Maybe you have to go backwards to go forwards?




Lately, everything is turning up teenager.



It all started with Back to School.



Once upon a time, like when my aunt and uncle went there, my college was a big time non-traditional student commuter campus. That all changed ten years ago with the Olympics and the construction of the Village. Suddenly, there was a huge effort to change the demographic of my college to a more "traditional aged" student body. Fast forward to 2006 and the infamous commuter college has morphed into an "urban campus" featuring about a bajillion 18- and 19-year-old suburbanite kids who don't know how to walk down a crowded city sidewalk (stay to the right and don't take up the whole damn thing). Maybe if I was majoring in business or something I wouldn't have to deal with them quite so much, but it seems the bulk of my classes are filled with these bright-eyed OTP kids from Fayetteville and Gwinnett. Factor in that it's RUSH WEEK OMIGOD and that WRAS keeps having concerts and stuff that take up the whole courtyard just at the precise moment I must cross it to be in class and I'm already five minutes late and you can just begin to imagine how I feel when I'm at school.




Besides the hell that is finishing your undergrad when you're already too jaded and world-weary to give much of a damn anymore, there have been other things in my life that scream teenager. I was sitting at the bar for my friend C's birthday celebration last week, and somehow we started talking about Hunch Punch.



"Omigod, remember drinking Hunch Punch?"



Yes, yes I do. In case you don't know, Hunch Punch is basically Everclear and punch with chunks of fruit in it. Really "great" Hunch Punch involves soaking the fruit, such as strawberries and melons, in the Everclear for 24-48 hours, the goal being that all you have to do is eat a piece of fruit to get drunk. The Hunch Punch is stored and served in a large cooler or trash can, or, if the party's really classy, in the bathtub.



One of the guys in our group claimed that his old fraternity made Hunch Punch simply by mixing Everclear and Kool-Aid. Ew. That is not Hunch Punch; that's just gross frat boys being cheap.



All the Hunch Punch talk dredged up all sorts of memories of when I was 18 and 19. Thankfully, there has been no Hunch Punch in my life since then.



Then tonight, at my roomate Jess's birthday celebration (Ever notice how all your friends seem to have their birthdays at once? It's astrology, stupid! For real.) I met a dude who ended up being friends with the little brother of a girl I knew at West Georgia. That took me back to when I was 16 (shudder, shudder). We also had Jell-o shots, made with Mr Boston, for chrissakes. Mr Boston and McCormick (the two cheapest, most disgusting excuses for vodka ever created) both were good friends of mine at 16, sadly enough.



The most unexpected teenager moment , though, occured the other day. I was talking on the phone with this guy and then he started to play his guitar while we were talking. Whoa. That's like how guys used to do when I was 14 and 15. I was completely surprised. Not mad, mind you, just a little amused at the absurdity of the situation.



Anyway, enough ramblings. I'm off to bed, because I'm donating blood in the morning and running a few errands before disappearing to the mountains for the weekend. Everyone have a good holiday weekend without me.

###

Yes, Virginia, Amish people really do shop at Wal-Mart

Yes, Virginia, Amish people really do shop at Wal-Mart
Originally uploaded by casetheplace.

And I have the photo to prove it.

Taken August 10, 2006 in Sturgis, Michigan.

Teenagers make me feel old




That's all.

###

Untameable




"How is it we both have 'ones who got away'?"



"Because that's the life of a bad girl."



Originally, I intended today's entry to be about Back to School and the quirks of my various professors, but that got thrown out the window when I turned on the tv tonight and the second season finale of Sex in the City was on. At the very end of the episode, Carrie stops Big as he's leaving his engagement party to the insipid Natasha, has a Barbra Streisand moment and, as she walks away, suddenly realizes that she's one of those women who can't be tamed by any man, but needs someone just as wild to run free with.



It gets me every time, really deep in the throat. Even the unfortunate wild-horses-run-free visual metaphor doesn't dampen the impact.



"You know you'll never be a good girl. That it will always be an act. You might even be able to pull that act off for a long time, but you'll really always be a bad girl underneath."



