Round Here

There are reasons I hardly write here anymore. For one, I have another journal that I write in from time to time, that's read by about four friends here at school, most of whom I live with. But for another thing, I just don't know what to write for the audience that might still happen across this blog. I hardly talk to any of you anymore, which is not a good thing but is probably a natural thing. And I don't know what to talk about, what you might be interested in, how to tell you stories without having to explain paragraphs upon paragraphs of backstory. I guess I just haven't figured out how to write universally, which is probably a terrible thing for someone who's being groomed to do just that.

I'll go with the Ashleigh Bateman method, so here's what I can give you--just a few details on what's going on around these parts this semester:

+ I'll be graduating in May.

- Magazine Writing and Photojournalism take up far too much time, resulting in me writing too many articles that will never be published and taking far too many pictures of strangers I'll never see again.

+ I've moved on up from hostess to ToGo at Chili's, which means more money.

- I have to miss like four home football games to work, and I tend to have to work all three days most weekends, which is lame and means I can never sleep in.

- My computer has been out of commission for more than a month, is currently at my Techie friend Russell's place so he can get most of my data off it, and then I have to send it off to Sony to get all fixed. Russell says my hard drive has gone bad. Which makes this the third hard drive I've had go bad on me (fourth if you count my old iPod's HDD).

+ I'm taking yoga with my roommate Kim once a week at Ramsey, which is pretty cool since for one thing I've never done yoga before and for another thing I never work out ever so it's something.

+ My roommate Katie brought up her cat so we have a kitty again! And not an evil one this time around.

- Georgia lost to Tennessee Saturday. I sat in the Chili's lounge after my shift and drowned my sorrows in margaritas. So very sad.

I don't even know what else is going on. There's plenty but that's what I'll say for now. It's really not terribly exciting around here these days, to be perfectly honest. But generally, it's fine-- which is fine with me.

Make Me Feel

Alpharetta does so bring out the girly in me. Today featured dress-shopping at North Point (bought a brown-with-teal-polka-dots halter dress from Macy's) and mani/pedis with Mom. I am as we speak wearing a gel eye mask that's supposed to get rid of puffiness and/or dark circles but all it's doing is freezing my face off. I feel like I look like a ninja turtle though, which is a relatively awesome way to feel.

Tomorrow I embark on a weeklong trip to Arizona, where all this primping should pay off.

I feel lighter than I have in weeks. It's an interesting way to feel.

Summer Breeze

I always have things to say. I just wish the things I have to say were more meaningful than they are.

Tonight I went to Amici for dinner and trivia with Michael, where the two of us as team Alcoholics For Jesus went from about ninth place to second place with the final bonus question (Q. How many stars are on the Alaskan flag? A. Eight-- seven in the Big Dipper plus one extra, which I totally knew for no reason at all), thus earning $25 in house cash that almost matched our bill, which was only $26 for appetizers,calzones, Michael's martini and a pitcher of Blue Moon merely becuase he got a job there and thusly gets a 40% discount. What it all amounted to is a free meal, alcohol included, for being moderately intelligent. Gotta love it.

This has been a terribly boring weekend because most of my Athens friends were gone until today or tomorrow. Even then there will still be only a few of us remaining here, but it's much better than nothing.

I'm learning so much from working at Chili's about what not to do in a restaurant. I will never piss off a hostess or server again if I can help it. One of these days I'll write out a post (or a treatise-- I have plenty to say on the issue) about what people do that they shouldn't when they go out to dinner, but I'll have to get my ideas straight first. For now just know that if you come in and ask for a booth after I've sat you at a table, I'll slit your throat.

After taking a hiatus from drinking all semester (for many reasons, not just the obvious one), it seems that all I want to drink anymore is beer. Liquor disinterests me unless it's in the form of margaritas, and that's only sometimes. Even my usual Jack&Coke doesn't really appeal to me these days. It's odd, and who knows what'll happen on and after my 21st birthday (which by the way is July 6th, which falls on a Thursday, thirty-eight days from now) if I can't get back into a liquor state of mind. Eh well, tastes change I suppose. I don't really want to give up my love of Jack, however.

I'm seriously the tannest I've been in years. I remember the summer after 11th grade, laying out on my deck all the time trying to get a shade other than pasty in time for Senior Portraits. It sort of worked-- I was moderately burned when I took my portraits, and in the photos it looks less red and more skin-colored. In any case, I really haven't been this tan since I was a kid and was outside all the time, and even so, I'm not really very dark at all. I'm trying to lay out as much as I possibly can though to make up for lost time. I'll deal with the cancer when I'm older-- I'll already have some sort of cancer from the copious amounts of aspartame that come from all the Diet Coke I inhale, anyway.

