I went to Philadelphia this weekend

and it was dazzling
with good music
and good company
and easy travels
but i lost all my photographs
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and a tube of lip gloss

but on the bright side, the trolley to the train station came almost 40 minutes late at 5:03 and my train departure was 5:10 and the trolley went slowly through a stupid underground tunnel but sam knew where to get off (at 5:12) and he raced up the stairs while i pathetically dragged my bags behind him and we couldn't find the right gate but a nice girl told us (track nine!) out of the blue and i wanted to send her a gift basket in thanks.

i raced down the stairs and the train was already moving but a still-open door whizzed by and i ran after it, grabbed a metal bar and briskly whisked myself inside just as the glass door sighed shut.

i slammed against a wall and a little old lady waiting for the restroom said 'oh my! are you alright?' so i did a fist pump and happily bounced away.

The last days of Allegheny

I liked being around these people very much.

Alas

I think I'm too graphically inclined to keep this Blogger account when there are tumbles to tumble off in Tumblr land. Sad to say it, but this blog needs a retirement (and accompanying party, with cocktails for everyone). However, I never do anything half-assed and with 86 posts on "sheattacks," I couldn't possibly bail out with 100 on the horizon. I'll finish on good solid centurian number.

But until then, what has been happening? So far, the list below is half-fulfilled, happily. Most notably, loving harder and getting into graduate school: I was lucky to be granted a full ride to Newhouse at Syracuse University and pleasant admissions and monies to other wonderful schools. My parents are proud, I'm proud and feeling good like a cheesy Buble song.

The aformentioned blog retirement party was a joke, but absolutely influenced by an upcoming weekend I'll spend in Philly with an old flame and his talented writer friend, who is, in fact, throwing a blog retirement party. Maybe it's just our generation, but I am SO jumping on this bandwagon. Any excuse for drinks and bonhomie, ja?

Today I signed my lease on the graduate apartment. No way it, nor any apartment, could be as great as Xanadu was, but I have high hopes for some totally weird roommates. After Allegheny, normal people just piss me off.

Tumble with me, too.

HAPPY [[NEW]] YEAR!

'one, one, one one' goes my date ticker. how binary.

this year i hope to:

get into a great journalism school

graduate from allegheny college

leave overkill and actv in good hands

work super hard on my journalism comp

eat food michael pollan would want me to

get a car

cook more

save money

love harder

clean my room more

If I had a baby right now, I'd name it Holiday.

A lot changes in a year. Circa this time in 2009, I would've killed to tote the label "intern" at something, anything. I would've been packing to go on a big Canadian adventure with a very different man than the one I see now. Graduate school and life beyond college would have been shimmering lights in the distance, figments of imagination, or maybe just figs. I was just getting into Dragon Age: Origins although I too-quickly suppressed indications that life of utter geekdom in my parents' basement would be fully satisfactory. I had high hopes for the newspaper, Overkill, a signed lease for an apartment with my best friends and some film project a cute, accident-prone guy kept talking about, something about the world turning into a porn.

I sit in bed. The sheets are adult blue plaid now and I don't know where my yummy eggs and coffee sheets are. Probably rolled up in the attic. I should be smarter, wiser or something like that but my GRE scores don't reflect any such thing so I'm taking them again, on a Wednesday this time. I'm gandering at paid internships in cities with taller buildings than the Corning Tower. I'm drooling at J-school programs that guarantee packaged futures for a price.

I'm looking forward to seeing Black Swan in theatres and I hope Anne Hathaway gets the part of Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman. I wish Joss Whedon would just do Wonder Woman, costs be damned, because if anyone else does it, it'll be like Catwoman. I no longer like how I look in purple lipstick. The two people I like the most at school, non-romantically, are suddenly engaged and there are rings and wedding magazines where there were just incense sticks and dinosaur piñatas. I've learned to clean my hair out of the shower drain.

I don't question that I still want to be a journalist, but I do wonder why. I've wondered at this motivation a lot lately, probably because graduate schools want to know too. I do love to write and I do want to help people. I don't mind a small salary. I do want to talk to new people every day. I'm good at some other things but they seem too self-serving. I do see ways to be creative and innovative and I see opportunities to lead. But as much as I want people to say, she's driven, career-oriented and well on her way, I also want people to say she's insane, unpredictable and we have no idea what she'll end up doing. Sometimes I want to reject a clear path and sometimes I have a craving for sushi.

