What to do the night before you turn 25...

because you are a mess. That's right. A. Complete. Mess.

1. Clean your entire apartment. Until every. last. corner. is. spotless.
2. Call your best friend and cry.
3. Call your sister and cry.
4. Wish you had a bottle of wine all to yourself. Except you are too lazy to purchase said wine.
5. Pick out your outfit, make your lunch, and get coffee ready for the morning.
5. Paint your toe-nails Twisted Pink.
6. Attempt to read a book. Then a magazine. Then the news. Then give up on reading.
7. Watch Breakfast at Tiffany's. You personally prefer Sabrina, but you don't have that luxury right now.

Oh wait, it's midnight! Time to go celebrate with Ms. Hepburn!

Slacker

There are a list of things I wished to accomplish this summer. My summer is over in officially 3 weeks, and those things are definitely not going to get finished. Such as catching up on my goodreads.com yearly book goal (I am currently 32 books behind) or blogging regularly. Sigh. 

The upside: Two weeks from tomorrow, I am going on vacation. To a beach. Which is kind of my favorite. I also get to visit Philadelphia and New York City, two cities that I have never been too. And see at least two of my former City Year co-workers. The countdown begins. 

Chances are, I would rather read...

Let me give you some examples. These are the things that, instead of being/going there, I would rather read a book. 

Parties

Clubs

Weddings (shudder)

Holiday events

Bridal showers

Baby showers

Amusement Parks

Water parks (shudder...pretty much on par with weddings)

Any pool activities

Any sporting events 

Essentially, the list goes on and on. I go to these things typically out of obligation, and a driving need to be there to celebrate whatever is going on for the person I love. 

My point...I really love books. I love reading them, owning them, holding them (still totally creeped out by the kindle/nook thing). I always have a book in my bag, so when I am waiting or going on a break or whatever, I can just pull it out and read a few pages. It's comforting. For me, books are up there on the list of important things in my life. 

So is it any surprise that when I go to the laundry mat, I am going to bring a book with me while I am waiting for my clothes to wash/dry? And is it that much crazier that I would have/put earplugs in my ears, to drown out the very loud noise of the several televisions in the laundry mat? (Yes, I carry earplugs around. It's not that weird!) I was minding my own business. I was not being rude, or distasteful, or loud. I pleasantly put earplugs in my ears, so that I could concentrate enough to read my book. YET, I received several dirty looks from a man sitting across the room from me. And several shakes of his head. Like I was handing a saw to a five year old. 

I just smiled at him. Broadly. 

He looked away. 

I might be the nerd who carries around books and earplugs everywhere, but no one is going to make me feel bad about who I am. I like me.

Pitiful...

My little hiatus from blogging has come to an end. Unfortunately, I was not lounging around on a beach taking it easy for the 3 or so weeks that I have been absent. (Too bad). Typically, my life got real crazy in May, and something had to give (this). So now, the myriad of reasons. In list format. 

1. I started working full-time. This might not seem like a big deal, but I was attempting to successfully finish up the semester, so between that and 6:45am-9:30pm workdays (with a break in between), I WAS BEAT. And I am still trying to get over it. (This is where I give a huge shout-out to all of those working moms out there...because I cannot imagine the life I live with a kid added in. No thank you. Kudos to you:)

2. For any number of reasons, my intermittent migraines have come back with a vengeance. There was at least a whole week thrown in there of migraines. Ick. 

3. THE RACCOONS. The raccoons have been my ongoing drama for awhile now. I do not believe I have shared my raccoon story, which is, quite honestly, two parts soap opera and one part animal planet. In lieu of going into detail (that could take several posts), let's just say this: a mama raccoon climbed up to my roof (I live in the attic, so basically my walls), tore a hole through the shingles, made a nest in my walls, had three babies, and proceeded to torment me. How? My paranoia turned me into a crazy person. I couldn't sleep without thinking that I was going to wake up with a raccoon in my face, my cat dead, my apartment trashed, etc. After a few weeks of this, my landlord put a trap out, which caught two of the babies, and forced the mama raccoon to move her last baby away. (According to my neighbor, who claims he saw the mama and baby come down the fire escape). Moral of the story: I am nearly raccoon free (I hope), and can now sleep in peace.

Photo evidence, because how believable is this story??

I named this one Otis. He hissed at me.