Am I really a bad girl? I guess I am. Bad girls are lonely girls, and let's face it, I'm pretty fucking lonely. Like, all the goddamn time. It's always there, Loneliness, along with Depression and Insomnia. I mean, I've learned a lot about how to manage and cope with those three constants, but I can't ever truly eliminate any of them. They usually don't hang out at the forefront of my existence anymore, and generally I'm fairly ok with life and all, but I know they're always around somewhere, and I have to be extra careful not to invite them in for dinner, because Loneliness and Depression and Insomnia are awful house guests that can take up residence faster than you can say, "You, Me & Dupree."



Bad girls are prone to showy decisions. For example, given the choice between quietly slipping in late or breathlessly breezing in with a sincere, "I'm so sorry I'm late! The traffic was just awful! Please, don't let me interrupt..." the bad girl will always choose the choice that will bring the most attention. And everyone knows I get off on attention, although I'm trying self-restraint more and more as I get older. Reining it in sometimes has its advantages.



Bad girls also have a hard time sustaining romantic relationships. They tend to attract those already attached, and thus often find themselves living the life of the mistress.



Being a mistress has its advantages. For one thing, the mistress can say things the wife (and here I use "wife" as a generic term that encompasses any significant other) never could, like the best driving directions form Point A to Point B, or how his new moustache looks like a moldy slug stuck underneath his nose. She can sass him six ways to Sunday and never make him mad. She doesn't have to pick up after him, or remind him to take out the trash. But while mistresses tend to go to the better parties and wear the better shoes and enjoy all the fine things the AmEx can buy, they also go to sleep at night alone.



And while sometimes a solitary bed just feels right, sometimes it just feels lonely.



Which brings us right back to where we started, about bad girls being lonely girls.



Us bad girls, we're so lonely sometimes we settle for something so wrong just to have another body around. But it always ends in disaster.



Having another body around soon ceases to be enough, because bad girls are really all mushy and romantic deep down. We live our lives like lilies of the field, going almost exclusively on faith, with the sincere belief that tomorrow is another day. We want to find connection with someone who understands, and we hold out hope that maybe that someone is out there: Someone just as bad, just as untameable, and just self-aware enough to rein it in a little as needed. A partner, not a body.

###

It hurts



It hurts to be back in Atlanta. It does. I've been discontent on and off since I moved back from Oregon in 2001. I keep trying to plot my escape, but the pull of unfinished business has kept me in town much longer than I anticipated.



Now I have only one more bit of business to wrap up: my undergrad degree. Once that is safely in my hands come December 2007, I'm 98% certain I'm out of the ATL. 2008 is the year, baby. It's time. Travelling this month really brought that into focus for me. I'm going to drive myself crazy if I stay here. For serious. This whole damn city is mad, and being here makes me mad. And I can't hardly write here. For real. I've always written better elsewhere, like when I'm in the mountains or when I travel or when I was in that town I hated so much (Carrollton) or when I lived in Portland. It's kind of funny, because so much of what I write screams, "ATLANTA!" but I can't write about my muse city when I'm here. Muses are better with some distance.



I'm so torn, because part of me wants to be completely fabulous and high-rolling and playing with the big boys in, say, Washington, D.C. come graduation, and a whole 'nother part of me wants to go disappear completely off the map. I've always felt like this, though. I always seem to want two completely opposed ideals at exactly the same time. I think it has everything to do with being a Tauremini, and an only child who grew up in a very bohemian, very weird household and had a really volatile childhood. Instability and pressure are familiar; they are comfortable. But I also really crave stability and normal things...all the things I never really had. Ever.



So maybe I need to find some sort of compromise...something partially normal and partially eccentric. And maybe I need to stop being so hard on myself and my past mistakes and trying to make up for lost time.



(This ended up way more confessional than I was planning.)

###

Whirlwind

or

By the numbers



Dates out of town: August 4, 2006 to August 18, 2006, with a brief stopover in Atlanta August 8 & 9.