Speaking of Diet Coke, I have a story for you. Okay, let me start out by saying that Michelle and I scour Athens for cheap Cokes, being the Diet Coke fiends that we are. In any case, last week or so we discovered that Eckerds had 12-packs of Coke four for $6 after a mail-in rebate. So of course we each bought four. Then the next day we found out that Kroger had Cokes five for $10 without having to do any kind of rebate, which is pretty well incredible, so each of us bought five more. So I had all these cases of Coke in my backseat, and gradually I'd carry them up to my apartment when I came home, but they're heavy, so I couldn't get more than two at a time, and I'd often forget to bring any up. So today I was driving, on the phone with David, when all of a sudden I heard a pop and then a fzzzzzzz. And I knew what was up. So I pulled over at a gas station and got out and ran around to the backseat and pulled the two cases that were on the seat out of the car. Only one of them was wet-- and leaking everywhere-- but then I pulled a can out of the other case and it was bloated like they get when you leave them in the freezer for too long-- rotund with the top part puffing up. This doesn't seem like something Cokes can just bounce back from. So I was talking to David, and we decided I should just cut my losses and get rid of the offending cases. Of course the gas station trash cans were the kind with small openings with flaps, and so I had to run each leaking case of Coke over to the trash can where I'd have to wrestle it into the too-small opening. Who knows how crazy everyone must've thought the weird girl shoving cases of Coke into trash cans was. In any case, the moral of the story is I need to go back to Kroger and buy more Cokes.

Story number two: Yesterday I had to be at work at 4:30 p.m. Yesterday I woke up and looked at my clock and what time did it read? 4:26 p.m. Are you shitting me, I asked. The clock was not, in fact, shitting me. I somehow managed to sleep until 4:26 p.m. I threw on work clothes, thanked the lord that I didn't have bedhead or anything, and sped to Chili's and luckily nobody really noticed that I was ten minutes late. The sad thing is, this is not the first time something like this has happened to me. I'm well known around these parts for the day in Fall semester that I went to sleep at 1 a.m. and slept until 4:45 p.m., missing three classes. It's really not a marketable talent though. I could never use it if I were vying for the Miss America crown, really. Let's be realistic here.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to work, next Friday I'm going to go out for Michelle's 21st birthday, and then at the end of June I think I'm going to Arizona for a few days. But that's all that's on my agenda.
Come hang out with me. Please. Please please.

Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd.

I haven't been in in awhile. I know. It's just not so up there anymore, sharing like this. More of an obligation, really. Maybe I'm living now instead of writing about living, but I don't know, that seems a little drastic.

I don't mean to play catch-up but I'm in Athens all summer long, hostessing at the Chili's on Alps and doing nothing else except being bored and halfheartedly wishing for August. Ideally I'll get a book or two read but I'm not exactly counting on it with my attention span of late.

It's 2 a.m. and I'm dying to go out and do something, anything really, but it's 2 a.m. and there's nothing to do and no one to do it with. It's rough, though, waking up at 3 p.m. and then by necessity staying up into the wee hours with not much to do.

I went home the other day to get some things and when I came back, turning off the loop onto Milledge, all of the big fluffy clouds looked like beckoning fingers, but I couldn't figure out if they were beckoning me back to Athens or back home to Alpharetta or to the far reaches or to Arizona or what. In any case, here I am for the time being.

All three of my roommates from this past year are living elsewhere over the summer and thusly all three found subleasers for the apartment. So there are three strange freshmen girls living with me. I never, ever see them-- they seem to hide out in their rooms when they're here. In any case, I feel like they're children I'm quasi-taking care of, even though I've spoken to each of them for no more than 10 minutes. They leave full garbage bags next to the trash can and lock me out every chance they get. I don't appreciate either thing.

It would be lovely if this summer would be amazing but it's shaping up to be pretty much just there, with no real excitement or activity. I prefer the school year.

The Smoking Gun

This should not be allowed:



And yet it somehow is.
Go figure.

Maybe Journalism's Not So Bad

I just got an email from Chuck Klosterman. Himself. I don't know if you know what that means. But it's pretty much awesome.

The Real Real O.C.



Spring Break is here, and you know what that means-- (or do you?)-- Michelle, Katie and I are taking sunny Southern California by storm. We're staying with Michelle's aunt, and doing all sorts of touristy California things, like how yesterday we went shopping in Laguna Beach (Laguna Beach!) and today we're doing Sea World in San Diego. Monday's Hollywood, Tuesday's Disneyland, and Wednesday's Disneyland's California Adventures, so we're all booked up. Strangely enough, I realized on the plane ride over that this is the farthest I've ever travelled. That shouldn't be the case, but for the time being I'm alright with it.
It's nice to be on the other coast for a change.