That Time I Thought Summer Was Too Short

This summer, I thought fall was hurtling towards me, like summer was flying by. And, in retrospect, I still feel that way. I didn't get enough done, I didn't do as much as I wanted, I certainly didn't write my comps in a timely manner (that one is done, thankfully). But as fast as summer went, fall is going even faster.

My grandmother always told me that time got shorter the older you got. I believe this now more than ever. Somehow it is November 19th. I don't know how how. I can't tell you where September, or October, or even the first half of this month went. All I know is that it went to fast.

Not much has changed here. Got a roommate, who I love - seriously, this guy rocks. (And no, not that kind of roommate. Totally PG.) Cat's still miraculously alive. I'm still short. Like sands in the hourglass and so on.

Christmas is coming up. This is too fast.

Does anyone else still listen to Ryan Adams? Or, that time it was totally my freshman year of college again.

So my freshman year of college was...hard. Is everyone's? It seems like mine was especially difficult. I had a roommate who I liked just fine, but she and I didn't run in the same circles (which wasn't surprising, since I spent the first half of my first year crying in my room almost constantly...I had adjustment issues), and she had a serious boyfriend from almost day one; I didn't know anyone else there, although I did make some awesome and life-long friends that first year; I had just broken up with my on-again, off-again high school boyfriend (who would be on and off again multiple more times); I hated my English class, which wasn't so bad except I was an English major. All in all, the whole thing didn't start out great. And I made some dumb alcohol decisions, which led me to make some dumb guy decisions. The point of this is, damn I listed to a lot Ryan Adams.

Specifically, I listed to "Come Pick Me Up" about 15 times a day. Or maybe that's just what I admitted to. It was really more like 45. At least. For anyone doubting my serious emo kid status, here are the lyrics:

When they call your name 
Will you walk right up 
With a smile on your face? 
Will you cower in fear? 
In your favourite sweater 
With an old love letter 

I wish you would 
I wish you would 

Come pick me up 
Take me out 
Fuck me up 
Steal my records 
Screw all my friends 
They're all full of shit 
With a smile on your face 
And then do it again 
I wish you would 
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/ryan+adams/come+pick+me+up_20120222.html ] 
When you're walking down town 
Do you wish I was there? 
Do you wish it was me? 
With the windows clear 
And the mannequins eyes 
Do they all look like mine 

You know you could 
I wish you would 

Come pick me up 
Take me out 
Fuck me up 
Steal my records 
Screw all my friends 
Behind my back 
With a smile on your face 
And then do it again 
I wish you would 

I wish you'd make up my bed 
So I could make up my mind 
Try it for sleeping instead 
Maybe you'll rest sometime 
I wish I could 
I wish I could 
I wish I could

Right...so I have no idea what this song is actually about, of course. But for some reason, I loved this song. And cried a lot to it. A lot a lot.

Recently, despite having none of the above mentioned problems (I don't have a roommate, I'm not an English major anymore, I've pretty well adjusted to living here and going to grad school, my on again off again is engaged to someone else, which is just as well, since wow were we ever a disaster, and I drink better and make less awful choices), I've started listening to Ryan Adams again. Not 45 times a day, but still. So my question, I guess, is, does anyone else do this? I don't cry or anything, but it sort of feels...comforting? Good? Familiar? That's not really a point in my life I liked, so I'm not sure why there's this sense of nostalgia associated with it. 

Thoughts?

*lyrics from http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/ryan+adams/come+pick+me+up_20120222.html

**Don't sue me. :)

***If you are Ryan Adams, can I be you and Mandy Moore's friend? I bet you're really cool.

Utah

I love this place:

I really do love it out there. Some of my family lives in Tooele, which is just south of the city, and I want to move there so much it almost hurts. I want to move to Paris too, but I feel like Utah is more doable.

Reasons:
1. No humidity.
2. It's freakishly clean.
3. Great public transportation.
4. I like my family.
5. No humidity.

I've been there twice this summer, and, beyond absolutely adoring my family, it really is a great area. Road trip?

Who leaves banana peels on the ground?!?!

When I got to work this morning, this was sitting right outside my door:

Yes, that is a banana peel. On the ground. Has this person never seen a cartoon? Banana peels are dangerous people - and they're f*cking nasty. Pick up your trash!

Things I Like.

I'm having some writer's block this morning, which is not good for all those people hanging on my every word out there (ha!) or my comps (oops...) so here's a list of things I like. Just in case anyone was every curious.

1. Books.
1a. Books about characters I can relate to, even though sometimes I wish I wasn't anything like them. Examples include Bella Swan, Amber St. Clare, Lessa, Mary Lou, Stephanie Plum, and Meg Murry.
1b. You are definitely my friend if you know what books/series all of those characters come from.

2. Coffee.

3. TV Shows
3a. Obviously not all television. Current obsessions: True Blood, Weeds, Game of Thrones, Grey's Anatomy (although I may just be watching it because I feel like a traitor when I don't), and Girls. Gone but not forgotten obsessions: Buffy, Friday Night Lights, Gilmore Girls, Queer as Folk, The O.C., Big Valley, Dr. Quinn.

4. My iphone. And my ipad. And my macbook. I'm a fangirl.

5. Shrimp.
5a. Actually, I like almost all seafood. Even sardines if I have to, and I've eaten anchovies and been okay with it. Except scallops, but that's only because I got food poisoning once.
5b. Although I'd probably still eat a scallop if I didn't know it was a scallop.

