Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Wal Mart rift raft

Oh Manhattan. With it being break season, the students have quietly left the town for their respective homes for their helicopter parents to dot over them and do their laundry, etc. With the extreme population loss over the past week, the rift raft have loudly come from their homes and invaded local establishments. The one I have in mind particularly: Wal-Mart

I'm pretty hit or miss when it comes to Wal-Mart. Either I'm in love with the fact that I can everything from Draino to tampons to granola in one stop and know that I'm paying dirt cheap for it. The added bonus is knowing that someone in China has slaved over packaging these materials and I get to reap the benefits. Kidding.

What I am not kidding over is the amount of curse words I breathed under my breath between 11.46-12.10 today while I ran by there to pick up odds and ends. I seriously swear, the rift raft in this town grows alongside the number of students K-State enrolls. Of course, I went there during lunch when most people are at work, earning professional incomes. These people, god only knows, what these people do for a "living". You could point out those running there during their lunch breaks, based on their attire. And with Hy-Vee in town, the extreme professionals flock there instead of risking their sanity and lowering their IQ by taking on Wal-Mart.

Let me be clear: I am the product of a father who has an associates in construction science from a community college that I would rather have eaten arsenic than attend (it was the same as going to high school, again) and my mother did not complete her four year degree, as she was "this" close to graduating in Physical Therapy school. She realized in the eleventh hour that PT wasn't her gig, so she dropped out from KU PT school and moved back to Wichita to be a secretary. And she's never regretted a day. And you wonder why I push my students to do what THEY want to do with their lives.

Anyways. The point of this was to inform you that my father and mother are not elitist education snobs. They farm. In the dirt.

So take this as a warning if you're deciding to venture to your local low cost box store this week and happen to live in a college town. Becae even though it's isn't Halloween, there are some crazies venturing into the sun.

Monday, November 22, 2010

it's called christmas break


Bitch be back.

Close your eyes and say your prayers (preferably Catholic prayers). It's been nearly a month since my last post and I wish I could say that I've been out hiking in the mountains of Dubai (cough..Helen) or eating ethnic peanuts (cough..Helen). Alas, the truth is that I have been mentally exhausted with work and school and keeping somewhat of a skeleton of a social life. K-State doesn't have classes this week (some bullshit about "Fall Break", but let's call it what it is: THANKSGIVING BREAK. I still will and always will refer to "Winter Break" as CHRISTMAS BREAK). So therefore, I don't have my graduate classes this week and I refuse to start my 8 page research paper that's due early December. For today and tomorrow, I refuse to do more than half-ass straighten my hair and wear only a third of the MAC eye makeup I usually apply. I am wearing old Pumas that remind me more of drinking on Wednesday nights in the AGR parking lot than I legally should admit to and low-rise boot cut GAP jeans from Holiday 2008 and anyone that knows me, is aware that I hardly keep clothes around for more than two years. It's low maintenance these next two days. It honestly is incredibly exhausting putting on heels, dress trousers, and appropriate blouses daily for work and straightening the hair and putting on the make up. I am well aware that I do not need to go to such lengths that involve wearing pink Crocs from my car to my office, because my feet are abnormally wide (read: fat) and my left foot, I swear, shrunk .5 sizes after the baby was born. I take a certain pride in my appearance. And it's exhausting and today and tomorrow, I do not care.
It also helps that the boss lady, herds of male undergraduates, and Aaron are gone for the next couple days.

Ah, yes. I mentioned the bf and for all of you who were wondering "Are they still together? I'll bet that Monica and her moods scared that poor boy away." Joke is on you. Six months last Saturday. Six months is the equivalent to ten years to Aaron.
So, I think we're sitting pretty damn good.

Enjoy the photo of the roses he had sent to my office Friday. I took them home to enjoy, but brought them back to the office this morning. I am that desperate for attention. You're right.
Oh, but man. It's been a road test. Seriously. I feel as though most relationships, once they hit the six month mark or get close to it. It's make it or break it time. The honeymoon is over, as Aaron observed the past month, and shit is getting real. I've only been in one other relationship that made it past six months and I should have been hit over the head with a shovel at that point. It wasn't a good relationship. We were young and I was drunk half the time (I was 20 years old. Simmer) He did not "maturely" love me and I sure as hell didn't "maturely" love him. We were young and thought that we had it all figured out, when the only thing I really had figured out was how much I could drink and still earn A's and B's in college.

Relationships are scary business. You invest physical, emotional, and financial efforts into the other person. And wish the best end result. Aaron could have said "You know, you're a great looking girl and can dance like an idiot when you've had a few double whiskey diets, but I don't know. You're not worth it. You're totally different than me. You're an emotional girl." And he'd be right. I am a great dancer and I do enjoy a nice whiskey.

And we are totally different people. I know there are people reading this who doubt the relationship because they've either known me for awhile or Aaron for awhile. Hell, you don't' have to have known me for awhile to get the point that I have a strong streak of crazy in me. Just check in with my "Curse Calculate" and draw an assumption. Go ahead. Hell if I care.
But what I do care about is ajl and we're going to plow through, trudge through, curse through, vent through this mess of a life together. We're learning and with love + patience, I think we'll get it figured out.

I take that back.

I know we will.

I'm back and it never felt so good.