, when I was looking to move in August, there were tears of frustration at one point. Thankfully, there's sites like Urban Compass that help people do just what I did - find that first apartment, get settled, and have that feeling of starting over, starting out.

Who, Me? An Unofficial Official #PitchWars Mentee Bio

I should not be doing this. I should be frantically cleaning my apartment because my landlord is showing it to someone this afternoon while I'm at work since I'm moving this month. I feel like Loki's I DO WHAT I WANT gif his highly appropriate here, and, you know, maybe one of these days I'll teach myself how to put gifs in my blog text. Pictures I can do.

PitchWars is back! Yay! If you're not sure what PitchWars is, go here and see the lovely Brenda Drake (she has the details).

So who I am, besides a clearly Wandering Sagittarius? Weeell....I'm a performance grade asphalt binder technician for a construction company in Central New York. I work with the stuff that make roads and can use my BA in chemistry on a daily basis. Pretty much. So, my life is kind of like this.

Maybe not that extreme. More like this, really.

My coffee has clearly worn off. But this happens when you work 40-60 hours a week.

Righteo. Some cool things about me.

1) I'm Part Cow
Yes, you read that right. I'm part cow. I found out in March 2013 that I was born with an ASD - atrium septal defect - in which the hole between the top two chambers of your heart don't close when you're born. My cardiologist wasn't comfortable with the size of the hole (huge, apparently, and we later learned that huge meant size of a half dollar) and sent me to another cardiologist who was going to put an artificial patch in. Well, when he looked at the size of the hole, not only was it huge, there also wasn't enough on the one side of the heart wall for it to anchor to.

About a year ago (August 29, 2013) I underwent open heart surgery at the age of 23. They put a patch made of cow (they usually use pig, but I have cow) over the hole, wired my sternum back together, and my cousins dubbed me "The Iron Cowheart Lady" when they gave me an Iron Man arc reactor t-shirt while I was recovering in the cardiac step-down unit.

2) I've Always Been a Writer
When I was six I thought writing a book was taking a published book and transcribing it into a notebook. Now that I'm significantly older, I know that's called plagiarism, and I've since then started really working with my overactive imagination and ideas. As a result I've finished five novels - two of which belong in a series - and three of which I'm seriously querying to find an agent/get published. This includes my PitchWars entry, FROST, which is a retold fusion of Jack Frost and The Pied Piper set in a small town in the New York Adirondack Mountains. What's pretty cool is that FROST didn't start off as a novel, it started as a dramatic text I wrote for a class I took in 2010 while studying abroad in Wales. 

Though I still haven't managed to finish that ten composition book monstrosity I started my first year of high school, I did decide to start to rewrite it. There's something really fulfilling about reconnecting with the first set of characters you ever worked with.

3) A Dead Poet's Practical Magic
I'm a movie junkie. I have an ever-expanding crate of them, a years-old Netflix subscription, and can basically quote you certain films line by line. My favorites are by far Dead Poets Society and Practical Magic. My current favorite TV love is the BBC's The Musketeers, though I am a lover of all things geek, including various series of Star Trek and shows like Stargate: SG-1, The Big Bang Theory, Stargate: Atlantis. Superhero movies? Love those, too. My BFF came to visit a couple weeks ago and brought me mini action figures of Data and Riker. I squealed loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood at 1 am.

A Few More Random Fun Facts
- I can't have pets in my apartment, so I consider Henry the Houseplant my pet.
- My writing tends to have either alternating POV's or multiple POV's.
- I am not the world's biggest fan of first person POV, though there are some exceptions - like Kenneth Oppel's Matt Cruise series (which is phenomenal).
- I put together 750-piece puzzles in my spare time.

That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I'm also a hot mess of crazy most days, but nobody needs to know that. Thanks very much for stopping by, and good luck to all my fellow mentees, who's fantastic bios can be found right here. Go check them out!

Throwback Thursday - Halloween Edition

(I swear I will do an actual blog post soon. Promise.)

From Halloween 2007 it's Raggedy Ann. There was no Andy - I couldn't find him, and then decided I didn't need him - and that handmade red yarn wig was absolutely awesome. I had to lifeguard part of the IAC swim meet after school and wore that while sitting in the chair.

As for this year? Well, I'm rockin' out in my Iron Man arc reactor t-shirt my cousins got me as a gift when I was still in the hospital back in August.

Happy Halloween!

From the Vault

My weekend was, barring a flat tire while traveling to the Farmer's Market with my sister, rather uneventful.

This morning I had coffee with a good friend of mine from high school. She went to college for English, and we've both always been very interested in writing stories. We even looked at some of our old stuff and had a good laugh over it.

Naturally, with November being only four days away, we talked about what we were going to do for NaNo - National Novel Writing Month. My original intention had been to finish Terrathela and Two for the Aisle, but we got to talking and I got to thinking about how much I really liked an idea that had started off as a dramatic text while I was abroad. I'd started a new view on the idea of Jokul Frosti while I was in Wales, kind of spliced it with elements from The Pied Piper, and the beginning efforts of the novel are only about 12,000 words right now.

I'm going to go play in this sandbox again for the month of November. The characters are fun to work with, the plot is fairly solid, and Jack isn't a protagonist I'm familiar with working with. He's darker, and in a way, he's a little flat because he doesn't have a clue what to do with human emotion.

Wandering back into the urban fantasy neighborhood, too, is a promising prospect.

This excitement over ideas and story lines is what makes it fun to be a writer. Though, in a way, I'm also looking forward to the frustration that's going to make me want to pull all my hair out.