6. Sleeping in, which I rarely get to do.

7. Muddy Bears.
7a. If you don't know what these are, look them up.
7b. If you do know what these are, and you love me, send me some.

8. Making art.
8a. Especially photography.
8b. And charcoal.
8c. Oh wait, and I fucking love chalk paint.


I love a lot of other things too, but that could get tedious. 


Although looking back on my list, I'm clearly either an 80 year old woman with 12 cats OR a highly successful hipster. It could go either way at this point, I think. 

What the hell?

So I'm back from my AP adventure, which I'll try to write about this week. I'm totally exhausted from the reading, constant activity, and the glasses of wine I drank Saturday night, meaning that either I'm getting older than I thought or the high altitude really does mess with your body.

In anticipation of that, however, here is my "shit that pissed me off" picture for the day:

This is from the July issue of Cosmopolitan. I usually enjoy this magazine, at least moderately, but this is over the top. While learning many useless sex tricks and looking at $7000 shoes that I should buy to be "sexy" vs. "skanky" is pretty harmless, and I don't think Cosmo is generally anti-feminist (in fact, I think admitting that women really like sex is pretty damn feminist) but this is crazy. So you should redecorate your apartment so you won't "freak him out"?!?! Beyond the fact that that lucite coffee table is awful (although the couch and bookshelves are very nice...) you shouldn't tailor YOUR OWN HOME for some man who may or may not visit it. Should you have walls covered in pictures of yourself? Probably no. Should you display all your stuffed animals, or have your doll collection facing the bed with their scary, scary eyes? Only if you never want houseguests. But there's a huge difference between not freaking people out with your collections/grossness/inability to pick up Diet Coke cans and decorating in a certain style to please a hypothetical man. "You don't have to avoid rosy colors altogether, just choose the right shade" and "Too many personal tchotchkes will make him feel like he's invading your space..." and "keep it from feeling to feminine by..." are all maybe great decorating advice, but, unless you're living with someone, this is your space. Don't compromise, ladies! Blush and bashful (or blue or green or purple or black or whatever!) is totally a decorating scheme!

(I do not get paid by cosmo or anyone else. I just get really mad sometimes at the assumption that women are either man hungry crazies who will buy new furniture to please men or we're all insane cat ladies who decorate in trinkets and cat plates, a la Professor Umbridge. Please don't sue/shun/throw things at me.)

GIRLS

I love TV. I love the characters, I love getting caught up in a serialized show that follows intricate plotlines and people I care about. I get too attached to my TV shows.

Not reality shows, and certainly not every show. I like Dawson's Creek, but I'm not really attached to it. I certainly am not attached to Friends, or most sitcoms. 

A few shows, however, really catch me. Buffy, Supernatural, Roswell, Gilmore Girls, The OC (shut up), True Blood (which comes back on in just a few days!), Game of Thrones, and, now, one of the newest shows on HBO, Girls.

When I saw the posters for Girls and read initial articles about it, I was pretty skeptical. Just given the looks of the characters, I assumed it would be about quirky but sort of unattractive girls and their pretty roommates, and their quest for validation through relationships with men. The show has also gotten a lot of flack for being set in definitely diverse New York but only showing white characters in any major roles. I don't have a huge problem with this, since, while I live in a city where I am the minority, most of my friends and daily interactions with people are with people of that minority - it happens, even if it probably doesn't happen for everyone. I thought it would be quippy and silly like a lot of Sex and the City, which I like but don't really love.

I WAS WRONG.

Because I'm procrastinating on pretty much everything, I decided to watch the pilot and see what I thought. About 5 minutes in, I was totally hooked - hooked enough to be righteously pissed off at one of the main characters, Hannah, for being spoiled and stupid at the same time. That's when I knew that this was a show I had to watch, not only because I was emotionally hooked, but because I was now invested in seeing if this character could redeem herself. 

One of my favorite things about the show is that, while all of the characters have men in their lives, whether they want them there or not, they aren't shown as gaining all of their self-worth, merits, and specialness from these men (with the possible exception of Marnie, who I'll talk about in a second). Hannah is literally the most awkward character I've ever seen on TV, especially when combined with her sometimes sort-of on-again-off-again whatever he is Adam, but she stands up to him, and to other men, more often than not. Marnie, Hannah's best friend, is in a serious rut with her boyfriend Charlie, but, in one of my favorite scenes in the whole show, she tells him at a crucial moment *SPOILER ALERT* "I want to break up" and proceeds to mope and cry but also try to figure out who she is. Shoshanna is ridiculous, and Jessa is a free spirit, and they all get along (for the most part) and really depend on themselves and each other, which is incredibly refreshing. 

Also, unlike Sex and the City, where there were very clear archetypes, these women don't seem to be one-faceted or defined by only one thing. Whereas I could easily say that I'm a Carrie (with maybe a touch of Samantha), I can't say that I'm a Hannah, or a Jessa, or a Marnie, or a Shoshanna, because these characters, like me, are individuals rather than types. 

Do I think this show is for everyone? NO. It's graphic, and awkward, and covers a lot of things that make a lot of people a lot of uncomfortable. Do I think I'm going to keep watching it? YES. 

Look for a "favorite shit my favorite tv characters say" post coming soon!