hurray, making everyone mad!

I’m headed back to Boston in the morning, where I will have two days alone, without internet or television, until Frank returns from his business trip.  I would just wait to fly up until Saturday except — oh wait — the airlines suck.  Can we PLEASE return to regulated airlines?  Because I think it is safe to say that non-regulation has crashed and BURNED every single person trying to fly nowadays.

Aside from not looking forward to being totally alone for two days (which I used to enjoy, but now I’m in one of my super-social phases, plus the whole no-tv-or-internet makes it worse), it doesn’t feel right leaving home yet.  Not that much is going on here.   I worked for three weeks.  Watched a movie with the boys once, went out with Chrissy I think twice, aside from Frank being here this past weekend (which was great!).  I’ve seen my dad like three times in the month I’ve been home.  I can’t get a job because I’m not here much longer, and it’s too hot to go outside.  So basically I’ve been sitting in the house and going to the gym — occasionally doing a bit of writing.  So the plan is to go back to  Boston for a week and a half, then come home for another two weeks, during which I’ll have a family reunion and my annual friend trip to the river.  Then I’ll be back in Boston, hopefully working for a month before moving into the new apartment and starting school.

It occurs to me that this is my last summer spending any great length of time home, and I’m not ready to accept that yet.  I love Texas, and I love doing nothing with my family, and I love my home.  Granted, I’ll finagle a way to come home for a couple weeks hopefully.  I realize it’s illogical, but leaving tomorrow has me feeling like I’m going to be missing out on precious moments at home.  I ALWAYS feel that way, either way, whether I’m leaving Boston or leaving home.  But it’s impossible not to feel left out when I know things are going on at home without me, but at the same time, things are going on with Frank in Boston and I want to be there with him, too.  Basically, I can be in Boston doing stuff with Frank and his friends, or I can be here with my family doing nothing.  I don’t like having to choose.

Like I said, I’m blowing the entire thing out of proportion and actually was pretty upset about it earlier.  My now-uncertainty about my future has me wobbly when I had my post-school life all planned out.  This new way of doing loans (that I have to make interest payments and a principal payment WHILE in school — which I can’t afford) has me stressed out about work.  My BFA thesis needs to be in the works, and looming graduation (10 mos. away, but still!) has me anxious about ending another stage of youth.  I’m not ready to be a grown-up yet, and I’m not ready to give up my home in Texas and my time with family to just do nothing, but everything in the world is propelling me forward.  Typically I’m all for that, but sometimes I wish I could just freeze time.  I’m not okay with the sacrifices that have to be made in order to become an adult — but all this being mandatory.

Flights tomorrow are bad.  I’m trying for the 6:35am, and there’s the chance I’ll make it, but there’s also the chance I’ll be sitting around in the airport all day.  If I’m not going to be at home, I’m ready to be in Boston; I hate spending FOREVER in airports.

I know once I’m in Boston, I’ll be happy about regaining my independence.  I’ll probably spend tomorrow night writing and watching movies — I’ll still have my DVD player. I can go to Trident Cafe if I get lonely, because there are people AND free wifi there.  I’ve got a couple things for the new apartment hopefully that I’ll go pick up, and I’ll go for a walk since the weather is MUCH cooler there (though I am NOT looking forward to giving up the sunshine nor cutting temperatures in half.  50s and 60s?!  I want 70s and 80s!)  I need to get stuff done on my BFA thesis, and I’ll be job hunting, and I’ll see if I can still gain access to the school gym.  And there are still a few friends in Boston I can look up.

I’m always either itching to get going or desperate to stay put.  And right now I am feeling lazy and sentimental and already homesick . . . but I’ll be home in a week and a half!  I realize it’s not like I’ll NEVER be home again.  Sometimes I am just absurd, I know this.  I’m just in a mood . . .

Anyway.  Right now, I am going to go update my wishlist page with all the stuff I need for the new apartment.  So, you know, if you just HAPPEN to have something lying around, or just HAPPEN to want to give me a gift . . . well, I sure won’t stop you!

No lie

My Christmas tree just tried to kill me.  Me, Mom, Thomas, and Brittney put it up Saturday night because it’s kind of a fun family thing we do together most years.  Not last year, because I was in Europe and didn’t get home until like five days before Christmas.  But so this year we put it up so that Mom can enjoy it for the last two weeks of this semester that Thomas and me will be away. Our Christmas Tree is LOADED DOWN.  We have been collecting ornaments longer than I’ve been alive.  Instead of spoons or thimbles, we collect Christmas ornaments.  I even collected ornaments from every country I’ve been to.  Needless to say, many of our ornaments are very meaningful.

