in which, all summer long:

in other news, I am the happiest, most cheerful unemployed person in America right now.

this is like a good old fashioned summer. grilled food. bomb popsicles. driving long distances for no real reason. campfires. a little glass of wine or 2. eating out on the deck. the beach boys. movie marathons. not doing shiiiiit.


my mom is buying me a cat. he's huge, like not fat, just muscley. if he was a person, he'd be a football player. probably somewhere on defense. but he's older and the nicest cat I've ever met. I used to dream about getting my own cat. my dad hates them, but my mom promised me when I finally moved out of the house, she'd buy me a cat of my very own. I was counting down the days even back then, and now that it's here... I always thought I'd get a kitten, calico, green eyes. something small and foofy and mini. but when I went to the animal shelter--I don't know. this cat was 5 years old. he was somebody's housecat before but they couldn't afford to keep him. he was on the very bottom, next to a cage of wiggly adorable kittens, so you know no one was going to give him a second glance. & he didn't even try to get attention, he just laid there. but then the minute I started petting him through the bars, he was purring like a motor and rubbing his cheeks against my fingers. when I held him, he laid in my lap like 20 pounds of love and rubbed his cheek against my cheek. he's not the cat I ever thought I'd get, but as soon as I held him, I fell in love. I just kept thinking about him.

so I'm adopting him on monday. I'm naming him al capone, and I'm going to sleep in the basement with him until the vet says he doesn't have kitty leukemia anymore. & I couldn't be more excited.


other than really enjoying the simple things of summer, I am feeling out of it post graudation. I don't believe in limbo, but if it existed, I bet this is what all those halfway souls would feel like. word, man.

in which, what a time to be alive!

four dollar gas prices! sticky hot weather melting into thunderstorms & the like! wading in a creek! remodeled bedrooms! memorial day steaks on the grill & blue raspberry jell-o on the deck! graduating from college!

crazy times!!


also, I am getting my own cat. he has six toes; a hemmingway cat, or one of those lucky ship's cats. I am pretty much psyched out my mind about it. I've already bought him a shit ton of cat toys, completely unnecessary.

I have not yet found a job. but am keeping the faith. everything will be all! right!


my fortune cookie said today would be a "five star day"! and it was!

in which my distress is soothed.

I have been having dreams where people with bags tied around their heads come and break all my windows, and slide their hands under the bottom of my door, feeling around for feet nearby. and then what do I see on television but a trailer for a movie (http://youtube.com/watch?v=nCU0k_jbCUo) where people with masks (1 mask is just a bag tied around a dude's head) try to kill some other people. uggggh.


so lots of crossed fingers, crying, & praying ensured that I do not in fact have to go to summer school in the summer, thank godddd.miz v said she would make an exception in my case, but asked me for "advice" as to "how exactly we [she] can get students to actually read their emails, so this does not happen again". I told her as nicely as I could that I like the internet & I check my email at least 2x daily, so I was the wrong person to be asking for advice. not knowing exactly how to give up, she kept rephrasing her question & asking me, as though I would be fooled. well, whatever, I am not going to summer school, so what do I care, exactly.

last night was one of the best nights I've had in a long time. pizza with Melissa & then getting completely senseless with some truly great people. laying on Ays' couch trying to go to sleep with contacts still in my eyes, I could feel the fluid in my brain sliding from the left, to the right, back to the left again. it was this white hot amazing feeling. just what I needed.



I burned the shit out of the roof of my mouth & now it feels shiny when I press it with my tongue. gross.

in which I get some no good horrible very bad news.

o where to begin.

KEY:


good things -- being done with school. my fantastic friends. senior week. hanging out with melissa & anna like all day tomorrow. day party. melissa's birthday. my party on sunday. again, my fantastic friends.


bad things -- being done with school. the goddamn email. miz v. last minute reminders. I TOLD YOU SO's.


where this things meet -- saint goddamn mary's.


KEY (to the key):


this morning I get an email from the office of student affairs saying that they need me to make an appointment with miz v, immediately, concerning my graduation. (a note about me: I always assume the worst because then the hurt is not quite as strong. & a further note: whenever I get an official email from saint mary's, I lose it. I expect each one to be informing me that I owe them another thousand dollars, or I'm kicked out, or something terrible.) I immediately start to freak of course. I start breathing really hard and my body starts rejecting my organs. but I manage to make an appointment with miz v.

this afternoon I go to said appointment. miz v makes me wait 10 minutes while she snacks on some activia, & I sit twisting a ring around my little finger with my stomach halfway up my esophagus, trying my hardest not to puke on the tacky faux persian rug. eventually she calls me in & says, "we have a problem." so I start babbling like a fucking moron: yeah I know there was some problems with my credits but you'll see I added 3 for this semester & you signed off so if that's all that it is there should be no problem I took care of it. & she goes, your credits? she starts adding them up, & says, "no, no problem with your number of credits. but you are missing a gen ed."

