I went to Macy's at Lenox to pick up my butch-tastic dressy vest (the cool kind, not the eighties kind). While in the parking lot, I fell because it was raining and I was wearing flip-flops. My dress got soaked, my new tattoo got smacked on the tarmac, and my iPod fell out in the rain. Everything (including my iPod) was okay, though.

I freaked out after I got my tattoo but it's growing on me. I should have gotten it done in a shade of brown, or maybe made it look like a dog had stepped in paint and then frolicked up my leg, but I like it more. I got a compliment on it today. I am deciding it is cute. And I want another one.

It is tax-free weekend here, which explained the CRAZY line outside of Apple.

I want to go to spin class because I am excited about going back to school (except the L part, but whatever).

I watched Shortbus and I really, really liked it. And now I'm listening to Jay Brannan and I like him bunches. Especially "Housewife." I like gay people.

I saw a girl who looked a little like Lauren from high school sitting on a bench when I was walking through the mall. She was looking uncomfortable and amused at this guy who was talking to her. She was hot and I wished I knew how to signal her over to me so she would be capulated into a more satisfying social situation and hopefully she was gay. Or that my orange paisley dress and Beatles shirt and peapod earrings and flowered headscarf would magically turn her onto girls. Specificially, me.

My mom doesn't feel good so I'm going to see if I can make her a playlist and mail it to her to make her feel better.

Been watching a lot of Batman Beyond, in celebration and nostalgia for The Dark Knight.

Had a fantastic time at the beach, but will blog when beach trip is further off in my mind.

Tattoo Wednesday.

I...
am a dirty granola hippie.
worry and overanalyze a lot of things.
like folk music.
am happiest in a tie-dye skirt, bare feet, and a T-shirt.
am a grammar nerd.
love cats, especially my foster kitty, Candace.
never want to live by myself.
wish I had the discipline to learn the guitar.
am learning to become more assertive.
don't like to mess with my hair.
like apple and kale juice.
don't eat meat, eggs, or dairy.
am not a crazy vegan.
am very loyal.
am a people pleaser, but I'm developing a tougher skin.
spend too much time on the internet.
can't have houseguests without going crazy.
am a control freak about my stuff and my schedule.
listen to songs on repeat.
love my family, especially now we don't live together.
appreciate my family much more than I ever have before.
never liked being a kid.
think the powerlessness of being a kid is far less desirable than the duties of an adult.
realized the definition of an adult: doing stuff one doesn't want to do.
want to become more physically active and take up kayaking.
love spin class.
have Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away" as my ringtone.
am bisexual, but currently only want to date women (one at a time).
always fell fast and hard. I'm learning to take it more slowly.
like nose piercings.
am getting e. e. cumming's "Buffalo Bill's/defunct" tattooed on my back in a couple of weeks.
am also getting paw prints on my left foot when my housemate finds the money to get her foot tattooed, too.
like tattoos a lot, but found out people who choose to post pictures of theirs online typically have bad ones.
hope I don't pass out when getting the tattoo after talking about my high pain tolerance.
do have a pretty high pain tolerance, though.
revert to a Southern accent when I'm mad, tired, or speaking really quickly.
have a secret disdain for Northern accents that haven't originated from New York.
want be a Women/Gender Studies professor and never leave academia.
am sort of an academic snob.
almost failed basic math last semester.
am a big sister to my lovely little sister, Michelle, and my adorable little brother, Ian.
am three and a half years older than my sister, and fourteen and half years older than my brother.
never want to have a baby, but might consider adoption... one day.
am learning to listen to myself.

I think I am in need of some loose-fitting, cargo pants and capris.

And that e. e. cummings poem tattooed on my back, yeah.

So, after perusing the Craigslist women for women ads, 99.9% of which consisted of women telling each other how good they are at sex, I figure I'm a pretty good candidate for this Heather chick.

But we'll see.

Pride Weekend Recap - Or How I Am a Subpar Hostess

Thursday night, Lottie and I went to MJQ and danced at Fuck Yesss, the 18+ night. We had a really good time. I got in for five dollars instead of the seven I was supposed to have been charged, and the crowd was both older and gayer than the kids at the Masquerade. The venue was a lot smaller, which was cool, and we danced in the middle of the crowd. We both got more assertive when men tried to dance with us, though Lottie got cornered by a "rap star" in the drinking room. I am not yet rude, but I am direct. I do not want to dance with boys at these clubs, and typically when I slid my eyes away at this venue, they left me alone. I had one guy who came up and asked me if he and his friend could dance with us, and I told him no for me and to ask Lottie, but I guess he decided not to risk more rejection. Lottie danced with some boy whose friend tried to dance with me, but I shook my head, told him, "No, thank you," and danced by myself. At one point, they had this awesome rap beat, and I danced like the little Memphian fiend I am, but most of it was slow techno. If there were gay girls there, they were partnered, so I left them alone. I am not assertive enough to approach girls of questionable sexual orientation at a club. I might not be assertive enough to approach lesbians at a club, either, but I don't know since the one lesbian bar in town is 21+. Ah, the advantages of youth.

