Top of the World Without Flashlights

On the day of graduation back in May, after a rousing and hilarious game of Apples to Apples, my roommates and I and the remainder of our party guests decided to go to Top of the World* so that Abbey, Emma, and I could see it before we were "officially done" with undergraduate. So, we piled into two cars and followed Amanda up the hill to the outlook point.

Top of the World, if I'm explaining correctly, is a scenic outlook at the top of the tallest point in Manhattan. The hill can easily be identified by 'MANHATTAN' in very large letters that has been put into the side of the hill. Visitors can sit and observe the view from the letters, or take various trails that lead down the hill. The night of graduation was the first time I'd ever been there, so I was especially excited though I knew that it was probably the last time I'd get to spend time with Abbey before she left for Chicago.

Once we'd parked and realized that we'd forgotten flashlights--it was after dark--Amanda led us to the Manhattan sign, were there were two couples enjoying the view,** and we took a moment to enjoy the city at night, from Wal-Mart over to the other side of Tuttle Creek Boulevard.

"There's another place that I should show you, c'mon," Amanda said, leading us back up the path and into brush.

My phone was my only light source, and as soon as she headed what seemed in the dark as off the path, I got really nervous. Regardless, I followed Heidi and everyone else down another short path and up onto a wide expanse of concrete surrounded by trees. Here, we couldn't really see a good view of Manhattan because of all the trees, but we could see the stars. Granted, we couldn't see a lot because of the lights from the city, but there were a few that shone brightly enough for us to catch a glimpse of them.

There was a rustling in the brush bordering our viewpoint. Then there were noises. My scaredy-cat side thought we were minutes away from being attacked.

"Are you okay?" I asked Heidi, who was nearby.

"Yeah."

The others became louder. Emma and Amanda scoffed at the sounds, and Abbey was jumping around. Alisha was talking about Darren Criss. I stepped closer to Heidi.

"Seriously?!" I finally called out. It wasn't funny anymore. "This is immature. We are in college. GOD."

Amanda came over to me and placed her hands on my shoulders. "Heather, it's just those jerks we interrupted earlier. We are not going to be attacked. They got mad that we interrupted their make out session, and they're trying to get back at us."

"I KNOW," I shrieked. "But I have an overactive imagination that's going crazy right now. This is why I can't handle horror movies."

We made our way back to the outlook point by the parking lot, giggling, talking, and making jokes while trying to soak up every last delicious moment of what had been an amazing, wonderful day. It had been, truly, the best day, and as curfew came at 11pm, I was devastated that it was over. We said goodbyes to Abbey, exchanged hugs with one another and went our separate ways.

This summer, as far as I can remember, was probably the one that went by the fastest. I read a lot, worked, fine tuned my resume, applied for a few jobs. Packed. Moved into a wonderful little apartment that puts the Tiny Blue Room to shame a hundred times over. Classes have been in session for about two weeks, and it's been so incredibly strange not to be going on to campus. As I wait to hear from the jobs I applied for, I am trying to keep my head in the mindset of what I want to accomplish. Graduation day was so long ago, but it feels like it just happened. I'm thankful for the break, but I know I'll be ready to get back into the groove once graduate school gets here.

How strange time is.


*To this day, I'm not sure if it's officially called Top of the World or Manhattan Hill. For the sake of continuity in this post, I'm going to refer to it as Top of the World.

**They were making out. We were being loud. It was awkward.

Moments

When I was a junior in high school, we had an assignment in English class that required us to find a song that best represented any of the ideas of Transcendentalism. After going through all my CDs, I finally decided on "Parklife" by Blur, which to me best represented connecting to nature.* Jackie, one of my classmates, picked a song called "I Woke Up In A Car" by Something Corporate. I was so caught up in it, I had to ask her what the artist was and wrote it down in a margin in my notebook.

The song is really good. Some people might write it off as being too "emo" or [insert complaint here]. But honestly? It's a solid, well-written, well-produced track off of a strong album. I get annoyed with really particular classifications when it comes to music; music is far too diverse to allow for any accurate placement. Some songs pull from too many directions, and I really, really hate it when people use a song's "classification" as a reason against it, as if it's not worthy of our time because it falls into a certain category. But I digress.

I didn't get a copy of the song until shortly after my high school graduation, and since then I've listened to it over and over, repeating it on mixes and getting lost within its lyrics and musicianship and pure awesomeness.