Hey Speed Racer

I have some exciting news. No, I didn't get a job or an internship that I've applied for (yet, though here's hoping) and I haven't managed to land an agent for Sage yet (though, here's hoping again), but I did manage to finish another novel.

Two for the Rent is a complete first draft at 94,876 words. I don't know which I'm prouder of, that I finished another novel or that I kept the sucker under 95K. It's a little bit of both now, and I'm still smiling, even though I finished it Saturday night. So, while I leave that to sort of cool off for a little while - until I can print it all out and get to it with red pen - I'm embarking on something I've toyed with but never really started.

A sequel.

Yes, there was always the intention to do a sequel to TftR, and, well, because I blame my fellow Sommies and the fact that Word Wars (pick a time, write for 10 minutes, and then share) are addicting, I started the sequel - Three for the City - on Sunday. And yes, because it seems to make life slightly easier, I have planned out some events for it, and it sits at nearly 7,000 words so far.

In other writing-related news, I sent out a query and first 10 pages to an open submission for New Adult. We'll see what happens there. Fingers crossed it's something good.

And I don't know whether to be perturbed or extra-proud of the fact that TftR was written in less than three months.

Yeah. I'll let you decide on that one. My sister has informed me, like normal, "It is what it is." And so it is.

What's even scarier is that it's been suggested that I start planning for, well...life. The different paths and different options I could explore, how I want to get there, and the steps in between. Which is scary as hell for someone who finds planning a bit of a struggle sometimes.

Happy Wednesday. Oh, and if you're interested, here's Two for the Rent and Three for the City.

Back Again

I'm approximately four days late on this one, but didn't we already discuss the idea of better late than never?

Anyway. After a brief hiatus, The Sleepless Writers are back with a new look, new format, and new ideas. They have a collection of different writing styles and voices from across the US, Canada, and the UK. There's a little bit of something for everybody, whether you're a hardcore novelist or someone just looking to make your every day writing better. Come check us out and see what we have to offer.

You can follow on Twitter, tumblr, YouTube, and Facebook, too.

Better Late than Never

Seriously.

I know. It's been an interesting....well, closer to two months, probably.

Christmas was lovely. The whole holiday season was lovely, in general, except for when I nearly gave myself a panic attack really thinking the world was going to end according to the Mayans. As I'm still sitting here, breathing, and the sun keeps rising at the start of every day, clearly something was off in someone's calculations.

That and I kept trying to think about how they hadn't accounted for daylight savings and leap years and....yeah.

Anyway.

January saw me and my sister wandering through the streets of New York City. Festivities included the 12th Annual No Pants Subway Ride - we did not participate, in fact, we were damn confused when the people next to us on the platform started taking their pants off - a viewing of Avenue Q off Broadway, me wandering around for a media and entertainment day, and many visits to Starbucks and Times Square.

It was also where I got the idea for the next moment of brilliance. I applied to an internship with the Travel Team at The Huffington Post. They were one of the places we went to on media day, and it seemed to be a really good fit. So here's hoping.

I've also added another rejection to the pile for Sage.

That's where I'm at. Here's to a new year, and me crawling out of my blogging hibernation.

Crank It

I'm not going to lie, I'm having a hell of a time getting through this paper. But what's helped - other than some extremely useful suggestions from my professor - is that I've been cycling through some staple songs on YouTube. I get the feeling they're going to be the ones getting me through the next few days and my upcoming two exams.

And the rest of this paper.

In no particular order, they are:

Better Dig Two - The Band Perry

Blow Me (One Last Kiss) - P!nk (Warning: Explicit Content)

 Beer Money - Kip Moore

Live While We're Young - One Direction

 

Up, Up, and Away!

I cycled through a lot of titles since yesterday afternoon. Mostly to do with moving. Along with the occasional up or on tacked onto the end for good measure. It all conveyed the same kind of meaning and the feeling that one stage of life was over.

It kind of is.

Tomorrow is the last day of classes for my undergraduate career. The past year has been a long, long road, and when I account for the three full years before that, it's almost mind-boggling. And while the happy little voice in the back of my head is comparing what's going to happen after next Friday - when I move out of my little apartment - to taking a long walk off a short step in the dark, the larger part of my brain has already strapped on its helmet with a maniacal grin and a cheeky, bring it. Which leads me to my next, and probably most important conclusion.

I'm ready to move on. It's time. I'm ready for something different and new, and bonus points if it's exciting. I'm ready to tie up this chapter of my life and move on to the next part.

Which is why I can sit here, in a Starbucks about half an hour from campus for some downtime and a change of scenery while I work on labs and whatnot, and think back on what my nine semesters has been like. Those moments of sheer terror, in parts, from pre-season as a first year to all the medical mysteries my body decided to throw my way along with trying to survive four classes and two labs that first semester. Giving up a part of me I never thought I'd be able to part with the following summer, and then realizing it was okay to move on and try different things. Not playing soccer opened up a wide range of possibilities, and ultimately shoved me in the direction of going abroad to Wales. Which, a year later, I did. And I absolutely loved it. To the point where I'm contemplating going back for grad school, which, technically, would be pastry school.

Spring semester 2011 seemed to rock from end of the spectrum to the other. Oral surgery is never fun, and neither is losing a teammate that you've classified somewhere between friend and family. Nor was the tumultuous summer that followed. But I'm a firmer of what's meant to be is meant to be, and everything, eventually, works out. And it did. It just involved a basement-level GPA for fall, contingency plans for the spring, and realizing that a ninths semester was necessary.

Of course, having only one cup of coffee a day kind of sucks sometimes, but it works to keep everything in line and functioning properly, so I really can't argue with that.

