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Saturday, August 13th, 2005
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12:57 am
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It's been a while since I've updated this journal. I guess I probably say that in almost every entry. This time it's been because of work...which is probably the case most of the time. Anyway, so I've been working at Rock Bottom Brewery, a chain of microbrewery/restaurants. It's pretty fun. There are a lot of people there that I really, really like. I have clicked with a bunch of them. I spend a lot of my time with two girls, Kelsey and Erin who are still in school, and then with Shannon, who is a 35 year old art student/bartender. Erin and Kelsey are really fun to hang out with, and Shannon is basically how I picture myself in 12 years, and so we tell each other most things. The whole group of R.B. employees though is pretty great. We have been hanging out a lot after work, and I've been doing a spectacular amount of drinking. The other night I waited for Shan to close the bar and then we went to some shady local bar and drank until 4 am...then the next night, I went to the same place to hear a co-worker play guitar and the group of us that were there closed down the bar and then went to denny's, and i got home a little after 5. The next morning I had to be at work early, at 9, and then closed lunch, which means I was done at 4. But it was our friend Robert's last day and so Shan and I stayed after to have a drink, which turned into drinking until 8. It's been a crazy week, and I love it.
I'm still living at home and I feel a little like a mooch these days. I almost want to offer to pay rent, but I don't really want to because I'm saving money for grad school. And my parents totally understand that, but it has to be annoying for them because I am fairly messy. Oh well.
That's about all that's happening in my life right now. I am getting ready to take the GRE in a couple of weeks, but I almost want to reschedule so that I have more time to study. I think I will probably have to pay a fee though, so I might just re-take it if I don't do well enough.
More soon.
current mood:  good
current music: "The View"--Modest Mouse
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| Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005
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12:10 am - Woosh
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I can't believe it's already summer solstice. Time is a-passin', an' right quick. I'm becoming more productive though. I think the post-graduate depression is wearing off. I still get sad thinking about the fact that I'm the furthest away of my friends, and they see each other more than I see any of them, and I am able to go back to school less and less now. But on the other hand, like I said, I'm becoming more productive. Last week I painted my bathroom a really great bright purple color. It was called Free Spirit, but I made it a little darker. It's like a light plum color, I think. I also began cleaning out my closets. In my room here at home, there are two adjoined closets, and they span about fourteen feet across and about twelve feet high, which has allowed room for keeping all of the shit I have gathered in the last, oh, twenty-three years. So, I'm cleaning that to make room for all of the stuff that has filled the room my brother abandoned and I took over. It's been a daunting task, but I'm nearly done. All of this while job hunting and sleeping more than is normal or healthy.
But, this week things are different. I started a new job, waitressing at Rock Bottom Brewery. I'm still in training, though. It should be fun, I hope. I don't think I'm going to like the people as much as I liked them at Friday's but who knows. These people are more like me, demographically speaking, but not as wacky and cool as the general staff at friday's. It doesn't matter too much to me, though, as long as the customers aren't as annoying as they were there, and better at tipping. So far, I think this summer/fall might turn out to be the way I envisioned it. I pictured it as being a time of personal growth, where I would spend my time, working out, reading, writing, and working. Turns out, that's almost all of what I do, aside from watching a lot of movies (damn that HBO package). The reading is mostly just silly summertime reading--Angels & Demons, at the moment-- and the writing is not very progressive, but I had a project in made earlier this year, where I was going to write a series of stories about characters in a small town (such as the one in which I live) and how they have been psychologically oppressed/repressed by the closed-mindedness of their fellow townsfolk. I've been thinking about starting that up again, and temporarily abandoning my current thing, letting that one marinate, while I do this one, because I saw the town's crazy guy who walks up and down the main stretch talking to people who aren't there. He'd make a good story, for sure.
