Book Club

For Chi Omega book club, we're reading Greg Mortenson's "Stones Into Schools." He keeps referring to the idea of sharing three cups of tea with everyone he meets in Afghanistan/Pakistan. All I can think of is how bad I'd have to pee after that type of encounter. This is why I am a close-minded fool who will never advance beyond The Box Car Children series. The end.

Mount Pleasant

Is where I live. It is pristine. It is family-oriented. It is, to state the obvious, Pleasant. And what I find hysterical is the most prominent businesses. Everywhere you look there is an auto repair shop, an eye doctor or eye clinic of some sort, and a veterinary hospital. So I've decided this: Mount Pleasant is pleasant, alright, until you drive too fast and hit a dog, then need a place to take it, and a place to take your car to get fixed, and you realize you probably need your eyes checked.

But there's an all-you-can eat Lowcountry buffet five minutes from my house by foot, so all is right with the world.

Here I am in Charleston

How is Charleston different than New York? Tough to say. I was expecting lynch mobs and throngs of morbidly obese people, but things aren't that different. Except that we live two blocks away from a megachurch. And the heat. Oooooh, the heat. You don't know heat-related discomfort until you move to the south. Where everything is heavily air conditioned but it's still NOT ENOUGH. A walk on the treadmill at the air-conditioned gym has me dripping with sweat. Dripping in the literal sense. As in drip stains on the treadmill. Good enough imagery? Moving on. I get out of my car and my glasses fog up. Walking across a parking lot is so torturous I've demanded Joe let me stay in the car on quick errands. The problem is that it's so gorgeous outside (we live right on preserved foresty land and it's so pretty and I just want to sit on the deck and enjoy), but the second you open the door to explore, it's just too much to bear. So I'm currently enjoying the great outdoors via the fabulous invention of windows.

Anyway, it's been a fairly easy transition moving back in with Joe. To all the ladies out there who have yet to move in with a man, take note: you will have NO SECRETS any more. Take this example. I love to get my upper lip waxed. In New York it's a mere $8 for the delicious, indescribable bliss of smooth and numb under-nose skin. In South Carolina, they charge you $10 to sit you in the middle of the salon in front of horrified-looking southern housewives, NOT apply numbing agent to your skin, subtly disparage your eyebrows, oh and then SCORCH YOUR SKIN WITH THOUSAND-DEGREE WAX WHILE GIGGLING. Needless to say, I overpaid to have an angry, flaming red scab under my nose for the past three days. Which cannot be hidden from my lover/roommate. Who thinks it's hilarious. It hurts to smile and laugh. Good thing I have nothing to smile and laugh about (seriously, keep me unemployed for three more days and I'll start up with really, really dark poetry. I am not meant for sitting around. Because you have to sit around when you are unemployed. Otherwise the second you go anywhere you spend money you don't have! Gah!). Draaaaama teenager.

Anyway. So I had a job interview Monday and actually managed to cover up the scab with enough makeup to hide it, but not too much to look obvious. Oh, but then I left my house. And sweated it off in 4.2 seconds. Not to mention I did NOT anticipate the parking garage at the hospital being full, so by the time I found a spot on the top floor and parked and jetted down 7 flights of stairs IN HEELS, sprinted across the parking lot and into the clinical building, I was a fully-scabbed, drenched, shaking, soaked-hairline mess in a wilted suit arriving a minute late. What a way to make a good impression!

Alright, I've been staring at the treadmill for an hour and should probably hop on. I know that the second it becomes inconvenient for me to answer the phone, it'll start ringing, so let's bring on the interview calls!

Maybe blast from the past?

I'm cleaning out my Word documents (Read: NOT packing) and found this, and although I may have posted already, here I go again on my own. Blogging down the only road I've ever known?

