The Morning After

By all rights, this poem belong over on Juxtaposition with the rest of the poetry and the experimental prose, but, because of the content and subject matter, I'm posting it here, instead.

This poem came into being after we read aubades, or "dawn songs," in my Reading and Writing Poetry class. An aubade is written by a lover regretting the coming day, and the separation it will bring from their beloved.

I think we all know how I feel about overly romantic crap.

One aubade, however, I liked because it was written by a man about lying in bed while his girlfriend takes a shower, and he thinks about her body, and sleeping in a little more, equally. Maybe it was the comfort of the poem-- the sense that you got that they'd been together long enough that she always gets up first to take her shower, and that he feels no stress in lounging around for a few more minutes-- that I liked, in a sincere contrast to the feeling that I'm used to most mornings upon waking up not in my own bed. So, to counter all these idealistic people in their comfortable relationships and long-term commitments, I wrote this:

"Your underwear

Are always the first thing to go missing,

Hiding under the bed,

Or tossed into some far corner.

He usually will get up first,

To make coffee, or go to the bathroom,

That is, if you aren't ashamed enough

To have snuck out during the early dawn light

First.

You will have roughly 15 minutes

To regain some semblance of the well-pressed self-control

You had the night before,

Sans brush, and sans mirror.

His roommates will be moving noisily around,

With no clue or no care

That you might still be there.

They talk about eggs as you try to find all your rings,

Loose, like how you're feeling about your morals.

You hold your forehead,

Sneaking glances at him in Ray Bans and a Sox hat,

From in between your fingers

As he drives you home.

You wonder if he'll call again."

XOXO

Of Men, Women, And Italian Escapades: Part 1

Of Men and Women:
Battle of the Sexes:

For me, literature and love are similar. One can take the lessons of one and apply it to the other. When I am single, I turn to novels as companions and comforts, often while in bed. (Where is a better place to read, I ask you?) In my Fiction class last Wednesday, my professor was discussing how critics lose their ability to enjoy novels once they make them their occupation. “They forget what it means to become a passionate reader. They lose the sensuality of every word.”

We then compared and contrasted the views of two writers from the same time period: the ever-fresh Virginia Woolf, and Ezra Pound, who I will admit, is one of my favorite literary “manly men.”

Virginia Woolf champions the self, as I am struggling with in Florence. She sees literature as if it were the language of a lover, and instructs readers to take from it what they will, like in any relationship: “The only advice, indeed, that once person can give another…is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. …After all, what laws can be laid down? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. …Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions—there we have none. …An influence is created which tells upon them even if it never finds its way into print.”

Ezra Pound’s monologue could be applied almost word-for-word with men’s thoughts on lovers: “Until the reader knows the first two categories he will never be able ‘to see the wood for the trees’. He may know what he ‘likes’. He may be a complete ‘book-lover’…but he will never be able to sort out what he knows or to estimate the value of one in relation to others, and he will be more confused and even less able to make up his mind about [a new one].”

Pound’s observation in regards to Virginia’s showcases what I think is the classic battle between the sexes: women always assume we’ll know when something is right and real, where as men have to cancel out all their options until they’re left with the last one standing. It doesn’t bode well for romance.

XOXO

Snapshots.

The User and the Used

"I’m glassy-eyed in the mirror; that same vacant, pretty, coping stare Legs used to have.

My mind stutters on these thoughts, catching rays of sunlight and dust particles glinting in the air. My fingers cramp and release, heavy like my eyelids as I type on the black and white, trying to get the words down, depressing ‘backspace’ more and more as I realize letters are missing…
Overhead, planes fly people to their heart’s location.

My heart thumps heavily in the cage of my chest, bone and skin. The air is thick and smells like funk. I puff, puff, drag, feet resting on my windowsill, blowing the smoke out the window with the aid of a fan. My lighter sparks and catches, sparks and catches, and I wonder if this was how Legs did it, if that’s how he found his escape, like I am doing now. I buy, and de-seed and stem, and pack, and roll, and light, and inhale, and let the smoke trickle from my open lips like smoke monsters in the dark air, and I miss him, terribly, heart-wrenchingly, despondently, all at once.