Oh, and sometime I have to study for and take the GRE and the LSAT.
current mood:  optimistic
current music: "Miss Misery" -- Elliott Smith
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| Wednesday, June 1st, 2005
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11:51 pm - just talking
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I've been trying to get back into writing lately. This livejournal and my normal journal have been a start, and then I've started and given up on several short stories that I realized were going nowhere. Once I even tried to write a little CJ thing after I saw a couple of episodes of season 6. (I hadn't seen any of 5 or 6 until like, last week). So now I'm in the brainstorming phase, but I like this phase because with everything I see, I'm like, "hmm...is that a story?" Usually, it's not. I'm going to school for a visit tomorrow, so maybe talking to my old roommates will help me. It usually does. But we'll see. Lately, everything I write seems really bad. I think maybe it is. My biggest problem is that I have themes, or characters, or settings, or even all three, I just never have a plot. Or if I have a plot, I am too attached to it, and when I write it it isn't good enough. Or, maybe I'm just so horribly cheesy that everything sucks. Who knows.
p.s. ideas welcome.
current mood:  peaceful
current music: a love song for bobby long (the movie)
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| Tuesday, May 24th, 2005
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1:38 am - the next chapter
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Ever since graduation, this girl that I went to high school with, Jen, has been IM'ing me. Turns out she now lives with Andrea, one of my best friends from high school, and as a result of that, she is dating my friend Mikey (also from high school). She IMs me it seems for almost the sole purpose of telling me how wonderful Mikey is and how fabulous it is to be in love with him. I try to be supportive, she doesn't seem like the type that would take well to sarcasm, so I fake my enthusiasm. I'm pretty impressed with myself actually, my tolerance and patience in people has waivered significantly. But she is so genuine in her love that it is hard to put her down, I guess.
Except that it really makes me want to vomit. Maybe it's jealousy and disappointment that things haven't gone better with Matt or loneliness in general, but her happiness makes me shudder. Why would she assume that a person she hasn't really spoken to in four years is all of a sudden interested in knowing all the gushy details of her wonderful love-life, even if that person does know her boyfriend? It doesn't make sense, and makes me think maybe she has burnt out all of her actual friends on this topic, and now she's reaching out to anyone who will listen. Which would be fine, but they have only been dating for a month or less, as I understand it. And then today she said she was scared but also excited to know that now that we've graduated, it's time to move on to the next phase, like marriage.
Marriage is certainly not my next phase, and I cringe at the idea of that. Granted, I know a few married or engaged people who are my age, but to expect that to be what happens next offends me, because perhaps society thinks I'm not a successful person for being a single adult woman. Except obviously, that's not the case because society has made quite a bit of money lauding such a figure. So really it's just this girl's bizarrely old-fashioned happy-homemaker approach to life. But that is horribly confusing, because I forget that people think that way, and so I think maybe I am failing at yet another aspect of my new forced venture into adulthood.
Mostly, though, I'm just pretty sure this girl Jen is completely ridiculous.
current mood:  cynical
current music: ben lee--"daisy"
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| Wednesday, May 18th, 2005
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1:43 am - the new life
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So, graduation is over. The nervous breakdown has settled into a constant dull discomfort. I've been trying all week to think of things to do with my next 15 months. Currently, I'm thinking of going back to school in the spring instead of the fall. Rutgers has what looks like a really interesting global affairs school. I could do that, maybe even finish in a year and a half, and then go to law school. That would be wonderful. In the meantime, I'm thinking more and more of travelling abroad in some capacity...a work abroad program in Sydney or Dublin would be amazing. I could also do a volunteer program, but I don't have any money so I don't know about that. Really I don't know about either because I don't have any money. We'll see how much I can make waitressing or doing whatever I do this summer.
In the meantime I've just been watching reruns on television and the occassional season finale. Gilmore Girls was a plus for the week. I've also been cleaning out my old bedroom so that I can finally unpack. Oh, that's right, I'm living with my parents. My dad seems to be anxious for me to leave again, but I don't mind living here. It's free, which is wonderful, and we get along. I'm going to go job hunting later this week. I haven't gone yet because I was gone, back to Ohio from Friday to Monday. It was weird how wonderful it was to see everyone again, even though it had only been four days. I miss them already, again, too. I've been trying to keep myself occupied with the tv and my sweet new PowerBook, but I can't stop thinking about Matt and my friends and how I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't really want to do anything. I just don't know.