I've been up and down over the last week. I've been trying to find ways of cheering myself up; I read Lola and the Boy Next Door over the weekend, and while I was cheered up reading it (because it's so, so good), I still cried at the end because it affected me so. I finished This Full House and loved it, but also cried at the end for different but related reasons. Work, as usual, provides me five hours daily to mull everything over. And over. And over. It's rough being inside one's head for too long. I was driving myself crazy. I hate finding myself in a funk; I have such a hard time pulling myself out of it.

"I Woke Up In A Car" came up on my iPod earlier tonight at work, and it must have hit me at just the right moment. The song talks about the joys of embracing the unknown, of finding peace with oneself in the moment. I don't know if I could survive without some kind of structure, but I like the idea of allowing myself liberation in the moment. I was reminded that the funk will lift.** The next couple years will be interesting, and will likely allow me these moments. And I'm so ready for them.

So, all in all, I'm not feeling 100% better. (I need Earl Grey.) But I am feeling marginally better.


*I remember obnoxiously singing along with it in class; if anyone reading this now happened to be in that hour, my apologies. I don't think I understood the difference between socially okay and socially obnoxious.

**I hate how sappy this sounds. *sigh*

Treading and Geraniums

When my upstairs roomie came back from work today, I greeted her with a big smile and threw my arms out. "I AM MAKING US DINNER," I announced.

She gave me a worried look.

"What?" I asked her, my smile falling. "Seriously, it'll be good. And it'll use up some of the stuff from the freezer so we don't have to move it next month. I called my mom and she gave me a recipe suggestion."

Her face didn't change at all.

Ultimately, I screwed up the baked potatoes. I forgot to poke them, and they were still a little hard in the middle. I had to reheat mine in the microwave. The chicken was kind of dry (though I encounter this problem whenever I heat up/bake chicken), but the salsa and seasonings tasted all right. My roomie didn't say anything about how she felt about the meal, only answering with an indifferent "fine" when I asked her how the chicken was.

I came out of the experience knowing that my roomie thought my cooking skills were appalling.* But I suppose it doesn't matter that much.

I leave the Tiny Blue Room in a month and a half. The room after the Tiny Blue Room will likely be the same size or even smaller. I don't trust my memory of how big the room really is. It will be, after all, a mere corner of the apartment I'm moving into with my roommate. There is much I have yet to pare down, and it's already halfway through June.

Another of my roomies, Amanda, brought me back a geranium from her work a few weeks ago. She works in a flower shop and has been bringing back ferns, flower arrangements, and just today, a Venus fly trap, for us to enjoy and care for. I was excited about the geranium. I've been trying not to over-water it and pulling off the browning leaves every few days. When we move, I want to put it just outside our door so it can enjoy the fresh air. 

Life after something so ingrained is almost bizarre. Everything seems so much more domestic, much more alien to the senses. The plants need to be watered. Walking the dog doesn't have to be a chore. Cooking is suddenly something that can actually be done, most of the time, but mostly it seems nearly impossible. Time between, before, and after work shifts must be used wisely. Evenings have become open. What is this strange stasis I've found myself in?

The crazy thing is that it's not really a stasis at all. It's more transitionary. I'm trying to adjust myself to the schedule of a graduate. A lot of my college friends have moved: Crystal is in Indiana, Whitney and Abbey in Illinois, others have or soon will be returning to their respective hometowns or new homes in far off places. I've just started the job search and will soon be diving into the grad school application process. Time seems to work differently, now. Things don't work per semester in the real world. I wonder if it's more by season, or perhaps the days meld together in one big clump and the only way to know the date is by the weather when you leave for your lunch break.

I know I'll be glad to get back into the learning mode whenever I start grad school. But for now, I'll enjoy writing, drawing, and adjusting to this new life. Especially evenings like tonight, in which Amanda suggests making pina coladas and indulging in both chips and salsa and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Which, of course, is a delicious combination.



*With that being said, another of my roomies tried the chicken and liked it. When I make the recipe again, I'll know what to do and what not to do.

