Weekend Whoop!

This weekend started early for me, on Thursday. It was necessary -- school was being stupid and stressful (not that it WON'T be stressful this week, but whatever), and job applications (ie job rejections) are taking their toll, so Mr. Man and I drove up to Waco that night for dinner and a movie. Dinner was all right (Fazoli's was not on their game that night), but the movie was pretty good. We saw Ninja Assassin, and let me tell you, if you're in the mood for action/gore with almost no plot and a muscular man, this is the movie for you. Also, moms, if you really think your precious son needs to take up jiu jitsu/karate and/or be obsessed with ninjas/jump around the house acting like a maniac for a few weeks, this movie is a must-see. Mr. Man for one is definitely claiming that he's going to train to be a ninja warrior now. (I think he's mostly joking.) Seeing him was the best part of that night. I knew what I was getting into with a long-distance relationship, and that we wouldn't be able to see each other every single week, but getting to see him so soon after getting together and knowing that I get to see him again on Friday, makes getting through my crazy hectic week so much easier. Whoooop!

Friday: I finished out classes, then went and saw Dear John with my roomie and a friend of ours. Wow, that movie was incredible. Whooop! The storyline was very powerful and sweet and made it so easy to see how transformational love can be on a person. Definitely see it, but be warned -- it is so not a first date movie. If your man knows you cry in movies, then you're a little safer, because even I cried, and I never cry in movies.

Saturday: I worked out, went shopping with the roomie and the same girl we saw Dear John with, studied with a friend from high school, then came home and watched American Dreamz (which has to be one of the weirdest movies I've watched to date) with those two girls and Kassie! Then we played Apples to Apples, and well, you know the rest of the story. We had a lot of fun and laughed a lot, so all was good. Whooooop!

Sunday: Church, pancakes, coffee. This needs to become a tradition. Whoop! Unfortunately, because my weekend started so early, it was over pretty early too -- I made my To-Do List for the week and it spans two columns of an 8.5X11 inch sheet of paper. It's also color-coded, I thought you other OCD people might appreciate that. :) I should probably get onto finishing it... Tssssss!

Typical Friday Night

I've only got a few minutes to blog, but I think y'all deserve to see a slice of some of the more hilarious stories that happen in our apartment.

Stephie: These are pretty cups, where'd you get them?
Me: Target, they were only a dollar! I almost got orange ones, but then I remembered those aren't allowed in the house.
Stephie: What? Why?
Ayla: (at the top of her lungs) BLASPHEMER!

(Aggies. T-sips. Burnt orange. C'mon, you get it, right?)

Another time, we were driving by a big pile of trash in a neighborhood and had trash from Spoons in the car with us. Suddenly Ayla (who doesn't have an accent), looked at me, put on the biggest redneck accent you've ever heard IN YOUR LIFE and says,

"Can we throw our trash on thyat there pile a' shit?"

A few moments later, after getting out of the car, she looked at me and said, still with the ridiculous accent,

"Valorie, there's a toilet in thyat there pile a' shit!"

Okay, maybe you had to be there.

Call It Vulnerability

Call it vulnerability, call it loneliness, call it depression. Call it whatever you want, but this post is all those things and a little more. It's not happy, okay? So if you need happy, go somewhere else.

I hate College Station.

There. I put it in print. I love the reputation Texas A&M has and the education I'm getting here, and I love the idea of the Aggie Ring and the traditions and being surrounded by good country folk and whatever else. I love everything about this school... except the fact that I feel like I have no one here. Cyndi is in Houston, Katie in Arizona, Travis at Tech, Mr Man in Dallas, etc...

It's not even that I don't have people I hang out with here. I have Ayla, I have the Stephanies, I have Dan. And I have that whole group that comes with Ayla and Dan and Stephanie.

Except... I really feel like they're not *my* friends, per se. Most of them. I feel like most of them are Ayla's friends and that they just put up with me. Like they know that I'm Ayla's room mate and she likes me most of the time, so they just deal with it. But if they can get away with ignoring me, they will.

It's not even that I want to move to Houston or Dallas or Arizona or wherever. I wouldn't. I'm not going to be clingy and follow my friends. I just want to go somewhere where I don't constantly feel like people are looking past me, looking for Ayla. I don't want people to only remember my name so they don't feel totally rude asking me where Stephanie or Ayla is.

I mean, I do have Ayla and Kassie and one of the Stephanies (the more level headed of the two, honestly) to count on. Except... I feel like I do Stephanie more harm than good. Her old room mate is angry with her right now over something related to me that Fephie had no control over. Until recently her best friend and I weren't speaking, and even though neither of us wanted to put her in the middle, she definitely ended up there. And Kassie's always so busy... working two jobs, super involved at her church, involved in school. She impresses me a lot, actually. We hang out when we can, but our schedules don't always align, which sucks. And Ayla... Well, I love Ayla to death. But it's hard to be friends with someone who you resent more and more because you feel like once she enters a room people stop paying attention to you.