Oh, I have also tried to do a bit of writing though. I said one reason for taking the year off was the idea of doing some writing. It's not going very fast, but the anthology I have in mind might be cool if I can make it happen. It's a weird feeling to know you can literally do anything you want, and not really want to do anything realistic. I want to write and travel, and not have to worry, but I guess so do about 5 billion other people. Maybe I'll get lucky.
current mood:  contemplative
current music: Built to Spill--"Empty Picture Frame"
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| Tuesday, May 10th, 2005
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4:30 pm - graduated
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This past Saturday I graduated from college. That's good news, I guess. Except I'm going to miss my friends horribly. We all had little outbursts of nervous breakdown sporadically throughout the weekend. Especially Rhoads and me, we were not doing well at all. This past year has been the best ever, which sounds cheezy but is actually true. The group of friends we have found is so tightly knit, and so in-tune with one another, I don't think any of us know how it will be without each other. We finally settled on a routine of disbelief, where we treat absences as little vacations between the visits. For instance, Creditt has a graduation open house that a lot of us will go to next weekend, so we treated it like leaving for spring break. We'll all see each other again next week. That is the best strategy, I guess. Matt has been trying to reassure me for a week now, because I don't know what I'll do if we can't see each other at least once in a while even though he lives the farthest away. He's been trying to reassure me that there's no way that we won't be together again soon, but I think he's only in denial. I realize this all probably sounds melodramatic. But I came home to my parents house today, where I will be unfortunately living for an undisclosed amount of time, and I realized, it can never be the same, and in this state of limbo that I'm in, there's no way it can be even a fraction as good. Plus, if I had decided to go directly to grad school, or didn't dislike 9-5 so much, things would probably be easier because I'd have a more concrete plan. But, now? There's nothing.
We had the most amazing weekend this weekend. Despite our sadness, each night was wonderful, almost perfect, and I'm so glad because that will be what I always remember the clearest. And even though it almost makes it sadder, because we can't do it again next week, I'm glad my last nights at Miami were amazing.
And now I have nothing to do.
current mood:  crushed
current music: silence.
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| Monday, April 25th, 2005
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1:12 am - I don't have a subject.
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I'm at the library, decidedly not doing my foreign policy paper. In class we had a simulation, where each of us was given the role of a member of the National Security Council, and we were expected to incorporate our personal worldview/logic/paradigm (the term varies) into our personae. Then we were told to write a brief on what the US's next move should be in world politics. I picked gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq. It didn't win. North Korea did. Then we wrote a brief on what to do about it. I said let the UN do it. That also didn't win. Now I have to analyze the entire experience. And, I have to say, there aren't a lot of options for a Radical Anti-Imperialist Secretary of Homeland Security. This last paper is not a brief, but an actual analysis of our decisions and simulated actions. I hate meta papers.
I suppose I should enjoy it though. This is my last real paper of undergraduate studies, which was unbelievable up until typing it just now. All weekend everyone was saying "this is my last glee club concert!" "this is my last pink house party!" and so on, and it is making me nauseous. I hate when things are over. I even like writing papers.
Not this one though. I should probably care more about North Korea than I do. But it's a no-win situation, so I just don't think about it. I'm very mature, obviously.
That's enough babbling, at this point I might keep on typing until Ami's ready to leave. Which, coincidentally is right now!
current mood:  bored
current music: the typing of about 40 keyboards.
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| Wednesday, April 20th, 2005
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2:38 am - it's been almost a year
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It's been a long time. But I was thinking about starting this thing up again. Mostly as an actual journal, but with the narcissistic element of public space. Or whatever. The point is, graduation is looming, and it's made me start questioning things, rethinking things, dreaming a little more than before. Mary and I used to call it the "freaky" feeling. We still do, I guess.
My roommate, Rhoads, was talking about the idea that maybe our online journals would help us write better, since really we'd be writing for an audience, or sorts, rather than just doodling thoughts in a notebook. Maybe she's right. Can you doodle thoughts, by the way? Oh well.
So graduation is 17 terrifying days away. Everyone else seems to all of the sudden have concrete plans that they did not have a month ago. Whether they are not graduating yet, or staying at Miami even though they've graduated, or going to grad, law, or med school, or getting corporate-whore jobs, or resigning themselves to live with their parents, they all have an idea. But I refuse to let myself settle for that latter option, and the others aren't viable for this year. Well, I could stay at Miami, just work in town, but that seems inhibiting. The whole point was to take a year off before going to grad school and becoming an adult. My parents think I'll get bored at home. I should do something exciting. I'm grateful that they're so understanding--they're awesome, really--but they don't seem to get that I'm 22, and have as many dollars, and no direction whatsoever. At the same time it is only a year. And I could do literally whatever I want. It's weird how scary freedom is.
