Our new fake president

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We're in the biggest depression since "The Notebook", bitches.

FNL Love!

Please excuse my giddy giggles. I CAN. NOT. WAIT!!! This show seriously makes me heart lighter, makes laughes come easier, tears fall more freely. I LOVE FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.

And if you watch it...you will too. (Clear eyes, full hearts...can't lose.)

Text Message Saver

I am a Text Message Saver.

I get a funny text from someone, Spencer (my little brother) sends a dumb picture text, my dad sends a text saying that he’s looking forward to dinner and by the way, he loves me. I save them.

An ex-boyfriend, at the beginning of our relationship, once texted me “Whaddup Buttercup?” I saved that one until that phone broke to pieces, mostly because it was so out of character. Rather than calling when my best friend’s mother got into a car accident, she texted me the news. My dad’s very first text message: “Hello. I hope you had a good day. My first text message. You’re old man.” He’s very particular about capitalization and punctuation in his texts.

One day at my old job, I was having a devil of a time getting through the afternoon – I was just very sleepy. A friend who I’d eaten leftovers with over lunch and watched “Transformers” with sent me this message: “We can call it Sam’s happy time or special alone time. It’s just been a weird night and I have had a little too much to drink.” My favorite quote from that movie…or maybe any movie. Tipsy moms crack me up.

I kept my phone in my lap at my college graduation. At the end of the ceremony, when the president was congratulating us and people started to applaud us, my phone buzzed. A friend, watching the ceremony on local television at home texted: “Quick, throw your hat!!”

Another ex-boyfriend told me for the first time that he loved me via text message. I still have that one.

Since I moved home, I’ve received and saved several text messages. My old boss or supervisor or whatever (neither title never really fit her right) texted me to tell me she was looking forward to seeing me the weekend I had to go home for a friend’s husband’s funeral. That was unexpected and warmed my cold, black little heart.

I have had many arguments via text message. Arguments about whether or not to go downtown, arguments over where to eat or meet, arguments that are much more serious and heartbreaking. We’ve had the general discussions that could be solved or answered much more efficiently if only we’d call each other instead. The “when are you coming home…midnight, what?! – pick up some milk, will ya…2% or 1%...ooo, can we get chocolate?? – can you PLEASE come home and unlock the door so I can go to bed?...i’d prefer not to climb through the window again…midnight, what?! – yes, I’m leaving now, just got in the car…chill out, I’m leaving…I’m almost THERE!” discussions.

I realized all this when I woke up this morning for the millionth consecutive morning with my cell phone lodged in my hand or stuffed under my hot pink pillowcase. Since I moved, it has been worse. I keep my phone at my side at all times because it is my only physical connection to everyone I love, here or there. When I was in my college town this weekend, I actually let go of the cell phone for awhile, left it on a friend’s kitchen table, or in my car overnight. I was home and with almost anyone I could need.

As I write this, my phone is in my lap. And believe it or not, I totally just got a text message.

On the other end

Thursday evening, as I was speeding (literally speeding – 90 MPH) through a neighboring county, I had a dear friend on the phone to keep me awake.

I asked him if he had his heart set on sleeping in our little college town Sunday night. Before I tell you what he said, a bit of background is required. Like me, my friend is no longer a student at the college and he finds himself spending much time going between our college town, where he still resides full-time and the town he grew up in, where his parents still live – this town also happens to be roughly 45 miles from my hometown. We grew up next door to each other and didn’t even know it. Anyway, he’s between jobs right now (the new one doesn’t start until next Monday) and since he’s a bit older than the traditional student, he’s finding himself very frustrated with his place in life at the moment. On top of his own frustrations, several friends have left our little college town and moved onto arguably bigger and better things. And while we’re making a valiant effort at seeing each other regularly (actually, we’re pretty kick ass at it), our friendship is certainly being stretched past barriers neither of us thought possible or even worth it last January.

Anyway, it is Thursday evening and he’s on the other end of my cell phone and I’m wondering if he’d rather just come visit me than me stick around our little college town for an extra twelve hours past my original plans. (Driving at 5 a.m. two Mondays in a row, while worth it, is definitely wearing on my sleeping habits.)

He did want to stay in our little college town and he was awfully passionate about it. In the interest in keeping the location of this blog a little bit of a mystery, even though my full name is on here if you look hard enough, I’m changing town names to completely random names. This is (more or less) what he said. “Yes, I want to stay in Bainbridge Sunday night. Wakefield isn’t my home. I mean, I grew up there, but Bainbridge is home now. I live there. I live there. I only grew up in Wakefield. It doesn’t even feel like home.”

My friend doesn’t know it, but as I was speeding through the dark, I teared up. You ever have that moment when you connect with one person on that one subject close to your heart so completely, so fully, that you wonder how in the world you aren’t just looking through a mirror at yourself? The tears only came because he was so right and to hear him saying it…well, it was a little bit of perfection in one of the most uncomfortable and trying situations I’ve ever been in my life.

I find myself annoyed

I went back to my college town this weekend for a very specific and awesome reason: homecoming! It will most likely be elaborated on (you know, the concept of homecoming to a place that isn't my home, but is totally my home as I swear to God I know more people here than I do in the town I actually grew up in, but that's neither here no there in this post).

What is here and there? My camera! While it isn't actually in pieces, it might as well be.

