biiiiirrrrthday

let me say first of all, that i am so glad to be out and away from geneseo.  some of my "kelly's" friends came into the winery yesterday and it was a good reminder that i am in a better place where i currently am than i was 2 months ago.  they lovingly referred to the house i was living in as "crazy town".  which was really refreshing.  for a while i thought maybe it was me and that perhaps there was something negative about me not "approving" of what when on in that damn  house.  like i wasn't being understanding of the "untraditional lifestyle" they are living there.  but no that's not true.  what is happening there really is crazy.  just straight up crazy.  and it could probably go without saying but it's also emotionally unhealthy for all parties involved. 

we went on a wine tour today and it was great.  then we had dinner at the hill.  tomorrow we're going out to dinner, all of us.  and i didn't have to beg, borrow, or steal to get anyone to do it.  it's amazing to me that i could be so far away from that life that i had known so well.  i am thankful.  

tomorrow is my birthday and i am glad that i am right where i should be.    

on break at bhv. eating a meatball sub. thinking about my next meal already.

i feel like i am floating. the house isn't set-up yet and i don't really feel settled in it. i keep waiting to go back to geneseo and live there. it's like being on vacation from my life except i have to work. once the house is ready though i think i'll be happier. i'm just so busy and everything is so up in the air that i can't seem to really be in a good mood. i have no excuses, seriously. usually when i'm in a bad mood though, i blame it on greg. like right now. he hasn't even done anything wrong, to my knowledge at least. it seems like it's going well between us but i don't really know, sometimes i feel like he only tells me half of the truth. which i can mostly attribute to his facebook bumper sticker collection, which is --ultimately--the ridiculous part. but still. i guess it doesn't really matter, there are so many other things to concern myself with. i just really don't feel like being "that girl" again. been there, done that. i don't know.

on a happier note, i think the hosue may have heat tonight which is sweet. and also, it is wing night and i am all about that, let me tell you. wings and beer? hell yeah. helllll yeahhhh.

i am sweet

let's talk about how impressive i am. last night i drank too much and had to hike back to the house from the bar. straight up hill. no joke, i had to stop just for breathing about every 50 yards. that's bad. and i smoked cigarettes on the way too. then i didn't set my alarm clock and yet magically woke up 15 minutes before i had to be at work. actually i may have been a little intoxicated then. i got myself ready in time and made it here without a hitch. i'm really surprised. i consider that to be a combo of luck and skill. not only do i have a professional liver but i am also well versed in the ever popular "oh-shit-i'm still-drunk-and-have-to-be-at-work-in-15-minutes". also referred to as "shitshitshit". last night was sweet though. jenna came to visit and i'm always grateful to have a cool and chill girl to hang out with. she hiked the hill with me and smoked cigarettes at the same time. hetero soulmates i friggin swear. and we snuggled too.

it's lunch time and i'm wasting it writing a blog. but i kind of miss having the ability to blog whenever i want so sacrifices have to be made (ha.). life is sweet. i have a thousand things to do all the time. i'm worried that it's all downhill from here. lets hope not, at least for a while. in the meantime im going to enjoy this.

-K

i have never been and never will be a genuinely interested or good student. period.

my mood is precarious at best. i only partially studied for the test i have to take in 20 minutes and i'm not sure what room it's in. i will have to guess because i have no way of finding that out. i didn't finish my take home exam because i procrastinated on it for over a week and now i find that i just don't care, but i still need to hand in some kind of bullshit. also, my mom was supposed to help me move today with her boyfriend but apparently they had a fight and now she is in a bad mood and as a result she thought she'd just blow me off. but no. no that is not okay with me. i never ask for anything from my mother. i haven't in years. and then i ask for maybe 12 hours of her time and she can't do it? today is the only day off i have until next tuesday and i am sure as hell not going to sleep on the floor for the next 6 days because she's cranky.