I've been thinking about moving to New Zealand under this program where the organization does all your visa stuff, and hooks you up with where to live and work. It's only six months, but it's so far away. I don't know if I'm ready to leave. But everyone keeps saying, this is the only time in my life I'm going to be able to pick up and go wherever I want. On the other hand though, what if wherever I want is to be where my friends are, and they are all within a 200 mile radius between Indianapolis and Columbus, OH. Then they say they'll all still be there when I get back, but a lot can happen in six months, especially now when everything is changing.
My friend Anne wants me to move with her to Cincinnati. My dad thinks I should move to California so I can gain residency before I apply for law school. My mom would just assume I live at home forever, if I don't mind. She offered to redo the basement for me. I told her I would not be that kid. My favorite professor offered to find me a job clerking in a law firm, with no mention of where. I'm not discounting that, either. But the whole idea of a year off is to avoid the confines of the grown-up world just a little longer. Working for a law firm doesn't exactly do that.
Ultimately I don't know why I worry about this so much. Everything always ends up the way it is supposed to, in my experience. Still, having some clue about how that might be would be nice.
current mood: contemplative
current music: coldplay: "we never change"
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| Sunday, April 11th, 2004
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10:56 pm - it was a
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great weekend. one of those weekends that are not special for any particular reason, really, just pleasant.
friday-- after class, went to lunch with mel and ami, then mel and i completely renovated our hair. i went back to my natural dark red-brown color, which is still very strange. but after that we all went to get ice cream, then later the whole group got together to drink and hang out, and that was so nice because it has been a while since we were all together, and i'd missed it. so after the drinking we went dancing, which is always fun.
saturday--got up at noon, had breakfast w/ ami, then laid around watching movies, then had pizza and study night with melissa until we ended up watching murder at 1600...great movie.
sunday--easter dinner with the girls at the twins' grandparents' house. then ice cream with michelle as if i had not eaten enough. then! finally reconfigured direct connect so i finally have a downloading mechanism again.
oh yes, life is good.
current mood: happy
current music: "and you will throw your arms around me" -- eddie vedder feat. ben harper
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| Wednesday, April 7th, 2004
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1:25 am - It's been a freaking long time, and I don't have (much of) anything to say, but...
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I was thinking about the ole LJ today and thought I'd just say 'hey'.
so, Hey.
Other than that, life is excellent, but none too exciting. Except for having pink eye (ew, i know.) , a raging cold and flu issue.
And, hmmm....yeah, I clearly didn't plan this entry very well...will do better next time. tomorrow? possibly.
current mood: nostalgic
current music: "rise and shine, and rub the sleep out of my eyes" -- phantom planet
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| Saturday, October 25th, 2003
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6:07 pm - coming out of my shell to ask for
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HELP!
term paper coming up for 'rhetorical criticism', and have to analyze a piece of pop culture for culturally/politically/literary significance (mostly cultural). i'd really like to do a song...but i'm having issues picking a song that has a good grounding in ideology (re: is not a love song).
music babies: help!
current mood:  stressed
current music: none--that's the point!
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| Thursday, September 4th, 2003
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9:35 am - shameless self-promotion
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the 21st birthday hath finally arrived...
yay for legalness!
current mood: excited
current music: guster - "one more inch, you son of a bitch"
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| Tuesday, September 2nd, 2003
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12:30 am
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Hi. I'm not dead. But I am back to college! (Huzzah!) The classes are 'eh', but I have a kick-ass feminist cnn-loving prof who is like the rhetoric professing version of Dr. Susan Lewis (tm: ER) for two classes, which is nice. And boring old men for all the others: not as nice. But there are 2 rhetoric classes, one classical political philosophy class, and one Logic class, so as I've been saying, this semester is dedicated to Aristotle. Ahh, dead greek elitists...yummy. (There's also a PR class, finally). blah, blah, blah, living on campus sucks, should have gone in with the friends for the apartment, but la la, singles are nice.
also: the abbey is not so much playing along, but maybe soon! maybe.
bigger also: The 21st! birthday! is in 3 days! hooray for legal drunkenness. there will be much dancing.
final also:
[T] wo Coins - Dispatch
[H] eavy Things - Phish
[E] ither Way - Guster
[C] ity Love - John Mayer <-- i'm way existential
[I] nevitable - Shakira
[T] ime After Time - Cyndi Lauper
[Y] ou and I Both - Jason Mraz
[L] ittle Digger - Liz Phair
[O] ver the Rainbow - thousands and thousands of poor souls
[V] ideo Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles
[E] vaporated - Ben Folds
-these are pretty much just the first things that came to me. v. v. little effort involved.