And now here I am, in the fall of 2012 and looking back. I think I'm subconsciously trying to squeeze all the stuff I haven't managed to do - like get cited and robbed by campo while I wasn't there for fire violations, and parking tickets from the G-town police - in the last few weeks of my time here. And never fear, I've already paid my parking tickets.

Regardless of all of that, come this time next week while I prepare for my biochemistry final and hope to pull a rabbit from an unnamed body orifice - holy mixed metaphors, Batman, chalk it up to too much coffee and not enough sleep - I will be ready to move on. I'm not entirely sure what comes next, but I know that I'm ready for it. Whatever it is.

My lovely friends woke me up at two in the morning with confetti, silly string, and cupcakes on my 19th birthday. They were, and still are, amazing.

The summer after our first year, my best friend Em invited me to come stay with her for a week on Martha's Vineyard. It was the first time I had been swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, and her dad snapped this photo of us. Four plus years later, we still haven't let go of each other. I don't think we ever will.

Sophomore year. Sushi night. Moose imitations.

Fall of 2012, the semester in Wales. Behind me is Cadir Idris and the glacier-made lake. I proceeded to climb to the summit of Cadir Idris. My legs hated me for that when I finally got off the mountain totally about five hours later.

 

The first time I went on an Alternative Spring Break to Virginia. Loved it so much I went back the following year, and am planning to go again in some capacity. Perhaps they'll let me lead...?

Spring 2012, first time performing in the Vagina Monologues. A powerful night, and a lot of fun. And yes, you totally get over the fact you say "vagina" in front of a crowd of people about the fifth time you say it.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going, and I'm more than okay with it. Wherever it winds up being, it's bound to be a fantastic journey.

Summer Jam

The phrase Summer Jam has a few different meanings for me - one more rooted in heresay and secondhand stories than anything else, and the other as the core of this post. At one point, Summer Jam meant a huge concert series about two miles up the road from my house that brought tens of thousands of people to the area and basically shut down the county.

In this case, it means I heard some interesting music this summer, and want to review my favorites and the moments that will always be linked to them. Much like that line in Eric Church's Springsteen where he says, "Funny how a melody sounds like a memory/Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night."

So, yeah. Here we go.

Call Me Maybe: This was my manager's ringtone at work, so whenever the gift shop called to let us know we had a new reservation, this would blare from her phone. There were also moments when we would randomly dance in the kitchen, singing this at the top of our lungs. This was also the pick-up line for many a night when there were attractive, single men. (Not for this chick, though, I had to worry about not dropping cheesecake trays and whatnot.) Sadly, we did not make a boat version of this video. We should have.

Brokenhearted: When you work enough Teen Cruises, and have a best friend who is more than willing to indulge in the idea of mix CD's with you, this is what happens. This kind of became our Monday night anthem. Along with the next video.

Whistle: When Em and I first heard this song, it more or less....I dunno. We became attached to it. It's catchy. It went on our next mix CD. 

Pontoon: This is a Legacy song. As in, I will always be reminded of breakin' it down in the kitchen, belting the lyrics we knew, and just...this will remind me of two of the people I've worked with the longest at my job, and make me smile throughout the rest of the year. 

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: This is just catchy as hell. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my Summer Jam. There are definitely others that will always bring up a memory or two, but they also contain enough F-bombs to blow my PG-13 rating like a popsicle stand. Have a good weekend, and most likely the next post will be from my new apartment in Geneva on Sunday.     

Almost Like a B&N

I'm not one for self-promotion - especially when it comes to my writing - but I thought I'd try something a little bit different.

Many of you have probably figured out that I'm a little stuck with Murphy and Me. Mostly because I finished Sophomore Fall and started Sophomore Spring to have an excerpt to apply for the Trias Writer in Residence Workshop, and I kind of haven't touched the new writing process really at all yet, and I've been trying to edit my way through the first 59 pages of printed manuscript. So that's kind of stalled out right where it's at and I'm not entirely when I'm going to be doing something new with it, since I chose the retyping the whole damn thing route in terms of editing. I was already leaning that way, my professor also suggested it....

Anyway.

Maybe some of you knew this - and maybe some of you didn't - but I have this tendency to work on more than one project at a time. That way, if and when writer's block (yes, it's a real thing, and really frustrating to work with at times) hits, then I'm not totally stuck not writing for however long it takes to break out of the funk. In some cases - like with parts of The Crossing, that massive thing in composition books - it could be anywhere from a couple weeks to over six months. Patience, when writing, is key.

I have other projects, other novels in progress, that while not in the same sort of genre as Murphy and Me are somewhat in the same style and voice. So I thought I would go ahead and share their blurbs, their links, and a little bit about the inspiration behind the story. That way, while you're waiting on Murphy and Me to do something or actually go somewhere - hopefully in the direction of a publishing contract - you might find something else you like just as much, maybe more.

Sage
Eleanora Hope knew from the tender age of four what she was destined for – she was the latest in a long line of Sages, those charged with keeping the dead beneath the graveyard ground – and she had more than willingly accepted the task at hand. At eighteen she was the youngest Sage, a byproduct of the passing of her grandmother, Lynette, fifteen years after the murder of Ella’s parents. And while the dead might deem otherwise, Ella was more than content with the life she had reconciled herself to.

Until Azrael and Aeryn literally drop in and introduce her to part of reality she hadn’t rightly considered. With two voluntary fallen angels – one who might not be as angelic as he should be – they turn Ella’s quiet existence as Sage sideways. Now with the possibility of an apocalypse and a power-hungry council of women after her graveyard, Earth seems to have become the proverbial war zone, and the lines between angel, demon, human, and Sage are more than a little blurred.