States visited: 12



State(s) visited for the first time: 1



Canadian province(s) visited: 1



Friends I hadn't seen in 4 years or more: 2



New friends made: Many



Atlanta friends who missed me terribly while I was away (official tally): 4



Bizarre hook-ups that occurred while I was out of town (excluding my own): 2



Weddings attended: 1



50th Wedding Anniversary celebrations attended: 1



Cost of the road atlas I purchased despite my father protesting that we didn't "need no stinking atlas": $4.97 + tax



Number of times we referenced said atlas: Innumerable



Number of Canadian border patrol officers who gave me a weird look when I said I was entering the country to visit my pen pal: 4



Number of attendees to the International Aids Conference in Toronto: app. 50,000



Number of available hotel rooms in Toronto during the International Aids Conference: 0



Number of unavailable hotel rooms my dad and I managed to plead our way into renting: 1



Number of times kind or not-so-kind strangers, including law enforcement, pointed out the fact that the car was smoking and/or on fire: 3



Canadian dollars spent at H&M: 160



Items purchased at H&M: 11



Cost to find out the answer to my burning question of just where exactly Canadian strippers put their Loonies: app. $50 Canadian (including tips)



Cost to park on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls: $18 Canadian



Non-stop driving hours from Buffalo, NY to Atlanta, GA: 18



Actual driving hours from Buffalo, NY to Atlanta, GA, including stopping at Bob Evans for dinner and all bathroom and gas breaks: 20

###

Welcome to Atlanta



I must be home. It's a Saturday morning at 11:30am, I have a slight hangover, I'm about to have brunch with Ori & J, and I think I gave the bartender my number last night.

###

Post 56: In which our heroine aches all over



It's my own damn fault, really. Trying to cram three exhaustive trips into the span of two weeks and all. But it's been so exhilirating!



My dad and I are still in Michiana (the area where Michigan and Indiana meet) where we've been since Thursday. We leave in a few hours for Trip 3: O! O! Toronto! and my reunification with the Awesomest Pen Pal and Oldest Continuous Friend of Our Heroine, Allison (aka Allie). I'm totally super excited.



This weekend in Michiana was psycho busy insane, what with Grandma scheduling waayyy too many things for us to do, my aunt cutting her foot open and having to get stitches, throwing the 50th Wedding Anniversary party Friday night, and throwing the Miller Family reunion Saturday afternoon. By 4 o'clock Saturday I bolted from family and responsibility and flagged down my cousins who were already out on the lake tubing. I stripped down to the little red bikini and soaked up some sun. Then my turn being pulled in the tube came.



Let's just say everything went well for a while, until Cousin Tom, frustrated in my amazing ability to hold on, took me over a really huge, rough wave, and away I flew. SMACK! I felt my face hit the water first, at completely the wrong angle. I surfaced, and my face stung like a mother. As the boat pulled back around, I heard my cousins shouting things like, "Dude, you totally flew on that one!" Then they saw me sort of bobbing pitifully and felt bad, and pulled me into the boat, even though I was perfectly capable of climbing back in.



"Does it hurt?" They asked, and as I looked up, a horrid gasp. "Oh my god, look at your face!!"



Thankfully all the photos had already been taken for this trip.



I will have so many pictures to post one I get back to the ATL.

###

So...tired...

###

FYI, I plan to update the sidebar of links eventually.

"Atlanta is a pit of despair"



Rachael and I had a quick, desperate flurry of e-mails this morning, each of us at our respective windowless places of employment; I in my cube, she in her not-much-bigger-than-my-cube office. The funny thing is that we work less than a half mile away from one another, so theoretically we could have met up to talk, or called each other, or something, but it's much easier to pretend like you're doing tons of work when the only sounds coming from your end of the hall is the tap-tap-tap of the keyboard.



Anyway, our flurry of e-mails basically revolved around the oppressiveness of Atlanta in August. Up north people get depressed in the winter, from lack of sunshine and such, but down here we all lose it around August 1, when the heat and humidity and smog alerts, present for days and weeks on end, mix perfectly to form a toxic poison that makes the body hurt, the sinuses ache, and the soul curl up and moan.



Our nasty driving turns nastier. We drive recklessly at highway speeds through bungalow neighborhoods, curse at one another, cut each other off with a wave of the finger.



Our speech gets whinier. We complain more. We try to cut the unhappiness with a morbid humor. A perfect example: the admin at work (one of my favorite people ever..she reminds me of my aunt) looked up at me when I came in this morning and said, "How was Alaska?"



