And they say romance is dead....

There is a fine line between "drunk enough to be a good time" and absolute disaster. While I have always known this, I  generally considered it one of those facts that you do not believe until you experience it, much like toast always landing butter side up. 

Well, I got a little schooling last night.

Last week I met this guy at the bar. Overwhelmingly good looking, I was shocked to hear from him later in the week, hoping to hang out this weekend, giving me his number, making small talk. While the banter was certainly strained, I was hoping he'd be a bit more witty after a few drinks.

We finally agreed to hang out last night. Oddly enough, I was nervous. Absolutely convinced of my aweseomeness, I am never nervous. This resulted in my not really eating all day and drinking heavily, a wise combination.

The plan was for me to bring my many attractive female friends, him to bring his entourage of bros and us to dance drunkenly through the night. However, when I got to the bar, I received a call that he was at a different bar. And wanted to meet. At 1:30.

 Any meet up starting at 1:30 in the morning does not have good intentions.

After many texts - and many drinks -  I finally agreed to meet him, explaining that we were NOT going to sleep together. 

The walk home I was slurred and stumbling and apparently he's the strong silent type. We were quite the couple. Upon making it back to my bedroom, the activities were less than wedding night, but would still make my mother blush and probably be very disappointed in me. 

I was drunk to the point that I could possibly be a very good partner and I even fell off the bed a few times.  Oh god.

Upon completion - because that's really the best way to describe the entire experience - he clothed himself, got on my computer without asking (good thing I hadn't left his Facebook, which I had been lurking, up) to check bus schedules back to his apartment and called another girl. 

"I'm going to go hang out with my friend. See ya."

I know I may not have been in top form, but HE certainly enjoyed himself far more than I did. 

I've spent the bulk of the day wishing I had drank even more so I would not remember the entire thing. 

Good News for People Who Love Bad News

I haven't posted much in the last week or so, if only because nothing interesting is really going on, aside from the usual dramas.

Roommate 1 / bff is wallowing right now. Last semester I was casually seeing this guy - we went on a few dates (a formal date? in college? I know, I was shocked too), he said a lot of really sweet things. I was genuinely ready to turn in my party girl stilettos and maybe settle down.

Then he got weird. Not replying to messages, disappearing for days a time, when he did want to hang out, it'd be a group thing and he'd call my roommate to set things up. 

I was out of town for a week and come home to everyone acting very suspiciously. To make a long story short, they had been seeing each other behind my back. A lot of tears and arguing later, my bff (as she will be referred to from here on out on the blog) decided she wanted to pursue things with this guy.

Fast forward two months and everyone is civil, even friendly. I've realized that I avoided a romantic grenade with this one - he's far too needy than I could handle.

On the downside, they fight a bunch and she'll lay in bed all day and mope. So he's not even my boyfriend, yet he's still managing to (relatively) ruin my life. Charming.

I did get some good news though: If my schedule works out the way I'm hoping (fingers are crossed), I won't have any finals. Meaning I get out of school a week and a half early. Meaning I can satisfy some of my wanderlust and visit my friends studying abroad.

I just need to find a (legal) way to make $1000. Any suggestions?

St. Crispen's Day

You know, I'm always reluctant to blog about hot topics; I honestly believe that my appeal lies entirely in quirky irrelevance. 

But here's the thing. It's the night before the inauguration and after a marathon viewing of Band of Brothers (which I've been trudging through all winter break), I just....well damnit, I feel hopeful. 

I won't lie: my inner cynic wants to watch Obama's inaugural speech at a bar tomorrow and drink every time I hear the words "hope," "change" or and allusion to a speech by Abraham Lincoln. But for the first time in a long time, I want to set aside that cynicism and believe that maybe, just maybe we have a clean slate. 

Maybe all those campaign promises weren't promises. Maybe we can fix some of the damage of the past few years. Maybe we can look past our differences, be they obvious or a little more hidden, and focus on our humanity.

I have my doubts, of course and I certainly disagree with Mr. Obama on many big policy points.

But at the end of the day, he makes me hope, against all reason, that there may be a better future just around the bend, for extraordinary times break the mold for the ordinary men. 

