A Whine from my Sickbed

I want my mommy. Yes, I'm less than two months away from my 21st birthday, I've been living away from my parents for nearly three years, and I've actually started to refer to myself as a woman instead of a girl, but none of that matters. I'm sick and miserable and I want someone to take care of me.

Yesterday when I had a fever, I didn't have anyone to put a cool hand on my forehead and bring me Advil and ice water. There was no one here to rub my neck and make it stop aching, no one to cook me pudding or soup or get me popsicles and chocolate milkshakes. And today was the same thing - hours of lying in bed feeling miserable with no one to whine to and no one to distract me from my miserableness. 

This afternoon I took a nap and when I woke up from my ridiculous dream/hallucination about being a Viking (the kind with swords and cooking over fires, not the Minnesota kind), there was no one here to reassure me I'm not crazy. Most of the time I like living alone, because most of the time I'm too busy to keep track of my own schedule, let alone a roommate's. But right now, even a kitten would make me feel less like I'm slowly dying with no one here to notice or care. 

You know what, if this is what it's like being grown up, I want to be four again.

*twitch* *twitch*

I desperately want to pretend that I'm doing awesomely at this college thing as I near the end of my first full week, but the very fact that I'm awake right now and I have to be awake again in six hours would probably give away my secret. What secret is that? Well... maybe it's not a secret. Maybe I'm not supposed to automatically be fantastic at college just because I was fanatical about being perfect in high school. 

All summer while I was working two jobs, pulling 11, 12, and 13 hour days every Friday and Saturday and only getting one day off every two weeks, I took things one day at a time. I didn't need to plan farther ahead than that, really. I just needed to make sure I showed up at the right job at the right time wearing the right clothes. It was by turns boring and stressful and made me crabby and tired, but the one day at a time approach worked for getting me through that. College doesn't work that way though.

You know that saying "I try to take things one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once"? I've always laughed at that, not because it's so silly, but because it TOTALLY happens! Today I had at the very least three, and possibly a whole semester's worth of days attack me. 

There's a good chance that no one can actually tell. I cover it up by drinking lots of coffee, and being naturally outgoing, so I can multitask by freaking out inside about all the homework I'm not doing even though I should be while at the same time telling people about how I ran into a wall and bruised my knee so badly it's swollen. Yes it was a wall in my apartment, where I have lived for over a year, and yes, I knew it was there. That's not the point.

As of this moment, my right lower eyelid has been twitching for 16 hours and there's no sign of it stopping. I don't know if that's because of way too much caffeine, stress, lack of sleep, or all three, but it's starting to get a little ridiculous. The good news is, tomorrow is another day that only holds three classes and 4 hours of work for me. 

I won't tell you what the bad news is, because I refuse to think of anything that could be construed as bad news.

Back to School

I know you're all curious, and I'm about to give you the update on my life. Ready? My first week of college did not exactly go according to plan. This should not have been surprising to me, as I can't think of anything else in my life that has gone according to plan, but hope springs eternal.

The thing is, I haven't gotten up before 7 AM more than five times that I recall since I graduated from high school two years ago. And now I get to wake up at 6:30 AM four days a week. Mondays I get to sleep in until 7:30, and Sundays I don't have get to up until 8 or 8:30! (Lest you think Saturdays are days off or something, I have to clarify that what time I get up then will be entirely dependent on my work schedule, but I will have to get up at some point.) It's a good thing I had already learned to drink massive amounts of coffee, or I would never have survived this week.

One thing that keeps striking me about being back in college is the huge difference between me, as a college freshman who is almost 21, and 98% of my 18-year-old classmates. They're still amazed that they're finally being treated like adults - I'm amazed at how many times we've been told not to drink, do drugs, or be promiscuous. I'm trying to pay bills - they're trying to remember how to unlock their dorms. My classmates can survive on four hours of sleep a night. I was so exhausted at work on Friday that I almost fell over when I sneezed. At least some of my classmates think I have some sort of infinite wisdom about life because I'm older than them. The truth? Any wisdom I have about life is because I've spent the last ten years thinking seriously about life. 

I'm not saying I haven't had any fun since I was ten. It's just that I've realized that there's a point to life beyond having fun. Also that Mark Twain was in no way lying when he said "the world owes you nothing. It was here first." 

Turn, Turn, Turn

Okay, okay, I'm going to start out this post by apologizing for everything that comes after this paragraph. The thing is, I live in North Dakota. I was born and raised here and I love this state, okay? I don't care that the summers get so hot it's hard to breathe sometimes, or that it snows nine months out of the year, or even that there are areas of the state more densely populated with cattle than people. So if what comes after this shocks you, don't say I didn't give you fair warning.

I don't think I've ever been this excited for winter to come. It's not that I don't like summer, because I do - I love all four seasons - but I'm ready to move on. Let me explain.