current mood:  accomplished
current music: john mayer - "i wonder sometimes about the outcome"/scary x-files "something bad will happen" music
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| Thursday, August 7th, 2003
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3:09 am
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so, i had this fantastic night tonight, and i know it's been about a thousand years since i used this journal, but i really felt like writing it down, and the night itself kind of inspired me to do so.
on saturday, the ex-pat had a party and while there i ran into james, a guy from the past and still also one of the best friends i could ever have. and since we had so much fun catching up on saturday, i called him tonight and he invited me over. but when i got there he suggested we go out somewhere, which was great, except when we got in the car he was like, "change of plans, let's drive". so that's what we did. we drove around the back roads of indiana for about five hours, just talking and really not paying attention to where we were, because we were so caught up in the conversation. and it was one of those great conversations where there was one central theme conversation, which then stemmed a couple dozen satellite conversations, talking all about the friends we've made since we graduated, what we've been doing with our lives, and a huge chunk devoted to politics and philosophy, our respective majors/passions.
we just kept driving and talking, at one point we stopped because there was a little whole-in-the-wall ice cream shop-slash-gas station that he wanted to try. so he bought me a scoop of superman ice cream and had a banana split for himself, and while i was waiting for the girl behind the counter to scoop his ice cream, i asked the man in line behind us what town we were in, and his reply was that we weren't in any town at all, just a crossroads, and that there wasn't a town for twenty miles. and it was crazy how much land we must have covered, given that we once we hit a small city i know is an hour away by interstate, we kept going north past it.
but it really was one of those great summer nights, where nothing actually happens that's terribly noteworthy (though evidence to contrary), but still you walk away feeling so happy and peaceful and right in the world.
</quiet>
current mood: happy
current music: ben folds - "i could well be pumping gas"
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| Friday, July 18th, 2003
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1:41 am - these opinions will change in the morning
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this might be really old, but my internet connection was non-existent due to mother nature, that bitch. anyway:
( music keeps me snappin' my fingers )
current mood: contemplative
current music: ben lee - "Would you resent me?"
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| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003
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12:57 am - You were almost kind
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tonight i went to a guster concert, it was so completely fabulous. I absolutely love their music. Their drummer is amazing, and I'm going to just go on and pretend he's my boyfriend.
Matt Nathanson and Ari Hest. Matt Nathanson is also invited to be my new boyfriend. He's fucking hilarious. I thought Ari Hest was local to the southwest Ohio region, because he played at my school twice last semester, and neither time was it a very big show. But apparently he isn't, as he is now touring with Guster, and his website bio says he's from Georgia, or some place.
Anyway, greatgreatgreat show. I heart Guster.
current mood: happy
current music: guster - "i don't even try"
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| Thursday, June 26th, 2003
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1:11 am
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i feel like i haven't updated in forever...possibly because i don't think i have. but i just finished yet another marathon work week(end), and so all i've been doing is working and sleeping (...a lot of that sleeping has been outside by the pool in the early afternoon before work, yay!).
and watching the Sex and the City season premier. yay!
oh, and i'm obsessed (again) with Liz Phair. Must buy her new album after work tomorrow. yes, yes.
current mood: content
current music: liz phair - "in the early light i'll catch you staring"
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| Wednesday, June 18th, 2003
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9:59 am
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| Tuesday, June 17th, 2003
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1:16 am
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haven't updated in a while.
because i'm always working. always=around 45 hours per week but probably more this coming week.
but work is good, i'm completely smitten with one of the bartenders, so i pass time by bantering with him. and that is good.
when not at work, i'm almost always either sleeping or (less often) drinking.
life is good. (except my cd burner seems to be broken at the moment...that is not so good).
</boring>
current mood: content
current music: coldplay - "we're going back to the start"
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| Tuesday, June 10th, 2003
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11:59 pm
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- newest excellent band discovery: Jets to Brazil. they rock completely. "One Summer Last Fall" = great title=great song; "Empty Picture Frame", too.
- s4 SatC dvds came today! plan for the rest of the week (when not working): watch the whole season. whoo!
- work is good, and that's good, too, because it's all i do. in the 80 hours from friday night to monday night, i worked 44 hours. and made great money, yay! money. law school, here we come.
current mood: content
current music: jets to brazil - "i just found a frame"
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thecitylove's journal
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