I wrote the first half of this during my lunch break between classes today (well, yesterday). The second half was, um, now. Late Friday night/early Saturday morning. So please do not fret over any discontinuities in time. If there are any. Who knows, we'll find out.
Well. I think I've neglected you long enough, dear RED blog. I'm terribly sorry. It's not even that I haven't had the time to update. I procrastinate plenty—surely I could have found time to update this sad, lonely, and very likely dusty blog. But no. Instead I seem to have devoted my life to FarmVille. Thanks, roomies. (I'm so close to buying a treehouse, you guys! Only two more FV cash to go!) (...don't judge me.)
Since I last updated... May ended. (Shocking!) As did June, July and August. September's more than halfway there, too. But as it's been such a crazy week, one that's finally winding down and is about to end (one more class!), I figure what the hey, let's beat October to the punch.
This summer, I think that I fell even more in love with Lexington. Volunteering at the Lexington History Museum, DJing on WRFL (88.1 Lexington, all the way to the left!), trying out new restaurants in the glorious downtown area (new to me, though, and of all ages to Lexington). Who cares if I couldn't get a job? This summer, for lack of a better phrase, rocked. Country fair, Bluegrass Fair, Kentucky Kingdom. Pride Prom, Pride Fest, LexGSA in general (the most amazing people EVER
(Oh, story time! You know how everyone has their own "when I got my license" story? Maybe mine trumps yours. Morning of my test, my dad makes me drive to the parking garage downtown where it starts and ends. I drive into the garage, to the ticket thingymawuter, and, well, with maybe a little distraction from my dad to blame (he admits it, so I'm taking it!), I don't exactly turn the wheel when I accelerate and hit a pole. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh god. My dad tells me to calm down, to not freak out, to just drive and park where I'm supposed to park for the test and then we'll assess the damage there and see what happens. And so I do, I park and I freak out a little more, thinking, "Oh my god, now the headlight's busted and I can't even take this stupid test, stupid, stupid!" My dad gets out of the car, checks it out, and... wtf. I seriously dented (like, SERIOUSLY, HORRIBLY) the car right next to the headlight, BUT SOMEHOW MANAGED TO AVOID THE LIGHT ALTOGETHER? WHAT? So I get out of the car, breathe, listen to my dad as he tells me to not freak out and just take the test, it's cool, it's cool, and I get everything set up inside and go wait in the car for the instructor guy. And I take the test. And I chat with the guy because what do you know, he has a daughter who lives in Worchester, Mass, so we talk about that, and he has a son who lives in Philly, so we talk about that, and we're totally bonding. And I get my license. Thirty minutes after driving the car into a pole in the parking garage where I started and ended the test. DON'T TELL ME I'M NOT AWESOME. But I digress.)
Then, at the end the summer, my family (mom, dad, nana, sister, and me!) headed out west to Montana. Missoula, to be specific. (Why, I even drove once or twice... shocking!) My sister started grad school out there, so we made a vacation of it to see her off. I have to say, I adore the west. Once you get away from the corn and the corn and the corn, suddenly you see sky and in the distance storm clouds erupting and miles and miles of road and earth. Its like a whole 'nother world out there, to use a common cliché. I only wish we could have spent more time out there—but what with the driving (Montana is far from Kentucky! FAR!), and the time restraints (parents only taking so much time off of work; Heather having to be there to move in, do paperwork stuff, whatever; needing to get back so I could see THE KILLERS on August 10th!!), it wasn't possible. However, just getting to see family I hadn't seen in years, and traveling through states I had never seen before (North Dakota! Minnesota! Wisconsin! All full of CORN!!) was pretty freaking awesome.
Now, I'm back at school. (About a month now, I have been.) And it's gotten a little intense so far already. Eighteen credits is definitely crazier than I thought it would be. A lot of reading. But it's all good, because they're good classes. I also have a job as a history department assistant, which is awesome—helping out the professors, doing projects for them, whatever they force me to do. Love it! I'll recap you all on my classes and job later in the semester, though, once I've really gotten involved in them.
I'm in an awesome quad (two rooms and a bathroom-turned-walk-in-closet!) with Brittany (last year's roomie) and Lyndsey (last year's honorary roomie), and our awesome international roommate, Daniela from Venezeula. She's fantastic. We all get along really well, and she's supersocial which is great. But not too social as to totally ignore us and never hang around the room, which is great, too. We talk and get along and I love her, she's wonderful!
What I've been sad about a lot this summer and into this semester, though, is that I really don't write a lot anymore. And I don't know why. And I miss it. But I can't seem to get back into it at all. Whenever I try, it lasts about a day and then I give up, move on, or forget about it. And I'm always thinking about it, definitely, stuff always going through my mind—characters, storylines, random phrases or sentences or ideas—but it never gets translated to paper or computer. Can anyone help me here? Can anyone help me figure out how to start again? Because it never works. And I hate it. Especially times like these, when I get back from something that makes me think about how much I miss it—a couple of slam poets came to Juniata tonight and blew me away, they were amazing—and how much I need to, want to, get back into it. Maybe it's because the environment's different—I'm no longer around a lot of other writerly friends, and I have so much other reading of textbooks and writing of papers to do for classes. But maybe it's really just that I'm lazy or procrastinatory or scared of starting yet another thing that I just can't seem to finish. Because I can never seem to finish anything unless I've got that deadline, that set schedule. I don't want to need a deadline for writing. It wouldn't seem genuine anymore. It would just seem... rushed. Dead. Like I'm trying too hard. I don't want writing to feel like that. But then again, it always seems to feel like that now.
So hey. Any tips? Any ideas? Any words of wisdom? This semester's gonna get tough, and it might be nice to have a way to release the stress and tension. A way other than wasting my life on FarmVille. Facebook gets old. Writing never does. Right?
I should go. Maybe help Brittany put together our psychedelic door design. Maybe take a shower. Maybe read or go to sleep. I'd like to say, "maybe write." But I don't really see that happening. (Yet? Ever? Bleh.) Time to put on some happy! And step away from this stress. For now, anyway.