"Possum. Big freaky lookin' bitch. Since when did they change it to 'opossum'? When I was coming up it was just possum. Opossum makes it sound like he's Irish or something. Why they gotta go changing everything?"*

   So the other night I was sitting on my balcony overlooking my adorable, albeit dry, creek and minding my own business when—wait, back up. That’s not correct. I was inside at this point in the evening. There may have been wine involved, so bear with me. Rewind.

   Yes, so anyway, I was inside enjoying an episode of Monk (or twelve—I’m a spy, remember? So it’s okay), when there was a crash on the balcony (overlooking my adorable, albeit dry, creek blah blah blah. Alright, the creek isn’t mine. But the view is, so there you go.).

   My first thought was, “Godammit! That rascally opossum from the creek finally figured out how to swing from one of those tree branches onto the porch!” Now, despite the fact that the ‘possum would have to swing a good fifty feet from any tree to reach my porch is part of why it was so terrifying. It would have to be a high-climbing, industrious, and probably plagued ‘possum. And that has basically been my worst fear for the entire month I’ve lived in this apartment, so it would only make sense that I had willed it to happen. I half-expected to see his gnarly, rabid face all up in the glass of the sliding door. But no. The opossum was out somewhere in the neighborhood minding his own business as well. Opossum don’t care. Opossum don’t give a shit.

Rogue opossum swinging onto my porch. Nightmare realized.

   It was people that made the crash on my porch.

   I turned on the light and saw my coffee cup from earlier all smashed to shit and a paper airplane stuck inside what looked like a broken coffee machine piece (a cup holder?) or some such bullshit. I don’t know what things are called, okay? Here, I’ll show you:

I think I get easily carried away by Hipstagram and photo effects. Can't help it!

 

 

  And all masking-taped around the side was “You’re cute! You’re cute! You’re cute!”

   And the paper airplane had some UT student’s 8^th-grade-level algebra homework all over it.

   My first thought was, “Oh wow, someone has a huge crush on me!” I wondered if it was that little undergrad Tyler in the apartment above and to the right of mine who brought me incense one time and had friends over all that night making noise and having “deep” conversations about what they liked best about themselves.

   For a second, I thought it was kind of sweet.

   Then, as I was cleaning up the shards of glass from my balcony, I started to get a little pissed. Where’d those fuckers go, anyway? They threw a note onto my porch, broke my mug and then bolted? That’s not nice. And if I’m so cute, why not stick around to apologize for breaking my shit?

   And then the thoughts spiraled. I thought to myself: I bet none of them really thinks I’m cute! Besides boys never say you’re cute, girls say that. Those turds think they’re really clever and funny and they’re making fun of me! Those fucking jive-ass turkey shits!

   There was more evidence that the love note wasn’t legit: the algebra homework belonged to some girl named Jenell, and girls are always the ones who decide to do mean things to other girls (and say “you’re cute!”). I was thinking about how I was going to march upstairs and beat the shit out of Jenell, and then smash a bunch of shit on Tyler’s balcony and then unleash an opossum into their apartment! They’d be so sorry…

   But I’m kind of shy. And Jenell’s math homework made me sad. She’s clearly in some sort of remedial math class for morons, so life isn’t going to be too easy on her unless she happens to be really pretty (we already know she’s not smart or interesting).

   As I stepped out onto the balcony an hour or so later to talk to Regan on the phone, Tyler came outside.

   “Hi,” he said. He was alone.

   “Hi,” I wasn’t fuming anymore, but I didn’t know how to act.

   “Did we break some of your stuff earlier?”

   “Um, yeah.”

   “I’m really sorry about that. My friends were really drunk. They didn’t mean to break anything.”

   “It’s okay, I guess. Do you need your paper airplane back?” I was joking.

   “No.” He was really serious. I think he actually felt super bad. I guess if it were I, I would’ve hidden for months until the whole incident was a distant memory, so I had to give him credit for apologizing.

   “Alright then.”

   “Have a good night. I’m sorry.”

   “It’s okay.”

   Regan told me that if it’d happened to her, she’d take it as an omen from the spirits that she was super hot. I think she used the word “fine,” but she’s never really gotten over the 90’s, so we have to make allowances.

   I just can’t imagine what weird time warp I’ve fallen into that has me dealing with the ins-and-outs of a 19-year-old boy’s mind again. I've also kind of been thinking since I was 18 or so that I wouldn't have to deal with 19-year-olds again until I had a kid that was 19. I guess I’m just lucky to be back in college doing my thing, even if there happen to be 19-year-olds who live in my immediate vicinity. Life isn't perfect.

   I’ve also decided to take the note as a sweet gesture that went awry. What's the point in being negative? So I can work super hard to not like myself? Even if those kids don’t actually think I’m cute (though obviously I AM), they could’ve written something truly mean. And I don’t think they meant to break my mug. And the paper airplane was pretty decent. Maybe Jenell has a some kind of future in paper airplanes. (I certainly hope she never gets her hands near a real airplane... just based entirely on her math skills.)

*Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad (Vince Gilligan, 2008).

"Would you excuse me? I cut my foot before and my shoe is filling up with blood."*

   I had class at 8 a.m. this morning.

   I planned my school clothes the night before, so it was supposed to be easy: wake up, put on clothes, leave apartment and walk to class. I had intended to wear a pair of shoes (flats, mind you) that I know to be uncomfortable (from a terrible night spent waiting tables in them), so I packed a spare pair of comfies in my school bag.

   Thing is, I’m basically a moron before 11 a.m.
   Thing is, I'm basically a moron.

