woo woo woo woo woo

I got a JOB!

fashion expo mikey.

<3

bon iver.

i cleaned out my closet today. it's weird how much people like their stuff (myself included). even stuff that serves no purpose. maybe-ripped stockings. old doll-house furniture. sewing mishaps. clothes that don't fit me, have never fit me, never will. cds i never listen to. porcelain figures from the rose tea packages. boxes of things that i love, that are broken, that need super glue. badly patterned scarves my nana gave me. purses with ripped linings. shirts that need buttons. jeans that need patching. pictures with someone's thumb in the frame. earrings that have lost their match. beads. stickers. letters. every year i throw them away and every spring i find them in my closet, back from the dead. kristin's right, bon iver couldn't be better for these things:

Sold my cold knot
A heavy stone
Sold my red horse for a venture home
To vanish on the bow --
Settling slow

Fit it all, fit it in the doldrums
(Or so the story goes)
Color the era
Film it's historical

My mile could not
Pump the plumb
In my arbor 'till my ardor
Trumped every inner inertia
Lump sum

All at once
Rushing from the sub-pump
(Or so the story goes)
Balance we won't know
We will see when it gets warm.

end of winter open.

stinkosaurus rex

stoopid.
new life plan:
move back in with my parents.
pop bike tires.
break up with bf.
alienate friends.
get drug habit.
die.

dashing new life plan:

easy, 14 step program:

1. get a part-time job immediately. enroll in 3-9 graduate credits.
2. work 50 hrs a week for the second half of the summer. be a good babysitter.
3. pay off the credit card, put some money away (preferrably in a bond--you know, something that can't be taken to the bar).
4. work part time all fall. save some loan money (in bonds, as menntioned). rock at school. get more A's.
5. work part time all spring. save more money. get more A's.
6. work part time and take 3-6 credits for 1st half of summer 2009.
7. be a super babysitter for one last 1/2 summer. think about how much the kids have grown. cry.
8. apply for teaching jobs. lots of them. and nanny backup jobs.
9. save more money, save more money, save more money!
10. GRADUATE!!!
11. move to NYC with michael, first month's rent, deposit, and a 1000 dollars CASH MONEY YO. teaching job and prosh apartment in brooklynn awaiting.
12. start teaching september 2009. hug my first paycheck, eyes brimming with tears.
13. rock the house, rock the house, rock the house. be the best teacher ever for two whole years. all the while (i know i know) saving money.
14. now here comes the most awesome and badass part: Apply to Columbia University's Educational Policy doctorate program!!!
    

and from there my fantasy becomes a little foggy...
i would love to think that in ten years i'll be some hot shot ed-policy person, maybe a dean or a super cool prof with hip reading glasses and ikea furniture but i'll probably just end up back in Buffalo with an average-joe teaching job maybe making a few thousand more than my co-workers cuz i'm a "doctor" drinking crappy drip coffee all-the-while and never amount to much of anything.

it'll be so worth it.

everything in its right place.

it's cold again. robyn left buffalo. major bummer. i think i'm almost ready to leave buffalo myself. i donno, like i was saying in my last entry, i used to be more excited about life. i suspect that i've done as much in buffalo that i can do, for now. made as many friends as i'm going to make, worked at all the restaurants, applied at all the boutiques. i'm ready for something fresh! i'd really like to notice things again. my friends, my boyfriend, have become like comfortable furniture. talking to them is like brushing my teeth. chewing. breathing. i want to see these people, and myself in a new context. i want to live in a new neighborhood. someplace big enough to have a real public transportation system.

it's another world, but it's something more than ordinary.

oh man, i spent the past couple of hours archiving some of my old livejournal entries (2003 & 2004). it's too bad that i started that livejournal my sophomore year of undergraduate instead of my freshman. after only a dozen entries my shiny niagara bubble popped. on my 19th birthday. retrospectively, my birthday disaster (involving a boy i liked and a blond friend wearing a cowboy hat) was relatively minor but it did change me. until then most of my new friendships at college were simple and happy. i guess i believed that things would go on that way until we all left. and most of us left before graduation. one friend moved out of state and two quit college all together. i went to ireland, in desperation, studied in limerick and then finished my degree at UB. i have two regrets:

one: i wish that i had waited until i was older to study abroad. i was very lonely when i was there and made a lot of mistakes. lots of good mistakes too of course, but i could have made them at 21 rather than 19.

two: i wish that when i moved to buffalo i had left my life at niagara behind me. instead i tried to take niagara with me; dragged my old friends through too many messy changes. i wronged and i was wronged and i would not give up; i couldn't let go. i don't have those friendships anymore and sometimes it makes me sad. i wish that i had come to buffalo, met my old friends for coffee, got together on holidays and sent postcards. met for reunion bbqs in the summertime, listened to music "for old time's sake;" you know, things that people do with their old friends. i did eventually let that life go, too little too late, and spent the years until now watching those old friends fall apart and getting myself into trouble from the sidelines. i suppose it wasn't all my fault. it's just a damn shame.

i had such high hopes, moving into that first apartment on Lexington!! My brothers helped us clean the place up, my pantry was stocked...and in two weeks i had less than 30$/week for groceries, 4 parking tickets, a leaky ceiling and a gaggle of dead houseplants. it was still fun. it's been an experience, reading back on all of those old entries. i'm the same person. well, i'm richer, thinner, and a better speller so not entirely the same. i downloaded all of the songs i wrote about and they have been making me feel all kinds of things. mostly happy though. the thing i'm most happy about, is that all of my experiences brought me to buffalo. to my lovely apartment. to mike and danielle.

i hope that this summer is fun. i think i'm going to plant some of my peppers and tomatoes in the community garden. it's been really nice to do summertime things again. grilling on the porch, riding my bike to school...life is so much easier when the sun is shining. it truly is.

do you remember when we met...

+:

1. sunshine
2. light beer
3. lancelot (my bike)
4. cat power
5. mini weber
6. plants
7. macaroni salad
8. fresh air
9. paper streamers
10. saying goodbye to winter

-:

1. 7-10 pm classes
2. math scrapbooking
3. journal entries for class
4. reader response logs
5. the civil war
6. hillary clinton
7. biting my lip
8. putting air in my bike tires
9. money
10. doing my taxes

vegetables!

coming along nicely!

mugs: