4.

you may be reading this as i type it.
maybe i'm wrong. maybe i'm always wrong.

i wonder if you're thinking, how could i know with you? how could i know, with all the boys and their nicknames detailed in the pages of this dandy little account?

with you, i always knew.

i think it was "shiny." i think it was that song that did it to me, the line about tawny gypsy girls, sleeping blanketed by stars.

it was you.
it was always you.

five.

you and me at war at arms
all falling in embrace.

five songs, five loves, five laughs.

Quads, I know you'll read this and surely think, with a bit of self-aware reluctance, that it's all about you.

I always was a terrible liar.
Because you had to know that I was fond of you,
Fond of Y-O-U

You think you know me well, and maybe you do, but here; here's me:

I have ten fingers and ten toes. The latter are all of normal, descending length.
That being said, I hate feet.
The only lies I can manage are the stomach-clenching white lies to attempt to get myself out of trouble.
I have dinosaur hands, and I often hold my arms aloft as if posing as a T-Rex.
This is entirely unintentional.
I am outspoken with emotions, but I'm never sure exactly what I'm feeling.
I'm loud, but I'm much more introverted than many seem to think.
I'm terrified of life.

This is just the bare bones.
Quads, you're just great.
I love that you're a corrupting influence.
You're in my top five.

I'm not making sense I'm not making sense I'm not making sense.

I think I love you.

Dance Hall Days

We talk about love a lot, you and I.

I find myself wondering--
Did you ever consider that maybe, just maybe, you could have it with me?

I not-so-secretly love your compliments and the fact that you accidentally called this a relationship.

cosas, veinte y cinco

JK: "The world's one big orgasm! I thought, if anyone would agree, it'd be Tony. I thought, look, finally, here's a kid with spirit!"

It's the final countdown.

1. I love the smell of clean sheets.
2. My feet squeak as I walk. I cringe at the sound.
3. I have the dirtiest fingernails of nearly anyone you'll ever meet. And it's usually from food.
4. I've seen every episode of The OC. At least twice. And I not-so-secretly take pride in the fact that I draw comparisons to Taylor Townsend.
5. I'm awkward and pathetic and terribly disheveled. Constantly. And a part of me finds joy in my disaster.
6. I can barely handle the taste of alcohol.
7. I want to be Anna Quindlen.
8. Nudity makes me severely uncomfortable. I think this roots in the fact that I am completely uncomfortable with my body.
9. I'm a romantic idealist, but I'm a realist. I prefer reason to the emotional shitshow of being an eighteen-year-old girl.
10. I used to be an optimist.
11. I am innately a motherly figure. I worry. About everything. All the time.
12. Chuck Klosterman changed my life. Andy Greenwald made the dream life real.
13. I never thought I'd be a sorority girl, but I'm quite contentedly sporting the silver and bordeaux.
14. I have never been comfortable in my own skin. I fear I never will be.
15. I often love antagonizing people. In a way, it's my attempt to make someone prove that they care.
16. I love riding the L. I love riding the L backwards. I love riding the L backwards and watching the people and gazing at the world as it drifts past.
17. I love love, I love being in love.
18. Whenever I'm feeling down and out, I don my jacket (it is February in Chicago) and Chucks, headphones in, dancing silently and observing the world as the tunes pound in my ears. It brings a sense of adventure and adds a soundtrack to monotony.
19. I get excited when record shopping.
20. I'm a procrastinating perfectionist. It's a terrible combination.
21. I have an incredibly weak stomach. When I was small, I used to vomit at the stench of public restrooms. My sister used to taunt, "Don't you throw up! Don't you throw up!" I still start to wretch.
22. I am a pesca-/pollo-tarian. I have a (likely) allergic reaction to red meat. And I can't eat lamb, due to the Simpsons episode with Lisa and the lamb. "Liiiiiiiiisa, don't eat me!"
23. I want to be more Jew-ish, but I frankly don't have the time. I think God forgives me.
24. I set my alarm for times so that the sum of the digits is a multiple of ten.
25. I'm proud of my writing to the point that it's become a vice. I'm only a little ashamed of that.

M83

(You can find this on the Daily Northwestern website):

No Strings Attached
For the uninvolved, wading through the NU dating scene can be as much of a bitch as a Friday night on Parents' Weekend.