It’s late, and I know I should put the laptop down, stop allowing myself free access into the confused sore that is my heart and laying it, splat, across the page, but it’s a masochistic exercise in life-lessons: you fall in love and let that person walk out of your life, and this is what happens. So you cry about it. You rationalize it. You get angry about it. You work at it. You smoke to avoid it at first, and then you smoke to embrace it. You mold it into something you can work with. You apply it. You find something that you can live with. You get happy about this, at least, and then you smoke more to continue. It’s a circle of use, misuse, and being used.

...The words tumble from fingertips that are dry and unfeeling on the keyboard, and I don’t even try to stop them. I can’t even stop my mind. Blink, there’s another memory I haven’t remembered since it happened. Flash, and I’m sweaty and I have a dry mouth and can feel everything around me in minute detail. Click, and I’m all the way gone on the sweet side effects of a love that doesn’t know better and a habit that shouldn’t have been allowed to grow. Snap, I’m back to square one."

(In)Pulse
Roused from my sleep,
I clutch pen
& grit teeth.
I cannot help when the words come
Anymore than you can help your addictions,
Already deep-seeded,
Or the singer can control her song
Or the bird his flight.
It is an impulse,
My scratch of pen on paper,
The snort of powder up your nose,
Much
Harsher
&
Methodical
As you cut lines,


Prepare your straw, ---Close one nostril, ---And make that
---------strange ---------snuffling ---------noise


That makes me cringe,
Though my back is turned to you,
Like it always is when I see you start your ritual.
The rise and fall of notes, much sweeter than this candy.
The feeling of air under a bird’s wing, much more free.
You are not sweet,
& you are not free.
But neither am I, chasing this trail of papers,
Always hoping the next one will be better.
You and I,
We aren’t so much un-alike,
Both of us with our willingness to fall prey,
To the things that gnaw on the insides of us.
It is to say,
“Because I can,”
& to do so.
It is to say,
“Who I am,”
& not resist it.

I tell you to stop using.
You tell me to shut the light off,
& go to bed.

Cold

"I’m warmest in sunlight. Not at night when you’re lying next to me, radiating body heat and safety and comfort, but when I’m walking in the cold air and the sunlight touches my face with rays gentler than your gentlest brush of fingertips. I think I have a gold-and-cream complexion (my nice way of saying what some call “pale” in tones reminiscent of disease and social awkwardness,) because I’m a sun-baby—my hair reflects it and my skin soaks it in, becoming almost luminescent. (Again with the “pale.”) I was born in June for a reason.

Your heat doesn’t stay long, just like your body—come the next morning, we part to go our separate ways and I’m cold until the next time you nuzzle your body beside mine, nook into nook, limb over limb, some strange sort of human pick-up-stick pile of us. The sun only leaves me at night, leaving me in your care, your heat, your warmth, knowing that you can never really replace it, even though you will try, and you will like to think that you’re the true center of my personal universe. But I say everything still revolves around one sun, and you, with your thin wrists and your love for sarcasm, are far too human. You are human, and you are cold.

Winter wind still blows even though the sun is in full shine mode. I tilt my face up at it through the smudged windows of the bus and close my eyes, seeing a disco ball pattern on the insides of my eyelids that dance like the free-love generation did on LSD. I’ve forgotten my coat at home, lulled by the sunshine into thinking that it’s warmer than it actually is, and you offer me yours.

The ancient Greeks’ sun-god was named Helios. The Romans called him Apollo. I call him warmth-bringer, light-maker, shadow-chaser. You call me sun-worshipper, heat-seeker, desert-baby. I call you mine, but I lie through my teeth when I say it. You are not mine, and I am not yours, not any more than I can claim to own the sun.

In the age of solar panels, people harness sunlight and bend it to suit their needs—heat, energy, power. I am just as much to blame, yoking you to my proverbial harness to suit my basic needs—companionship, entertainment, and because it’s convenient. You, I suspect, have done the same to me. We do it because it’s easy; because it’s what people expect of us. When you need, you need. It’s human to need, too human, and I have never been good at denying myself, the byproduct of a spoiled childhood. Although I have a hard time telling people out-loud what it is we’re playing at, I find it equally hard to be utterly blasé about it and say, “I keep him around for the sex.” What I don’t have a hard time telling them is what it isn’t. It isn’t forever. It isn’t immortal. It isn’t stationary, or reliable, or even planned. Just like the sun rises from the East every morning, it is predictable and we take it for granted. Once, you called me a frigid bitch. I didn’t deny it. I, just like you, am cold. That’s why I believe more in sunlight than I do in love."