But if life weren’t complicated, it wouldn’t be worth living. And life for this Sage is far from simple.

Sage was born out of the cemetery by the Colleges and walking through there with my best friend and her camera in the fall of our sophomore year. It originally started out as my National Novel Writing Month story, but I didn't finish even remotely close in the month of November, and it's sort of turned into an ongoing project. 

The Icicle Man
Mari's life was to look after the animals on the small farm she and her mother kept in the New York Adirondacks. Other girls had come back from college looking to settle down, shack up, and raise babies. She'd come back to the farm and its simplicity. It was all she wanted. Until she met Jack. Or rather, Jack met her on her way through the forest to her grandmother's.

Convinced she was one of those piper-stolen children, he cages her into returning to his palace, for he is the Icicle Man, Jack Frost. Mari's not sure what to believe, but she knows she's no piper's child. Jack's plan, whatever that may be, is turned on its head when Mari gives him a challenge he can't refuse - what it means to be human. As Jack steps out of his centuries-old role, Mari discovers what makes the frozen Winter Prince tick.

And what it means to be truly human.

The Icicle Man started out as a play text - and is actually still in that form, as well, though not here, here is the novel form - and was started during my semester abroad in Wales in the fall of 2010. It's a retelling of the European fairytale Jokul Frosti (Jack Frost) mixed with a little bit of The Pied Piper. And a whole lot of fun.

I'm hoping that while I figure out what I'm doing with Murph and Ollie that you'll take a look and maybe find something you enjoy just as much. Or maybe you spam my inbox with messages looking for more Murph and Ollie and that will kick start me into writing them again. Either way works for me, truthfully.  

High Winds of Change

I moved out of that house on main street Tuesday back to the little hamlet that's always been home and breathed one hell of a sigh of relief. Another semester over. Two-thirds of senior year - because my senior year has three parts instead of two because I'm good like that - is over and hallelujah for that. The last three weeks got incredibly rough, including when my caffeine intake and subconscious anxiety decided to push itself over the normal threshold into something rather scary. I'm okay, but it seriously freaked me and everybody else out, so now your favorite coffee addict really only gets one mug a day, and to tell you the truth, decaf tea's not that bad. That and I'm making sure to keep a lid on my anxiety, which I hadn't considered a problem before now.

What's even more impressive is the turnaround my grades did in the wake of the semester from hell - Fall 2011 - to the point where even I'm proud of me. I sacrificed a lot to be able to put in the time and effort to go from a 1.33 to a 2.93 in a little under four months. I stayed in on my weekends (which, okay, not that big a deal because I didn't go out much on the weekends in general), didn't leave assignments to the last minute, and took my independent study as seriously as though it were a regularly scheduled fourth class. For the first time, I really felt like I had this college thing under control and was good at it. My exam grades weren't always great, but I had the material, and the professors could see I was working hard and all of it together was a combination that just worked.

My parents are incredibly proud of me for such a turnaround. And me? I'm happy.

Now if I can just do the same thing this upcoming semester, I'll be golden. But between then and now is a whole summer to fill with...Stuff. Work. Soccer. Refereeing.And anything else that comes up in between then and now. Mostly though we'll just roll with the punches and go with the flow. Which, you know, sounds great on paper and works ever better - or worse - in real life.

And, of course, there will be writing, querying, and whatnot this summer because I have a draft of a book and now it needs either an agent or a publisher. Hopefully both.

So. Hello summer. Bring it. 

Murphy and Me XXXXIV

[This is the second to last chapter in Murphy and Me: Sophomore Fall. But don't worry, because after the fall semester comes the spring semester. Happy Monday.]

I keep swearing every time a big paper comes up I won't do this. It's not fun. It does nothing for my blood pressure and my brain melts right around two-thirty, three o'clock. These don't get any easier. Might actually get harder, come to think of it.

Which is why all-nighters aren't good for the human body. Which was why I was not totally coherent.

Which was mostly why I was falling asleep in my omelet in Saga the second day of finals. My T-S Britain paper was due at eleven, and Em and I had handed ours in at ten-thirty after starting them at six the previous night. Not a moment of brilliance on my part, and if there was a way to mainline coffee, I needed to do it. Preferably an hour ago.

"Olivia?"

Not a voice I recognized, first of all, and, to be frank, my outfit left a lot to be desired. Murph's flannel shirt, rolled up to the elbows, William Smith soccer sweatpants, the legs pushed up to my knees, and my beaten New Balance sneakers. A hot mess, that was me.

I looked up, blinking hard to get the fuzziness out of my eyes.

Manda.

I was not awake enough for this shit. That much I knew.

"Hi." She looked like she hadn't just ripped an all-nighter - more like she'd come from the gym, with all her carefully applied makeup still intact - and she sat delicately across from me.

My appetite promptly fled. "Morning."

"Yeah." Manda shifted. "So, you're Murphy's new girlfriend?"

If she meant "new" as in "together officially for four months" then yeah, I was the new girlfriend. "Kinda, okay, yeah." Really hope that made some sort of sense.

"Well, there's some things you should know." She shifted again.

What happened next was more...verbal vomiting from a sleep-deprived brain that did not want to deal with this shit. Not now. Not ever.

"Wait a second."

Manda looked at me - actually looked at me for the first time - and froze.

"If you're going to sit there and tell me secrets - dirty secrets about Murph, then I don't want to hear them. Not from you." That damn Boyd temper was rearing its ugly head. "Any secrets," I said, calmly gathering my things, "about Murphy I plan to learn from Murphy when Murphy is ready to tell me." Didn't care she had to look up at me. "I have no desire to hear anything you might have to tell me about Murphy. Good luck with your finals."