We crashed until late, and then awoke to clean before our new housemate Trevor moved in and Devon, my friend from high school, came to stay for the weekend. Devon hung around with me and Lottie on Friday, and we went to the grocery store and made Trevor a key and probably watched a movie or something. I couldn't go to sleep, and instead chatted with Jess for two hours about her recent breakup with her girlfriend.

Saturday, Kyle arrived. I went to work and got off two hours early with Amanda in tow. We went to Pride and spent twenty minutes trying to find Jess, whereupon we left Pride and went to the Vortex for dinner. After a two hour wait for our table, I ate some really fucking delicious veggie chili over tater tots. (Mmm, life as a vegan. Then I felt like shit.) By Saturday, I was feeling a little overwhelmed, and by Sunday I wanted everybody gone and many hours to myself. I have come to realize that I am a control freak. I don't want to control other people, but I want my schedule to be on my terms, and I don't like entertaining people for long periods of time. So I have decided to limit the houseguests. Plus Lottie was a little cranky.

Sunday I was definitely in a funk. We all dragged ourselves out of bed really early to meet Amanda at the transit station. She doesn't have a cell phone, or I would have postponed. We went to Pride, but no one was there; we went to Midtown, where the parade was starting, and found where they had been hiding. The parade was hella fun but we got hella wet. It started to sprinkle as the policemen took off to start the parade, and then it was downpouring through most of it. We left before the end and went home and showered and ate. Devon's car wouldn't start, so I went to work while she and Kyle figured that out. She left town once Kyle jumped her off. After work, my coworker Rob, Amanda, Kyle, Lottie and I went to Soul Vegetarian, which was really good and relatively well-priced, then we traded Amanda for Trevor and went home to drink. Or, more accurately, so the three boys could pair off and leave one out and Lottie could drink and then go to bed and I could go in my room, shut my door, relax, read, and call my mother.

In conclusion: I had fun, but I don't like people staying at my house; I need to clean our house; and Trevor is a tunnel spider who captured Kyle before he left.

Lottie and I are planning to affix a sign reading: WARNING: TUNNEL SPIDER to let all the young men and women know not to tread too close to the litter box and TV framing his door, lest they be taken in and sexed.

Where are the lesbian tunnel spiders, I would like to know.

I miss my school. I miss being able to call Ramika and Molly to consume crappy dinner. I miss seeing less close friends at dinner and getting caught up on what they have going on. I miss classes like nobody's business. I miss "I can't, I have to write my paper" and "Fuck it, forget about the paper, let's drink/go out/eat/smoke/watch a movie." I miss my professors. I miss the campus. I miss intellectual conversations. I miss living a few hundred feet away from my friends and smoking outside in the cold and Chi Phi and watching movies in groups. I miss the love-to-hate students who can't intellectualize anything worth shit. I miss feminist rhetoric and listening to Ramika say "I haven't slept." I miss the community of a really small college. I miss free DVD rentals in the library and other people's awesome dorm rooms.

I'm looking forward to living with Molly, Ramika, and Grace; not dating on campus; having the experience of a year of college and a summer of living totally on my own under my belt; the sense of being comfortable in school and remembering things from the year before; the lack of panic I felt my freshman year; having more incentive to make higher grades; the possibility of internships; growing closer to my friends; making new friends; being able to develop more into myself without the mental constraints of my past. Also, hopefully a bright shiny juicer.

(I will blog about Pride when I am not totally and utterly gayed out.)

I'm awake and cannot for the life of me go to sleep. Devon's here, and so are Lottie and Trevor, and I'm lonely.

Jess and Cathryn broke up today, making me sad for both of them, childishly satisfied because I predicted this would happen while Lauretta said she thought they'd stay together, and goddammit interested because now the only two real lesbians I know are now single.

I cannot fucking get my mind off Lauretta. I don't know why.

Lottie was talking about inaccessible people to date and I realized that is how everyone I have dated has been. No one has been as bad as, say, Ennis from Brokeback Mountain or anything (another thing we discussed). I wonder if their mystery is intriguing and powerful to me; is that why I date people like that?