"I almost didn't come back. Seriously. It was amazing. It was the most beautiful place I've ever been. I was so relaxed. My skin cleared up instantly. Juneau is the friendliest place on Earth. Everyone was so freakin' nice. I loved it. I want to go back. When the plane landed in Atlanta last night, and the pilot said, 'It's currently a steamy 93 degrees in Atlanta' the whole plane groaned."




She laughed and, with a wicked grin, said, "Welcome to Hell!"



Rachael's first e-mail said much the same thing: "Atlanta is a pit of despair."



Anyone who doesn't believe in global warming should spend an hour standing outside in downtown Atlanta. Hell, five minutes will do. The sweat forms instantly, but because the air is already saturated (but no chance of rain...it's just awful humidity) it has no where to go. It collects all over you, and runs down you, and ruins your hair. I don't know how Rachael and her like manage to ride a bicycle in this mess. It's all I can do to walk down the street. I guess she's just a tougher woman than me.



In case you can't tell, I'm super ultra grumpy.



I also really don't want to have to go to Michigan tomorrow. Oh, and I came home to a broken washing machine, so I've got to drop my clothes off at one of those wash-by-the-pound places tomorrow on my way to work so I'll have something remotely clean to wear the rest of the week. And I had to go sit in a board room for 3 freakin' hours today for some stupid marketing meeting crap that was neither here nor there.



Whine whine whine. I told you Atlanta in August does this to a person.

###

It's over?




I'm back in Atlanta. Wow. And it's 93 degrees outside. And my dad reminded me of a million and one things that need to be done before we leave Wednesday night. And I work tomorrow.




Why did I come back here again?

###

Hell yes, I'm in Alaska!



It's 50 degrees, foggy, and raining steadily. But I don't care! I'm in Alaska! And I'm having a great time!



I got a bout of nerves on the flight from Seattle yesterday afternoon. Oh god, I thought. I don't know ANYBODY up there. What if they don't come and get me from the airport? What if they hate me and are super mean to me? WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING???



But I had nothing to worry about. Everyone has been so nice to me. I got picked up from the airport as promised, and immediately whisked away to see the Mendenhall Glacier (beautiful!) and the salmon run (amazing!). I had a little time to relax before going to the rehearsal dinner and seeing my friend Ryan for the first time in about 5 years. I was nervous about that too--would anyone talk to me? But people did talk to me, and were very excited about my being here ("You're so brave to come all this way by yourself and not even know anyone!") and wanted to tell me all about the fabulous things to see here in Juneau.



At eleven last night I completely crashed...the four hour time difference meant my body had been up for nearly 24 hours at that point.



This morning I got up and walked downtown to see what I could see. And of course I saw an internet place, and of course I felt a sudden urge to check my e-mail and write an entry.



I'm trying to be good about taking pictures (you know that's not my strong point) so that I'll have some fabulous things to post to my flickr page once I get back.

###

Addendum to Post 49




Looks like none of the extended family knows I'm getting a divorce! I got an e-mail today saying that my husband and I were welcome to x, y and z before the reunion. Hot damn! I can't think of a more fun way to spend a weekend in Michigan than explaining my marital status to a bunch of uptight, conservative Midwestern farm folk.

###

Post 49: In which our heroine concludes she must be experiencing seperation anxiety



Um, why can't I get packed?



I've always been a last minute packer, though.



Yeah. You probably won't be hearing much out of me for the next few weeks, but I will have my cell with me if you need me.

###

Post 48: In which our heroine is reminded that 'just one drink' is never, ever just one drink




Man, I am totally so on vacation in less than three days. Because of this, I knew I needed to get myself home after work to do laundry and buy some necessary provisions (ok, so the magnet sheets aren't for Trip 1: Bringing Sexy Back to Alaska, but Trip 2: Yoders Yoders Everywhere, which doesn't occur until next week, but I need to experiment with said magnet stickers and see if they actually work before my brain completely shuts down when I go not only OTP, but north of the Mason-Dixon line to boot.)




So, did I go home right away like a good little casetheplace?




Of course not. However, I did manage to extricate myself at quarter till eight, which is rather good for me.

###