I currently am wearing a crazy awful floral skirt, an I <3 NY shirt, a Hard Rock-Baltimore hat, a Walt Disney World Fanny Pack, and a scrunchie. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

More on that later.

Postmodernism, Voter Pledges, and Hot Apple Cider

Today I did an extraordinary amount of nothing. Postmodernist authors, apparently, would call that "productivity," which is to be contrasted with very little amounts of nothing, which they might call "laziness."

...This is my way of reaching out. My English class makes me want to kill myself. I guess I'm too much a modernist to enjoy this course at all. I mean, in Gatsby, the God-forsaken green light meant something. I like that. I like trying to figure out where all the pieces fit and why everything was written just so, as opposed to some alternate way, and why the character's name is what it is, because the author couldn't possibly have just named him George to name him George, it all means something!

(Yes, I realize I just made fun of my entire life philosophy and everything I as an English major stand for in writing that. I also realize that my life is a joke, which I think is the one thing that makes me marketable in the real world.)

Aside from reading nonsensical rants by authors considered geniuses by the literarily "enlightened," I am dedicating way too much time to OSU Votes. Today I stood outside for two hours asking people to sign pledges saying that they will vote. I obtained a total of 17 pledges. This, sadly, was more than the other two girls with whom I was standing outside in the cold weather, sans gloves. Yay Ohio, it's supposed to be 60+ on Friday.

But seriously, 17 pledges in 2 hours? If I didn't know these OSU Votes people, and I wasn't being harassed with phone calls on the regular, I would tell myself this is entirely ridiculous.

Fun facts: people that sign pledges to vote are 10% more likely to do so. If a person they know contacts them about voting, they are 15% more likely to vote.*

After learning that exciting bit of information, I went home and very nearly just went to bed. This is more exhausting than reading Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, which, I kid you not, starts with the sentence "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler." I couldn't make this shit up. Fucking meta-fiction.

(The back says Italo Calvino "...shows that the novel is capable of endless mutations." Is that even desirable?)

So this is why my life is what it is. Plus the heat isn't on in the house yet, because we have boiler system and we have to have some guy who knows about boiler systems come out and turn the boiler system on. The other fun thing about the boiler system is that once a boiler system is turned on, the heat is on. Forever. Well, until you pay that same some guy who knows about boiler systems to come out again and turn the boiler system back off. So... since the appointment for the some guy to come turn our boiler system on is set for tomorrow, when it is 60+ on Friday, our lovely and wonderful boiler system will still be running, heating our lovely and wonderful house.

Regardless, it's cold now and I'm typing this in gloves, which leads to about 8,000 typos a minute, thus increasing my typing time (along with decreasing the likelihood that I will ever read Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler). I'm also fighting drafty windows and a lack of heat by drinking an average of one Hot Apple Cider a day, depleting my funds but making me very happy. When I say "an average of," what I actually mean is "at least." It's not a cheap addiction, but at least it doesn't cause any (known) long-term effects.

On a side note, we have a Field Consultant from Tri Delta's executive office coming this weekend. That's right folks, we're going to be judged on a whole host of criterion, including but not limited to hospitality and sisterhood, on one of the biggest drinking weekends of the year. Couldn't she have come for Michigan weekend? (Totally kidding, I think.) At least by then the heat will be on (or at least I hope so; otherwise I'm moving out).

We also have a girl in from the University of Alabama staying at our chapter house while she volunteers for John McCain. Yeeeeeesh. You're staying in a house full of women while you volunteer for a man that voted against the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

At least she's a nice girl. At Alabama, they have TG's twice a week(!). We asked, "every week?" and she goes, "well, sometimes we don't have one on Tuesday, but for sure every Thursday." These people also go to school. Not that I personally don't drink twice a week, but TG's twice a week? Are these girls passing their classes?

*This is the kind of thing they say to me to guilt me into freezing my ass off for a total of 17 pledges. When I asked one girl if she had voted yet, and she said "no, but I'm going to," I asked her to sign the pledge and she asked, "Why?!" God damn it.

P.S. Kate--because of the frequency of TG's at Alabama, they have sweet themes, like 00Delta, where they dressed like Bond and Bond girls, and War and Peace, where they dressed like Army Guys and nurses. Just makes you wish you were a Tri-D at 'Bama, doesn't it? Go ahead and put on your radical feminist hat and tell me about how you won't pierce your baby's ears, I'm ready for it.

For those of you that have never met Kate, she once described herself in an email as "your feminazi bonerkiller sister." (G-search that one, Kate, I think you'll be proud of yourself.)

"Everyone Looks Weird in the Wintertime"

I guess I haven’t really written anything on what has been saving my sanity of late, Tri Delta.

I met with Stephanie Gent for the Penn State Game at Panini’s, and heard all about her totally fab life in DC. When I told her about Alex, she responded with stories of her and Gene the Jew, who decided they couldn’t marry because (among other reasons, but chiefly) she loved Jesus. She said, “it totally ruined my life, then I got over it.” I mean, she was drunk, but that’s great stuff. I miss her.

