Giving Up The Ghosts

Last night, I had a dream about the first boy I ever really liked and had a mad, raging, multi-year-long crush on. It was an interesting dream, because in it, he was just as blase and indecisive as he had been in real life. Finally, driven to the end of my proverbial rope by despair and out of my wits with frustration, I wrote him a letter, outlining the fact that as long as he couldn't choose to keep a monogamous relationship either between me and him or him and my friend, I was done-- I wanted nothing to do with him. I upheld my promise pretty well-- until we survived a life-or-death situation together, caved under the pressure, had sex again, and then I got to confront my friend while helping her move from her apartment about the fact he was playing us both.

It was an emotionally-charged, fascinating dream-- possibly made more interesting by the appearance of the ex at the tail-end of it, as well as the fact that I knew that my first crush was actually the symbolical representation of my last relationship. I woke up, utterly fed up, and started thinking about the lengths that women will go through to try to keep a relationship.

I have never been a fan of the ultimatums, unlike much women. I firmly believe that if you're going to make a "if...than" statement, you should be willing to stand by it under pain of death, dismemberment, or break-up, and, as my dream obviously revealed, I've never really been great at doing that. If a woman gives a man an ultimatum-- "It's done forever and ever until the end of time when the Universe is sucked into a black hole if you ever sleep with another woman"-- and then doesn't actually have the balls to stand by what she said in earnest, it teaches both of them that A.) A woman can say things that she absolutely doesn't mean, and B.) That he can get away with it. I consider both outcomes horrible things. And I'm always quick on the draw to call a bluff. So, instead, I stick to the "Do it once, shame on you; do it twice, shame on me, I'm leaving," mentality. It works, for the most part. In real life, not only was I able to walk away from my first crush when he perpetrated events much like the ones in my dream last night, but I also repeated my feat of fortitude and strength again when the ex repeated similar events, later in my life.

And yet, I find myself still dreaming of them both. What does this say about me; about them?

Despite the fact that we grew up together and still are in casual touch, I hadn't thought about my first crush in months before last night, so I happen to think he was just a handy vehicle for my dream-self to craft the morality lesson of last night's sleep around. As for the ex...well, that's a more slippery slope, but I can explain where the specter of him came from, too. Before I went to sleep last night, I was watching a movie when the dishy main actor suddenly smiled, and in a blinding flash of realization, I realized why I was drawn to him-- he very much resembled the ex, especially when he smiled. I started flipping back through my Rolodex of Previous Relationships, trying to put famous faces to my exes who resembled them. I made the same obvious match of Aaron Eckhart to someone as I had when I'd been seeing him, but, other than him, the only other one of my ex-lovers who I could pin similar faces on was the ex, and as I kept coming up with names of people who I thought looked like him-- the guy from the movie; Emile Hirsch; Adem Ljajic-- I started wondering why, to me, he was one of my most recognized faces. It wasn't the fact that he was my longest running on-again, off-again thing; it wasn't the fact that I truly loved him-- I truly love my most recent ex, but I was fucked if I could come up with a doppelganger for him, so there goes that theory. I will admit to the fact that in his heyday, the ex was certainly one of the most striking and handsome men I have ever seen, let alone been with, so maybe that was it. We human beings can be incredibly shallow, after all.

The ex was beautiful, and he and I shared a lot of emotional history-- and hysteria-- together. But does that, and the fact that I can still catch glimpses of him in other people mean that I in any way desire him back? Oh, helllllllll noooooooo.  Let's face it, I'm a little bit of a masochist, and a little pain never really hurt anyone, but I would have to be declared clinically insane to ever go back to him. THAT much pain and turmoil he put me through just isn't worth it; no matter how attractive he was, no matter what we had in common; no matter the fact that we shared friends, professions, and a common life. I remember how miserable I could be when I was with him, and in general, I tend to believe that there is one thing human beings should never actively seek out to be, and that thing is miserable. Learning that lesson through him-- and, in some ways, the baby starter steps to it with my first crush-- was possibly one of the defining moments of my life thus far, and it has always served as a valuable lesson every time another relationship starts to turn the same way. I am more important to myself than a man will ever be, no matter how much I happen to love him. And if he makes me miserable, well-- then someone has to go, and it's sure as hell not going to be me. One of the most important things you can ever learn is how and when to go about giving up the ghost of relationships failed, past, and never to be repeated again.

XOXO

2011: A "Space" Odyssey.

I know I said I wouldn't do it, and I promised as much in about three different languages to about half a dozen people, but I broke first. Maybe it was from watching too much SATC over this very long long weekend and watching Carrie put herself out there and say "Women's magazine advice be damned; this is how I really feel!" but finally, yesterday afternoon, I snapped when I saw TGIS was online (yet still unheard from), and reached out first.

Damn.

I said "Hey." I know, STUNNING opening line, but I decided it was better than "Are we not talking?" or something equally confrontational and jumping-to-conclusions-esque. We chatted a little bit about totally meaningless things, all the while, I was waiting for him to say something, ANYTHING at this point, from "Sorry I've been out of touch-- I've been busy nursing African orphans back to health, but now that we're back in touch, I've been meaning to ask you-- would you like to move to Zimbabwe with me and save the world?" to "After some careful deliberation about what you look like when you sleep and the way you have a habit of inhaling sharply when you laugh, I've decided to end things with you. Never talk to me again, please," so then that way, I would at least be put out of my misery. And when neither of those extremes presented themselves, I then decided to cut to the chase and say, "So, I tried to get a hold of you the other day."

He said, "Oh yeah? My bad, I've been kicking it with the guys all weekend. You know, I obviously like hanging out, and I have a lot of fun with you...but if I don't respond to a text or message or whatever, then just don't worry. We spend a lot of time together, which I enjoy...but I also need my space, too."

Oh. Space. Alone time. Time to be the "uno" instead of the "duo." Well, I'll be damned.

So I said, "I totally get that."

Which, for the record, wasn't a lie, because after he explained everything that I needed to hear for the past 3 days, I really did understand. And, surprisingly, felt fine with it. Space, I can do. I give great space. Let me know you need space and, believe me, I won't be nagging you. I love space. I love space so much I've now started sleeping diagonally in my queen-size bed when he isn't here sheerly because of the fact I CAN. So long story short, all I really needed, in fact, was to hear that he needed some space to start actually enjoying my space.

...Why must he be so smart? And why must I be so easy to read?