It can all be summed up succinctly in a grammatically incorrect text message eliciting relations: “My place? 8p.m. Ur ass is foiiiiiiine.”

It’s the familiar hook-up in its smuttiest form, stylized with technology into a booty call. In the collegiate bubble in which we reside, however, the hook-up translation is often slobbering, well-intended, tipsy tonsil hockey, tantamount to a grand hello — while under the influence.

The idea of a hook-up was something I never quite comprehended. I dwell in the dichotomy of black versus white. I understand the color wheel, the violet-reds and yellow-oranges that exist between the utter absence or presence of light, but my life is, to the best of my ability, an unambiguous operation. I prefer definitive answers to abhorred utterances of “Mayyyyyybe,” which seemingly formed the entire vocabulary of last quarter’s love interest.

When it comes to the sticky sweet goodness of romance, though, the cataloguing in taxonomic groups just isn’t sufficient.

That, it seems, is the problem with Northwestern’s non-academic romance department — there is no in-between, no mucky gray mundanity between the head first of hook-ups and the eternity of lock-ups. I’ve discovered, as of late, that I have trouble in the romantic limbo which is the Northwestern dating scene — and I’m certainly not alone.

It hit me last week, as I was scrolling College ACB, the heir to the online collegiate gossip throne left vacant by the demise of JuicyCampus. The subject line read “Dating Scene,” and the original poster posed, “What do you think of the dating scene here..?” The first response, the simplicity of “What dating scene?,” seemed to sum up the subsequent ten posts.

As a second quarter freshman, maneuvering the overtly-coital atmosphere of the lascivious collegiate dating world is tricky. I’m diving head first — pun entirely unintended — into the romantic dynamic at Northwestern, and the resulting social climate is tumultuous. Winter Quarter, steeped in rumor and expectation, facilitates the hook-up, the no-strings-attached kissy-kissy.

It’s difficult to attach myself to the idea of meaningless kisses, as I was raised on the ideals of Disney princesses and happily-ever-afters. Jasmine would have never exchanged saliva with Aladdin if he’d kept their exchange to a simple magic carpet ride. Hell, even skanky Meg forced Hercules to suffer a little; he did, after all, offer up his soul in exchange for hers. Why, then, is it acceptable to exist in this uncompromising lackadaisical world of literal free love?

My disenchantment with romance began in a tizzy of perfume and liquored air on a chilly winter night. There were black Xs scrubbed from cold hands, and sweat flooded the dance floor, mobilized by the thumping beat of what I will generalize as every dirty-ass grind track from Britney’s Circus. Bodies pushed closer than prepubescent males at a high school homecoming, and the commotion of hips colliding with hands clouded otherwise clear minds.

It started, as all antiquated romances do, with a dance. The aura of hormones pervaded the air, and, as pelvic bones crashed with the pounding of the dance groove, good pilgrims breached familiar territory of Shakespearean proportions. Eyes clenched tightly as arms wrapped around waists, and, in the moment, sly smiles met shy eyes.

Conversation superseded dancing, intensity replaced by the humility of eye contact. Common ground dialogue of baseball and music allowed comfort in a potentially awkward situation; arms outstretched wrapped delicately around cold shoulders, nothing more, nothing less. Tired eyes concealed intimations of past indiscretions, but the quiet whisper of voices divulged a tenderness unseen in the banality of “the hook-up.” The sentiments were evident in the casual brushing of hands, the subtle grins and the faint beaming of complete and utter contentment.

The night wore on, and downcast eyes chanced meetings with good graces. Laughter permeated the mere inches of air separating one party from another, replacing the deafening rhythm of the dance floor. Hands gingerly sought mates, venturing into territory indisputably tiptoeing on the edge of commitment, and the graze of lips across forehead met bashful utterances and crimson cheeks. The night air dried the remnants of sweat and sin, and the dance of light conversation, peppered with the laughter of shared jokes, was the last of the night.

I ventured oh-so-innocently into the former territory in the dating dichotomy (see: hook-ups), but I longed instead for that nonexistent middle ground. The idea of a committed relationship terrifies even the most hopeless of romantics, myself included, and I crave the ambiguous gray of involved bachelorette-dom. I’m a single lady, and, if you like it, dear God, please don’t put a ring on it; use your words, and maybe we can explore that happy medium. The campus romance climate encourages us to eschew the idea of moderation; we’re beings of utter intensity, and this fervor for the extreme extends into our romantic lives. Even I’m avoiding discussing that gray. It’s an unflattering shade of life.