Christmas, Tough-Love Style

"What do you think? Does it look good?"

"It could do without some of the more tacky ones."

"Like which?"

"Like that one, to the left of the middle. The lumpy red and green one that looks like a wreath."

"That is a wreath. I made it for you in Advent Workshop years ago."

"Oh. What about that white Styrofoam one?"

"That one, too. It's supposed to be a snowflake."

"The clothespin reindeer."

"Basically, anything you consider tacky, I made for you and Mom as a child."

Wounding people is so easy, we stride right on afterwards without even a second thought. We all do it.

There will always be that awkward tension between parent and child in the constant search for parental approval. Tides change-- though I will never feel quite up-to-snuff for my father, my mother now looks to me for my approval. I am off-guard and awkward, and don't know when and how to give it. This softens the dynamic of my father a bit, however.

But, then again, who am I to judge?

Choosing Sides

"Wall or nightstand side?" he always asks, even though the answer always remains the same. It's just the kind of guy he is.

He's already tucked in next to the nightstand. Half of me wonders what would happen if I asked for that side. Half of me chastises the other half for trying to make trouble when everything is exactly how I want it to be in the first place. Half of me sighs. All of me crawls up the bed instead.

"Wall," I answer. "Of course. That's where I always end up, anyway." Always between cool wall and warm body. I modulate temperature like a flesh thermostat. Always on his right-hand side. Just like how he always pushes me back down in his sleep to his arm and shoulder in the place of a pillow.

Whoever needed cotton and filling when you have a hot-blooded male, anyway?

After the third night, I wised up. If Manhammoud won't let you go to the pillow-mountain, you bring the pillow to you.

Drip-Drop

Part One:

Writers: Black depressions, over-active imaginations, mental illnesses, and substance abuse. We are an under-whelmingly cheery lot.

Bathtub and beer. Bathtub and half-bottle of wine. Bathtub and a vodka concoction. It's all the same to me.

I think writers have an affinity for bathtubs because there's always the possibility of drowning oneself if the mood so strikes you. I'm sure some author must have tried holding their breath a minute too long after an unfavorable review. (Note to Self: Research this.)

I lounge in the convex shallows of the tub, one knee propped up under the facet, regulating water temperature by feel, my right kneecap bright red because I like it scalding hot. (Might as well live if you're going to be alive.) I'm reading Abbey's "The Fool's Progress" and feeling quite foolish myself, feeding this writer's malaise of mine so indulgently. Later, I will try sticking my toes in the jets, reverse whack-a-mole.

Part Two:

I turn the radio on, but leave the lights off. The moment I step into the shower and close the door behind me, my hair instantly and decidedly curls up in the trapped humidity. (Fact: I have naturally wavy hair. You will probably never see it.) The Presidents of the United States of America remind me in "Peaches" (Fact: Meant to give that CD back...) that the acoustics of the shower are the best I've ever found for singing (Fact,) but these glass walls won't hear my voice today. Soap in silence. Shampoo in solitude. Condition in consternation. (Fact: Alliteration is one of my many writer's vices. Along with verbosity and cliches.)

"Must stop playing hermit," I tell myself. "That's a direct order. Cheer the fuck up."

Circa Bankruptcy

Christmas night. The dog is napping in the backseat, taking up the entire bench, and it's nearly midnight; not Christmas any more. I'm driving and smoking at the same time, because that's one of the things I do know how to do in full multi-tasking glory. I've got the windows cracked because, silly to admit, I am scared of harming an innocent animal's lungs. Mine are already damned. So my nose is cold so his lungs can remain free from any more second-hand smoke. Silly. But the windows are still down.

It's nearly dead downtown. I'm tempted to make a silent joke about the graveyard shift, but it would be almost too easy. I don't know what called me here, but I needed to fill my eyes with it. The sight of a sheriff's cruiser lingering at a red light reminds me I still haven't replaced a front headlight that's out. I skulk past and hope Christmas spirit is enough to get me out of a ticket. I don't have the time, money, or desire to pay for either a new bulb or a ticket. I'd rather just take Plan A and flee the country. Har har.

The streetlights that rise up around me are festooned in white Christmas lights that wind around them and wreaths. The old, retro buildings, once freshly painted and proud, slouch into their foundations. Half of the storefronts are empty; "For Sale" and "For Rent" signs are the only things that occupy windows. The city of my childhood is gone. Instead, hardscrabble has taken hold.