I think the inherent issue here is that anytime I start to realize that I really like having someone in my life and, in fact, really LIKE someone, I start to panic that they're going to leave me. Like Madison mentioned, I have a really bad track record of this actually happening to me, so it's not an unfounded fear, and as soon as something in my current relationship starts to happen like it has in a previous relationship, it sends me into a spin. At which point, I start to look for signs of deterioration-- like silence-- so that I can at least cut ties and jump ship first before my ass gets dumped and I get burned, again. (This may be something worth addressing with TGIS at some point, as I really don't want to throw everything away, but my behavioral norm is to do so as soon as I start feeling like someone may be pulling away, themselves.) Is it fair to my current relationship? No. But it's all I know. That whole slippery, tricky "trust" thing has to be at work here, and while it may not be my strong suit, I'm trying, hard, especially now that it's apparent TGIS has caught onto this one.

Again...damn. Nothing like being outsmarted at your own game. Or neurosis.

XOXO

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

Intimidation Street

NEVER let someone run you out. The other day, I was at a friend's house when I was told after an incoming call that someone else was on their way. What was I supposed to do, run screaming and crying in fear the very moment her name reached my ears? Naw, I don't THINK so. As Lafayette would say, "Girlfriend, it ain't no thang." And it really ain't. Make the point that you could either A.) Not give less of a fuck, or B.) Pretend they don't exist by staying for another ten minutes as conversation naturally comes to a close and you're leaving on your own time, as opposed to being thrown out right on your ass in mid-sentence by the mere mention of another girl.

XOXO

"Something More," Said The Clock.

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what makes a perfectly functional and happy person decide to throw their lot in with another person and want to be in a relationship. Not being a big fan of relationships or the institution of commitment myself, I was recently horrified to hear the first audible "tick" of what I previously thought was my busted biological clock. Maybe it's the fact that a close friend with whom I played wing-woman for has now reached past the 1 year anniversary with said boyfriend I did the winging maneuvers for and are vacationing and cohabitating together, or the fact that I'm watching people I grew up with planning for their long-term serious relationships, weddings, and even babies, or maybe it's just the fact that I have done the "I'm so not serious about you I'm going to do everything to prove to you I think this is a lark and self-sabotage this whole state of affairs" thing for the past 5 years, and now with a landmark birthday approaching I'm realizing I should be acting as old as I'm getting and I'm ready to give it a rest for awhile. Whatever the reason, the ending thought remains the same: Scary.

I think as graduates of first grade, we can all agree on the fact that 1 + 1= 2. So why, then, do proponents of love and the Hallmark company seem so hell-bent on convincing us that two people in a relationship are one entity?

I've found myself wondering where my extremely colorful past fits in with my new desires. What about all of a woman's past relationships? Are they now halves? What happens after the union, no matter what sort it was, how serious or how tenuous it was, is gone? How can anyone be expected to deal with so much continuous disappointment? Are we trying to be martyrs, or can we just not get out of our own way? As long as there are women, there will always be women who fall for the wrong guy. Women with a predilection for the Bad Boys. Women who have convinced themselves that if she just loses that last 5 pounds, if she never says "no", if she can change her inner desires to be less demanding and more like him, he will somehow realize that she is perfect, just perfect, for him. These are also the same women who often end up finding just the sort of man who is not perfect for them. (Guilty as charged.) Usually, if anything, I'm over-confident. Most of the time, I am pretty sure I could rule the world single-handed if all the nation's leaders suddenly all came down with a deadly infectious disease at a U.N meeting and keeled over. But for some reason, when it comes to men, all bets are off. Maybe it's because women really have no idea, past a good steak and a blowjob, what men really want. Maybe, if they talked about it, like women have a tendency to do (myself not included here, as I would usually rather extract my own wisdom teeth sans Percocet than talk about my feelings), we could all be a lot more clear and a lot less confused and apt to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on someone, just to realize that they are never going to change. At least, not for us.

Which brings us to why men like some women and not others. Frankly, I cannot understand what anyone sees in me. And I am not being self-depreciating here. At times, I want a divorce from myself. I have altogether too many flaws and personality quirks to be consider either easy to live with, enjoyable, or sane. When I see a guy look at me like he adores me, I want to shake him and ask, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? DO YOU ENJOY BEING RUN RAGGED? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I DO!" Because no matter how crazy women can get at men and relationships and love and how delusional we can make ourselves, there is that-- that ONE MOMENT-- where you watch him watching you, and you are hit over the head with it like a two-by-four that he likes you. Not, "I think you're entertaining" likes you. Not, "I'm imagining you naked right now" likes you. But that often sought-after and rarely found moment where the guard goes completely down behind his eyes and you catch that look and instead of what most men would assume, you do not go "There is the answer to all my dreams and desires!" but instead think, "OH. SHIT. That's real."

While I may make a good friend and a fun time, I really cannot see what would make me captivating to a member of the opposite sex. Maybe this is a great example of why love and infatuation are random and women need to stop comparing themselves to other women and asking "Why her, and not me?" Maybe there is no reason. There are other people out there, other women and other men, who are not going to demand a single thing from you, but in the long run, are they really the sort of person you want to be with? Shouldn't you want to be with someone who wants you to be the best you possible? I'm apt to believe this, especially when faced the with realization that despite all my bullshit, there are people out there with a soft-spot for me a mile wide. That would be the only explanation. But the problem with a connection like that with someone else is despite all of your warning signs and pros and cons lists, you're loathe to let them go. It's not, believe me, that you are so unlovable that you will never find someone else who will look at you that way again or make you feel the same. It's just that nothing will ever be exactly like that connection, and that connection may just be the one that you need, questions, hard work, disappointment, and all.

I'm getting old enough to realize that despite my parent's fairy tale, love is not easy. Loving someone, in fact, is one of the hardest things in the world, because loving who they really are, and not who you'd like them to be, requires a nearly Gandhi sense of acceptance. And there are times-- when the trash is spewing forth from the garbage can because it hasn't been taken out in over two weeks, when he forgets meeting with you for the second time in a week, when their tongue is in someone else's mouth-- that love and acceptance seem damn near impossible. And that's the hardest part-- keeping that love despite all of someone's faults. I'm tempted to say that we fall for who we do because they're difficult. It's said that nothing worth having is even gotten easily, and I think we'd become more quickly bored if it were so easy and simple. And when we get bored is when we hop onto the next slowly passing train, or person.

"A human's desire to mate, the pair up, to be part of a couple, will never change. But the way we go about it, how badly we need it, what we are willing to sacrifice for it, most definitely does" (Liz Tuccillo, intro to her novel, "How To Be Single"). That's the problem: what two people want is rarely the same thing. How people manage to "work it out" is beyond me. I used to be a status-quo girl. Most days, I still am. I'm content to share a bed, share some time, share a few meals, and otherwise, be on my own. I don't demand much, time- and commitment-wise. A friend of mine who just got out of a three-year relationship asked me how I do it, how I maintain my life when trying to juggle it with someone else's. The real answer to this, and the answer that is not quite the most flattering in the world in regards to the whole "selflessness" item, is that even when I'm in a relationship, my mentality is still that of a Single Girl. I can't separate the Independent Me from the Someone's Girl Me. I've lived far too much of my life being my own girl that I don't think I can, or would, ever want to lose that part of me.

