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.

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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.

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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.

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