At seven, I used to walk the four blocks down the hill from the public library to my dad's shop. At twenty, I lock my car doors as I come to a stop outside the building that used to be my father's. No lights. No gold glistening from overhead lighting in the display cases in the windows. Everything is quiet; not even the whisper of falling snow to make white-noise. I'm caught half-in and half-out of the past and the present, the crossroads of What Used To Be and The Cold, Hard Truth. Somewhere in the last twelve years, I missed this all changing. You come home, an almost-adult, and you suddenly see it all. It's alarming. It makes you wonder where it went wrong; if there was something you could do; what signs you missed and how. And if a city can change like this, unnoticed until it's over, what else can?

The dog lets out a snore. Suddenly tired, I take a last long draw and then stub my cigarette out on my side-view mirror, the plastic burned and crusted from doing it so many times in the same place before. I pull a U-ey and head for home as the clock ticks in a new day.

"And miles to go, before I sleep, and miles to go, before I sleep," I remember as I roll up the windows and rub the feeling back into my nose.

Implosion

"I'm done with being looked through. When you look at me, it's almost enough to make me believe I could catch fire. Spontaneously combust in being someone."

---

Excuse me for just thrusting you into that, but one of my professors, a very wise man who is pretty much the reason I came to Champlain, once said that there is a time and a place for disclaimers, and in front of your writing is neither the time, nor the place. So I guessed I was wise to heed him-- his advice hasn't done me wrong yet.

The one good thing about being home and broke is that it's giving me lots of time to write. And write. And write some more. The above are some pieces of writing I've been busy resurrecting and breathing new life and words into for awhile (the first piece was an excerpt from a longer work from Creative Non-Fiction; (In)Pulse and Cold are both pieces I read recently at a gathering that went over well, and since people asked for copies, decided to put them here so I don't have to individually email. Laziness is a vice I posses.), as well as some short snippets that have come to me recently, as always, in the most awkward of places. (Mostly, the shower. In the shower, hands sudsy, not a pen or piece of dry paper in sight, is where I get all my best ideas. I have learned to play them on repeat like a broken cassette tape between my brain and my lips to remember them until I get out and run, dripping, for a flat surface and something to write with.) Muses be damned. They always come at the worst times.

XOXO

I'm Not A Poet, And Most Of The Time, I Know It.

We interrupt this previous prose programming to bring you some poetry, because due to the multiple readings I've been attending for classes and other events, that's what's been coming out of me lately. It only happens about three times a year, and only for a few days, like the guest appearance of a cosmic spirit, so I'm beseeching you to indulge me, briefly, for these are only brief snippets of full, raging, triumphant, un-humble, unfinished works. Ellipses mark where content is missing, for one reason, or the other. Or none. The first two are part of set poems. For all purposes, what I consider "done." The third is a complete and utter mish-mash of sayings and thoughts and advice and songs and lots and lots and lots of random things. It has something for everyone-- childhood memories, sage wisdom, simile and metaphor, decorating advice. It is my Chaos at the moment. Everyone needs a little. I'm entering Finals Week of school. I have a lot.

"...Because night is when I get
--------Real soft,
And in the dark,
If you look at me
--------Real close
----------------Like you do
And don’t blink,
You can see the cosmos in my eyes when I’m talking to you,
Not just one or two
--------Tiny
----------------Insignificant
------------------------Guttering
--------------------------------Stars,
But the whole damn thing,
& I have no words for this feeling,
The death-knell of my trade,
But it’s like
--------Holding your palm
----------------Up to the flame of a lighter
------------------------On the coldest winter day
--------------------------------Right before you light that cigarette..."

"...I want to see when you close your eyes,
Because I know, sometimes it’s just
--------Too much
To look at,
All of it at once, spread out before your eyes,
Like a feast, and you
--------Just ate.
I want to see when your lips open,
And your tongue
--------Darts out,
To lick the same dry lips that you use,
Faithful sinner,
To worship.
I want to see you completely open in front of me,
--------A book to read,
----------------A story over skin,
------------------------A tale that won’t lie.
Give me your mind!
At these moments, when there is literally nothing between us,
But these un-naked thought-things,
These
--------Looks
----------------&
----------------Sounds
------------------------&
------------------------Feels.
I want a light, like a blinding ray of truth,
Because,
I want to see you, as you are,
Not, as you want to be,
With
--------Layers
----------------&
----------------Secrets
------------------------&
------------------------Questions.
I want to see you, in that moment when you give in,
To know what I have,
And what you are,
And what that
--------Makes me."