I'll admit, some of it may also be the fact that I do not have a stellar retention rate, either for keeping relationships, keeping an interest in one man, or actually doing things By The Book: dating, commitment, relationship, a satisfactory amount of time, clean break-up. I tend to operate outside of the lines of public dating decency. That's just the way my stripes run. I am tempted to say, "It's not long long you were with someone that matters; it's the effort you put in," but then again, I have also never stayed with one person any longer than six months. As Tuccillo writes, "I have dates, I have flings, I have "situations." But I don't have men, one after another, whom I cart around as my boyfriend, and then break up with for some reason or another and say later to my friends "What was I thinking?"" (Tuccillo, 197).

But the more I see of the world and of other people, the girl who used to be content to sit on your sofa and order in starts to wonder, "Is there more than this?"

I'm tempted to say that there has to be. I'm tempted to say that despite people's fundamental differences, there is something that is akin to the look in someone's eye that makes them willing to stretch who they are and what they can do for someone else. I'm tempted to say that, because if I don't, I'm pretty much admitting defeat right here and right now. I'm also tempted to say it because we cannot live with all of our bullshit intact for the rest of our lives. We're all pretty ridiculous people who start out one way, and gradually change because of our love for someone else that is not ourselves. That is the only way we're ever going to get better than we are this very second. One day, there is going to be a guy who will look at me and say, "I'm not trying to clip your wings, so just fucking stand still with me for awhile more than a month or 6 months. It's not so horrible. If you keep trying to run, I'm just going to let you go." And if I care about him as much as I should, that will be the day that I should get smart enough to slow my roll and start thinking about someone other than just myself. And if I don't, or if you don't, then we really are all just helpless fools when it comes to love. So best of luck.

XOXO

The Argument For Airline Alcohol.

Nothing screams, "AA, take note!" quite like sitting alone in the dimmed lights of an empty hotel room in Zurich with 3 beds, yet just yourself, trying, and failing, to write something of any decent mien, and instead, finding yourself Googling "What sort of vodka does Swissair serve?"

Ok, so, I know I've been a bit of a whiny bitch today. And I apologize. Really, I do. But after airport security makes you cry in a room full of people (horrifying), your flight gets delayed two hours and then lands only for you and 49 other tired, upset, homesick twenty-somethings to find out that SURPRISE, your plane left without half its passengers and you are now stuck in a neutral country 5 miles outside of the city for at least a night and the better part of the next day with no cash, no idea what language they're speaking or what exactly Switzerland is other than a place with great banks, lots of gold, and nice watches, and a feeling that the more times you instantly respond "Si," and "Grazie mille," that you are juuust at the tip of the culture shock iceberg...I defy you to step into those grody shoes and not feel just a little bit put out.

Short of begging, "Make it better, make it better, make it better," I really don't know what to do with myself. And then again, that doesn't so much involve me as it just involves someone other than me solving my problems. So, if you were one of the people who received a very whiny, bitchy, Chicken-Little-esque "The world is falling, and it's volcano ash on my head!" phone call from me today-- this is the part where I say, "I'M SORRY." Bear with me. I'm upset and alone and don't know exactly what it is I should be doing in this situation. (Mom, you're included in this, because even if you are my mother, I shouldn't make you feel worried that I'm about to take the closest boarding ticket stub and start sawing it violently across my wrists.) I'm just in an awkward place right now. I ran away from real life for three months, learned a new language that I habitually can't stop speaking, and now I'm scared to come back home, when yet, I'm just so tired of being on the road and in train stations and in taxis and waiting for planes to board and alternately being hassled by or hassling airport security that there is no place else I want to be, desperately. I'll say it again-- I'M SCARED. So although you may hate to lie, I guess right now that the best thing you could say is, "It's going to be ok." I won't fully believe you, and you won't believe yourself, but the point is-- someone has to say it, and as someone stuck right in the middle of it all who can't see up from down anymore, I can't.

That's a lot of confessions for the night, so I'm just going to go back to my little cliched tableau of writer, empty computer screen, and misplaced frustration. And the sound of the Absolut-shaped water bottle's neck clinking against the rim of the tumbler, the sound of glass on glass and the soft and reassuring glug, glug, glug that it whispers? Well, oh, temptation...now I completely understand why they serve copious amounts of alcohol on planes. Here's hoping I get mine tomorrow while reclining somewhere over mid-Atlantic.

XOXO

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost.

My friend Arielle, who is a very wise woman, said something to me the other day as we were discussing our time living in Italy-- "No one decides to go halfway around the world and study abroad for months for no reason. If your life was perfect, you wouldn't be in Italy, or Ireland, or France. I think everyone who studies abroad, whether they know it or not, is trying to escape from something."

That girl knows how to kick me in the ass like almost no other.

What she said is true. Think about it. If you were perfectly content and happy with your life at home, why would you leave? Why would you uproot, leave all your support systems, and decide that maybe, living somewhere 4,000 miles away sounded like a good idea? Why would you exchange your apartment, job, college, local grocery store, friends, climate, coffee shop, and daily routine for new ones if you were still so enamored with the old ones? It is not because, as some might say, you "wanted the experience." To that, I say bullshit. Yes, it certainly is an experience, but so is going to your closest amusement park and riding a roller coaster. If you wanted to shake your life up a bit, you would find a new job or get a haircut. You would not pack your life into two suitcases, a backpack, and a very large purse and move yourself across the globe for a nice jaunt. That is not an "experience." That is a life change, and you have to have a very good reason for making one of those, believe me.

I know because what Arielle said applies for me, too. One thing that I have learned while over here is what I am, and what I am not. And one thing that I am is a runner. If I have an issue, I tend to run away from it. In fact, Italy was my biggest runner of all. Italy was my answer to running away from my life for over three months, putting everything I could not fix on hold, and distancing myself from reality. In the months before I left, things happened in my life that I didn't have answers for. I lost someone incredibly important to me. I was stagnant in my job. I found myself in a situation that I didn't know how to deal with, because I did not have the guts to actually speak up about what I wanted and what I needed and what I was feeling. I experienced raw, emotional pain for the first time in my life like a tidal wave that sucked me down into the deepest depression of my life. Nothing was working. I got scared. I was flailing, and falling, and striking out at whatever came near me. I remember, hazily, screaming at my mother in the car while sobbing hysterically. I remember my hands shaking from thinly controlled nerves as I tried to paint. I remember turning back to chemical release because I still could not use words to remedy the situation I was in, and so, smoking could do it for me. I remember hours spent lying on my bed, in the dark, not doing anything, because just moving hurt. I remember days where I did not talk. I remember not wanting to look at myself in the mirror, because then I would see hipbones and ribs and sharp angles that I had never had before.