See, for the first 18 years of my life, I lived on a farm, and the seasons defined things pretty clearly for me. Spring was seeding time, summer was spraying time and then harvest time, fall was grain hauling time, and winter brought more grain hauling and planning for the next year. It was a routine, and it didn't change. 

I counted on the seasons. Even if winter was savagely cold and consisted of blizzard after blizzard, spring had to come eventually so Dad could seed. Maybe the spring would be long, cold, and wet, and it would be a struggle to get every seed in the ground, but the sun was going to shine and make those seeds grow, because it did every year. Summer was almost guaranteed to be unbearably hot, there would be thunderstorms, maybe even hail or tornadoes, and at the end of summer, there would be a harvest - whether bountiful or pitiful. And then it would start all over again, because that's what the seasons do.

Now I'm not trying to suggest that the seasons have stopped changing since I left the farm, because clearly they haven't, but they have stopped being so important to me. For the past year, every season has brought the same thing - working, with time off only for the most important things. I've watched working in retail make me bitter and cynical about the entire human race, with no indication that I'll ever feel any differently. 

But this fall, I'm going back to college, and now that I've had time to think about it, I'm incredibly excited. For one thing, despite that whole bitter and cynical thing I was talking about before, I don't think I've ever been happier than I am right now. Right now I have a fairly clear idea of what I'm going to spend my next four years doing, and while the picture gets a little hazier after that, I have a feeling teaching English will be involved. Maybe I'll even write and publish a novel the way I've been dreaming of for over half my life. 

I suppose it's a little ironic that I'm talking about how much I love the seasons changing at the same time I'm talking about how I love the predictability of the seasons changing. Here's how I look at it - I love s'mores, but they taste much better over a campfire in July than over the stove in December. Hot chocolate is delicious, but it's much nicer in January than August. No one wants to drink hot cider in June. Running through a sprinkler or having a water balloon fight in February would be ill-advised. That's why these things are so amazing, because we can't do them all year. 

So on a purely trivial level, I'm excited for winter so I can wear my new gray sweater from maurices. Tights, boots, mittens, warm coats, these are things I haven't used since March, and I miss them! I want to drink hot chocolate as I watch it snow, smell the Thanksgiving turkey roasting, play games with family who never has (makes?) time to get together any other time of year, make Christmas candy, go sledding, decorate a gingerbread house... Shopping for presents is one of my favorite things to do, and Christmas gives me an amazing excuse to buy presents for lots of different people at once. Ooo, and the few Christmas songs that aren't horribly obnoxious always make me happy. Plus there's the Dickens Festival in Garrison, driving around to look at Christmas lights, and just spending time with family. In case I haven't made it clear, Thanksgiving through New Year's Day is my favorite holiday. :) 

So complain all you want about me wanting it to be winter - just don't expect me to sympathize when you're complaining because it is. 

Entitlement

People irritate me. This is possibly not news to you, if you have ever in any way interacted with me after a long day at work. The thing is, I can't see any reason WHY they need to be so ridiculously irritating!

Today at work I was coming back from break, walking through the health and beauty section (also known as enemy territory when you're just trying to get back to your work area, because guests ALWAYS want to know where the toothpaste is, and yes, I have been known to answer "In the toothpaste aisle... uhhh.... A26!" switching gears in mid-sentence as I realized I was coming across as rude) and I heard a guest grumbling to her friend. Now I was working at Starbucks today, so I was in black and khaki and she didn't recognize me as an employee. As I walked by I heard her saying "I wouldn't even know where to look for them, and of course, there's no one to help you find anything!" Shockingly, I was able to help her find the latex gloves in about 45 seconds, as she was only 3 aisles away from them. My question is, did she think she was in some way entitled to have someone right there the moment she had a question? She couldn't possibly have looked for a team member herself, right?

Or how about the woman who came to my lane as I was ringing up a $400 transaction at 9:35. I had my light off, as my shift ended at 9:30, so I said to her "Ma'am, this lane is closed, would you mind going to another lane?" Her response? "Well, I guess I'll have to!" Apparently, she is entitled to be helped at the first lane with a team member at it, whether that team member has been at work for 9 hours and is trying to go home, or not.

There are other stories, other people, other scenarios. The man who made me return his giftcards and sell him different ones because the $ I wrote on them didn't look like a dollar sign to him. The woman who swore at me when her debit card got declined on Black Friday. The woman who asked if she could return a Nintendo DS because her daughter had smashed it. The man who tried to return a scratched up iPod because he "just wasn't using it." The woman who always returns pictures after developing them if they were poorly TAKEN. The countless people who are willing to argue over 5 or 10 cents. The people who order drinks and then complain because they didn't order what they wanted. 

Why can't the general public just man or woman up and take responsibility for what they do, what they need, and what they want?