I've haven't felt so surrounded by people and yet so very very alone since the end of my sophomore, beginning of my junior year of high school.

I've felt like this for months. Actually, no, I've felt like this the whole time I've lived here. It kind of went away because Fephie and I were hanging out multiple times a week last semester, and it's not as bad as it could be because I know I always have Mr Man waiting for me to "come back home," but I wish I didn't feel so alone when I was at school. I wish I didn't feel so invisible all the time.

I wish I could be like JD Salinger and have the courage to just be alone.

Cookie Monster? Not I.

When I started making my 101 in 1001 list, one of the things I really wanted to do was try a bunch of new recipes. Well, there have been a few I needed to try more than once to make right, but there is one that has failed me every time:

Cookies.

Any kind of cookies -- chocolate chip, sugar, snickerdoodle... Any kind I have tried to make I have pretty much failed at. I don't know what I'm doing wrong! I follow the recipe to the letter every single time. But every single time they totally suck! Sometimes they just burn, but other times they legitimately don't even taste like cookies (which was what happened last night when I tried to make some sugar cookies my friend gave me for Christmas).

Now, once, just once, I succeeded. There is a picture of my lovely roomie demonstrating that the cookie was okay to eat for your verification needs. But I had help that time, so I kind of feel like it doesn't count!

Oh cookies. You are the bane of my existence. You're so delicious, I just want to cook you and eat you. Why do you make my life so difficult?

Do you guys have trouble with any recipes in particular? Do you have any ideas explaining why I'm such a Fail Monster instead of a Cookie Monster?

Misconstrued

Today, I told my room mate, "I don't know what I want."

She said, "Well, hell, I could have told you that."

We were talking about food, but she seemed to mean it on a deeper level somehow.

I really need to get my life straightened out.

Post-It Note Post

Since Tova, the host of Totally Awkward Tuesday, seems to be taking a hiatus, and I'm not feeling Tribute Tuesday today, I welcome you to Post-It Note Tuesday! (Tuesday is quite the day for blog memes, huh?)

Are y'all excited!? I am!





What will you post?
Oh, also, check out my vlog and let me know what you think. I can't decide if I want to continue doing that or not! Love y'all!

Am I or Am I Not?

Tonight, I'm irritated. And kind of offended. And kind of ready to punch people in the face.

See, here was my plan for tonight: one of my good friends from high school is in town. I got some people together, we were all going out dancing after the football game, it was going to be a good time. Then, if we weren't exhausted by two or three, maybe everyone would go home so she and I could hang or we'd all hang out and watch movies together.

Instead, no one showed up at the time agreed upon, which was a good two hours after the game ended. They asked us to wait for them, so while we did, I cooked for roomate and high school friend because we were all hungry. They didn't even have to ask, it was just done. Then, when we did go out, the place we went was totally dead, so we left before midnight, went to the apartment, and watched a movie. They all asked me to cook for them, so I did. Room mate asked me to do the dishes, so I did. They then ate all the food I made without leaving any for me.

I did all this instead of hanging out with the friend from high school, partially because she was saving her stupid drunk room from arrest (which I know was totally out of anyone's control, except maybe stupid drunk room mate), and partially because even when she got back, I was still in the kitchen.

I didn't complain about any of this. I was obviously (to myself) extremely angry, but I didn't say anything except to my friend Kassie, and not even until she was leaving and we were alone outside because, oh, by the way, I had to take the trash out too because my room mate
wouldn't. This was after she had been insinuating (aka: saying directly) all night that I never clean the apartment or do anything, which is total bullshit. I clean just as much, if not more, than she does, mostly because I KNOW mess bothers her -- I'm a naturally messy person, but out of respect for her, I keep it clean. Also: Who stayed home from the football game and cleaned the whole apartment for aforementioned high school friend? Oh right, me. The only reasons the dishes weren't done was because our water was shut off for maintenance for a while, which she knew. Who cooked before going out? Oh, me. Who didn't get to hang out with her friend that lives four hours away? Oh, me.

Who asks all our friends to do the dishes all the time? Oh, her. Who sent someone out to get her jacket from the car instead of doing it herself? Oh, her. Who was texting all her guy friends asking them to come bring her food, even though she hadn't invited them to hang out earlier? Oh, her. Who made me cook instead of just doing it for herself when they wouldn't bring her food? Oh, her. Who then neither thanked me nor left me any food after I cooked it? Oh, her.