I’m done sending text messages and skirting the issue, but I’m not ready for the titular classifications just yet. For once, I’m pleading for that gray matter, the limbo in which I can feel confident and comfortable and sexy without transforming into someone’s ball and chain. And I doubt I’m alone in my lamentations of romantic foibles on campus.

I suppose it’s unfair to say I dove into the romance department here at NU. I, if we’re being candid, stumbled. And I’m falling.

aoe

Last week, you saw a girl
As you recall, it was a sorority girl.
All you wanna know is who she be
Oh hot damn, she’s an Alpha Phi!!!!!
And you jizzed in your pants.

Saw some ivy, and you jizzed in your pants.
Silver and bordeaux make you jizz in your pants.
You just ate a grape, and you jizzed in your pants.

Sisterhood.

empeecee

Why bother hiding behind euphemisms and anonymity?

I'm sleeping in top bunks, cocooned in the arms of the one I wish were mineminemine. I'm in love with kisses and breathing and the smiles of shared dances and exchanged glances. I'm finding excuses for clutched hands and fingers raked through hair and breathing breathing breathing the same air.

I want so badly for it to be something more.

I want to know, somehow, someday
it's love, and i'm in it.

Behold a lady

Because you had to know that I was fond of you,
Fond of Y-O-U

Happy Valentine's Day to you and yours.

Here's to hoping I find a mine.

Before Departure

I'm officially a film geek. I love it. I love it. I love it.

griptrucks.gaffers.lights.stingers.hmi.gels.

I'm exhausted after two straight days of 7a.m. call times, followed closely by work-work-work-work at SPACE, but I think it was all worth it. New friends, cute men, experience, contacts. Fun in the most neurotic of ways.

Hoorah!

And, in real news--
T-Paine. T-Paine has been lighting up my life with compliments and wit, gentlemanly chivalry (this seems redundant) and adorable glances.

Fingers crossed.

Love,
C

I know it was you, Blue Bandit.

You broke my heart. You broke my heart.

Who the fuck are we?

I suppose that I'm a Southern girl. I hail from Georgia, where the peaches grow. I do drink lemonade, but I don't speak real slow. I talk in rapid bursts of wheezing excitement, punctuated by slightly indecipherable puns made funny only by characteristic facial expressions. I rarely brush my hair.

I am, for all intents and purposes, the antithesis of the stereotypical Southern sorority girl. I pictured the antiquated idea of hoop skirts and poofy hair which perseveres in the deep South which I call home. I languished at meals with friends who assumed shocked faces at the mere thought of a pledge pin on my ragged cardigan, and friends from Georgia laughingly pondered if inhalation of hairspray had induced brain damage.

I didn't plan to endure the process of recruitment, let alone to pledge. My thoughts of sororities were undoubtedly tainted by the ideals set forth by the Facebook photos of my friends weathering their own form of hazing torture. My geographic sister, Medill freshman Ngozi Ekeledo of Macon, Georgia, attested, "I never pictured myself ever going through recruitment here just because of what my friends at southern schools had to deal with and how intense it was there. I appreciated Northwestern's more laid-back approach, even if you do have to stand out in the cold." As exhausting as Northwestern's recruitment seemed, it, in retrospect, was far less intensive than anything suffered elsewhere. Still, reluctance triumphed.

When I registered, despite the exaggerated hair flips at my expense, for Northwestern recruitment, entering the numerals on my credit card to pay the whopping $40 fee, I perpetually faced the question why I would possibly consider subjecting myself to nearly 30 hours of intensive "girl-flirting." Girl-flirting, in the vernacular, is the act of liberally issuing fantastic compliments to members of the same sex with at least the nominal intention of impressing females into accepting the girl-flirter. In the case of sorority life, the aim is indisputably the issuance of a bid by a particular chapter. This, at least, is how it all was explained to me as I waited, tush freezing in the decidedly unfair winter conditions. We certainly were not in Georgia anymore.