"...You’ve got to call me to you,
Because sometimes, like a cat, I won’t
--------Listen,

To the meaning behind the command,

Instead, focusing on tone and context,

And not really
--------Getting it.
But still, sweetie,
You’ve got to keep tryin’,
Because what’s worth it in this life,
--------It isn’t free,
And it sure as hell
--------Ain’t easy.
Because I,
I don’t play with the things I say,
--------Like some do.
Getting me to admit
--------Is like moving a mountain.
Are you strong enough for that?
Make me
--------Shock
----------------&
------------------------Awe
At your conviction.
Make me want to burst into song,
You have never heard
--------From this mouth.
So you know, I like to kiss to both sweet songs of
--------“Hello”
----------------&
------------------------“Goodbye.”

So you know, I like to stay up late, and sleep until sometime,
And I am always,
--------Always
Down for some lovin’.
So you know, your room,
--------Windows,
----------------Walls,
------------------------Door,
--------------------------------Desk,
----------------------------------------Bed,
Are in the same exact places mine are at home,
And it knocked me into silence,

Like coming home, only to find someone else living there.
So you know, I only ever ask to come over,
Every third time I want to,

Because there's this thing called

--------Space,

And there's a difference between "want" and "want,"

& I am always trying to find the fine line between the three.
But I will wake up early,
Just to be there and know it
Like I knew it when I was five,
And was the child
Who was never told that she wouldn’t find
--------What she was looking for.
Responsible people never learned how to fly.
I never learned
--------How to jump.
But here I am,
Toeing the edge of this cliff,
--------Anyway.
Hello, my name is Mediocre,
And I am striving for
--------Majestic
For you."

That's more or less it for now. I'm pretty much straight bleeding poetry at the moment like a love-junkie suicidal poet, so I'm skipping class in the morning to stay home and write. Because it's the writerly thing to do, and I really have no choice. Sometimes, when these things are outside of your hands, it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Scary, yet gorgeous.

You writers out there. Agree? What gets it flowing for you? Is it the first snowfall of the year? Fear? Love? Loathing? Inspiration from others? Sheer need and necessity? I'm curious. As always.

XOXO

This Is What A Forty-Thousand Dollar A Year Education Pays For.

I swear I do go to college. Really, I am on my way to achieving a BA in a program dubiously titled "Professional Writing," which, if one takes these words at face-value, means that I will be able to find a job in which I "professionally write" after graduation, and not have to live in a cardboard box and slip slowly into a delayed and drawn-out alcoholic death because I have already deemed that I will in no way be possible of writing the Next Great American Novel. American Eagle may be looking at a future manager, but I would probably strangle myself to death with a cable-knit sweater.

With today's economy and job market, I have already started hoarding boxes so although I may have to live in one, it's going to be a motherfucking cardboard castle. My spacial reasoning skills and my father's dreams of me becoming an architect will finally be coming true, just in a very bass-akwards way.

Don't get me wrong-- I love what I do; I just am doubting the fact that it is financially solvent, and passion for something, without an outlet that offers monetary gain, doesn't feed or clothe you, unfortunately, which is one of the great injustices of life.

Anyway, let me walk you through the past 12 hours at good old Camp Champ. After this, if you have children, or are planning on having children, you may decide to no longer remit money for their higher education fund. I'm sorry. But really, as I was telling my parents last Sunday, I have decided that on the immediate surface, if you don't get into particulars such as effort, intelligence, and aptitude, the only difference between people who graduate high school and people who graduate college is that college graduates are over $100,000 in the hole, have some vague notions on Plato's teachings and writings, and have a sense of entitlement.

Last night around 10 PM, I remembered the fact that I had not one, but two writer's journals due for Copy Editing. On further investigation in my inbox to find the subjects of these entries, I also discovered a 7 page scientific paper titled, I am not shitting you, "Sandy deposits study offshore Lithuania, SE Baltic Sea." I tried editing it, really, I did, but around 1 AM, it started to feel like my brain was leaking out of my ears, and even the Long Trail Blackberry Ale I had picked up to self-medicate and help myself through the process was no longer holding any appeal. I ditched the "sandy shores" and "Juodkrante–Preila site" and wrote one of the journals, before my body decided to call it a night and close my eyelids for me.

