letter to myself: new semester pep-talk

Dear Melissa,

Tomorrow you have your first class of your senior year. Not to put any more pressure on you than your parents and professors and The Universe In General is putting on you, but you need to stick your nose to the fucking grindstone (which is a dumb saying and kind of a disturbing image, to be quite honest). Take a tip from your highly motivated and successful mother and use common sense, for god’s sake.

Please don’t skip class anymore. Please don’t neglect to turn in major assignments. Please. It’s not only a completely reckless decision which would jeopardize your chances of graduating in time, but it also shows your professors, whom I know you idolize and look to for validation, that you’re not the secure, outstanding student they all think you are. How many times have your professors given you a second chance based entirely on your reputation? Don’t let them down. Don’t let yourself down, as lame as that sounds. You have shown yourself that you have the potential to be one of the brightest students in your department. Believe in yourself.

Don’t let your friendships die, the longstanding and blossoming ones, now that Matt’s back. He’s amazing, and it feels nice to retreat to the comfortable companionship you have with him, but you know he doesn’t fill the space in your heart dedicated to your best friends. Make an effort to meet new people and keep in touch with everyone you care about. Be aware of how your actions affect other peoples’ perceptions of you, and if you make a mistake in judgment, attempt damage control immediately. You know when you’re in the wrong–don’t be afraid to apologize.

Get to Career Services as soon as possible. You’ve been swearing up and down to do this for the past month, so don’t put it off. Go as soon as the office opens. And don’t skip your appointment to go to fucking IHOP. Those strawberry cheesecake pancakes are awesome, but you know what else is awesome? Procuring employment in your future place of residence.

Also, that future place of residence? Where is it? You’re optioning Denver and Seattle, I know, but you’ve got to make a decision one way or another. And–I know you don’t want to hear it–you have to tell your parents sooner or later. So tell them sooner. After the initial shock and backlash, they’ll probably be able to help you accomplish The Big Move more smoothly than if you’d waited.

One more thing: this job you’ve got? The one where you get paid $11 an hour to essentially grade homework and record it in a little book? Don’t blow it. You almost completely killed your relationship with your boss last week, and she gave you a second chance–show her she made the right choice. A good recommendation has been hard to come by in your career history, so you need this one–and I know you want it, too. Erin, Erica, Ashley, and everyone else who works at the center are really cool people, you don’t want to alienate yourself from them!

Be positive. Be humble. Have faith in yourself. Take it one day at a time. And above all, enjoy the place you are in life right now. You’ll never be here again.

Good luck, godspeed,

Meloogal (your better half)

Poetry Monday: More Billy Collins

Feeling a little introspective tonight and not very verbose–good thing it’s Poetry Monday! This is a[nother] poem by Billy Collins. Jesus, you’d think I’d never heard of any other living American poet aside from him. But there’s a reason I use so many of his poems–it’s because I actually read them for leisure because I understand them. They’re not deliberately obtuse. What I love about him as a poet is that he manages to be lighthearted and funny while also maintaining poignancy and sadness; it’s a technique I can relate to. I love the simple, straightforward language, the surprising imagery, the striking way he chooses to end his poems. This one’s called “Forgetfulness,” and I hope you enjoy it too.

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

what sort of a nut has a shell of this size?

I’m brewing up this big entry about my sense of responsibility and conscientiousness, and how I think my occasional lack thereof causes me the most stress and strife out of any of the myriad issues in my life.

But it’s still percolating–I tried writing about it just now and it just felt wrong. So instead, I think it’s time for a list of Things I Did This Week, Complete With Blunders!

High Rollers Night (alternately, “You’re so money, babe!” Night)

This weekend, I was inaugurated into the Official Grown-ups Club when Matt and I were treated to a night of drinks and screeching laughter in Atlantic City. Now I’m not saying this happened for sure, but Matt’s mom (who reads this blog and is awesome! Hi, Matt’s mom!) and I may or may not have attempted to sample the massage chairs in a casino gadget store. And in the process, we may or may not have broken the seat-adjusting-handle off of one of them. But you didn’t hear that from me.
Fun bonuses: Discovered the miracle that is a Bay Breeze; Got to watch Matt try to smoke a cigar! BWAHA!