My friend Amanda and I were waiting on a corner for the Drunk Bus yesterday evening, intending to go downtown and have a drink or two with the rest of the 21-30 year olds in the whole county. Manda and I stood on the necessary corner in the late evening, groups of kids running around us, all on their way to a party or downtown or to their general debaucherous plans of the night.

I saw a guy coming towards us, using a curtain rod as a walking stick, which yes is unusual, but not so unusual for homecoming. The dumb come out and stay out for 48 hours straight for homecoming. I should know.

Anyway, the dumbass kept walking and when he got close enough to us, Amanda said something, so I turned around to answer her. In the split second that took, this dumbass wound up with his curtain rod and smacked me clean across the ass. And then he kept going! He didn't even break stride! WHAT?! I was in shock or else I would've gone running after him and beat him with his own curtain rod, but in the second it happened, the second it took me to process the absurdity of it, he was gone into the night and I was left yelling after him.

It wasn't until later, when I realized my camera, which was in my back left pocket with me cell phone, had a big crack across the LCD screen.

I find myself annoyed. Better yet, I find myself very angry. The only thing I find comfort in is that since my camera took the brunt of the hit, my cell phone made it through. ARGGHH!

That's How You Know

The first movie my mother ever took me to was "The Little Mermaid". It was Super Bowl Sunday, I was three years old and don't remember any of it. Mom says I sat on the edge of my seat, had no interest in the popcorn and only backed up when Ursula was being all scary. I loved Arial. She was my favorite.

So when Disney released "Enchanted" last year, I was, well, enchanted by the preview. I remember slapping Amanda's arm in some movie theater, insisting we had to go. We did, we loved it and now whenever I need a little pick-me-up, I look this video up, even though I've long since purchased the DVD. My new favorite part? When Prince Edward hears Giselle's voice, goes "Giselle!" and bites his hand in excitement. Or when Giselle's running acrosss the grass ala Julie Andrews. OR when the older gentlement start dancing -- they were chimeny sweepers in Mary Poppins. Fine, I love the whole damn thing. Makes me laugh.

Black Tennis Shoes

At the very beginning of my last spring semester, my writing teacher sat all of us in class in circle and one at a time, asked us to pick a memory. It didn’t have to be a memory we clearly remembered, in fact, she asked that we try and chose one from farther pack in our childhoods that we maybe haven’t reworked a thousand times at family reunions or telling new friends in the dorms. The catch in the exercise was that we had to close our eyes, tell the class the memory and only talk in current tense, like the memory was happening for the first time ever right now.

Example: I picked something silly because I thought the exercise was rather ridiculous at the time. I talked about the time my grandmother mistook a potato sack for Spencer when we were both really young. And then she chased me around the house with a hair brush because my long hair was always so snarly. “I walk into the kitchen and I see Grandma talking to a bag of potatoes my dad just left by the sink from Grandpa’s garden. Grandma is sort of yelling at the potato sack, telling it to move, little boy, go find your sister.” She didn’t have her glasses on and Spencer was rather short and tubby in his early years, but still, you see what I mean? Current tense.

Classmates had emotional reactions to some of their memories, but I didn’t. Still I kept the experience in the back of my head, knowing if I ever really needed it, at least the possibility of breaking through to something was there.

Yesterday was Tuesday of homecoming week down at school. I’ll be home for the parade, football game and general debauchery on Friday, but homecoming week has always been my favorite time of year at school. There’s always a certain feeling of unity on campus that week, when most of the time, we’re all just rushing from one place to the next and trying to live to graduation or at least the next day. Tuesday of homecoming has always held a particularly special place in my heart. I met one of my best friends on a homecoming Tuesday. Well, I met him before that, but timing just kind of crashed into a screeching halt on that special Tuesday in a life changing way and no matter what’s going on, even though neither of us are in school right now, we always make sure to celebrate homecoming Tuesday. When he called last night, one of the first things he did was wish me a happy Tuesday evening. “It has been two years. Can you believe it?”

“Feels like a lot longer,” I replied, laughing. “But we made it through.”

“Ah yes,” he said. “We did.”

After an hour or so we hung up and I dug my trusty laptop out from behind a couple of boxes in my living room, plugged it in and sat in front of a white screen for a little while. I remembered my writing class exercise, settled into my pillows with the laptop propped up on my knees and spoke/typed my way through a memory.

We were dancing in a bar downtown on a Tuesday night. And it is amazing how the memory exercise really does bring back details you thought were long gone. Because I have an obsession with shoes and really believe the pair I wear on any given day will change how the day (and my life) goes, I was always sad I couldn’t remember which shoes I wore out that night, two years ago. They were my black tennis shoes with white stripes on the side. My dad always teases that they look like wrestling shoes, but I wore them that night because we were supposed to have a relaxing night at someone’s house and not end up downtown. I picked those because they’re more sleek than my running shoes. And I had a black hoodie on I never wear anymore. The floor was sticky and before we got there, Amy and I huddled in the back seat, clutching hands, praying to our school’s mascot that we’d be good kids because we had class in the morning we had to go to. Here’s something funny: my class? It was Ethics. I forgot that.

Anyway, it was a great writing exercise and not only did it bring back tidbits that I thought were long gone, it made me fall asleep, feeling a little closer to a guy I care about so much that there are no words for it. Plus, it made me write last night. For that, I am grateful.