And yet, somehow I, the one basically waiting on them all night, was getting called high maintenance and demanding. Yes, this makes perfect sense. Obviously.

Valorie
Sent from my iPhone

Totally Awkward Tuesday

So, in honor of having just moved back to the wonderful city of College Station, I'm going to tell you a totally awkward story about my first Midnight Yell. (As always, this is brought to you by Tova Darling -- her story today is one that we can all relate to, I promise.)

For those of you not lucky enough to be Aggies, Midnight Yell is a tradition at A&M: We gather in Kyle Field at midnight the Friday night before every football game (unless it's away) and do yells (not cheers!) to get pumped up for the next day's game. And after it's over, all the lights in the stadium turn off for a moment and you're supposed to mug down (make out/kiss) your date. And if you don't have a date, you're supposed to hold up a lighter, find someone else with a lighter and kiss them.

For the first Midnight Yell, a girl I was friends with set me and her suite-mate (who is now incidentally my new room mate -- check out our new apartment!) up on blind dates with some Corps of Cadets boys she knew. The guy I went with was a sweet guy named Dan -- really fun, strong faith, easy to talk to -- who I met once at the library the day before our date. We went out with his entire outfit and Ayla (which made it a little less awkward), had dinner, hung out for a while, then went on to yell practice. As you probably know by now (or don't if you're not a regular reader... hmmm...) I'm a naturally awkward person, so I didn't exactly make it easy on the poor guy but the whole night was just awkward. Let's face it, it was a blind date -- there was no way in heck it was going to go well. But this went awfully -- we forgot each other's name more than once, he was off talking to one of his friends and forgot about me for like forty-five minutes, Ayla's date's room mate was flirting with me more than Dan was, all his other corps buddies were making stupid jokes and talking about the corps and things we didn't understand, Ayla's date was also being kind of rude and stand-offish, so she and I spent more time alone in the stands talking to each other than with our dates.

And then, as if this would cure all the awkwardness at the end of the night, when the lights went out, Dan and I kissed. As if that would make the fifteen-minute walk back to his car, over to his brother's apartment to watch movies, and then our final good night at about 3 am totally normal.

But, luckily, I got a lot out of that night. I don't know if Ayla and I would have been friends if it weren't for that bonding night and Dan and I are actually pretty good friends now and I can't wait for him to move back to CS (he lives in DC -- lucky him!). So, over all, it was a good night, but easily the most awkward way to start two very good friendships.

Totally Awkward Tuesday

I know I haven't posted a TAT in a while, but I have recently thought of a few really awkward situations I've been in in the past and thought I'd share at least one today. :] As always, this is hosted by the ever-wonderful Tova.

So, my first room mate was a great girl. Really funny, laid-back, wonderful. We fought like once the entire year we lived together (though I'm sure there were more times than that that we wanted to kill each other) and it was just easy and awesome. Now, there was one thing that made our relationship awkward occasionally. Before I explain, I'd like to remind you all that I'm very open-minded and was totally cool with this whole thing, it really honestly didn't bother me at all. My wonderful room mate was gay. Like I said, it was fine. It only ever caused a problem once and a half-ish. This is the story of that half-ish.

One day, my new room mate, Ayla, stopped by my old room mate and I's room to kick me awake to go to our Phi Lamb meeting and, naturally, saw my room mate. They made small talk while I got ready and it turned out my room mate was on Skype with her girlfriend. I'd never seen the girl before but I'd heard a lot about her so when Ayla told me that my room mate and the GF had been talking, I wasn't surprised. But then when we left, Ayla did tell me something surprising:

"Valorie, her girlfriend could be your twin."

This didn't really bother me that much. I mean, it was kind of awkward, you know the same way it's awkward when you find out that a co-worker has a little crush on you but you so don't have a crush on them. I mean, apparently I was kind of physically attractive to her. Not so bad, I've been told worse (and been in more awkward situations), so I just kind of ignored it. However, Ayla wasted no time telling all of our guy friends (who are big macho men that are not so comfortable with their sexuality) about this new development in what I've come to call the Room Mate Files (after the X-Files. I don't know, I'm lame.)

They made fun of me incessantly. "Valorie, I bet she takes picture of you while you sleep." "I bet she watches you change." I knew none of this was true because she always fell asleep before me and because we never really had the same schedule so we never had to change in front of one another. That got awkward because they'd stop by the room on our way somewhere and make weird faces at me about it and annoy me about it in very loud voices about it on the most conservative campus in the nation.

She, of course, knew none of this. And, eventually, the girl and her broke up. But to this day, my friends are like "Remember that time your room mate was in love with you, so she dated a girl that looked just like you?"