And so I came to Italy because I was letting go of everything that was holding me back, because I was leaving. I was checking out. I was done with living the way I had been. I came thinking that that would be the answer to life. I got shiny and sleek from the hot sun and rich food. My hair got longer in passing with the days. I started to heal. But, like Arielle, I started to realize why I had come to study abroad. I started to separate the experience from the impetus.

It took some massive struggles and some pretty tough self-love. I didn't like myself all of the time. I still don't, some days. I can be obsessive, illogical, irrational, jealous of things I cannot change, and--yes-- neurotic, and a HUUUGE flaming hypocrite. I cannot, in other words, get out of my own way. Like every person, I like to think that I was a great baby. In reality, my mother tells me that until I learned how to "get out of my own way" and crawl, I was miserable. And just like when I was a baby, with the stress of finals looming, eight-and-over page papers due in nearly every class, trying to find a job to now go with my apartment and nearly $700-a-month rent from across the ocean, my body rejecting nearly everything I try to put in it because at this point it is trying to physically reject Italy itself, and a massive question-mark hovering over the status of my life back in Vermont, I am fussy and just want to go home and figure all that out. NOW. I started to panic. I started to obsess and started to expect more than was feasible from other people, and then take it personally when things didn't pan out. I started to shut down. Like, "Get me on a plane tomorrow, ship me home, and the devil take my finals and credits and grades, because I have figured out me, I have figured out my life here, and now it is time to rejoin reality and figure out my life there."

But then I realized that if I went home now, I would have forever run away from something else-- something which I will never get a chance to get back. I also would incur a large amount of debt from switching my ticket that, seeing as I am currently job-less, I would not be able to pay back until the already large lump-sum had accrued even more money not being paid off on my (brand-new, never used, very scary) credit card. Overall, I think staying for the next 16 days is in my best interest. And so, to make it easier on myself, I cut the things out that were making me unnecessarily worry and over-hype and expect and wait and wait and wait for SOMETHING to happen, for some divine clue that everything was alright and that life back home was waiting for me to return, just as it was when I left, just as I hoped it would be. This means, for the next week, no skulking around Facebook. No waiting on Skype. No Twitter (except to Tweet these updates to the blog). This, of course, I cannot cut out, and wouldn't want to. If I couldn't write, I would die. As simple as that. (One of the things I discovered, inequivocably, I am: a writer. In that, I chose rightly.)

It does not mean, however, that it isn't very hard. I now have an apartment in Burlington that all I want is for it to be June 1st so I can move in. I want to have Saph's head on my chest again, impossibly heavy and nearly knocking me over, her nostrils making wet pockets on my shirt, my nostrils filled with the scent of hay and dust and horse. I want to wake up early and go for a walk with the trees overhead like a canopy, so early that no one else is up and I can savor a Vermont morning, all by myself. I want to drive my Civic again and panic about hill-stops on Main Street. I want to be back among my people, my friends, and the plaidness of it all. I want to find out what's going on, and where I stand. I want to have (physically, if not also emotionally if it is not too much to ask for,) safe sex again. I want to not have to smoke as much, though this is a completely open-for-interpretation desire, as my smoking habits vary directly with my stress levels. In any case, I want to not have to buy a new pack every five days.

Right now, I need more than is fair to ask from others. And so, that leads to having to ask myself to be everything I need. And this is why I came abroad, come to find out. I had to leave so that I could find myself. So that I could learn to be nearly everything I need. So that I could learn that I am obsessive, and illogical, and irrational, and jealous, and-- yes-- neurotic, and that I can be a huge hypocrite. The one thing I have to say about this period of time of running away is that though Arielle may have been right in the fact that I had a reason for leaving my life, I found an even better one to return to it: who I am, what I want, and what I need. And so, I close with this thought: though wanderers and runners and study abroad students may leave to go someplace for reasons they don't know, they will find them once they get there. If you leave someplace, you will discover why. And if you go somewhere new, you will discover something new about yourself, not just about your location. Many times, I have foolishly wished I didn't come here, just so that things could "stay normal" at home and so I wouldn't "have to worry." But in the end, what I have found here, and what has happened in Italy will be what sticks with me for the rest of my life, despite whatever I find has or has not changed back home. Not all those who wander are lost.

XOXO

Planes, Trains, And Automobiles

Planes, trains, and automobiles are where I’ve been doing most of my learning here in Italy. Jetting off to new locations on mini-vacations has slightly settled my fear or flying, or, rather—my fear of crashing and burning. In the horrendous traffic and speeding cars in Rome and Dublin, I have trusted people enough to hand my life over to them and let my white-knuckled fingers go from clutching the seat. I always sit facing backward on trains. I like being able to see my past so I know what’s done and gone is really gone. Plus, travel, especially on slow trains, gives you hours and hours to think. Hindsight is an amazing thing. Once you start to gather together the pieces, the picture is astounding.

I’m a runner. It’s true, so I’ll admit to it. I don’t tend to face the hard stuff and have been known on numerous occasions to turn my back on it and put some distance between us instead. I am flawlessly passive-aggressive. I don’t like facing things head-on—I’d rather saunter around the side of it and meet you somewhere near the conclusion. But you can’t live life like that. Italy (which may possibly be my biggest runner ever,) and the circumstances I’ve dealt with while here have changed me, just like I expected and hoped they would.

I came with a purpose: to get better at saying what I wanted to say. To actually say what I needed to. And damn it, if I could learn to do it in Italian, there was no way in hell it couldn’t be easier in English by the end of these 3-plus months. But I never expected that there are some aspects of this trip that wouldn’t be so easy. I don’t know what I was thinking when I left—maybe it was exactly that, and that I wasn’t thinking. I was operating solely on survival mode, for the last two weeks in the States, and for the first month I was here. There was no time to think outside of the present and where I was and the what I was doing, RIGHTNOW. I didn’t have the luxury of time to think or dwell on what happened. I didn’t have the opportunity to miss people or be any less selfish than just thinking about myself. In other words, I was literally not thinking. I was not thinking about how my choices affected others. I was not thinking about how other people’s past choices affected the choices I was in the process of making. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to put all those pieces together and to start to map out my present. It’s no wonder I got a little lost along the way.