As for an important interlude, let's be clear on what a college student's diet looks like: Between being warp-speed busy all day with study abroad forms and meeting, discussing finances with my mother (possibly one of my favorite things in the world, right up there with puppies and non-anaesthetised dental procedures,) class, and my, I don't know-- crazy desire to actually communicate and spend time with my roommates and friends, and having forgotten to grab food before leaving my apartment, I was subsisting on cigarettes. As I explained to a horrified professor, this past summer I came to the realization that smoking suppresses my appetite. Hungry, but have no food? Easy-- I always have a pack on me. (As my professor said, "That's horrible, but I remember that you were poor this past summer," which is possibly an understatement, but by June I had already figured out that even $10 for a pack of my Djarums was still cheaper than groceries.) Around 9, I finally got dinner, AKA: delicious honey barbecue wings from Wings Over. Not eating all day, smoking, and then ingesting half a pound of wings may not have been the best idea ever. But going home and chasing it all down with a beer was possibly the tipping point.

I woke up this morning, reminded of the painful, cruel fact that my body and artisan, fermented beer do not play well together. I liken it to what labor pains probably feel like, or your appendix exploding. Basically, fold up, clutching your stomach and gasping, cold-sweat, and writhe around a little. That's what I looked like. It's one of those great debates in life: I can drink American piss-beer like Coors and Bud and Keystone and feel fine, or I can drink something that actually has taste and craft to it and want to die 9 hours later. Seeing as I like to play a little game called "Me vs. My Body," (props to Meg at 2Birds,1Blog for that catchy title, as well as being the founder/a co-player of this game,) my tastebuds sometimes make the masochistic choice for me.

Between my death-throes, I looked out my window and then rolled over and looked at my clock, saying "Fuuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkk," even before I saw the time. Sometimes you just know. Sure enough, it was 9 AM. My cell phone, which has been dramatically prolonging it's own death scene for the past week and a half, (first front display, then battery, then screen,) decided that the little part of it that would die over the night was the alarm. Otherwise know as, my alarm clock. I slept through Tech Writing and our new invention groups. It was one of those moments where you just sit there and literally hang your head in shame going, "I am a horrible student; Warren is going to be so disappointed, and I don't deserve to sleep in for this extra hour."

I thought that this would, in some twisted way, allow me time for the rest of the Copy Editing homework I had given up on around 2 AM. So I went back to the "sandy shores" of Lithuania, and promptly realized that I was utterly delusional if I thought I could slog through it all before catching the bus to class. Yeah, I edit a fuck-ton, but there is something about an academic, scientific article numerous pages long that just stops me in my tracks and demands to know who the hell I think I am. I am not a scientist. I am not even a great copy editor. I'm more of a big-picture person, and copy editors are all about minutia and the titles to parts of sentences that I was supposed to have learned back in the 8th grade when really, I was making Tyrannosaurus Rex arms with Nora across the classroom with our hands curled into the two-finger air-quote sign. (Yeahhh...good times.) But ok. Bullshit another journal entry, and call it a morning. Sometimes, like when you have a minimum word limit, being verbose is an excellent character trait to have.

When I walked into Copy Editing this morning, unwashed, bedraggled, and feeling an overwhelming urge to curl up in the fetal position on the floor and give in and say, "You win, Life!" my professor looked at me, concerned, and said, "You don't look so good." If she wasn't a genuinely nice human being, I think that would have roughly translated to, "Wow, you look like shit." I can't contest. I'm a wake-up-and-shower person. Foraying into public looking like something the cat dragged in and then gnawed on is against the very grain of my fiber, but sometimes, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

My professor then also asked me if I wasn't functioning due to lack of sleep. I looked at her, surprised, and said, "No, I actually got 6 or 7 hours!"

"Oh," she said. "You've got some really dark circles under your eyes and just don't look good."

This, people, is what happens when I actually do my homework. It literally makes me ill.

But my favorite thing about college has to be the people. Where else in the world would an acceptable, passionate, engaging conversation topic be "Can you drive from Champlain to Tibet?" And, only at our tech-enamored school would someone pull out a iTouch and actually search the possibilities on Google Maps.