And I walked away. That was a moment of brilliance.


Packing was a good way to procrastinate on studying for physics. While listening to music, of course. My orgo exam had been more of a train wreck than originally thought and the act of decompressing from that was more to let my brain solidify again by random action than anything else.

The little black flip phone buzzed against the bed frame.

you upstairs? from Liam, of all people. He must have been visiting his brother. I sent back an affirmative and seconds later - which told me he'd been standing outside the door - he was knocking. A quick trip to open said door, then around the piles on the floor to turn the music down.

Liam must have figured the only safe place to stand was leaning against the door. "So...You walked out on Manda."

I moved a pile of sweatshirts and sank into the moon chair. "Yeah. Guess I did." To be honest, that whole exchange had a funny, almost out-of-body feel to it. More like I watched it happen than actually did it.

"Thank you."

Again, not what I was expecting.

Liam opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found the right words. "When Murphy was with Manda he...He wasn't happy at times. Downright miserable, really. And when you're the older sibling - by a whopping minute and forty-five seconds - you want your younger sibling to be happy." He put his hands in his pockets. "I haven't seen my brother this relaxed in a long time and he's content with you in a way he never was with Manda."

I clutched the pile of sweatshirts tighter, not sure what to say.

"I don't know," he said, "if I were in your position, if I would have walked away. I really don't. And to do that took a lot and, just...Thank you for having such faith in my brother."

Liam was open and raw in a way that was almost shocking in its intensity. It made me wonder what exactly Manda had done to him, and why anyone would ever want to hurt Murph in any capacity, but especially on this level.

"You would've," I said. "You would've walked away."

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have a solid answer for that."

Just because he wasn't sure didn't make me the better person. Did it?

"You're good for him," Liam said. "And thank you for that." He smiled softly. "And he is going to be unbearable for the majority of winter break."

I blinked. "He won't be that bad."

Liam outright chuckled at that. "Oh, yeah, he'll be fine for the first two weeks and then he'll be bear to live with." He brought one hand out of his pocket to swipe at his nose. "But you're good for him." He fumbled for the door handle.

"He's good for me, too." Not sure if he heard me, but he smiled one last time and left almost as quietly as he'd arrived. I sat in the chair, still clutching the pile of sweatshirts, and trying to put my newly melted brain back together again.

It really helped to put perspective on things. What perspective on what things was a little vague, but at the end of it all it boiled down to being with someone - loving someone - and being loved in the capacity Murph and I had found in each other. This was probably one of those cases where the head had problems reasoning through what the heart could understand instinctively.

It was more than slightly confusing when a critical examination was attempted. Better to just go with it, no questions asked.

There was another knock on the door. No point in me getting up to sit back down. "Yeah, it's open."

Murph slipped in and had no qualms about navigating the piles to sit on the only space on the bed not covered in physics material. "Hi."

"Hi." Now I was not only procrastinating at studying but also procrastinating at packing. But Murph was always a welcome distraction.

"So, Liam's done tomorrow at eleven and then we're packing the car and heading home."

"I have the seven to ten tomorrow."

"Shit." Murph scratched at the slight stubble he had going. "You'll be around in the morning?"

"Yeah." My room was a mess but he'd probably seen worse. "You wanna stay tonight? Up here?"

He hesitated, glancing at the open physics book. "You have an exam tomorrow."

"Tomorrow night." There was this almost tangible I sleep better when you're next to me that we both acknowledged but didn't verbalize. "I have all day to study for physics."

"Like you've done so far?" He smirked.

"Funny." Smiled anyway. "But really. Stay, please?"

He looked at me, then looked down, then finally back at me. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure." No hesitation on my part. There probably never would be, either.

Murph looked at my clock. It was late. "You want me to go grab some pajamas?"

"Yeah. I'll stuff all this stuff...Somewhere." Have I mentioned my hatred for packing? I asked Murph as much. He grinned. I scrubbed my hands over my face and mumbled, "I need to go to bed."

"I'll be right back."

The door swung shut behind him and left me there staring at the piles of stuff on the floor and wondering how I was going to get all of it home. Then again, did it all need to go home in the first place? Regardless, it went into the hamper and the hamper - now bulging - sat by the closet.

A pair of soccer shorts and a tank with a built-in bra were pajamas, and I was tugging the hair tie from my curls when Murph came back in, dropped both warm hands to my hips and tipped his forehead all the way down onto my bare shoulder.

Neither of us needed to say anything. The how long is winter break and I'm going to miss you was clearly there. But that was going to be then. We wanted to stay in the here and now for as long as possible. Here and now in this corner single with Murph and Ollie and nobody else, not even in memory.

Rust Bucket

My legs hurt, but I feel better than I have in a long time. I'm going to need to spend time - preferably while I read a hundred and something pages of Lear tonight - with my legs upright against a wall to drain the lactic acid from slightly abused muscles. My ass hurts. I've drank more water in the past two hours than I have all day.

I blame - and thank - all of this on my pal, Rust Bucket.

Let me back up before you guys think I'm more nutzo than normal. Remember all those commercials New Balance put out about people getting back together with running? How it shouldn't be difficult to have a relationship with running, and that getting it back is a good thing? Well, I don't have a relationship with running. I have one with Rust Bucket.

Rust Bucket is my bicycle, appropriately named because the thing is a bit old. I mean a good ten or eleven years, and we got him fairly new - maybe a year or two old - at a yard sale one summer when I was in middle school. So RB has been with me a while and of course made the move to college. He's a sturdy little shit, despite the startling amount of iron oxide (rust) on him, and he and I have gone on many an adventure, both here at college and at home.