I wrote a post awhile ago, on a different blog, detailing what I thought I was looking for in a lover. I like leaders; I like computer nerds (or, at least, thought I did); I like intelligent people; I like women who have their own lives but make room for me; I like surprises and gifts; I like women who are proud of who they are and are comfortable showing affection; I like to "talk about it"; I like women who refer to our relationship in the future, recognizing that we are both willing and loyal but aren't yoked together if insurmountable issues arise; I like people who have interesting hobbies and likes/dislikes that are different (but not contradictory) to my own. I like people who have their shit together and I like athletes and I like femme or tomboyish girls and I like women who aren't ashamed of their bodies or what they can do to mine.

I am just not sure if I like the idea of getting involved with someone when I'm thinking about Portland and San Francisco and graduate school and London and Ireland and studying abroad. I want to be stable enough to be single, but I'm not sure how lonely that will be. I wish I can attain the grace and stability to take advantage of all of these wonderful opportunities I have in my life right now, and not be paralyzed by fear or uncertainty.

I want that freedom, but I'd give up traveling in a heartbeat for a lover. I'd change the course of my life for a serious relationship. And I want to see who I become with all of these experiences, because I find myself growing exponentially with the challenges I face now.

Goals! It is good to have goals.

Due to waiting too long to eat, I have consumed food for several hours this evening and have decided this is probably not the healthiest way to eat my meals. In fact, I know it is not, so that is my first goal: eat at least three meals throughout the day.

Also!

Read at least two books a week (one at least marginally intellectual, if not downright literature. Shudder, gasp, etc. I am an English major so I enjoy books immensely, but sometimes it's too hard to pull my being out of the interwebs.

Go to spin class at least 3x/week. Even if that crappy instructor is there.

Those are my goals. Pretty simple, huh? Oh, and one more: Don't think about L.

Mmkay! Lot and I have taken it upon ourselves to watch a movie before we go to sleep at night, so maybe I can expand my mental movie cache, since apparently I do not sit in front of the television as much as my peers. (I stare at the computer screen instead.) The selection for tonight was Bound, the lesbian mob crime drama. I was in the mood for something dark and am glad we watched Bound instead of Constantine, which always puts me in a slightly melancholy mood. I saved Brokeback Mountain for tomorrow at work (my job is awesome). I'm not much into boy-on-boy action, though I used to be pretty into it when I was younger, but I really like Brokeback Mountain. Serve up the angst and I'm there, apparently. Plus I think the two actors are brilliant in their roles. I'm not as fond of the director, no matter how much they rave about him on the DVD extras--the first shot I saw of the movie, I thought "Oh shit, this is gonna be boring." And it's true, the story lags--it's based on a short story that's all of thirty pages--but the subsequent times, I have really liked it. So that's on the agenda for tomorrow. Juno's coming via Netflix tomorrow, which interfers slightly with the "forgetting L" part of the goal, but I really like the movie, so I'll just have to work on it.

Also, after reading some of e. e. cumming's other works (or rereading, as the case may be), I have decided on the Buffalo Bill tattoo. We went over mostly the stylistic aspects of the poem in class, and I don't know much about the old cowboy movies, so I looked up an analysis on the poem, and it basically gave me information on Buffalo Bill. Despite the fact I have no interest in cowboys, the poem represents much more than that to me. I'm going to read through this book as well--I haven't actually gone all the way through it, and Lyle bought it for me when he went to visit Portland because I mentioned e. e. cummings was my favorite poet. So that is sort of a sweet memory I have of him.

We are getting an additional housemate this week. I am not particularly happy about this just because it means another body in our small house, but I do like the guy, so hopefully he will be a good addition. He is pretty chill, but we will probably make him live out of the small fridge since we do not hold with that eating meat nonsense.

1) What were you doing 10 years ago:
Seeing as how I was nine, probably reading a book, and not much else. Since it's summer, I was probably at the beach sometime in July.

2)What are the five things at the top of your "to do" list:

a) Get new tires for my car.
b) Shave my legs. (Shut up.)
c) Clean my room.
d) Figure out how to cram three extra people in our house for Pride.
e) Get Saturday off work to go to Pride.