There are so many times I’ve wished there was an “Instantly Regret!” button that, when pressed, could take you back to 10 seconds ago, no strings attached. Like when I was being careless and went to cut the tag off my brand new Ann Taylor button down for work and accidentally cut a hole in the back of the shirt. Or walked into a branch and ripped a hole in the sweater I purchased the day before (sensing a trend?) Or when I say half the things I say. But recently, I’ve decided it would need to serve a new purpose. And this one is entirely my fault. I mean, so is walking into branches and being haphazard with scissors, but stay with me. Because I keep asking people what their dissertation research is on, and OH MY YAWEH IN HEAVEN do I regret it in 3 seconds. I’ll admit it- I’m self-centered, boring, and impatient. So unless your dissertation is on Allison and Joseph’s Wedding, Rapid Weight Loss By Consuming Only Peanut Butter and Animal Crackers, The Many Ways In Which Allison Looks Pretty Today or Dissertation Photo Montage on Cute Golden Retriever Puppies, I am sorry I asked. And I don’t hide it well. God, I need to just stop asking. But one of my New Year’s resolution* was to be more interested in other peoples’ lives (lol.) so I thought this would be a good way to check that one off daily. New method: “What did you eat for every meal today, and what are your dinner plans?” Because this, my friends (me still has friends?), is a topic I could talk about until the cows come home. I love that expression. Where did they go in the first place? California? To hit on cow babes? I love TV.

*Since no one is ever in this crevice of my room where my computer toils, I posted my chicken-scratched New Year’s resolution list on the side of my dresser so I can look at it for “inspiration” (or to get disheartened and hate myself). Now our new cleaning husband-wife team is cleaning my room once or twice a month (guess the Westchester cat is out of the bag!) and were in here last Wednesday and totally saw the list and think I’m ridiculous because I swear Sonya was smirking at me and and and but I mean wasn’t “Stop assuming the worst in people” one of my resolutions? Along with “Dwell less on stupid problems,” “Stop the self-doubt” and of course, “Be less of a raging bitch”?

Hey what's up my blog's back!!

I'll write actual post posts when I'm settled in Charleston, but in my packing I've come across my usual random slips of paper with thoughts on them, that I want to share with you all. Here is what I found on my "to blog about" slip:

"Susan Boyle. NOT good." Well that's just self-explanatory

"Intellectual Disappointment." That's the little nickname I've given myself, because in my immediate family, that's my role. Example: I learned most of my vocabulary from teen movies. You know the scene in Clueless where Cher says "I felt impotent, and out of control"? Weeeelp until I was far too old, and got corrected by an adult, I used the word impotent to mean "restless" or "crazed." I learned the word "amenable" from Legally Blonde, and used it often, and then once I had that Clueless epiphany, I wanted to hide under my bed forevs in fear of what amenable could actually mean. Turns out I've been using it correctly. PHREWF! And of course, Bring it On, which taught me words like "alacrity" and "afulgence" and I still don't know what the latter means. My senior year of high school our Christmas Day choice of movie was Something's Gotta Give and my mom said I didn't have to go because I wouldn't like it. Why didn't she think I'd like it? It didn't have teenagers in it. She'd been taking Rachel to Tennessee Williams plays and poetry readings since the ripe age of approx. 4 months, but I wasn't trusted to like a ROMANTIC COMEDY STARRING DIANE KEATON. Bring onnnnn the chorus: Intellectual disappointment!

And the last notation we'll explore today comes from my first day of Dr. Judy's Psych of Intimacy class this June: "Cal at dinner being condescending"

This is because as we're sitting down for our first class (haha, foreshadowing), Dr. Judy calls everyone's attention to the back of the room to point out that Jason, one of the tech support guys employed by TC, would be joining us because he asked to sit in. But her tone was so condescending, and pointing him out so entirely unnecessary, the first thing I could think of was that scene in Titanic when Cal says to the table, "Jack is joining us tonight from the third class..."

God I love Titanic. Probably because of all the teenagers.

Conversations with Malka aka And Then I Cried #2

Malka is 4. I babysit her and her brother. I love asking kids what they want to do when they grow up, and what they think I should do. The responses are normally hilarious. Yet after last night, I'll never do it again.

Allison: Malka, what should I be when I grow up?
Malka: You ARE a grown up!
Allison: I guess you're right. Well, what should I be?
Malka. Nothing. You're just a babysitter.


...and then I cried

How To Scare Your Mom

Today I'm going on the van at work to volunteer somewhere. Jovan parks the van at health fairs and such, and then people come aboard for condom demos, questions, pamphlets, etc. I wasn't smart enough to ask where we're going or...when we'll return...which led to this conversation this morning:

Mom: Are you home for dinner?
Allie: I have no clue. We're leaving at 4 so chances are we won't be back until 7 or 8.
Mom: Where are you going?
Allie: I wish I knew. All I know is that at 4 pm I'm leaving my car in a parking lot, meeting up with a black man, getting into his van filled with lubricant, and driving away.

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH FUN TIMES.