Bullet Points

• The Glee season finale was good for the first thirty-five minutes. It was excellent, in fact, until that point. And while I appreciated the twist with Rachel, I was frustrated with what was left out of the episode before we saw Rachel through the end. It had to be a writing or editing issue. Meh. I might talk about this more in another post, but this is not the time and place for that. Soon, though. 
• As I write this post, I am alternating between typing and making pancakes. Pour, type, flip, type, move to plate, pour, eat newly made pancake, type, etc. 
• In the last four days, I have had two school nightmares and one pregnancy dream. The school nightmares have been pretty standard, though I don't know how much longer they're going to follow me around, since I've graduated...
• Life as a graduate is nice, but also really odd. More on this later. 
• I've been slowly going through my belongings, really trying to pare everything down and get rid of the clutter. I've sold back some movies and books, and have gone through my clothes at least twice to pull out some stuff to take over to the Salvation Army, but I still feel like I have so much stuff. It's insane. 
• I feel like I've been incredibly lazy in the last week and a half. I've already have had at least two silent freak-outs and have tried writing things down in a list or two, but the problem is that I have two separate lists when I really should have one. I really need to keep tabs on what needs to be done. 
• While I was waiting for my car in the shop, I spent the better part of yesterday reading*, something I hadn't done in a long time. I finished a book called Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman and another called Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen. I hope to do a thoughtbox for both soon (as well as one for Mockingjay, which is long overdue). I like this part of the real world. I mean, realistically, I know that I won't always have a free day to do things like that, but it's nice to have even the smallest bit of time to read. Now, if only I can just get myself into a schedule...
• The more flexible schedule is going to take some getting used to. 

*I'm a slow reader, so any reading time is precious to me. 

Parallels

I like to believe that things tend to come full circle. Or, at least, most of the way around.

During my first week of college classes, I was trying to adjust to the work load. I spent my first day of my history class nodding and nodding and nodding at everything the teacher said when talking through the syllabus. I was devastated that by that Friday, I hadn't finished reading Pride and Prejudice for my first English class (entitled "The Novel"). I did eventually finish the book, about three weeks later, and loved it.* Everything was bright and strange and weird. I'd also fooled myself into thinking that riding my bike to class and getting up at 6:30 every morning was how I was going to spend my time every day of every semester.

This past week was my last official week of classes as an undergraduate. On Monday, I spent a good three hours working on my final illustration project (an illustration of Emma Watson that turned out a lot better than I thought it would), fighting exhaustion from only a few hours of sleep the night before. On Tuesday, I finished up the drawings for my final drawing series as well as the illustration project, and made it home early enough to watch the new Glee episode with Alisha. On Wednesday, I tried to focus my attention on the rough draft of my drawing thesis paper, and wrote late into the night, as has been my tendency with papers. Thursday was a blur of a critique in drawing, which promptly turned into a nightmare when I got frazzled trying to navigate Photoshop and InDesign while working on my portfolio in BFA studio. I called my dad to wish him a happy birthday, angry at myself for not being as talkative as I would have liked.

Friday was my last official day of class. Work was work. Someone brought up Scooter Girl before Advanced Fiction and a thousand memories of my first years in the dorms came rushing back to me. We ate cookies (beautiful, delicious, non-alcoholic confections called 'cookie shots') while singing loudly to the tune of the graduation march while my Creative Writing professor handed out congratulatory cards from the English department to those who were graduating. And then she said her goodbyes, we did TEVALS, and it was done.

As I was walking through the quad on my way back to my car, I witnessed, finally, a group of the tight-rope walkers. And I wanted to cry.

I went to Hunter's and Vicky's BFA reception. Their work in the gallery was INCREDIBLE. The English banquet later that night was beautiful and the finality of the semester really started to hit me. I was simultaneously lamenting the end of everything I'd grown to love over the last few years and eager to dive right into the next step: writing, reading, working, prep for grad school, the freedom from stress. Bittersweet, and understandably so. Being surrounded by friends and teachers and people who loved many of the same things I loved was the perfect way to end the semester. I'll miss it.

The more I think about everything I've experienced over the last six years, the more overwhelmed I become. I feel like I've been experiencing emotions I don't even have names for. But enough sentimentality.**

And then there was this afternoon, when I got a call from one of my oldest college friends, Jenna, as she was in town for the day and wanted to get together with Prairie and I. I met them at ColdStone, our favorite place to go together. We used to go there regularly the first few years of college before we got busy (nearly every Tuesday, when you could get a second Like It for $.25 with a student I.D.). Jenna gave me my graduation present, a gift card for ColdStone, and I ordered my usual, as was the tradition: Cookie Doughn't You Want Some, with extra napkins because it gets messy.


*I'm a slow reader. And that week I was really, really overwhelmed.

**I'm terribly sorry about the sap. I'm working on it.