RB and I haven't gone for a ride in the past four months. It's been the middle of winter; the tires needed some air (and actually wound up getting replaced yesterday), but none of that seemed to matter because rather than doing this damn formal lab report on Co(III) complexes, we took advantage of the nice weather and went for a 7.8 mile ride.

Yeah. My lower body is going to hate me in the morning.

For as much pain as rolling out of bed is going to be tomorrow, it was worth it. Really worth it. It feels really good to have gone for a ride.

Though maybe next time we'll start a little smaller.

300 Heart-Shaped Sugar Cookies

A girl can wish, can't she? Apparently the six dozen my dad made for the house and delivered yesterday while they took my car to get it an inspection wasn't enough for the ravenous horde - and I say that with all the love in my heart - I live with. Considering these are also the people who ate their way through 74 homemade meatballs in one meal, I'm really not surprised.

I've had a fairly long day, including a rather awkwardly placed nap (which I really needed), and I've done some thinking. Normally Valentine's Day is a day when I feel more keenly the fact that I don't have a significant other. That I haven't had a date in three, almost four years. A day when it hurts just a little bit more to see girls wandering around with bouquets of flowers or boxes of chocolate-covered strawberries. The idea that they have someone for them in that capacity. And let's be clear, it's not just hetero couples. For those who have someone in that specific capacity, it's hard not to hit this particular day and feel a little left out.

The trick is to say to yourself it's only another day. All day. It's just Tuesday, February 14. Any other day.

There was class this morning. Then roughly two hours spent working on math disguised as chemistry. Looking back on that, my professors are the greatest. Especially for this independent study. They didn't have to take the time - we more or less worked through "lunch" though there was a package of Oreos out in the hallway to snack on - to work through this particular problem, and then work on another to make sure I really understood it, but they did. For that, the faculty in the Chemistry department are incredible.

And playing with little GC machines that used ambient air as the mobile phase? So totally cool. And yes, I will explain that further on down the road at some point, but the gist of it is that it was really cool science and a giant leap away from the monstrosity we had been using last semester.

Bottom line is that when you treat a day you might have problems with like any other day of the year, it gets more bearable. You don't necessarily remember what you think you're missing out on, but you realize more of what you can do. That it's possible to be an independent young lady (in my case) who's had to shuffle and reshuffle priorities and is still, sometimes, shuffling the deck again to find the perfect combination. Only it's probably not going to be perfect; merely workable. And then you work it.

That was for the "Heart-Shaped Sugar Cookies" part of the title. Here's the really fun part for today.

This is the 300th post for the Wandering Sagittarius.

I have this ridiculous smile on my face. I don't know why, but I have this smile on my face that won't seem to go away with the fact that I'm typing the 300th post in a blog that's not-quite three years old yet. That I have somehow managed to find enough in the life of an undergrad to write about for 300 posts. It's a little mind-blowing.

And thank you - a big thank you - to all of my 43 followers. Thank you, essentially, for listening. Ups, downs, those odd movements sideways. Thank you for hearing it all.

On a final note, while I raise my coffee cup to you wonderful people, happy 300th. Here's to looking forward to many, many more.

Fantastic

This is going to sound a little odd, but one of my favorite bands is The Barenaked Ladies. I've been listening to them since I was in late middle school, early high school, and I have both their greatest hits album and their earlier album, Stunt. This is one of my favorite songs from that album, and I found a version of it where they're playing it in somebody's bathroom. Two men. A guitar. In a bathroom.

So. Some Fantastic (Ivory and Ivory)

Things to Know XXIII

- I keep temporarily losing my phone.

- What that really means is that I keep leaving it various coat pockets or backpack pockets and forgetting, for a while - usually about two hours - where exactly it is.

- I'm kind of okay with that.

- We're having a bit of a heat war in our house.

- Namely the guy I share a wall with phoned Buildings and Grounds yesterday night and told them he "had no heat" and they came and turned it up to 70 (when it had been at 68).

- I think he's trying to smoke me out of my room so he can move in here and have the bigger room, the nicer view, and about twice as much heat vent.

- I don't really think that, but it makes for an interesting thought.

- Mini fridges can freeze coffee creamer when turned all the way up.

- Found the previous out the hard way Tuesday morning.

- I will most likely crawl outta bed tomorrow morning and walk to breakfast because not only am I out of coffee creamer - as mine froze and had to be thrown away - but I'm also out of milk.

- Pretty sure my Focus was hit by a train.

- "Take a yard stick and whack it."

- Sometimes I forget I have a tattoo.

- Having a plan doesn't necessarily always mean you have to like the plan you have when it took a lot of tears, internal screaming, and faith in places you weren't quite sure you wanted to put faith to begin with in order to get said plan.

- "Peter Pan is the boy who never grew up. Peter Pan is the dead boy. Neverland is the land of dead boys."

- Thank you, Modern European Drama for completely changing my worldview on the subject of Peter Pan and thus rendering the childhoods of four college students a little more skewed.

- All things considering, it does kind of make sense.

- Paperwork sucks.

- Sleep is good.

- Have I mentioned my Focus has been hit by a train again?

- I have been distracted by YouTube for the past hour and a half, and need to actually go finish the rest of the play I need to read for tomorrow morning, bright and early at 8:35.

- I love my schedule.

- I also love my dorm bed when I'm not feeling like my corner single is a sauna in disguise and trying to enhance my Weight Watchers.

- Speaking of that - at least 4 pounds down. And still going strong.

- There's something morally right and confident-building in there somewhere, but I'm a little bleary-eyed to really attempt to decipher that.

A Well-Adjusted Individual

Least, that's what I feel like. Or have felt like the past few weeks.