3) What are five snacks you enjoy:

Currently:
a) Guacamole
b) Hummus
c) Trader Joe's Cherry Chocolate soy ice cream
d) Raw cashews
e) Tortilla chips

4) Name some things you would do if you were a millionaire:
Pay for my siblings' college
Pay for my parents' retirement
Pay off my car
Pay for grad school/my undergrad dorm fees
Donate the rest to organizations supporting women in middle eastern countries, and also to animal shelters in America

5) Name some places you have lived:
Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta

6) Name some bad habits you have:
Worrying too much, keeping my anger to myself

7) Name some jobs you've had:
Babysitter, nanny, Kid's Clubhouse worker, Nursery worker, Teen Center worker, grocery bagger, Moe's Southwestern Grill bitch, cashier

I'm caught off guard by how quickly time is moving. It's July already, for Christssakes. I looked through my picture albums when I was living in my freshman dorm and felt like it was such a long time ago. Part of it--probably a large part--is thinking of L, because most of the time I lived there, I was dating her (or fantasizing about dating her). So thinking about my freshman year either evokes strong memories of panic, loneliness, and fear (and Lyle), or happy cold smoking kissing sleeping times with L. And, you know, the two weeks where I couldn't do anything but chain smoke and have my heart rate elevated for several days (no joke) when I was afraid she was gonna break up with me, the night she did break up with me, the problems we had being broken up, that weekend in May...

After one month passed after our breakup, I was sleeping in her bed. The next month, I wasn't even in the same state, so I guess that's progress. We were supposed to get together last Tuesday before I left and she totally blew me off. I texted her today and she was supposedly "giving me space." I am not certain whether this means she thinks I need space, or that she does. It occured to me that I have spent the past six months of my life somehow tangled up with this girl, and, honestly, for most of those months, the tangles have been fun, but not anymore.

Every time I get out of a relationship (and I know this happens to the majority of people), I try to look different, act differently, evaluate my life considering just me and not someone else. So far, the physical changes have involved me losing about ten pounds (due to stress and living with a raw vegan and having more time for spin class... all unrelated things) and cutting off most of my hair. I've also been looking at tattoos, and right now I know I want paw prints on my left foot, and am strongly considering e. e. cumming's "Buffalo Bill" between my shoulder blades. That poem introduced me to intellectualism, to put it broadly--the first time I really listened to a poem was in that classroom with Mary Molinary at a summer college program in Memphis. It was incredible. It started my love affair with literature and poetry. It symbolizes my appreciation for academia. And I've never heard of or seen another person with that particular poem tattooed on his or her body, though certainly some might exist (and this isn't a huge deal for me--the reason I picked the paw prints is because I saw a picture of somebody else with the same tattoo).

I am also wondering where I want to live when I graduate from school. Considering that will (hopefully) be eight years from now, it's not a huge concern, but I am thinking about where I'd like to end up in grad school. Visiting with my family made me realize how much I'll miss out on Ian's life if I move really far away, and even my sister's life. I'd like to be close to her as she experiences young adult life. I'm not sure what is feasible and what is not, but I am taking all things under consideration. Also, I have always lived in the suburbs and I do not like suburbia. My short-term housing goal, once I am out of the dorm, is to live within walking distance of grocery stores/other establishments. (This will also help me get in shape because hello produce is heavy.) I have also been thinking about going abroad. When I first got to Atlanta, the thought of even that was way too overwhelming to think about going to another country to study, ever, but I think it would be a very interesting experience, and I would probably gain something positive from it. Not sure what, but I am in favor of positive somethings. So I am thinking of Ireland and London (Oxford!) and possibly Scotland. The Dropkick Murphys and Mallory Davis's interest in Ireland has strangely influenced me. I think it would be cool to go somewhere my ancestors left. And I know that if I am in a relationship, I won't go. So I will have to see about this. (I am getting lonely but I ain't there yet.) But I am happy that I am considering it when a few months ago I was dead set against it. I have changed quite a bit in the last few months, though.

My mom gave me a really nice compliment as I was packing to leave her house (by "packing" I mean "throwing clothes and books and toiletries into the laundry basket I used as a suitcase"). She said, "Your father and I are really proud of you paying your own bills and being on your own. When we left, I didn't worry at all about you taking care of Ian." That made me feel good. I think when I first announced my plans to stay here, my mother felt a little abandoned, which was understandable. I was flattered that she (nortrious worrier) didn't spare a thought of worry about my ability handle whatever situation might arise (and trust me, they gave me power of attorney over both of my siblings--she thinks of everything). Before they left, I commented that I was glad I came because, with Ian's broken finger, it would be good for an adult to be around in case something came up. I'm not signing up for the parenting gig anytime soon, but I can succesfully put my needs aside to care for an almost five-year-old for a weekend. I have discovered that is basically what an adult is: someone who does shit they don't necessarily want to do, but need to do in order to keep food on the table and the roaches off the table and the utility bill paid and the kids happy. Living on my own has pushed me leaps and bounds to do these things. There's even a marked difference between when I came home for Christmas and this past weekend. My secret is that I never much liked being a kid and despite the breakups and high rent and roaches (did I mention those?) and fleas and loneliness and challenge, I really quite like being on the path to being an adult.