Cats get #1 priority

On Monday Matt and I went to a ridiculously overpriced pet store called Dogs and Cats Rule, where they answer the phone, “Hello–dogs and cats rule!!” Um, I LOVE THAT. I think I’m just going to start greeting people like that from now on. “Hi, my name is Augusten and I’m an alcoholic.” “Hello, Augusten–dogs and cats RULE!” We got Butters an elastic shoestring thing with a bell on the end, a little crinkly dog to toss around, and this weird scratching board thing that he’s yet to catch onto. $9.99 well spent. Also? Received 1 trillion scratches. Crazy bastard.

Shopping Galore
My dearest friends Cait and Katie came down to visit on Tuesday, and among other extremely pleasant activities (chit-chatting over soup-in-a-bread-bowl at Panera, trolling our college’s empty campus after dark), we did some impulse shopping. Because–did I mention?–I now actually have money!
There’s this thing that happens when you have a job where you clock in hours at a place of business, and in exchange for your services, they give you money. Like, whoa. Right now–well, I’m no Hilton sister, but I’ve got way, way more in the ‘ol checking acount than I usually do.
A couple months ago when I was dead broke, I created this percentage plan wherein a certain portion of each paycheck would go towards food, the after-college-blowout-road-trip fund, the fun fund, and all-around savings. But instead I’ve been spending it on clearance-priced shirts at Old Navy, cute underpants, and a 7-inch Santoku knife from Target’s exclusive line of low-priced Henckel knives. Because I? Am financially responsible.

PWNed!

I’ve been sucked into this horribly addictive computer game Matt plays called Civilization 4, or Civ 4. It’s kind of hard to explain the concept. You … are a leader of a civilization, like Ghandi or Queen Isabella or Mao Zedong. And you. Um. Settle somewhere. And you build shit and explore and develop mathematics and literature and try to pwn other civilizations in the game with your Zealous Religious Ways or your Big Fuckoff Machine Guns, whichever you choose to value more. And. Um. I swear it’s much more interesting when you are actually playing, so much so that hours fly by and a lot of Oreos are consumed and suddenly Holy Shit It’s 3 AM and I Have Work Tomorrow At 9!

Pinkies Out

It’s really nice to do something fancy-shmance every so often. Yesterday, Matt and I went to a sculpture garden, where we interacted with the art lovers of Mercer County, then Nassau Street in Princeton, where we sat in an uppity bookstore and read comics (while other patrons around us discussed the presence of disembodied imagery in the final scenes of Joyce Carole Oates’ novels), and finally, a Moroccan restaurant/hookah bar in Pennsylvania, where we treated ourselves to a 5-course dinner and talked about religion and politics. Gee. If you didn’t know we had been watching QVC less than an hour prior, you might have thought we had class.

So that’s my last couple days in several nutshells. Classes are starting up next week, so I’m glad to have jam-packed my last week of summer with so much fun and tomfoolery. How’s your summer winding down?

Poetry Monday, lolcat edition

If you read Matt’s blog, you know who Butters is. And, well. If you watch South Park, you also know who Butters is. But this isn’t that Butters I’m talking about. It’s another. But it’s named after the South Park one. And. Um.

Anyway.

If you don’t read Matt’s blog, you really should start. It’s pretty hilarious. Sparknotes version: Matt has a kitteh! He’s orange and adorable! Click on that link right now to his blog. RIGHT NOW.

Welcome back. Are your retinas stinging with The Cute? That’s what I thought.

We’re still waiting on his other two housemates for the go-ahead to keep Butters; one of them might be allergic or something, or just really really opposed to cats. You can’t find fault with this one, though, especially when he stumbles over to you and throws himself over your lap and presents his little striped belly to be rubbed and stretches his mouth open to meow but his eensy vocal cords just aren’t strong enough to produce an audible pitch so it’s like ::squeak of air! i’m ridiculous!::

Oh dear lord. I’m one cat closer to being Crazy Cat Lady. I just have to keep this Ogden Nash poem in mind:

The Kitten

The trouble with a kitten is
THAT
Eventually it becomes a
CAT.

**

Whew! Thanks, Nashie ‘ol pal, for pulling me back down to earth. I’d been floating in a haze of Miniscule Paw Pads and Whiskers of Outrageous Lengths. But you know, we’ve got a couple more months of enjoying Mr. Butters (or Professor Chaos, as he is known during his crazy scratching binges) as a kitten, so I think I’ll savor every moment.