The answer, by the way, is yes-- sort of. You can drive, but you also have to kayak, and jet-ski. All I know is that whoever got to write the directions for this trek has a sense of humor I would kill for. Also, a nice little subtly passive-aggressive gig going. Aha! This is one of those rare, mythical "professional writing" jobs! My life would be made if I could do something like this where your primary objective is to answer impossible questions in the most creative, smart-ass way possible, and still get paid for it. Possibly my favorite directive is #104: Jet ski across the Pacific Ocean.

Really?

...Really?

I made the argument that rather than lugging a kayak, car, and jet ski around the literal Earth, you could quite easily accomplish this 40 day trip with one prime piece of human ingenuity: The land/aquatic vehicles they use for tours of Boston called "Duckies."

And yes, this is life at college.

XOXO

Are There Any Couples Left?

2008 seems to have been a bad year for couples across the board. Madonna and Guy split after seven and a half years of marriage; Anne Hathaway kicked her con-artist boyfriend to the curb, and who can forget the almost “Notebook” storyline of Rachel McAdams’ and Ryan Goslings’ on-again, off-again relationship.

Out of the public eye, mainstream couples have seen a decline in the past eleven months. Long-term relationships have taken nosedives, and couples casually dating have made the decision to split early and live the single life for awhile. Numerous factors have been called to take the blame: monogamy not being taken so seriously in our day and age, the rise seen in middle-aged women cheating on their partners, and the curious phenomenon that happens every August, which is the month most couples break up in, due in part to roving eyes on scantily-clad beaches, hot weather making people irritable, and family trips on which partners realize that when taken out of their every-day routines and denied distractions, they can’t stand each other.

Mutually exclusive, long-term relationships seem like risky business in the first place, to me. Maybe it’s because I’m a commitment-phobe who can’t choose between two entrees at dinner for fear of ending up craving the other one, but there’s something that has more people other than just me spooked this year. Maybe the world is waking up. Maybe women are realizing that men actually do smell, and men are finally getting that women will never be satisfied unless you can predict what they want you to do before they even ask you to do it. Maybe women have finally given up on men ever being able to stay faithful to one person for the rest of their life, and men have finally gotten so fed-up with being ten minutes late to every event because of their girlfriend’s primping time that they’ve had enough. Or maybe, just maybe, people are changing.

In 2008, women now ask men out. Men now have the social pressure of instituting the first contact taken away from them. Women are running their own businesses, spending their own money, and settling down to have children later. Men are more prone to moving back home with their parents for a few months after graduating college, are more prone to putting the “playing the field” method to use when casually dating, and have increased in number of younger men dating older women. (Here’s where the older women cheating on husbands theme comes in—watch out, it’s the Year of the Cougar.) Gender roles are switching—more women are now the breadwinners of their families, and more men are parking it on the sofa to be stay-at-home dads. 2008 seems to have brought all the issues of today’s changing society to a head, and it’s resulted in the death of the relationship.

I’m batting for the singles team, if you haven’t already picked up on that. My last relationship also ended in early 2008 when the guy I was seeing dropped off the face of the Earth. I think he might have taken the easy route out; I’ve since watched numerous friends go through extremely messy break-ups and had the opportunity to realize that I was at least allowed the privacy of falling apart on my own, without the injuring party watching. Break-ups occur more than we’d like to admit; the chances of the relationship you’re currently working in has a fifty-fifty chance of making it, at best, minus points for all the annoying quirks of your partner, wandering eyes, and a sense of settling…for the moment only.

I don’t mean to sound like a totally embittered spinster for life, but after witnessing the carnage of this past year, I think that the world should maybe make a joint New Year’s resolution in 2009: Get to know the person through casual, non-serious dating first, and then weigh all your options and worries very carefully before jumping into another relationship. With all the news of break-ups, it only makes people in healthy relationships more paranoid (which then undermines that relationship), and makes single people more discouraged to even attempt to find that special someone…or anyone, for that matter. Maybe looking before you leap would be the next logical step. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with casual dating for a while before making any serious decisions; in fact, I would garner a guess that casually dating someone builds up a better base for a solid couple than jumping straight into an exclusive match. If the sign I recently saw on Facebook proclaiming “Relationship, RealtionSHIT,” is of any clue, other people are starting to get it, too. 2009—let’s make it a more couple-friendly year than 2008.

XOXO