I remember getting off of the train in Assisi and standing there at the entrance of the station, looking left, then right, then at the distant hilltop town far too far to walk to and being floored because I never expected that it wouldn’t be easy. I had been taking so many things for granted, or just not even choosing to think about how hard they might be that I had completely overestimated myself, right until the point at which I took a deep breath, turned to look at the bus schedule, and then walked into the station’s tabacchi shop and asked for a return-trip bus ticket, in Italian. That’s what terrifies me sometimes. Sometimes, it really is just as easy as stepping off one thing and onto another, and other times, you find that you’re out in the middle of nowhere with not a clue how you got there and not a clue where to go from there. And that's when it all hit me-- how lost I was, yet how sure I was about some things. How much I missed people and how far I'd come, literally and figuratively. How much I'd grown and changed. How much time I still had to pass, when, internally, I was pretty much done with what I had set out to do. The Number One fear of all children is that they will grow up to be exactly like their parents, and lately, I’m terrified that this could be it and 20 and I could find out I’m more like my mother than I really would like to admit to. I’m terrified by how fast time has passed. I’m terrified to prove everyone right, and all my friends wrong. I’m terrified to admit that I’m growing up and getting older, but I’m also terrified that I’m too young for all of this. I’m most terrified that this thought doesn’t scare me or even give me a moment’s sway. I went to Assisi, and I had an epiphany as I sat there in the train station.

As Holly Golighty asked in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”: “You know those days when you get the mean reds?”

Paul Varjak: “The mean reds, you mean like the blues?”

Holly Golightly: “No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”

Paul Varjak: “Sure.”

Holly Golightly: “Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!”

For me, the only thing that calms the mean reds and all the questions and terror of the unknown is the fact that in 45 days, I will be home. Every new sunrise brings me one day closer to being home. I can take all of the things that I’ve learned in Italy: how I am not afraid to ask if I’ve lost my way; how I have mellowed; how I can be confrontational—I can demand answers, and I can demand them in both English and Italian—; how I have learned about 20 other new life skills I did not have before, or did not know I was capable of and were hidden away somewhere inside of me, and I am going to bring this new girl home. I have changed, for better or for worse, which means that like it or not, my entire life has changed with me. So, like I recently discovered, even if I do somehow miraculously find an apartment, I don’t have a freaking bed to put in it. So it’s time to buy some furniture, and finally settle on a name for the cat. My path may be straight, but it’s not narrow. The mean reds are not here to stay.

XOXO

Il Giorno Degli Ragazzi

A Writer's Love Story:

I met the new love of my life yesterday when I wandered into a cartoleria shop. I picked out a funky embossed journal that looks like alligator hide with tints of bronze and teal while he gave me piccola lessons in Italian, told me where he could be found in San Lorenzo, and asked me about where I was from and what I was doing in Florence. Because of my evidently writerly lot in life, words, using them (most of the time) properly, and good communication are of the utmost importance to me. For this fact, I am loathe to engage in any sort of Italian-heavy conversation that may render me with a fish-inspired “O” shaped mouth and puzzled eyebrows. But he spoke little English, and I was willing to absolutely mangle all of the few words and phrases in Italian I do know for him.

His name is Antonio (of course), and he makes handmade leather journals, which is an impossibly perfect fit for someone who goes through journals like tissues. I think it’s perfectly poetic—the leather journal man and the writer.

Though it may have just been a journal-needing incensed crush on a vendor, seduced by the intoxicating smell of leather permeating the air and my senses, it brought up a valid moral to this tiny, unserious love story: You should want to push your boundaries for someone, potentially make a fool of yourself, and not be afraid of it. Be better. Try.

***

Short Skirt, and A Leather Jacket:

I have discovered the beauty of people falling in love with you. I have also discovered that my naturally blonde hair and big blue eyes get me even further here than at home. (Dear Mom and Dad: Thanks for having those dominant genes and getting together. It's getting me far in life. Or, at least, discounts.)

So I may or may not have used someone else’s feelings and my fleeting yet called-upon considerable charm at my disposal to buy a leather jacket today for a price that was nearly robbery.

“You have boyfriend?” the store owner asked me, as he pounded calculator buttons to show me what he was willing to give me the coat for.

“Si.” (It is always easier to say yes.) The number on the calculator stayed low. I handed him the cash.

“And if you want change boys, then you come back, si?”

Moral of this buttery, smooth, silk-lined encounter? Be generous in love. Not just Love love, but in any sort of love: platonic, familial, beast-ly, co-workery, child-friendly, waiterly, etc.

***

Young, Foolish Love:

Two twenty-something...
...(all of Italy seems to consist of twenty-something, attractive men. It is a Single Girl’s Paradise, if you’re in the market for that sort of thing. If you are down on your man luck and feel as if you have wined, dined, rejected and been rejected your way through your entire dating pool, I cordially invite you to Italy and will guarantee you a handsome, semi-sane, well-dressed, disgustingly romantic date by the end of your third week here,)...
...men are rough-housing in the middle of the San Lorenzo market. One jumps on another’s back, and the packhorse stumbles toward me, a hand outstretched. “She is my girlfriend, come to save me,” he says with a roguish grin. Love should be just a little bit outrageous, and not too serious about itself.

***

The Hottie Barista (little to no English, adorable crush, amazing jeans,) at the corner bar has started giving me discounts. Thank god, because his cappuccinos heavy on the whipped cream and sugar are pretty much the only thing keeping me alive right now.

Italy is a million and one (and I have finally discovered the adjective for them--) beautiful men. I like them as long as I can get away from them.

Story of my life.

Conversely, however, I am learning a lot from them.

XOXO

Of Men, Women, And Italian Escapades, Part 4:

Italian Escapades:
Vespa Man, or Why Am I Such A Fuck-Up?

The dog is cute. It looks kind of like my best friend’s Australian shepherd, and it’s waiting patiently outside the small grocer’s down the block from my apartment for its master to return. It grins up at me, panting slightly, and, a sucker always for the canines, particularly good-looking ones, such as this one (just like with men and green-eyed people, or green-eyed men especially,) I smile back.

As I am smiling like a special type of fool at the dog, someone slides out of the door in front of me. I look up and see a youngish, stocky man in fashionable black leather-gear with sandy hair tucked under a helmet standing in front of me. “Hi,” he says, and thrown at the English with or without the accent behind it, I actually look back at him, catching his twinkling light eyes.

He reminds me, in the instant I really take him in, of the geeky Australian transfer student turned Eevil Keenival who was the hero of Grease 2. (Not such a great movie. That dreamboat and a young and always fabulous Michelle Phieffer were the only things that saved it.)

I take another pensive drag from the end of my cigarette, and he tries again. “Hello.” He’s careful to keep his body language open and friendly as I breeze by, not threatening or insinuating anything more than a greeting—maybe I’ll say something as I get closer? Maybe his magnetic attraction will just do the job and pull me right in to that black Italian-leathered muscular chest? I appreciate it—I appreciate all off it—though I don’t say anything back.