Maybe “The Meloogal Years”

Michelle commented a couple days ago, something to the effect of “you should embrace the fact that you attract awkward moments because…well, you have to, or you’ll want to hurt yourself daily,” and I think she’s right. Sure, I’m socially awkward. But would I be me if I weren’t? If I could manage to get through an entire morning without something going awry? For instance, today, in a 4-hour span of time, I:

• Dated all of my students’ books at HLC with tomorrow’s date instead of today’s.
• Inadvertently opened a pouch of basil in the produce section of Stop and Shop–the hinged plastic container literally sprung open so to propel the leaves directly into my face and outward in arcs to the ground, like herbaceous fireworks.
• Was then faced with a dilemma: pick up all of the basil, shove it back in the box, place it back on the shelf, and walk away under the assumption that the 5-second rule exists, or notify a store worker and Receive the Stink Eye? You know what I did instead? I bought the basil myself. Tonight Matt and I are having Penne with Shrimp and Essence of Supermarket Floor for dinner.
• Left my bank card in an ATM and was chastised by someone more responsible than me. What else is new?

I guess my life would be pretty boring without all the shenanigans. And I definitely wouldn’t have as many good stories as I do. Like the time I cooked a potato in the microwave for 15 minutes and set it on fire. Or the time I was trying to walk backwards all cool-like to my spot on the field during marching band practice, and I ran into the guy holding the bass drum and we engaged in this weird slapstick-routine-dodge-and-cover thing. Or the time I bought a maternity shirt without knowing it was a maternity shirt.

I think I need my own sitcom. Then everyone can benefit from the hilarity. I just need a title to start.

“Everybody Loves Meloogal”? “Meloogal House”? “That Meloogal Show”?

…Yeah. I’ll work on it, I guess.

Re-virginizing

Hello, WordPress World! Whoa. It’s so bright and shiny in here. It smells like New Car. I think I like it.

If you’re following me over from the AIB blog at Blogger, welcome to my New Digs! I’ve been working hard all week to get it all set up for the move. What do you guys think? Fun and new? Weird and bad? Expected/unexpected?

If you’ve just stumble-upon’d, then hi! My name is Melissa, and we’re going to have lots of fun together. If you know what I mean and I think you do WINKWINKNUDGENUDGE. Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be inappropriate! Please don’t run away!

Ahem.

Like I said, I just moved to WordPress from Blogger because I am an indecisive freak who can’t stay in one place for a year for a few reasons:

• I wanted more space for the text of my entries, and I like the clean look of most of the WordPress templates.
• I had heard WordPress was more customizable (and so far, that’s true). Check out the header image! That’s a picture of the giant pendulum at the Franklin Institute in Philly, which nicely represents the Great Cosmic Pendulum that governs the fates of the inter-orbiting, intertwining energy systems in all of us.
• Or maybe I just thought it was a cool picture.
• There’s room to grow here–I could eventually buy my own domain and shell out wads of cash for a custom design, and advertise to make a little cash and WOW I am not taking myself entirely too seriously AT ALL, etc., etc.
• I’d started feeling that I was losing sight of why I keep a blog, that I was too concerned with fitting into a community of writers than I should have been, and that I needed to find a place to write for myself again. Again, not taking myself too seriously in the least. Nope.
• Um…I’m a thrill-seeker who constantly needs the sweet, sweet rush of adrenaline and metallic taste of fear in order to live a fulfilled life? When it comes to blogs, anyway? Why do I keep using question marks? I believe that some U.S. Americans don’t, HAVE maps?
  

I’ve explained my move with a bit more detail in the About page, so if for some reason, you’re still dying to hear me talk about myself even more, that’s the Place To Be. I’m really liking Wordpess and I’ll hopefully be hanging out here on a permanent basis, so change your links, have a click-around, and check back once in a while, ‘kay? ‘Kay.

The Big Bloggy Change

Um.

I moved.

Again…!

…Surprise!…?

I’ve been kind of nervous to unveil the Big Change, since I don’t know how it will be taken. Some people, like Matt, I know didn’t want me to move to WordPress. And even as I write this, my last post in the webspace that kept me company over a Seriously Upsetting Time In My Life, it feels bittersweet. But it’s like I said, I want–and maybe need–a big bloggy change. And besides, it’s still the same blog! It’s like I’m just picking the whole thing up and setting it down somewhere extremely similar!