Goodnight and good luck Mr. Obama; Lord knows you'll need it.

Rookie of the Year.

This post is in response to the January Blog Carnival over at the 20 Something Blog Ring, all about First Kisses.

While it's entirely possible my first kiss was earlier, the first one I remember was at the tender age of 15.

 I think I reached my romantic peak somewhere around kindergarten, as I don't think I'll ever be able to top having two very public boyfriends at the same time and having it be perfectly acceptable. Then again, maybe the key to the success of those relationships was that they were entirely platonic. 

Complements of puberty, I went through a really lengthy awkward stage post kindergarten, ending with my first (and only) boyfriend during my sophomore year of high school. 

As a sophomore dating a senior, I thought I was possibly the coolest person ever. I had his class ring, a chauffeur with a sky blue  Coupe de Ville and my best friend was dating his best friend. It was like something out of my late 90's teen movie dreams.

After a few weeks of dating, my boyfriend, his best friend and my best friend all came over to my house for a snowy evening full of sledding, hot chocolate and trivial pursuit (clearly, I ran with a wild crowd). 

As things were winding down, I walked Matt to his car, having a hunch that this would be the setting for the big kiss - I mean, it HAD been a few weeks, after all. It couldn't have been more perfect: the full moon reflecting off the snow, the stars glimmering overhead. Dreamy.

Of course he leans in for the kiss, I lean in, there's contact...and the next thing I knew his tongue was essentially down my throat. But mind you, it wasn't really moving, it just kind of...sat there like a rock or a dead jelly fish. As the same time, his lips were going crazy, like a fish gasping for water. 

It's a good thing he had his eyes closed, because I'm pretty sure mine were popping out of my head.

I broke  the kiss as quickly as possible - I may never have been kissed before, but I certainly knew it shouldn't be like that!

With that, he looked down at me, eyes glimmering and whispered, "I love you." 

I'm still not sure what alarmed me more about that statement: the fact that we had only been dating a few weeks at the time or that this was his response to that vaguely terrifying kiss. 

Of course, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind: "I'm really cold."

I put Shakespeare to shame when it comes to romance.

That first kiss was so scarring, there never was another. I constantly made up excuses - I'm sick, you're sick, my teeth hurt, I burnt my tongue - until we broke up a little over a  month later.

 In hindsight, I don't know why he dealt with me for so long. A senior in high school dating a girl who won't even kiss him for over two months?  The poor guy must have really liked me.

Actually, I didn't have another kiss for almost two and a half years, not until after graduation, a debacle detailed here.

Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'til Morning

I'm really lucky in that my family and I are incredibly close. I spent most of winter break at home, avoiding phone calls from friends in order to spend more time around the house. 

On the same note, I had an amazing childhood, complete with a tree house, being terrorized by the neighborhood dog and epic games of jailbreak and kickball.

The downside of all of this is I have a massive Peter Pan complex. Occasionally, I'll spend random weeknights up until the wee hours, fretting at the prospect of growing up. It's not that I hate responsibility - I've had plenty of serious internships and jobs - I guess I'm just worried  that I'll never be that genuinely happy again. 

I'm also scared my house is going to stop feeling like home. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but last summer was probably my last 'real' summer of working as few hours as possible, lounging around the house and maximizing time at the beach.

 Now that I have an apartment with a year-long lease, I'll probably spend this summer down here,  working something similar to a real job (to the tune of 40 hours a week). Next Christmas, I don't expect to be home long, as I'm hoping to study abroad for our January term. The next think you know, I'm graduated and apparently supposed to enter the real world.

I've talked to my mom about this and no matter how many times she says home will always be home, I'm always terrified that that moments'  going to come and it'll be a threshold I can never go back  from. 

You know, it's entirely possible my parents did too good of a job.

Then again, with my luck, I'll probably move back home after graduation and stay there until my late 20s or my parents kill me, whichever happens first.

International Man of Mystery

Life's been a bit boring lately. I've moved back into my apartment at school and along with it has come a healthy dose of drama (messy roommate issues, of course). I'm hoping things will get better after a sit down talk, so I won't write about it (yet). I'm trying to approach it rationally so the less crazy dwelling on it, the better. 