I guess what brought this on is when my friend and I were sitting in the pub this early afternoon having lunch and talking about the issues she's currently having with one of her housemates, and she looks at me and basically says she'd have been a crying hysterical ball of a mess that would have to be dragged out if she'd gone through the past month the way I have - meaning changing the graduation date, the various meetings with professors that I'll have again in the fall, meeting with my adviser, meeting with my adviser and my mother - and she also mentioned I've had to grow up quite quickly with this in a short period of time. That I've done really well adjusting and that's something she wouldn't have been able to do.

Which sort of really got to me because it's one thing to hear it from an "adult" but it's another thing to hear from one of your peers. It was also further compounded by one of my professors from last semester who, upon walking by the airport lounge on the second floor of the science building remarked, "You look a lot calmer than last semester." Which, yes, I suppose I do.

Mostly because I am calmer.

I've had to make fairly big decisions. I've had to give things up. Neither of those two have been particularly easy, and I guess I hadn't truly realized that. I've had my wake-up call - it's kicked me thoroughly in the ass, hard enough to bruise - and that's what we're going with. It's like a New Year's Resolution on steroids, one that's going to stick around a lot longer than just the first week.

That being said, this is week three of Weight Watchers and I'm still going strong. If I lose another pound at the end of this week, that makes five pounds total. I'm pretty proud of that. I'm also pretty proud of the fact that I do my homework very regularly, and I do it in a timely fashion so that my nights aren't quite so late and hectic, and there's a calmness to my life that hasn't been there in three years. I've probably said this before, but I really feel like I have the whole college thing down now.

Too bad it's taken the circumstances it has to get me to this stage. But that's how the story goes, doesn't it?

First Week in Rewind

It's really fantastic when your first week back at college only has three days in it, and lab is not included.

Things have been going fairly smoothly in my corner of the universe. 'Course, I say that, and now things could, according to Murphy's Laws, take a nosedive. But, well, such is life.

So far I've been doing a much better job about utilizing my time - including my weekends - and getting things done starting in the afternoon when I'm done with class and not waiting until the evening. To the point where the play due Wednesday for Modern European Theater was done this afternoon by five-thirty - having been started Friday afternoon - and my Food for Thought reflections on the reading for Bonding With Food was completed tonight and already emailed to my professor. Inorganic readings were done this morning - along with practice problems, though a visit to office hours is in order because I'm a little fuzzy on certain things - and the problems from last Thursday "due" in class tomorrow have been completed. Tomorrow I get to see how right I did them.

It's been a good start to the semester and I'm determined to keep it going. This not waiting to start homework really does make life a little simpler, in terms of getting things done, not feeling overwhelmed, and actually feeling like a decent student.

There is, however, a long way to go until May. But we'll keep chugging along.

Murphy and Me XXXXII

[Sometime this weekend there will be a rather legit nonfiction post from me. Promise. At some point this upcoming weekend.]

The shenanigans started way too bright and early. Though the Happy Thanksgiving text from both Murph and Liam - with separate ones from Sasha, Cara, Em, Mel, Jo, Dev, and Colby - were both greatly appreciated and slightly unexpected. At least the volume. Dev's was shorthand and rather sleepy, but he was either still awake or had only just gotten up, and was therefore excusable.

Dexter, after pacing up and down the short hallway outside the bedroom for what seemed like hours, finally nosed open the door and decided to crawl in bed with me. And happily wash my ears.

Coffee was in order. Immediately. And Dex followed me down the stairs - almost bowling me over - and I staggered down the last few steps and almost into the stove.

"Look who's bright-eyed this morning," Dad chuckled. "Coffee, sweetie?"

I weaved around Mama and Aunt Janelle, who was a regular at our house for morning coffee on weekends and holidays, and beelined for the fridge - and the coffee creamer.

While wearing a flannel shirt that wasn't mine. A flannel shirt that was way too big, even considering I liked my winter sleepwear tops bigger. Shit.

Oh well. Live and learn.

"Cold in Geneva?" Janelle asked once I'd sat down, coffee creamer at the bottom of the mug. It would mix when Dad poured the coffee in, thus not requiring the need to dirty a spoon. Not that it mattered, as we had a dishwasher.

"Very." Mama handed me my freshly filled mug from Dad.

"It's a little big, don't you think?" Mama this time. "And a bit like something your Uncle David would wear?"

Uncle David's style was borderline lumberjack some days. There was no way to win this argument. Damage control, yes. Win? Hell no.

"Is it yours?" Dad finally chimed in, as expected.

Cue flaming face. "I'm borrowing it until B and G comes and actually fixes my heat." Go big or go home. "He's got, like, four." Which was true. The boy had multiple and he hadn't put up much resistance when one had come with me.

Then again, we'd had bigger problems regarding Murph's appendix and everything else had been relegated moot.

They seemed to absorb that and I sipped my coffee. The little black flip phone was upstairs - which was fine - and when Dad started taking rolls out of the oven, the only reaction appropriate was to salivate. And then steal one off the tray. As Aunt Janelle did the same, Dad doing anything other than semi-glare was rather pointless. It was tradition.

"Ollie, when do you want to do your birthday?" Mama asked.

To anybody else it would have been an odd question, but it was fairly standard procedure in our family that a birthday party rarely occurred on the the actual day of birth. We usually held out for the weekend - since it was better than, say, a Tuesday - and whoever was celebrating go to pick dinner and one form of dessert. Yellow cake, chocolate frosting, and cookie dough ice cream, please and thank you. Though rumor had it Dad was making cheesecake sometime today.

I told Mama Saturday sounded good. That way those going out for Black Friday didn't have to hurry home.