I guess it’s here that I say goodbye to Blogger and hello to the Brave New World of WordPress. I hope you all continue to tune in over there–the shenanigans will be many and the mishaps will abound!

So please, please head over to the new home of Adventures in Blunderland and let me know what you think of the new place. I’ll explain more about the reasons behind the move once we get there. Go! Go! See you there!

The Essence of Blunder

I really need to blog about two things that happened to me while I was at the mall with Matt yesterday that were just so ridiculously Blunderland. These two acts completely sum up my life and why I blog about it:

At White Barn Candle Company, I decided I desperately needed to sample their “Creamy Caramel” fragrance. I couldn’t find a candle of that scent, so I grabbed an atomizer tester, sprayed it into the air, and thrust my face into the quickly dispersing perfume cloud.

It was essentially like spraying the fucking thing directly up my nose. Like a little inhaler for some sort of Dulce de Leche fiend, the microscopic, stickily sweet-smelling particles stung my eyes and clung to the tiniest hairs in my nostrils. Now, even this morning, nearly 8 hours later, everything still smells like a goddamn blondie.

Then, at Victoria’s Secret Beauty (I know, I know, I’m a terrible girlfriend, first I make Matt go into Girlie Smells Central and now we’re in Makeup Galore), I let the saleslady corral me into buying a new version of their “Very Sexy” mascara. She kept rambling about the brush and how she wanted to cut the brush off and let me have it, or something. It was totally weird and I eventually just stopped listening to her, as she had me at “mascara.” I freakin’ love mascara, like, more than I really need to. I had pretty much decided I was going to buy it as soon as my bat-like senses detected its existence. Anyway, I paid my $9.00 and went on my merry way.

When we were in the car I unwrapped it from the froofy little pink tissue (Why? Why so gentle with my beauty products?) to examine it breathlessly and possibly apply it to my eyelashes right there, by the light of the parking lot flood lamps. It was then that I realized I had bought the wrong color–brown instead of black. Again. AGAIN. This has happened to me countless times in the past with makeup. I foolishly assume that the testers and the actual sale items correspond LIKE THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO, and consequently, I don’t bother to check to make sure that the lip gloss inside of the box I’m picking up is in fact the lovely shade of coral I tried on in the mirror as opposed to the HAZMAT orange color that my friends and I made fun of for 15 minutes.

Ladies and gentlemen, these things happen to me about 4 or 5 times a day. I consistently do things that would cause any normal human being to pause and think, Wait a second, self. Let’s examine the social implications of shooting body spray square into your face. I ‘m like a effing 4-year-old. No wonder I’m constantly verging on crisis.

***

By the way, the Big Bloggy Surprise is on its way! OH THE PANTS-CRAPPING ANTICIPATION.

Poetry Monday, Batman Edition

The Dark Knight has recently inspired a fervent obsession with the Batman comics. After reading Batman: Year One, The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, The Man Who Laughed, The Long Halloween, and countless other comics/graphic novels, I’m now a veritable compendium of facts. Which may or may not be a good thing.

This is the dorkiest confession I’ve ever made on this blog: I think about Batman a lot. Could a hero like him really exist in an actual American city? Wouldn’t people kind of just be freaked out by a dude in a bat costume lurking the streets at night? And who would pick up after all of his messes? You can’t just explode three or four cars cause they happen to be parked nearby a place you’re driving by in your crazy Army Tankmobile. Think of all the paperwork!

He’s even infiltrated my poetry library. The other day I was contemplating my Poetry Monday options when I came across this cute, kind of silly little poem by Theodore Roethke. It’s about the rational and irrational sides of fear, and I think it really unfolds into layers of meaning the more you read it. Enjoy:

The Bat

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.

He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.

But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:

For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face.

***

B-t-dubs, did anyone else see the part during the Olympics last night where a girl from Zimbabwe broke a World Record in backstroke–and then they immediately showed Michael Phelps chilling out by the pool, lost in his iPod? It’s like, Sorry lady, while you were breaking a world record, Phelpsy here was listening to Coldplay. That’s what America thinks of YOU. I know all this stuff is filmed beforehand and it might not have been his real reaction, but come on, NBC! Let’s get some better editing up in here!

Also, those Chinese gymnasts are SO NOT 16. They’re total beasts, which sort of makes up for it, but it makes me kind of nervous to see an 8-year-old, standing at 3′2”, try to take on the vault. That thing’s like, a foot taller than her. Yeesh.