I walk another ten strides before it hits me. If Vespa man can see me like this, in a plaid men’s flannel shirt and bulky winter coat and my kicked-to-shit Uggs, desperately sucking on the end of a cigarette like it is my lifeline, hair tossed into a hot mess by the wind, and still think enough to want to say hi—what the fuck am I doing, walking away? If he is seeing me at one of my emotional lows, of which you conveniently get to miss out on the tempest that you’ve stirred up, and he wants to actually do something about it, even just greet me and chat with me on the sidewalk—why the fuck am I running away? Is that really the only mode I know how to operate on?

I look back. He’s still there, standing beside his Vespa, a vision in leather and nice hand-made shoes. I watch him swing a leg over the seat and settle in, turning the tiny engine over. He then motions to the dog, who rises from his watch by the shop’s stoop and jumps up into his master’s lap, riding in front of him. A man, his Vespa, and his dog. It’s such a picture of domestic Italian bachelordom bliss that it pulls at my ovaries somewhere in the same vicinity that really cute toddlers do. It doesn’t mean that I necessarily want one, but just for a moment, I think about what it could have been like if I actually said hi back. If we traded names. If I asked to pet his grinning dog and he told me it’s name. If I accepted an invitation for a ride on the back of the Vespa, something I want to check off the list of Thing To Do Before I Die or Before I Leave.

I think about it for a moment, watching his taillights fade. And then for another moment. And I find that somewhere in the space of these two moments, I’m less angry at you, and more angry at myself. I’m letting these moments go. These moments that I may never find again, great adventures, new acquaintances, and smiling European dogs. And for what? You’re having your moments at home, no explanations needed. I should be having mine. What I do here will mean just as little as what I didn’t do here when I get back, if not even less. Tit for tat. Vespa for Virginia.

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

Ciao, Bellas!

Special announcement.

This little college girl was just accepted to study abroad at the Scuola Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, Italy, this coming Spring Semester.

"Sex and the College Girl" will be going international, babies!

Fantastica!

Men of the world, watch out!

XOXO

P.S-- I will also be in Montreal this weekend. So close, yet so far to Miss Sarah. By like, all of Canada. :( But really-- look-- legitimately international!

P.P.S-- Sooooo manyyy exclamation points...

...And For Halloween, I Was Ballsy.

Halloween Weekend '09 will be one for my record books for all the years of my life to come, AKA: until if/when I turn 75 and decide to off myself before I inevitably contract the familial genealogical jackpot of Alzheimer's, dementia, heart disease, and blindness, but keep on living into my 90s in a crippled, demented state. Why, you ask? Because, in the space of 24 hours' worth of time, I checked 3 Life Goals off of my list of To Be A Truly Interesting Person, You Must Accomplish These Colorful Things. I,

A.) Went to a frat party.
Actually, I went to a frat party with an list-only policy, and got in with the line that will resound in UVM's Sig Phi history forever. Some back-story: Lorelei, Madison, Amanda and I were all chilling at Amanda's apartment, trying to find a good party to go to and talking about how outrageously pissed-off one of Amanda's friends would be if she knew that Gypsy and I were...whatevering...(I still have no phrase for this, mainly because I have no clue WHAT we're doing,) because her friend has had a massive obsession with him since freshman year, when, speak of devils, I got a text from Gyp.

"Sig Phi," it said, meaning the frat up the street. I was wickedly pleased, because Gyp and I had been texting earlier, but had not made any concrete plans to see each other, though I totally wanted to end the night at his place. Not driving home. But this is my thinking: if his phone is always blowing up with girls saying, "Come here with me!" or "Where are you? I want to come!", I am not going to be another one say those things. Instead, I ask what's up. He usually tells me some plans. I say, "Oh, nice-- I'm going to ____, but maybe we'll run into each other while we're out." He says he'd like that. A few hours later, I usually get a text from him telling me he wants to see me and to come to ____. Genius. Manipulation without having to ask or grovel. I figured it out. Dating lessons learned. ANYWAY.

I say I'm down and ask if the other girls can come with. He drops the bomb that they're judging at the door. Of course. (Frats...sigh...) But we're all bangin' bitches, so we decide to pound a few drinks, and go onward and upward to Fratland. When we get there, we find a line about 15 deep being turned away from the door. "It's list-only," some cute, probably freshman, girls on the sidewalk tell us. "They're not letting anyone in."

Amanda, who has been to this frat before, bails at the sign of refusal. Madison, consummate wing-woman, stands by her. Lorelei and I want into that frat. I want me some Gypsy. Lorelei is down to roll with anything. We mount the marble steps, and I pull the front of my (previously altered to new boobalicious heights) witch costume down further to almost scandalous levels. (Hey, I know what I'm working with and how to increase my odds with fratboys.) I had a small purple star where Marilyn Monroe had a beauty mark. I am slightly tipsy. I feel bangin'. Nope. Denied. "Is your name on the list?" the frat douche asked.

"No," I told him, "but my boy's inside, and I have to meet up with him."

"What's his name?" Door Douche asked.

I told him.

"Nope, not on the list-- sorry."

I have never taken rejection well. Lorelei and I climb back down the stairs, and I'm already texting Gypsy a mile a minute, fingers flying. "They're not letting ANYONE in. I flashed major boob."

"Oh no! Flash harder?"

"Unhelpful. Can you pull me in?"

"They know me."

With this text, I turn Lorelei and my train around and march back up those steps. New Door Douche looks at me speculatively. I thrust my phone in his face, and decide it is go big, go for broke, or I'm going home. And with this sentiment, I utter the statement with quiet, resolute, emphatic power that I will always remember:

"My boy is in there. I NEED TO GET LAID TONIGHT. YOU NEED TO LET ME IN."

It had the effect of a Jedi mind-trick. Door Douche #2, who, in his defense, was quite cute and looked like a Kewpie Doll, blinked rapidly three times, and said in a loud voice so that everyone lined up behind us could hear, "I'm sorry, but you need to put your cell phone down. If you're not on the list, you can't get in." And then he leaned in and whispered, "Go in to my left. Go, go, go, go, go!" BINGO!

The best part is, as the door opened to admit people out and Lorelei and I in, Gypsy and Lorelei's friend who was also trying to pull us in were standing in the breezeway, arguing with fratboys to try and get us in. When they turned to look at us, inside Sig Phi, astounded, I was like, "Oh, yeah-- we got in on our own."