ok, now that that's out of my system maybe i could talk about some more positive things. or maybe about the same things in a more positive way. about the tests, the fact is that i really don't care what grade i get on them because i'm pretty much guaranteed a decent grade in the overall class. a B or a C and that is just fine with me. really i'm just annoyed that i have to sit down and physically complete them. other than today being kind of crap-tastic everything in my life seems to be going fairly well. and by fairly i mean actually great. which is scary to me. i'm used to mediocrity. i feel like the fall from where i am is going to hurt a lot more than if i were underachieving in my normal manner. things are actually going so well for me that i am afraid. no joke. never had that happen before. this morning when i woke up (granted it was to yelling and i only got like 6 hours of sleep) i got that sinking feeling. somewhere in my brain the yelling translated into me losing everything i like right now. it was sad. until i woke up and realized that everything was okay, at least for the moment. i struggle with really appreciating it all because i'm afraid that when i do it will disappear. like magic except for not fun or great. and i don't know how i got to be where i am now. i mean, i've worked hard in my life and made it throught some tough shit but do i really deserve to be truly and really happy? i'm not sure. self worth is a funny thing.

oh and i got an A on my thesis. cooper's only complaint was that he wanted it to go further. he also wrote, "a pleasure getting to know you. i look forward to seeing you in less puritanical circumstances!" yes, there was an exclamation point. yesss. success (!).

and now for at least 3 straight hours of absolute bullshit so that i can move on with my life. i'm not sure if it's forward exactly, but it's moving, definitely.

there's a guy across the computer lab that looks exactly like ryan from the office, no joke

here's a list of stuff i love (and why my life, although currently hectic, is sweet):
*steamed pork dumplings from main moon--->dear dumplings, i hope i get to eat you again at some point and until then i will miss you dearly. especially on tuesdays when you should be in my stomach.
*jenna-->jenna is a princess of all that is great (and shiny, cause that's cool) at this point in my life. thank you divine being for delivering me jenna.
*my horoscope--> it says, "you'll be thinking a lot about love. your personal outlook and attitude will attract someone who has plenty to offer. volunteer for extra work and you will meet your match." could this be true? yes please.
*my deteriorating list of papers-->i polished off 3 of them today. that only leaves one more big one and thats not due until next tuesday.
*lilacs-->their petals are falling off the trees and lining the streets. it's like the saying "streets paved of gold" except with lilacs. it's pretty and i like it.
*finals-->not that i have them of course but that 24 hours from now i will only have one left, and that also is not until next week.
*text messaging-->jibs and i are currently discussing the 2nd season of shot at love and how no one is as great as dani from the first season.
*mountain dew-->because it comes in a can and has given me the extra burst of energy needed to write this (pointless!) blog.

so, now you know, i officially like stuff.

tuesday

so i just finished my thesis paper. it is pretty and it is done. i clipped it into the binder and now i'm going to just look at it for a little while. it is probably one of the only papers i've ever written in college that meant something to me. and i am really proud of it and i'm going to make everyone read it and tell me i'm the best. (p.s. i'm too tired for modesty right now thank you).

now i only have like 5 papers to go! oh maaaannnn. tomorrow i have finals from noon to 6:30pm and afterwards i am going to lay in my bed and watch reality television and probably drool. and i am genuinely looking forward to it. then i start work on friday and i don't have a day off until next wednesday. god only knows when i am going to move. before work one morning is my best guess? maybe this time next week my life will begin to take some kind of shape again. maybe i can start thinking about happy things then, like painting and landscaping (that's not a joke).

but it's too soon to imagine such things. i can only barely see the light at the end of that tunnel now...

enthusiasm reserves reaching empty

it is now 5:20 and i have been in the library since 10am. I have written 13 pages of 20 and am officially brain dead. i made a smoking friend who will be supplying my bad habit for the next 7 pages. i can't remember his name but he smokes camels and i am okay with that. at this stage my no smoking rule is out the window and you can consider me a smoker for the next however many hours. on another note, my legs feel like jelly. i'm not quite sure what the link is between over-extension of the brain and physical coordination, or if one scientifically exists, but my body has temporarily entered code red emergency. and i havent even had too much coffee so i can't blame it on the caffeine.

now is the time that i normally give up and take a break, which is probably what i should be doing for my brain's sake. but i literally cannot stop or else i won't have the time to finish everything that is necessary for me to get my ass out of college. at this point i would morally feel alright with paying someone else to do my work for me and that is not a joke. and if i had more cash then i would but as short as i am on time i'm even shorter on money. sigh.

in order to replenish my existential self i am going to google "people falling" and peruse bumper stickers for awhile.

yesss.

this i believe

jill called me at 6:30 this morning. usually if i call before noon i can expect to hear her dim "hellllo?" on the other line telling me she is still in bed. so i knew there had to be something about this early AM call. and there was. she had a dream about dad, complete with monsters and dead stuff. and dad was dead too, but not in a monster-ish/zombie way. he told her that he was there to keep all the bad things away for the two of us and our mom. i like to think that dreams like these are real.

i've had a lot of dreams about my dad. some of them are petrifying and some make me cry and others are pretty run of the mill. but a lot of times they seem so real. i had a dream about a year and a half ago about my dad that was particularly therapeutic. there was a dinner party and everyone i knew was there including dad. and we were all having conversations and pretending that life was okay but there was this darkness settling over the room. everyone knew what he had done and no one wanted to talk about it. he spoke to no one. things progressed like that for what seemed like forever in my dream. and finally i got up out of my seat and walked to the other side of the table and just hugged him. he told me he loved me. the rest of the dream i just cried. i had my head down and i could see my hair and i was just crying out of control. and i woke up crying too. or, rather, adam woke me up because he couldn't take my sleep mourning any longer.

i don't think there's any real reason why i shouldn't think those dreams are real. there's no harm in believing it and it makes me feel better to think that in some realm i got to tell my dad i love him once more. and i'd also like to think that he's out there protecting us somehow. so that's what i'm going to do and that's what i told jill too.

as a footnote to this dad story i'd like to say that on friday i went to mia's for a slice and margaritaville was stuck on repeat for my entire stay there (dad's favorite song, i used it in his eulogy). and then a man wearing a margaritaville shirt walked in. sure, these things are coincidence. but why can't they be my dad telling me he's out there?

astro-golf

there are a few things standing between me and summer festivities. They are as follows:
*25 page paper on grapes for ecocriticism (i have 3 done)
*8 page paper on shakespeare (4 done)
*5 page paper for humanities (which was due last semester...yep)
*4 final exams
*moving all my earthly possessions
*cleaning cleaning cleaning
so here i am in the library thinking about all the things that i have to do in the next week. and i'm surprisingly not unhappy about having to do all of this. i'm not cranky because it means that its all over and i can relax, if only for a short period. however, i'm not really motivated either. probably because i'm still a little hungover. yesterday i vowed i would not kill my brain cells and then i immediately commenced doing just that. i am a real push-over, seriously.

oh, also on the list of things that need to be accomplished this week is going through the crap thats in storage and separating out what's mine from what's adam's. i really know how to have fun. it'll be weird, i think, to see all of those things that used to be so familiar now collecting dust in the recesses of a.c.o. but it'll be ok, i'm not really even that nostalgic for adam anymore which is amazing. the last time i saw him he told me that his leaving was perhaps the most detrimental thing he has ever done. it was funny because for so long that's all i wanted to hear. you know, that he was sorry and that he really did love me and that he made a mistake. but hearing them didn't make me feel anything. i suppose that's because whether or not it was said those things were always true.

i'm so ready to leave. i want to wrap up the past few years neatly and store them away and make room for new and better things. and that's what i am going to do, because i can. so much happened in my life in the years i've lived here. and i'm tired of looking at myself in this context. i want to be shiny and new. ooo shiny.