So here, twenty minutes ago, I’m sitting on my couch on my laptop when suddenly I hear the crash starting.  The tree is literally right behind me; I’m leaning against the arm rest and the tree is behind me.  I manage to stick my hand out to try and catch it, but all THAT does is let one of the branches give me a pretty deep gouge in that space between my thumb and forefinger on my right hand; you know, EXACTLY when your pen rests when you right.

The tree hit the floor.  The base it was propped up on broke.  Maybe the tree was inbalanced?  I don’t know.  But a dozen or so ornaments have broken, including the little green glass Harrod’s shopping bag I got in London last year (which I’m sad about, but I’ll get another one next year), and two fancy glass balls Mom had gotten –one with an otter on it for my brother, and one with the Christmas traditions of Scotland etched on it. 

I dug out the broken and fallen ornaments that I could and put them in piles, but since the base is broken I have no way to stand teh tree up.  There’s no telling the ornament massacre that awaits me under the tree.  I’m hoping no more broken ornaments, but my hopes are having a hard time getting off the ground . . .

And speaking of the Christmas spirit, how about some sympathy for my poor hand?  Now it has the awful burn (which looks like it’s going to scar a bit) AND the stupid tree branch gouge.  Honestly!

The lack of posting was because I went home

to Texas, but now I am home in my apartment, listening to my stupidneighbor and his little friends screaming.  If it is still going on when I continue this post, I will go ask them to be quiet, and if they ignore me again, I will be filing a complaint tomorrow.  It’s 12:34 am.

Trip home was wonderful, as I had guessed.  The Celtic Festival was a bit of a let-down, but it was still a lot of fun just to spend the weekend doing fun things with my parents and brother.  Today I got back to my usual routine, but yesterday I decided to toss my typical schedule and to-do list to the wind and just go walking with my camera and get pastries in the North End because I have been back in Boston for over a MONTH now and had not done that.

And guess what.  While I was home, autumn apparently started.

ALSO, I have decided to try and do a photo journal.  As you can see, I’ve added the flickr widget to the side bar, so you can access the photos straight through there.  I tried doing a self-portrait a day last year and made it almsost 200 days before, coming home from the Castle, I lost it and never got it back.  Instead of the self-portrait, I’m just going to do a photo of anything.  We’ll see.  I’ll TRY and put it up every day but yeah.  We’ll see, haha.

my family is pretty strange.

Saturday morning at 9:45am I got a text message from my brother saying “I’m on my way.”  This was in reference to the fact that he was on his way back home from a friend’s house where he had spent the night after they’d been out all night long.  And the REASON that he was coming home at 9:45am after an all-nighter insted of 2pm like a normal person was because my mom, in a fit of excitement I’m sure that was induced by all her ducklings being home for the weekend (that being me, Thomas, and Brittney, though she wasn’t home from Arkansas in time for breakfast), decided to make a big breakfast Saturday morning.  This consisted of waffles and poached eggs (I think poached?  to be honest, I only really know what scrambled eggs are. and hard boiled).  I mean, most families gather for a big dinner when everyone is home, right?

Not us.

So I hauled myself out of bed at 10:02am to my mom hollering through the house, “Breakfast!  Kids, breakfast is ready!”  And me, my little brother, my mom, and my stepdad sat down to breakfast.  It was pleasant. 

Anyways, this weekend trip home has actually been excellent.  It was good to get to spend time with my brother since we basically missed our entire summer together.  And I got to see some more of my mom and stepdad, which always has its pros and cons.  About to head out to lunch with my Dad, then out to see my friend Chrissy’s new apartment.  Tonight I’ll retrieve my belongings and effects from the ex’s house (how strange; that’s the first time I’ve called him that).  And then I will head back to Boston at the crack of dawn tomorrow, no plans as of yet for when I’ll be coming home again.

But yeah, my family is pretty weird.

Home at last, home at last

Thank God Almighty I’m home at last.

-11:23pm Dallas time, 19.7

Ta!

I have been home for summer for two weeks now, and because I am no longer away at school, this blog will go on a four-month hiatus. I’ll pick up blogging here again as I leave for my semester abroad in September, so have a great summer and I’ll see you then, dear blog!

OH

how good it feels to be home.