With that, Gypsy leads our little frat-crashing train down to the basement, where there's a pretty awesome dance floor going. It's packed, so steamy that my glasses fog up and my previously straight hair instantly curls, and my adorable witch hat gets hit by people packed in so much that finally I give up and stuff it into the plastic cauldron I was using as a purse. (Great idea, by the way. Feel free to use it in Halloween's Future.) Gypsy leads us through the mob to an open patch of dance floor, and promptly disappears. Vanishes. Poof-- gone. Lorelei and her boy start dancing together. Greece Lightning is dancing with an utterly adorable Mulatto girl who made me miss my best friend Nora, away herding sheep in New Zealand, something fierce. I lean in to ask Greece Lightning where his roommate went, and get as far as, "Hey, where's Gyp--" when a pair of hands latch onto my hips and I am bodily hauled up against someone else's body and I am being ground on. I panic for a second, thinking it's going to be Death by Overeager Fratboy, and look as far over my shoulder as I can to see who the grabber is. All I can see is orange-- AKA: Gypsy, in his NASA astronaut suit. This, I am good with. We dance for a song or two, and then-- POOF! He's gone again, in search of more beer. I'm fine alone, and am dancing with Lorelei and her boy when I notice orange across the packed dance floor and see Gypsy dancing with another girl. Ok-- whatever. Strangely, don't really care. A moment later, a male voice says, "Hey, let's dance," and before I can accept or decline the apparently non-optional invitation, I am being treated to a repeat of grabby-grind earlier, only this time, it is not Gypsy, and instead, a random fratboy. 3 songs and another random fratboy grind later, I look up, still glued to the pelvis with a fratboy, and see Gypsy standing in the doorway, staring at me. Not so pleased. Oops. But really-- you leave me alone in a frat, what do you expect? I'm cute, and I'm not gonna beat them away while you dance with other girls. If you play, I'm gonna play. Don't try and beat me at my own game.

I thank Random Dancing Partner Fratboy #2, separate our body parts, and head back upstairs with Lorelei & Co. to try and find Gypsy and peace. I look up and see Gypsy, a Slutty Bee wrapped around his front, carrying her down to the basement. Fuck that game. Apparently, we fight jealousy with jealousy, here. Greece Lightning heads off to round now VERY inebriated Gypsy up and out. Lorelei and I work out a plan, and by the time we get everyone together, she and her boy and DD head one way, and Gypsy, Greece Lightning and I split for their apartment, me in my purple and black striped stocking feet, heels in my hand.

10 minutes after we get back to the boy's apartment, me walking (unscathed) over broken glass and puddles in the streets, Gypsy gets a call and tells Greece and I that he has to get a girl. Greece looks from him to me with a pointed, "Are you completely stupid, man?! You're already got a girl here!" look. I blow it off. Whatever. I'll assess the situation when it gets here. No need blowing up about it first.

Come to find out, this was probably the smartest decision I made all night. A half-hour later, Gypsy comes back with one of the freshmen girls from the Thursday night previous. She was the one I liked more, and someone spiked her drink with either acid or roofies at a party. When she went back to her dorm, it caused a scene, and she needed someplace to lie low. Gypsy sobered up long enough to provide her with a safe place, but as neither he nor Greece Lightning do any form of drugs, it falls on me, the ex-stoner, to help her out.

Lo proves to not be the only problem. My intimate little half-hour tete-a-tete with Greece Lightning has put Gypsy's (surprisingly easily insecure) hackles up. They raise further when Greece offers to walk me to Amanda's apartment to collect my overnight bag I had (wisely, thank you, Amanda, for the suggestion,) left there since Gyp had just gone out to get Lo. By the time the boys decide it's bedtime at 4, Lo wants to sleep on the living room floor, and I say I'll sleep on the double-chair I've been sitting in, insisting that they don't need to pull out the mattress like Gyp and Greece are insisting they do, because, as I flippantly say, "I'm used to sleeping interesting places," Gyp fires back with, "I hear Greece's bed is a pretty interesting place."

Excuse me? I decide not to say anything and let him have his snit-fit. 10 minutes later, I get a text from him, asking if I'm going to make it. I say yeah, and ask for a pair of shorts to borrow, but he's already passed out. I walk down the hallway to his room, where he's left the door open "in case we need him", and wake him up. He searches for a clean pair, can't find any, and ends up removing the pair he's wearing. (Don't worry-- there were boxers involved under them.) "They're new," he assures me. "It's fine." Freshly shorted up, I make sure Lo is still alive, crawl into the double chair in the living room, and proceed to cat-nap from 4 AM to 8 AM.

Which leads us to B.) Did not sleep in my own bed.
I knew from the night of the 29th that I did NOT want to be in my own bed Halloween night, all comfy with Mr. Bodypillow like every other night. FUCK THAT. Give me a real man, real body, and someone else's bodyheat and call me happy. So, after Lo's ride came and got her at 9 AM, I stood in the living room for 20 minutes and debated with myself. Literally, stood there and listened to "Just Do It" Carissa berate Pussy Carissa. It went something like this.

"Just Do It" Carissa: "Now's your chance! Lo's gone! Greece is asleep! No one would know! It doesn't have to be awkward!"

Pussy Carissa: "Oh, dear god, no, I can't do it!"

"JDI"C: "Really? Are you that much of a pussy?"

PC: "Absolutely."

"JDI"C: "I thought you wanted this!"

PC: "I do!"

"JDI"C: "Well, get down there and do it, then! He's already feeling insecure about you and Greece, and after you accidentally shut him down at the dance Thursday after HE came over to YOU to dance with YOU 5 times, you really need to prove to him that you're just as into him! If not, you're going to get stuck so far in the dreaded Friend Zone that you will never, EVER be able to pull yourself out of there!"

PC: "Fuuuuuuuuuuck..."

I'm one of those people who need to send my body ahead on a "grabbing my balls and going for it" mission like this. FINALLY, I was half-way down the hallway before my brain caught up with my body, and the creaky floorboards sealed the deal, considering if Gyp heard them, he knew someone was up and moving toward him and his open door. (Open door policy, anyone?)

Gypsy was fast asleep, sprawled out on his bed, down comforter thrown over himself and limbs everywhere. "Gypsy," I said, knocking on the door frame.

"Yeah?" he asked, eyes fluttering open.

"Lo left-- her ride came and got her. She's fine," I told him, and then went for it, balls in! "I can't take those chairs anymore; they're killing my legs. Do you share well?"

He looked at me, blinked, and then what I was asking caught up with his sleep-addled mind. "Oh. Yeah. Here!" He fished another pillow out of somewhere, lifted up the comforter for me, and scooched over. "I'll take the wall," he said, meaning the fact that his bed rests against the sloped eaves of the attic apartment. "I don't want you to bump your head."

After crawling into bed with him, there was an extremely awkward 5 minutes of us lying back-to-back, not touching, while Pussy Carissa squealed, "I'M HERE, I'M HERE, I'M HERE!" and "Just Do It" Carissa went, "Yeah, but now what are you gonna do about it? This is thrilling, laying here like a couple who've been married for 20 years and hate each other."