I positively perfected the art of girl-flirting as the week progressed; each house became a blur of deceptively uncomfortable armchairs emblazoned with birds purchased for far too much money at a store whose name I likely couldn't pronounce. I ate back my registration fee in a combination of pretty and tasty cookies, brownies, and petits fours, attempting not to release bits of food upon my forced-conversation captors--though some of my conversation partners were less considerate-- as I answered their rapid-fire questions with the, frankly, boring responses of, like, who I was when it came down to it. I discovered through this coldly impersonal interview process that most chapters were unaware of a critical characteristic of me: I'm not defined by the simplicity of answers to where I'm from, what I'm studying, what I'm involved in. We've previously established that I don't even fit the stereotype of a royal GRITS (Girl Raised in the South); my activities, my interests, my hometown are all meager parts of who I am. The rest is comprised, among others attributes, of a love for the inane, of a deep passion for musically appropriate handclaps, of an undying affinity for dinosaurs and, unrelatedly, for grammar.

Active members passed me along to allow me to "meet" their sisters, adopting fake smiles, enveloped in stale perfume. I felt used, overwhelmed, sweaty. For a substantial part of the entire week, I didn't feel like me. Weinberg freshman Jenna Lebersfeld, who went through recruitment but didn't stay until its conclusion said, "(My mother) said I should try it out, but I found it wasn't for me." Girls dropped from the process like flies, citing reasons from exhaustion to a psychological lack of inclusion. I considered the decision myself, thought of the sleeplessness and the poor work ethic I'd exhibited since the tiresome process began; I weighed options, contemplated throwing in the delicately embroidered handkerchief (for a sorority girl would never throw in a simple towel), hacking my way through a recently-developed cough. My sorority (Sororal..sororital? Is that a word? Stringy-haired Amanda Bynes, I question the same) woes brought about physical illness, but even my Clint Eastwood-Miss Piggy lovechild of a voice couldn't keep me from completing the process. As Pref Night insisted on heels and plastered-on smiles, I discovered a place of humanity in what I once considered the depraved lipstick jungle. I found one-hundred and twenty-five reasons to stay; ultimately, I let go of the southern stereotype and found myself, night after night, clinging to those reasons with increasing fervor. I encountered the belly of the beast and found I enjoyed the warmth, the embrace, the discussions of Depends and unfortunate purple mascara.

In time, I will call my haven home. I suppose that I am a Southern girl. But I am also a Northwestern girl, and perhaps that has made all of the difference.

And, after thirty hours, twelve houses, six days, and hundreds of wanton worries, I'm outfitted in the colors of bordeaux and silver. I have countless new Facebook friends and just as many new sisters. I've found a happy ending, a welcome domicile for every bit of my tone-deaf, frizzy-haired, musically eclectic self. I participated in a process I once considered nearly barbaric, and I came through on the other side-- happy.

Rush'd

Terrified.
Judgment Day.

And I've got the vomit to prove it.

Keep Your Head.

I'm all smiles today because
A. I'm Evanston-bound in the morning.
and, more importantly,
B. It's finally over.

Really.

Hello 2009.

Reunion, reunion

I'm willing to allege that Fountains of Wayne's Welcome Interstate Managers was the best pop album of 2003. Hell, it might be the best album of love songs of the decade. And I never even got past the first four tracks. I probably wouldn't have even made it that far had it not been for the excellent Christopher Walken reference in "Hackensack." Regardless, this album makes me smile; it's heartfelt and devastating, chronicling loves and losses with utter pop sensibility. It's gorgeous. Seriously.

Things I Love About Being Home:
Showering barefoot.
Sleeping in a queen-sized bed.
Adhering to normal sleeping hours.
Seeing Harry.
Using ready wireless.
Time.
The closeness of family.
Driving Handsome Dan all about town.
Autumn-like weather patterns.

The Year in Review:
Three things I swore I'd never do.
Two things I regret.
One person I've loved.

Things I loved this year:
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
The Fall
Downtown Owl
Always the Bridesmaid
"Some Constellation"
Kate Nash
Matt Nathanson, 11/20/2008
SPACE
Judaism/ Israel

Space Oddities:
Punched in the face by David.
Greg's social faux pas (dos).

New Year's Resolutions:
Break Harry's spell.
Reorder priorities.
Control my sentiments.
Win a Paste internship.

This is sure to be a living document.

Happy New Year, bitches and babes.
It's been a good one.