I'm struck fucking dumb shit speechless. like I never expected this in a bajillion lifetimes. I just stare at her, & then I'm pretty sure I squeaked out an ohhhh shit before I really start hyperventilating and snotting and crying all over the cushy chair. my eyeballs are throbbing & I can see my heart hammering against my sweatshirt, & I'm just like trying to remember when they're doing belltower tours so I can plan my immediate suicide.

so it's like this: 1) someone sent me an email August 17th (right in the thick of summer theater season) saying I needed 2 science credits & 1 social science credit to graduate. I don't remember that email. miz v makes some brief & torrid lament about students not having the sense to check their email; I counter with oh really you think I wouldn't have responded to an email in boldface caps saying YOU NEED THIS TO GRADUATE? 2) no one followed up with that email when I didn't email back. 3) in january when that same someone told me I needed 3 credits to graduate, she didn't look in the file (where the necessary info about my credits happens to be) & see that I still hadn't added that social science, even though I'd taken care of the physics. or she assumed this is a student that wants to stay at saint mary's so bad, she's decided to just not take 3 credits of social science & do summer school, awesome. 4) my advisers, much as I love them, never advised me about my gen eds, just my major requirements. & I mean never as in maybe once, like freshman year, but never ever after that.

from this I can conclude: someone tried to tell me about the problem, but never followed through. this is my fault, but this is not my fault alone. I'm the first to admit that I'm irresponsible. I've done really stupid ass things in my life but really. school. why would I just not do 1 goddamn gen ed? why would I ignore it?

ramifications: summer school that I can't afford. delaying real life. telling any forthcoming interview hopeful phone calls "oh never mind I have summer school". all right, so not the end of the world, not really. but scary & frustrating & irritating & scary & just fucking obnoxious? yeah, yeah, yeah. getting that news was probably the 3rd worst thing I've heard in my life.

anyway miz v still has to deliberate & decide. I have another meeting with her tomorrow in her lair, to decide my fate. maybe she'll let me off the hook. maybe I'll be enrolled at the i u b s for summer fun, & waste another couple thou I don't have. sweeeet.


after I cried for 2 hours & called my parents & talked to anyone who would sit through my intermittent crying jags (carol, anna, stray cats, a piggy bank), I revised my venn diagram:

KEY:

good things -- mint dilly bars. renting a whole season of "friends" (what a predictably collegiate guilty pleasure). my actual friends. my parents (who did not even get mad & were surprisingly cool with the news). sunlight. playing with my new jewelry. getting up for breakfast & sewing tomorrow. an uplifting little message from L. 4 glasses of sangria (most of all).

bad things: possible summer school. worrying. the inconsistencies of saint mary's. money.

conclusion: the good clearly outweighs the bad. I am satisfied.

(if you made it through this shitstorm of BAD BAD BAD JUJU, kudos. if you are unclear, I promise I explain it much better in person, with illustrative hand gestures. trust/ask me.)

in which, we're just learning to be still.

FINALS WEEK, also known as : a week of finality, literally.


I have been keeping to myself the past couple of days, recluse style. it's like the end of freshman year part 2. but in a way this is refreshing. I'm arming myself, prepping for the inevitable next week. I'm also: finishing papers, cleaning, getting rid of old shit, & sleeping much more than is actually healthy. yiiiikes.


yesterday my mom took me clothes shopping all day. I have never spent so much money/I have never had so much money spent on me in my whole life (maybe when I was a baby, but not since then). it was alternately terrifying and thrilling. but in the end I just had a really bitchin time with my mom, who I'm head over heels in platonic daughterly love with, partly because she threw up her raspberry fruity cocktail in the bathroom of an uno's pizza & emerged smiling & classy. a-mazing.



but I plan to rejoin the ranks of the sociable sometime soon. I think I'm finally caught up on sleep & finally over rejection. everyone finds a job, eventually. everyone works eventually. & it will all work itself out, if I stop jumping up & down stressing about it oh my god. my parents made it clear this weekend that summer doesn't have to mean starting work ASAP. if I don't have a job, I can stay home for awhile. it's cool. I got a really sweet message of reassurence from a really good friend, & another sweet email from someone I've been having lots of trouble with. & even though it's cold outside, & even though I have a physics final tonight, & even though it totally looks like something exploded in my room, I'm still okay.