The tension was palpable. Finally I said, "I forgot how the time change makes it lighter out earlier." Stunning. I know. But it was what I had to work with, and the sun pouring through his window was all I could think of.

"I can shut the blinds," he said.

"No, that's ok-- I'm fine," I told him, truthfully, but he insisted.

"I've got to get some water, anyway. Want some?" he asked as he scrambled over my (still) (panicked) (corpse-like) (brainless) body to get out of bed.

He returned a few minutes later, resplendent in boxers and glasses (Ah! There goes my proclamation to Alli that I could never be with a guy with glasses because I don't find them attractive,) shut his (previously left open) door, dropped the blinds, and and sat in the middle of his room, staring at me in his bed while he drank. (Yes. It was slightly creepy.) "I really have to clean my room," he told me. "Actually, the whole apartment. Sorry."

"It's fine," I mumbled, hoping he'd get the hint that really, I just needed to be horizontal and asleep, not chatty and sexing it up. It's not just the fact that I'm really trying to hold and be good and make him actually take me out somewhere that is not a party or his apartment; it's also that fact that I know I am unapologetically loud, and seeing as Greece Lightning was in the other room, asleep, and one of my friends, I really didn't want to have to wake him up like that. I feel like he should at least have some sort of previous warning other than hearing me scream "Oh god!" from the other room.

So. Gypsy finishes his water, and crawls back into bed. Halfway over me, he drops, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me to him. "If we're going to share, we might as well share," he tells me. "How are you at sharing?"

"Excellent," I tell him, now spooning with him, his arm over my waist and his hand gripping the edge of the mattress, locking me against him. (Like I'd want to move?)

We napped, sometimes him rolling over, sometimes me. Sometimes we both woke up when the other moved and chat for a bit about things like him playing the harmonica, college, and high school before falling asleep again because we'd decided a full half-day of sleep seemed like a good idea.

At one point, I had migrated back to the edge of the bed like how I sleep at home. I was asleep until Gypsy said "Girl, back up!" in the most resolute, commanding voice I have ever heard him use, and wrapped both his arms around my waist, yanking me back to him, and put his head on top of mine. "Stop this 'edge' shit."

I could feel his stubble-- the perfect facial hair-- on my cheek and neck. I could also feel his warm breath on the back of my neck and in my ear. I tried tolerating it for a minute until I gave into the giggles that had been threatening to shake me since he settled into that position. "I'm sorry," I told him. "I only have one ticklish spot, and that's the back of my neck and ears. You really can't do that unless you want me to be hysterical."

He laughed, apologized, and repositioned. I swear I felt lower lip on the back of my neck. He moved his hand from my hip to around me to cup the elbow of the arm I had bent up to pillow my face. And then he blew into my ear. "Jerk," I squealed as he laughed and then pulled me tighter to him again.

"I'm sorry. I had to do it once." He rubbed his hand up my arm, across my back, and to my shoulder. I almost purred.

Stop the press. Gypsy is a cuddlebug? Personally, I'm fine with spooning-- I need to be touched if I'm going to be in the same bed as someone-- but really-- hard-core cuddling like this isn't my cup of tea if I'm trying to sleep, and I was. I'm one of those, "If I'm sleeping, please, either spoon me half-heartedly or put a hand on me, but not both, because you're distracting me," people.

I swear-- I am a girl.

So I spent Sunday morning from 9:30 to noon in Gypsy's bed, cuddling and napping. And yes-- if you've been keeping track, you're correct-- still no kiss. What is this gentlemanly shit? I swear, I'm going to have to make an engraved invitation to present him with next time.

Around noon, he texted Greece Lightning to see if he was up. He was, about to take a shower, and texted back. "Carissa's not in the living room, but her stuff's still here."

"She's with me," Gypsy texted back.

"OH," was Greece's response.

About 20 minutes later, he knocked on Gyspy's door. "G-morning, sunshine! The shower's open."

"Ok," Gyp yelled back, and then Greece, undoubtedly with a shit-eating grin that you could hear in his voice, said,

"Good morning, Carissa."

"Morning, Greece," I responded, squashing giggles. Gypsy and I stumbled out of his room-- him in his boxers, going straight to the bathroom-- and me, in his shorts, the shirt I was wearing after I changed out of my costume, and crazy hair, going to the living room to sit next to Greece and watch part of the movie we started the night before.

"Hey," Greece said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

"Hey, " I said, giving it right back to him.

But it's obvious that these boys are so used to one-night stands. After Gypsy got out, I popped into the bathroom to change, brush my (totally unfixable) hair, and fix my make-up. When I got out and handed his shorts back to Gypsy, he and Greece were in the process of leaving. Thanking my lucky stars I was already planning on leaving, I grabbed my stuff, said goodbye, and was half-way down the block before they both remembered manners and the fact I was not, in fact, a One Night Stand, and possibly, someone they wanted with them still. "We're going to Moe's for lunch!" Gypsy shouted at me, hanging out of Greece Lightning's truck window.

"I'm going home!" I shouted back. I was not foraying any more into public in the state I was in. But what I would have paid to be a fly on the wall to hear the conversation they had at that lunch.

And this Halloween story end with, C.) My first Walk of Shame, though thank god I had the foresight/wishful thinking to include a pair of jeans, longsleeve shirt, and flats in my overnight bag, so instead of a witch walking through Burlington at high noon from Isham to campus to get my car, it was a desheviled college girl doing a slightly more discreet WoS, but still with broomstick, witch's hat, and cauldron. I was honked at a few times, but I decided something: It's only a Walk of Shame if you feel shamefull. If not, it's a Walk of Hell, Yeah.

...This stellar weekend and events still did not stop me from completely ignoring Gypsy at dodgeball last night, even though he walked by the gym office about six times, where I was catching up with Elyse, who so pointedly said, "He's waiting for you to say 'hi', you know." Some things never change. I secretly think he likes it when I treat him bad/I kinda think he needs it. Totally. That is totally the way to get a guy: Pretend he is invisible.

Seeing as this is how I act, why do you people even listen to me? Really. Go find someone else who knows what they're doing better, like a steady girlfriend, or a Playboy Bunny, or the dog that always humps eveyone's leg. You'd be better off there. Trust me.

Hope your holiday was just as exciting!

XOXO

P.S-- The other cute/slightly creepy moment? When Gypsy mentioned seeing me in City Market Halloween morning. When I asked why he decided to be a creeper and not say hi, he responded with, "Well, I was checking out as you were walking in, and you seemed really content, so I didn't want to disturb you."

Ohhhh, it's true, and how cute. And thank god I wore my heeled boots!