Steph is, of course, the reason I became a Tri Delta in the first place; she taught me what it meant to be Greek outside of the drinking and the boys and all the craziness.

I feel like Tri Delta got me through everything, and I don’t know where I’d be without the girls in this house (past and present). I got out of an abusive relationship my sophomore year because they taught me my value, and it is the girls in this house pulling me out of my funk now. I recognize, of course, that I sound like a cheeseball, but I can’t help it. I know that I am in this house for a reason, and that I am not totally damaged because of their help.

Holler.

I mean...right?

I have turned into a waste of space, just for the record.

For the love, I am sitting here in the house (which doesn't have heat just yet...awesome) and not doing a list of assignments about a mile long. Also, it is a very dear friend's 21st tonight at midnight and I just may end up going out to buy her a booze. Totally unapologetically. (Don't worry too much daddy, I'm still doing just fine in school).

It's my senior year, right? Live it up. (And drink it down? Seriously.)

On a side note, I hung out with Alex most of the day today. It was kind of nice, but also kind of dissatisfying in that I wanted to hold his hand or kiss him and I know that he doesn't feel the same anymore. Ugh. But it is nice to talk to him because he understands me in a way that no one else really does; also, he doesn't roll his eyes when I tell him that I'm hanging out with him, unlike some of my sorority sisters.

Is it a bad idea to ask Alex to Tri Delta's Date Party? I feel like maybe it would have been fun, but Patrick tells me it would end in disaster. Hard to say, because now I've asked someone else. I did tell Alex that he absolutely must come to Formal next quarter and he did roll his eyes at that one. Oh, well, I'll break him down.

Is it even possible to be friends with this guy, with all the givens? I get mixed answers to that question, and I have a mixed feeling about my own answer. Parts of today were so natural, so platonic, but then we'd walk from one place to another and I just felt out of place. I don't know, I'd rather have him in my life as a friend than not at all I suppose.

I'll figure out where to go from here, right?

I mean...right?

New Beginnings

I don't even know where to begin on new beginnings. I'm actually in a really weird place in my life right now, just having broken up with a boy I thought I was going to marry (and even made jokes about marrying before we dated), and beginning my senior year at The Ohio State University.

I guess I have concerns, like the fact that I'm not sure how people meet one another out of college. In college, there's Facebook and everyone has mutual friends (often linked through Facebook) where you can get a kind of "background check" on guys you meet randomly. I realize I sound like a crazy person and/or a Lifetime Original Movie character screaming "my biological clock is ticking!!!" but legitimately, how am I ever going to meet someone?

Also, how long before I stop crying randomly in the middle of the day, or when I get drunk in front of Thomas Nye (oh, God, what a disaster). Thomas is marrying my sister in about 6 months, and I am terrified that I will never have my own wedding. I hear myself saying this, and again, I feel unreasonable in a big way, but I can't help it. He's wonderful in a big way (again, he took care of me in Larry's, so major points) and I just don't know if I'll find my own Thomas Nye. How long before I even feel comfortable dating again? How long until I'm over this?

My other major concern at this point is that as I begin the end of my collegiate career, I think my major was maybe a poor choice. Everyone says it doesn't matter what your major is anymore, you can do anything, but then I turn around and everyone says that a Bachelor's Degree is the new GED. Should I be concerned about being under-prepared for the real world? Really?

That said, I finally got the nerve to call Kraig Kann, host of GOLF CHANNEL's Sprint Post-Game Show, among other things, and he basically told me he'd shop my resume for me around the place. He also gave me a list of people to whom I should send additional copies. He seemed really invested, which I feel is weird given that he has, like, a life and stuff. Regardless, it was probably the greatest 20 minutes of my life, and I may have peed my pants a little. Then about 5 minutes later he called me back and told me he wanted me to talk to someone else because "she may have a lot more insight to offer." Incredible, yeah? I talked to Kelly Miller for quite some time as well, and am excited to see where this goes.

Nonetheless, it is really difficult to write a cover letter when you don't know to whom you are writing and there's no specific position for which you are applying. Quite the assignment, no?

But I am getting more sure that the GOLF CHANNEL is where I want to be, despite the difficulties with media and job security. I try to tell myself that Alex had nothing to do with me not wanting to work there--and I legitimately do believe that--but the timing with the turn around does seem a little odd. When we got serious, I kind of abandoned that dream, though that coincided roughly with my internship at NBC-4 and the 14 firings they laid out on my last day. And now he's gone and I've decided that I want to go back, though this coincides roughly with my trip to the Ryder Cup and the restoration of my passion for the game of golf. Good GOD that was an amazing tournament. Plus Hunter Mahan went undefeated, gotta like that.

Well I have a giant midterm tomorrow that is stressing me out, so. Study time? (Much more likely? Bedtime)