Aunt Janelle stayed for another cup and a half of coffee before heading out the door with an "I need to get my ass home and be productive" though how much productivity could be achieved on a national holiday was beyond me. There sure as shit wasn't anything I was going to be rushing off to get done - physics included - and that was both understandable and fine by me.

I did not come home to stuff my face and do homework. Well, yes to the first and hell no to the second.

"How is Murphy?" Mama asked. "Did he go home?"

"Yup. He and Liam and Colby are heading back, still on the road, I think, and he's doing okay. He's tired."

"So were you."

True. Very true. "Yeah." Took another sip of coffee. "He'll probably sleep better when he gets home." Until the sores on his heels go worse. "He got the card you sent." Because, once I'd gotten back from the ER that night...morning...whatever, whenever the hell it was I finally made it back to Jackson, and had gotten enough sleep to function, my first step had been to call Mama. Then text Izzy. Then text multiple people to ask how they were doing. Then, predictably, there was a nap.

There is no shame in napping as a college student. So long as it's not during class.

"What was it, again, that happened?"

"His appendix exploded." Rather gruesome, now that I think about it. But more or less gruesome than a six inch long, skinny twisted cyst a doctor pulls surgically out of your lady parts?

Yeah. That's a toss-up.

Mama headed upstairs to take a shower and I sipped cold coffee, occasionally trading remarks with Dad about the turkey, and he proudly said he'd made pie.

"Oh. What kind of pie?" Pie is good.

"Cranberry-raspberry."

Normal pie is good. This might be a train wreck. "Fantastic." I picked up my coffee mug. "Can't wait to try it." When, in reality, I was beginning to think I wanted to wait until Christmas to have a bite.


It was a small crowd for dinner - only eighteen - and it was a regular food feast. Turkey, stuffing, broccoli, green beans, rolls, somebody brought sweet potatoes to go alongside the regular mashed potatoes, and a dish of corn because Dad doesn't eat any vegetable but corn. Between dinner and dessert was copious amounts of coffee to go around.

Izzy and I wound up next to each other on the end of the table closest to the corner cupboard, watching as the desserts were brought out. Cheesecake, Dad's pie, and somebody had made some sort of pumpkin mousse concoction in a graham cracker crust.

Pretty soon, along with a fresh cup of coffee, I was staring at a slice of Dad's pie and wondering what, exactly, it was held together with. Or rather, failing miserably at being held together.

The whole smelled like syrup. Pancake syrup.

"Hey, Dad..."

"Yeah, Ol?"

"This have maple syrup in it?" Somebody had to ask. As with most cases, it's usually me. Scratch that - it's always me.

Dad grinned. "Yup."

Great. Absolutely fabulous.

Izzy leaned over and whispered, "Chomp chomp."

Damn it. Generally, you take it, you at least tried it. As it was a holiday - and a new recipe - and I had an audience, fork found pie and pie found mouth.

Regurgitation was not an option.

"Shut up," I growled at Izzy after getting that first bite down. She laughed. Ah well. Can't win 'em all.


It was late - early, by my more recent bedtime standards - when I finally crawled between the sheets to curl around Edgar. He smelled, very faintly, of Murphy - a combination of his cologne, general boy smell, possibly shampoo, and probably whatever he used for laundry detergent. But it was Murph.

The phone buzzed. I tugged it onto the mattress with me and flipped it open. New text from Murph.

u awake?

Love T9. Yup. Hit send. Waited. Saw the light from the screen before it buzzed.

how was dinner? and the fam?

How to phrase this... Dad made a pie held together with maple syrup. Yeah. Self-explanatory. Other than that it was great. They asked about you. Even el. She'd come right up to me, looked around, and gone, "Where Morefy?"

The ceiling had a new patch of faint blue in the dark.

awwww :) ma and da asked how u were and about ur heat

Yeah. Still no heat. I'll just bring another blanket back. I pressed my nose into Edgar's fluff. Edgar smells like you. Send.

Damn I was tired. The buzzing jerked me awake.

yeah? :) miss you

Oh, Murph. You make my heart hurt. So much. I miss you, too. So much.

I sent that message and then opened another, typing I love you. Writing it made it feel more real. More tangible. But it was so difficult to say.

It's not that the feeling is wrong or superficial. It's not forced. It just, like so much of me when it came to things like this, circles back around to Bobby.

Bobby was the first real relationship I'd had, off and on all through high school and into the summer before my first semester at William Smith. We'd said those three little words, but, if it was true, shouldn't it have been more difficult to say goodbye each time we took a "break"? It should have hurt more, shouldn't it? It didn't. We cycled on and off and there wasn't much more to feel than lonely for somebody to spend time with, to hold hands and be comfortable with in those months we were off.

Murph and I are comfortable, but different. A different kind of comfortable. We were inherently different than Bobby and I. And those three little words...I wanted to be absolutely sure.

This was one thing in my life I didn't want to lose, that four month mark be damned. For the first time, this feeling for another felt bigger than me. A lot bigger.

Murph's newest message had arrived five minutes ago.

when do u think ur gonna be back on sunday?

Should be back before dinner. Why? Askin' me out on a date? :) Not that we made too much of a distinction between unofficial and official dates. What the hell was the difference, anyway?

The mattress shivered. That little flip phone had a mean vibrate.

u kno it ;) but yeah dinner sunday?

Predictable. Utterly predictable.

Yes. Dinner Sunday. As I'm falling asleep, I need to say goodnight. Night, murph.

Edgar got crushed to my chest. Much like normal.

The phone buzzed again.

night ollie :) sleep tight

I proceeded to do just that.