Life, right now, feels a little bit like one of those machines on a game show that is a telephone booth full of money and wind. And I feel like I have 1:00 minute on the clock to grab all of the money. But instead of money, it's little slips of paper with different things that I'm sure of written on each piece. So the wind is blowing and my face is red because I know the whole audience is watching and I'm grabbing grabbing grabbing at what-- I'm not sure exactly, but I want to grab as many as possible before the wind dies down and I find myself leaving the telephone booth only to realize that all I'm holding is a bunch of handfuls of slips of paper.
A few of the slips of paper that you're going to have to pry out of my cold, dead hands:
I graduated. I also like how curly my hair is. Also, this was the last moment for the following two weeks of which I wasn't crying.
Wonderful, wonderful people at my side.
Saying "goodbye" was kind of the worst thing ever. For the record: these smiles are fake. Or at least mine was. But they're hopeful and proud smiles too. The kind that hold just a ton of words and stories and history that I would never really be able to get out in a real smile with all sorts of telling teeth.
How have I lived for 22 years without a pair of monogrammed pajamas? It's everything you'd think it'd be and everything you'd never expect.
I was kind of a total grouch for the majority of mom and my trip up the coast from Savannah to Philadelphia. There were fleeting moments of me being a nice person like when mom bought me a milkshake and let me sing super loud to Alison Krauss' When You Say Nothing at All over and over again, but mostly it was a lot of me crying and texting my friends and making fun of the Naval Academy and begging her to go into the Piggly Wiggly to buy tampons for me because I'm still nervous about running into someone I know (in the middle of Virginia) and them seeing and officially knowing that I've hit puberty.
Let it be known that LJP and DWP were both kind of saints for dealing with me that week in the way that they did. Patience and understanding with a healthy dose of honesty and encouragement. And pretending not to notice that I didn't lift one box for the entire moving process.
And then mom and I got to Philadelphia. Have I even... no, I don't think I have. I'm such a bad blother (blog + mother... or maybe I like blommy better). Ok. So, the reason I'm in Philadelphia: I'm interning for Anthropologie at the URBN headquarters, which are located in Philadelphia, with their casuals (casuals = sweats, pajamas, robes, knit dresses, comfy stuff) team.
This picture was after my first day of work when mom and I met for dinner at Little Nona's. The food was delicious. The company was excellent. But homegirl still couldn't keep it together and by the time we were splitting the tiramisu I forcer her to get me, I was crying again*. And continued to do so from the restaurant. To my car. To her hotel. To the curb. To hugging her goodbye. And then all the way back to my apartment where I really let things get out of hand.
Anyway, I probably ruined dinner.
I hope mom still likes me.
I barely made it a week before I came crawling back to these lads in New York City for a little TLC. Stick with what you know, yamiright?
Also: beer.
To truly kick off my time in Philly, somehow over the course of the 4 days that I lived in the city, I contracted a deliciously contagious case of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. How? I will never know. Especially since the virus is so rare among adults that about 90% of the websites I looked up for information didn't even speak directly to the reader, but instead, immediately assumed that the patient was typically under 6 years old and are written mostly in the form of "If your child is..." or "You might notice that your son or daughter..." No, no, no, Internet. Not a six year old here. Just a 22 year old college graduate slash intern, looking at 6 days of doctor prescribed quarantine with an empty fridge and a hopeful future.
My feet are healing quite nicely, thank you for asking and I am no longer contagious so, right now, you might say, life is pretty ahsa-weeet.
More soon. I promise.
*More tears in the month of June 2014 than from January 17, 2012 (the day after the Gilmore Girl's finale) through May 2014 combined. Someone diagnose me with something.