Nostalgia?

So I'm sitting here on my couch, going through my iTunes wondering a) why I have so much classical music on there and b) why it's so hard to make the perfect playlist for working out, and it hits me. My iTunes has hardly changed since high school. And you know what? Those songs that I listened to in high school, all the Nickelback and Eminem and Kelly Clarkson... those are still my favorite songs to work out to, because they make me feel happy. Yes - happy. And let's be honest, that has a lot more to do with the way I felt when I first listened to them than how awesome the songs are. 

A few weeks ago I was at a wedding of a friend from high school, and do you know what song the DJ at the dance played to get people out on the floor acting like complete fools? 'Shake Your Tailfeather', a song that was popular when we were in junior high. And, of course, 'Baby Got Back'. *shudders* I still know all the words to that one. Anyways, the point is that we don't like these songs based on their merit - we like them because they made us laugh when we were slightly more immature than we are now, or because that boy or girl we had a crush on liked them, or because they remind us of when we were young and carefree. 

That's why I have every Backstreet Boys album on my iTunes. It's not because I think the songs are musically inspiring or because I'm working on my street cred (ha). I have albums 'The Backstreet Boys' through 'This Is Us' because they make me happy, they make me smile, they remind me of a time in my life when that was legitimately about all I wanted to listen to, and I love singing along to them.

But this raises a few questions for me. Do I like Nickelback? Do I like them enough to defend my enjoyment of their music as un-ironic? Or do I just like them because they released two CDs when I was in high school and I bought both of them? Maybe the secret to selling music (or books or movies, for that matter) isn't about talent or money or even good editing. Maybe it's all about catching people at a vulnerable and impressionable time in their lives and creating lifelong fans. 

That would explain the Justin Bieber phenomenon, now that I think about it. Oh no... that also means that he's NEVER GOING AWAY. 

Had to end that paragraph after only two sentences - sorry to anyone who looks to me as their English grammar inspiration, but seriously. I can't continue with that train of thought. It's horrifying.

Anyways, I think what I was trying to say is that I am now questioning my own judgement about everything I like, trying to decide if I like it because someone told me I should (unlikely, I hated almost everything I was forced to read in high school), or if it's because someone told me I SHOULDN'T like it (I was a teenager not that long ago, it's possible), or other, more subtle and psychological reasons. Hmm. Or I could use my powers of self-analysis for something more important.....

Nah.

Seafood, Coffee, and Welcome to the Blog

I hate seafood. As far as I know I'm not allergic to it - I just hate it. I don't know if it's the taste or the smell or the texture or the fact that most sea creatures look completely creeptastic when they're alive (and, let's face it, not many things improve upon their looks by dying), but seriously - don't come near me with anything that might be construed as seafood. In other words, if its primary mode of transportation is swimming, I won't eat it. If it has more than four or less than two legs, I don't even really want to look at it. That's right, I'm prejudiced against sea creatures, and I'm proud of it (also insects and arachnids, but that's a whole different post).

Sure, seafood offers a great excuse to eat butter. The thing is, I'm German (okay, there's some Irish temper and Welsh singing mixed in there too, but DON'T TALK ABOUT THE NORWEGIAN BIT!) - we don't need an excuse to eat butter. Or cream. To be honest, we don't need an excuse to eat, period. When my (half German) mom's side of the family gets together, eating is a 'round the clock activity. All I'm saying is, don't mess up my butter with shrimp or lobster, okay? Eggs and sugar are much cheaper, and seriously, custard is the greatest invention ever.

I was talking about seafood though. Why? Why am I talking about something I hate? You know what, forget that. Let's talk about coffee.

Without coffee, I find it difficult to function, and by "find it difficult to function" I mean "take two hour naps at 3 pm". I need coffee in the morning to wake me up. I need coffee in the afternoon to keep me interested in whatever I'm doing which is usually cleaning, working, or working (sometimes working as well), a.k.a. mind-numbingly dull. I need coffee when I'm writing to make me feel like a "real" writer. I need coffee whenever I eat breakfast foods because that's how I roll (whole wheat Eggo waffles with Nutella are seriously awesome, btw). Sometimes I need coffee just because I'm bored.

I know what the next pressing question on your mind is - how do I drink it? The answer is, in copious amounts and every way imaginable. Black, iced, with milk, with cream, with flavoring syrup, with whipped cream on top, in a frappuccino, in a latte, straight espresso shots, and sometimes three or four of those options in the same day. Yes, I know I have a problem. Believe it or not, I'm working on it.

Finally, welcome to the blog. Sometimes I'll actually be writing about a topic. Sometimes I'll be rambling. Sometimes I'll be ranting. Sometimes I'll be sharing something that's important to me. Sometimes I'll be pretending it hasn't been as long as it actually has since my last post. :P But all the time, I'll be me.