Next Year Might Be A Hungry Year

I'm amidst applying to J-Schools. The application gods ask painfully broad questions like, how is journalism an integral part of U.S. democracy? I stumbled upon a screen writing application and one of the questions was like, OK --two people are in an elevator -- one's a Muslim, one's a Christian. The elevator breaks down. Write a two minute dialogue, GO! And I did that instead of working on my applications.

and we made bruschetta together on a sunday.

sign in, sign out

glasses slid down his nose, which was not crooked at all

as he wrote poetry instead of graduate school essays

blood mixed with jelly tears trickled down to the belly button area

nonsensical, because we don't need high fructose corn syrup

but we do need botanical gardens

It's thunderstormin'

Investigative Journalism

Video Production

Civil War Literature

Environmental Science

Advanced Workshop in Nonfiction

It's all quite interesting. Even the Civil War. Five classes plus the newspaper, Overkill, sorority, ACTV, Grounds for Change, a boyfriend and a kitty. Dyed my hair black for fall. I have some classmates who are getting married. I know one guy who has a baby. That's weird. My eyes hurt sometimes. My left eyelid has begun to droop (evident in this picture) and I think I might turn into a old woman with an asymmetrical face. That's okay, I think it makes my face more interesting, but I will certainly never be a news anchor now. They like their news anchors symmetrical on NBC. I really like the new journalism professor from the L.A. Times; she's inspiring. Maggie's teaching me to cook with olive oil. I eat cheesy puffs when I'm tired and drink coffee when I'm awake. Sometimes a cigarette. I feel fine, brother, I feel fine.

Daddy

As I grow into an excited adulthood full of responsibility and pressure, high hopes and potential, he grows out of his. As I speed up, he slows down. I always strove to match his fast pace. Now I feel like I zoomed past him too fast, and it feels like free falling.

My Second Poem from the Black Forest Writing Seminars

Girl Scout

She only came in December

which worked well for me

so I could spread her

on my winter toast

sprinkle her freckles on top

or drizzle her in my teacup

when my throat

caught an itch.

My little Thin Mint.

I was her best customer,

I bought one of every kind

except Tagalongs

because those were bad for my cholesterol

said my wife, but

she's in the freezer now

so, it doesn't matter.

Fourteen boxes and a flute of milk later,

although she played piccolo in band,

it became passé to market her wafers

or Dulce-de-Leche the grip of my hand.

I was her best customer

until seventh grade when she quit

to grind lamb at the Do-Si-Do dance.

Next winter my knuckles started to twitch.

At a waffle house in upstate New York

while declaring, I’ll have the potato skins

I realized she was the waitress

with the apricot bosom and shortbread hips.

She gave me a bear hug and

made a joke

about how all these years later

she was still taking my order.

katrina tulloch

Realize

Oh NO, in 2030, when people have themed parties like we have 60s, 70s, 80s themes-- they're going to do 2010s and everyone will dress up as hipsters and carry around Starbucks lattes and iPhones. AHH!

PS. I don't feel like telling Howard's story anymore. I'll just keep it in my back pocket for later, but is a good one.

Brink of Tears #1

I almost cried twice today, for two different reasons. I might be in need of a good cry, it's been a while, but today was just ridiculous.

This trip was almost perfect. I haven't lost anything. I made it to every class, saw magnificent places, met unbelievable people, and became brave. I engulfed myself in culture, food, beauty, and did things that would terrify a 16-year-old me. Until today, when I woke up too late, missed my train, missed my plane, and had to call Daddy for help like a fucking princess. I can't stand my idiocy sometimes.

In any case, I am currently typing this from a lovely little room in a quaint Frankfurt hotel. Life could be much, much worse. But desperately running around train stations today nearly pushed me over the edge. I didn't have seat reservations, so every time I would snag an empty seat, some German would come over and start waving their reservation in my face, speaking their schloshy foreign tongue. Of course they sound much angrier than they actually are, but after this happened six times, I ended up curled in a ball in the train corridor, atop my red polka dot luggage, while people buzzed back and forth, giving pitiful looks to The American Girl.

At the hotel though, I made a friend named Howard. His story is the feature presentation, which will come as soon as I can purchase more expensive internet. Excuz-moi.

My First Collage Poem

. . october . .

scuttling along the sidewalk

I first got my period

thinly disguised as watercress soup

hugely embarrassing

due to its high frequency

sollte de Spritze und Kontrollen verlangen

Mel was 45 years old

Father was looking directly into the camera

the high drama of my young life

It killed him.

It killed him

and I stirred the ice cubes with my finger

I think I’m anti-hammock

Send the product and the reasons

for the return

along with the original receipt

before the bird eggs hatch

in a salad of sticky freedom

I Am So Very Easily Inspired.

Here I am in a place that looks like this.

Eating food that looks like this and smells even better.

I can't help but be saturated with inspiration and imagination. The color, the cobblestones! The smells of buttery croissants wafting from the baikeries, unlike anything in the states! Tomorrow we must prepare an action scene from our second short story and a draft of our first poems. My work is imbued with sensory words, no doubt a result of Freiburg itself.

Tomorrow we are also reading nonsensical poems and I truly love these the most.

Lines like Jeffrey McDaniel's:
I was gonna defy gravity in her celestial body
but I had performance anxiety, so I wrote Baby

Jupiter in black Magic Marker in her forehead
and plummeted back into the bar.

...appeal to the illogical, childish, and stubborn poets like me. I can't stand long lines of structured, ornamental language. I can't slow down that much. I want short, sweet, punches of absurdity. Not even just playing on my five senses, but transcending any notions that I have of everyday life. I love this kind of art and I hope you'll like the poems I come up with soon.