I also have my first day of work tomorrow. Without giving away too many details, I'm working for a governmental committee. My boss is an absolute sweetheart and has already called me several times to see how my holidays have been. The schedules going to be a pain (I havent seen the 'waking up' side of 7 am since high school), but it should be a great networking opportunity. 

In other news, this guy from my 'past' sent me the ever-romantic Facebook IM trying to make plans for this weekend. To appreciate the humor in this, a bit of back story is necessary. 

I'm vice-president of a campus group that frequently attends conferences held by large universities. While there's definitely an academic element, anytime you have 2,000 college students in a hotel, shenanigans are bound to ensue. At a conference we went to in November,  the host university rented a club.  

Our school has a reputation as a bit of a party school, so we hosted a pre-party. I'm about as white as it comes to dancing, so I prepared myself by skipping around the hotel room with a bottle of jager. Some military cadets were crammed in the bathroom around a bathtub full of beer, not a girl in sight. A couple was making out in the closet and people were jumping on beds. If this was the pre-party, it certainly bode well for the rest of the night.

By the time we made it to the club, I was the better side of drunk. One minute I'm dancing, the next thing I know, I'm making out with some random boy. After what feels like an hour later, he looks at me, laughs, and shouts gleefully, "I'm gay!" Vaguely terrified, I run away.

Unable to find my friends, in true drunk girl style, I find myself dancing with another guy.  Luckily, my friends were slightly more sober than I was and found me, dragging me home before I made an additional spectacle of myself. Angry at the time, I shouted my room number over my shoulder, while loudly calling my friends cockblocks. I was in rare form.

After falling out of the taxi, our boys put me to sleep in their room (we had connecting hotel rooms). Who knows how long I was asleep for, but suddenly, I heard knocking on the door. Apparently, the boys found an after party, because I was home alone. Creeping to the door, I found my dance partner. Apparently he was good with numbers.

I started to pull him into my room next door, until I realize there was a random guy in my bed. I didn't think I had  been that drunk, so I frantically looked around. Much to my relief, my roommate was passed out on the bathroom floor. 

Never an exhibitionist, I pulled my dance partner into the hallway and up the stairwell. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was the better part of naked. I guess I had some sense knocked into me after being pushed against the wall, but I looked this fellow square in the eye and informed him I was NOT that kind of girl and I would NOT sleep with him. I'm sure I was quite convincing in bra and underwear. However, he took me for my word and we agreed this had just been a one time thing. He wouldn't even tell me his name and I gave him a fake one. 

Two weeks later, I get a friend request on Facebook. Oh, hello guy from the stairwell. I still have no idea how he found me, but after we got past the awkwardness of my fake name giving being uncovered, we talked a bit and have kept up over break. He goes to school nearby and now wants to go on some sort of date this weekend. 

He's certainly nice enough, but I definitely had my beer goggles on that night. Plus, I see face-to-face conversation being limited at best. There's only so much time you can fondly look  back on a thirty minute ordeal. 

"Oh, haha, remember that time you did some serious searching on Facebook to find me after you wouldn't give me your name?" The future grandkids will love that story.

Rest In Peace, You Wascally Rabbit.

After almost eight years, my bunny died today.

 I know that the death of a childhood pet is part of growing up for most people. I just didn't expect to be this upset. 

When we first got him he was about as awkward as I was, a scared little ball of fluff in the back of the cage. For the first few weeks, I'd sit down in the basement and do my homework on the floor with the cage open until he felt comfortable enough to approach anyone. 

After countless fights with my parents, breaking up with my boyfriend and getting rejected from my top choice university, I cried into his fur while he licked my face and tried to eat my hair. 

And during insomnia filled breaks from college, I'd lay on the couch while he snored in the corner.

He'd be acting a little weird lately and while I knew he was certainly getting old, I was optimistic it was just a stage. Then tonight while hopping around the basement, he laid down. As I was getting up to pet him, he started having a seizure and died while I was petting him and yelling for my parents. 

Rest in Peace Bugsy. I hope bunny heaven is full of bananas and cheerios. 

2009, so far you've been nothing but bad news.