Regression	October 16, 2006

For those of you who didn’t know me when I was 14, it’s pretty easy to create a mental picture – I had long straight hair parted down the middle; I wore a consistent uniform of Doc Martens, jeans, concert t-shirts, and one of several flannels that I stole from my dad; my backpack was proudly scribbled in acrylic paint with lyrics from my favorite Mudhoney songs… you get the idea. I was grunge girl.

As I walked to work this morning, I listened to “Drown” by the Smashing Pumpkins, and thought back on my weekend activities. I realized that I’d had a total throwback weekend. I would never characterize high school as the “golden years” or any such crap, but some parts of it I recall with such fondness, and I occasionally find myself clinging to them.

Take this weekend… Saturday morning, we watched the movie Singles on cable. I hadn’t seen it in so long, and I’d forgotten just how much I loved it. Then I took a long walk around the neighborhood, snapping photographs for one of my art classes. That afternoon we went to the Tower Records in Tyson’s Corner, which is going out of business and has put everything on clearance. We snapped up CD’s right and left (including the Singles soundtrack, which I had when I was 14, but sold when I was 16, because grunge was so over), and I topped off my girl-angst shopping list with a copy of Bust magazine.

Then we returned to Steve’s house and sat on the couch, playing with iTunes. We’re both currently a little obsessed with updating all of the album artwork in our libraries, so we sat there with our laptops and took musical walks down memory lane. All while watching the movie Coffee and Cigarettes, which is a movie about sitting in coffee houses, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes! Hello? Was that not my #1 pastime in high school??

Sunday afternoon we drove around rural Virginia, seeking pumpkin patches, apple orchards, corn mazes, and the like (we didn’t quite get our fill, so we’ll be heading back out in 2 weeks!) As we drove, we listened to and critiqued this season’s new releases – the new Beck is too new-agey, the new Scissor Sisters is way too gay, the new DJ Shadow is too thuggish, and the new Sonic Youth is juuuust right.

As I looked down at my tights and chunky black loafers this morning, my tribute to Bridget Fonda, I acknowledged the part of me that still wishes it was 1993. Not so much because high school was so great, but I miss spending my spare time listening to, thinking about, and talking about music; smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee; sleeping late; and undertaking unnecessary art projects.

God bless you, Columbus!	October 5, 2006

I don’t know that I have ever needed a three-day weekend as much as I do right now. While being in school is a great experience in many ways – I’m intellectually and creatively challenged, excited for the future, and thrilled to get to play with paint – it’s also taken its toll on a lot of my usual day-to-day. Couple that with the fact that last week was the most insanely busy work week in the history of my employed life, and I am surprised that my head is still attached.

This is not a surprise in any way. I kinda knew this was all coming. But there are many ways in which it sucks:

• I am further behind on correspondence than I have ever been. Mid-to-late September holds my dad’s, my nephew’s, and RLD’s birthdays, and not a single one of them got a gift or card or even a phone call from me. I am still planning to follow up on all of these, but I feel pretty darn awful about it. Plus I owe a call to my mom, K-Co, Heather, Josh, Sara…
• My kitchen is pitiful. There are dirty dishes everywhere and there is pretty much nothing in the fridge. My recent discovery of Peapod will soon enough alleviate the latter concern (I have a delivery scheduled for Monday). A side-effect of this dilemma is that I am eating out a lot, sometimes twice a day, and it’s making me broke.
• I got all ambitious last weekend and embarked on a closet-cleaning adventure, and got halfway through it before I realized that I needed to be working on my homework, and quit. So my bedroom looks like someone has upturned a Goodwill donation bin in it.
• I am exhausted. Freaking exhausted. Yet my mind constantly races with all the things I need to get done, so I can’t sleep so well. If this continues, I may have to consider doping myself up at night.

So, yeah, this is kinda me trying to explain why I haven’t blogged and why you haven’t heard from me. I am seeing this weekend as my big bold chance to catch up on everything – sleep, homework, household crap, and talking to the folks I love!