   I forgot sunscreen, I didn’t eat anything, and my coffee mug was dirty and I wasn’t sure I could take coffee to class anyway (nothing like getting reprimanded on your first day with a new professor).

   But Professor E was holding a hot cup of Starbucks throughout his lecture and between staring at it, rubbing my eyes, and sucking in my stomach every time I felt a huge, orchestral rumble come on, I felt very ill-prepared for my second day of graduate school. Ill-prepared, jealous, stupid, and my feet already hurt.

   After class, some of my new friends and I walked over to a local café for breakfast. Apparently, they’d all eaten because while they ordered coffee and toast or "just a latte," I had an omelet with a side of bacon and a side of black beans and about four cups of coffee.

   Then we went to class number two. By this time there was a decided hitch in my giddy-up because left foot was threatening to kick that shoe in the garbage (left foot is definitely the bigger/dominant foot). But we made it to the lecture, and I even made it to the bathroom during the lecture (to relieve myself from what had indeed been, upon close calculation during the lecture and while holding my pee, four cups of coffee)—a bathroom that is either three miles from the lecture hall or which there was an easier way to find that I don’t know about (probably the latter).

   After second class, I decided to be pro-active and get my student ID. Fast-forward to me standing in line for 40 minutes, one shoe off, playing Sudoku on my phone and praying that my left foot wouldn’t get all comfortable outside of the shoe and then refuse to go back in it.

  (Side note: in my student ID photo I look like a fucking hipposaurus.)

   So I started walking home, finding some lovely, shaded paths behind the main drags of campus, and attempting to take in the scenery and pretend that I didn’t feel the need to limp. I’d gone about a quarter mile before I realized that I’d been walking south instead of east, effectively making my trip a good half-mile longer than it had to be. I no longer pretended not to limp. I had to make a conscious effort not to crawl. Or take my damn shoes off all together. But hell, it was over 100 degrees, so I knew the sidewalk wasn’t going to do me any favors. At that point I didn’t even mind looking like a hillbilly, I just didn’t want my feet to suffer any worse pain than the current moment.

   I kept up a brave front. I used all my old acting skills and acted like I didn’t want to lay down on the ground and scream (yay, Theatre degree!). I saw some neat parts of campus and cool kids in groovy clothes and people with booths promoting their yachting clubs, crew clubs and weird Asian nerd frats. But I couldn’t enjoy a moment of it. It felt like my left pinky toe was being slowly sawed off my foot.

   Things went on like that for about a mile before I realized, “Holy shit. I have a spare pair of shoes in my bag!”

   I immediately sat down on a curb and took my shoes off. My left foot was bloody in several places and I had brand-new, bright-red blisters. (I’d pre-bandaged my toes, but that didn’t help either—the blood was dripping into my shoes.)

Blood spilling out of my unassuming flat. Ubiquitous Texan insects running for their lives.

   New shoes on, I felt moronic again. Who in god’s name intentionally packs a spare pair of comfy shoes and then completely forgets about them after walking for 3 miles in shoes full of bloody blisters?

   I’ll tell you who: the same gal who didn’t put sunscreen on her paper-white ass before spending multiple hours in the midday Texas sunshine. The same girl who eats string cheese for dinner because she doesn’t bother to plan or cook a meal…ever. The same girl who will probably die of a combination of skin cancer, malnutrition and gangrene in the next 3-to-6 months if she doesn’t get her act together.
   Maybe most importantly: the same gal who wears heinously painful shoes to school in the first place. Sigh out loud.

   I’m guessing that I won’t be able to move around much tomorrow. But look forward to butt-loads of future complaining.

*Romy and Michele's Highschool Reunion (David Mirkin, 1997).

"The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate."*

   Hi from Austin, Texas, y’all! Yee-haw!

   I’m visiting Gabe again…but now she lives in Austin instead of Minneapolis. I have to say I never would have visited her in Minnesota this time of year, but the weather in Texas is jeeeess right. Although it’s not as sunny as California, but what are you gonna do? Move everyone in the world to California? Oh wait, that already happened. That’s probably one of the reasons everyone there is leaving. That and it’s freaking expensive. And everyone is a narcissist. And it’s the place where dreams go to die. But I digress…

   I had a meeting at U.T. Austin because it’s one of the schools I’m considering attending next year. Halfway through my meeting with the kindly Graduate Advisor, Dr. Wilcox, I realized that I had something sticking out of my nose. It was sort of a white, flakey booger-type thing. (Okay, it had to be a booger—what else comes out of your nose besides snot and occasionally blood?) I hate typing those words as just thinking about things one finds in one’s nose makes me want to vomit all over this keyboard. It's pretty much the only thing that legitimately grosses me out. But that’s what happened, so I had to write it. (Did I?) Fuck my life. I’m sure he’s advising his whole committee to write me out a scholarship check right this very minute.

   “Hey, team! Let’s get this booger girl a scholarship! She showed some real courage coming in here today with crap coming out of her nose. This woman deserves full tuition, and I won’t rest until she gets it!”

   Gabe tried to reassure me that it probably wasn’t obvious to Dr. Wilcox, and suggested that maybe it was IN my nose and hidden rather than sticking out of my nose. This is one of the reasons I am friends with Gabe. Thanks, Gabe! I’m going to tell myself that she’s right and that there’s no way Dr. Wilcox would let me sit there and talk about internships and graduate housing with a booger on my face. If I were he, I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate for one goddamn second. And now that I think about it…he did seem a little distracted. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

   Oh well. I’ve already been accepted there, so he can’t do anything about it now! Haha! The day is mine!

Here's a picture of campus. Sorry for the lack of original images in this post. (Image Source)

   At least I made a lasting impression?

*Tony Benn.