Brunch

I hate mornings. Always have. In a perfect world, I would wake around noon and go to sleep around 2:00 a.m. Unfortunately, I live in the real world, and on days that I work I have to be there at 7:00 a.m. And I am the late person. Uh, huh. Some other poor sucker actually has to come in at four-thirty IN THE MORNING, and we are there for thirteen hour shifts. It is not ideal, but I get four days off a week, so it's tolerable. Of course, on those four days that I am off, I sleep in. 

Which brings me to this morning. Once in a very long while, when the stars align just right, there is something that gets me out of bed before ten-thirty on a day off, but is not something that is so early that I am flying like a bat out of hell to get to it on time. What is significant about ten-thirty? That's the time that McDonald's stops serving breakfast. So on a lucky morning like this one, I make an extra-special effort to leave my house at about 10:27 to get to my friendly neighborhood McDonald's just in time for a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. This morning, I was feeling particularly generous and offered to get my mom something. When I got to the drive-thru and saw the breakfast menu I was elated that I'd made it on time. This is what I ordered: 

A #3 with Sprite for me (bacon, egg and cheese biscuit)

And a #12 with Diet Coke for mom (bacon, egg and cheese bagel) 

I should have known that something was wrong when the voice on the other end asked me if I wanted barbeque sauce with that. I did pause and carefully reassess what I was ordering for my mom since it wasn't my usual. I declined the BBQ. This is what the voice thought I ordered: 

A #3 with Sprite (which AT LUNCH is a quarter pounder with cheese)

And a #12 with Diet Coke (which at lunch is chicken McNuggets, hence the BBQ) 

When I realized this, between paying for and receiving my food, I brought it to the attention of the extremely intelligent-looking girl at the window. A manager came over and interrupted, saying that my order wasn't ready. I started over trying to explain to her what I thought happened. She was unnecessarily rude, and I felt myself starting to morph into phase two of my confrontation self. Phase one is extremely friendly and understanding. Phase two is when I hit assertiveness. Three gets downright bitchy and haughty. I don't know what happens in phase four. I am usually to lazy to pursue something that hard. I explained to her that I wanted to not only make sure that I got the breakfast that I ordered, but that I paid the correct amount. She told me to pull ahead, and they would take care of it. This is what I left with 25 minutes later: 

A Sprite

Two Diet Cokes

A bacon, egg and cheese biscuit

A bacon, egg and cheese bagel

A steak breakfast burrito 

Two hash browns 

An order of fries

My mom and I tried to think of someone we could invite over for an impromptu breakfast date, but we just ended up saving the Coke for later, splitting the fries and sampling the breakfast burrito, but throwing most of it away. I am waiting to see my card statement before I decide if this story has a happy-ending. I might have paid $22 for my breakfast, I might have paid $10. I might have even got the whole thing for free. The suspense is killing me.        

One Year

After a week of indecision, we were left with no choice. The sign-up sheet for the weekend Garden Route trip was full, and Leslie, Katie and I were not on it. Katie wanted to go to a rugby match that conflicted with the trip, and Leslie and I never worked up enough excitement to commit. Probably because the list looked a little something like this: 

1) Obnoxious sorority girl #1

2) Obnoxious sorority girl #2

3) Obnoxious sorority girl wannabe that vocalized her distaste for fat people, but had a fat ass herself

4) Obnoxious sorority girls' ringleader 

5) Girl that showed promise until she fell under ringleader's spell    

6) Guy that hooked up with ringleader and was apathetic about everything except Dave Matthews

7) My sickeningly nice roommate who I wanted to punch in the face to see if she really was a robot

There were also like three or four cool people that went, including our future fourth musketeer Erica. However, they didn't have the power to compensate for the others. 

On Friday night, we decided to go out. We called a cab and told the driver to take us to Oblivion, a wine bar that the volunteers frequent. Everything started out fine, until we realized that it was taking much too long and that we were driving around in circles. We were a little nervous, because we were driving down narrow streets in pitch dark in an area we didn’t know. Katie, who is good at directions, tried to help the cabbie from the backseat. Leslie was getting a little agitated, and suggested that the driver call base and ask for directions. Thirty rand later, he acquiesced. He got the address from dispatch, but evidently still did not know how to get to that particular street. Instead of risking looking stupid by calling back, he chose to waste more of our time and money, and was getting frustrated. He slowed down and started following a teenage girl, who was walking on the sidewalk, and yelled at her for directions. She did what any smart girl would do: shrugged, picked up the pace and ignored him. "Your mother's a puss!" he shouted at her angrily. Things were getting tense, and Leslie would. not. shut. up. She was spewing contempt, and getting hysterical about our rapidly increasing fare. Katie and I kept shooting each other looks, wide-eyed. I was saying stupid shit like, "It's probably right up here," in an attempt to de-escalate the situation so we wouldn't end up on Dateline. Eventually, the crazy cabbie actually hit another car. Not hard - it was more like a scrape - but he just kept going. He drove to a little store, put the car in park and hopped out to go in and ask for directions. In doing this, he committed a cardinal sin. He left three females sitting in an unlocked, running car with an open door, in South Africa. He was probably praying that someone would jack it and put him out of his misery.  

By some miracle, we eventually got to Oblivion. Thanks to Leslie, I am pretty sure that we only paid half the amount that was displayed on the meter. We ended up meeting a couple of guys that night, one of which was the son of a reverend. Leslie made out with him, and for the next few weeks we would frequently burst into, “The only one who could ever reach me, was the son of a preacher man!” Katie got a little drunk and grilled the other guy on race relations, which was pretty entertaining. 

The next night, following an afternoon of watching rugby, the three of us hit the town again. We ended up at the Dubliner, and within minutes, Leslie found a couple guys to make conversation with. We got a table with them, and shortly thereafter she disappeared for a few hours. Katie and I got drunk, but I got a little crazy. I danced with the cute guy that we were talking to, which turned into me making an Annie sandwich between him, a slice of white, and some other guy, a slice of rye. This made Ralph, the white South African guy, pretty uncomfortable. Ha! Those white South African boys need to loosen up! Later, I decided that the waiters at the Dubliner were cute and put my hand in Fifi’s pocket. To this day, I swear I was just looking for gum. He told me his name was Mike, so at the end of the night when I went to find him, I asked the other waiters where Mike was. They called over a bartender that I hadn’t seen before, and he smiled a gorgeous smile at me. I was not having it. “That is not him,” I said, shaking my head. “He had braids…” I started trying to describe Fifi to them. Mike took his hat off to reveal his braids. Finally, no thanks to my brilliant description, they figured it out. Mike took me back to the poker room, which consists of a continuous velvet booth around all three walls (one of which is adorned with a painting of the American Revolution for some reason that I will never understand), surrounding a poker table. A curtain can be pulled for privacy, and, unbeknownst to me then, I would end up spending quite a bit of time in this place later, and would bestow upon it the nickname of “the boom-boom room.” When it was time to go home, I backed my ass up on another dude outside when a song came on that I liked. I ended up embracing him while we verbalized our attraction to each other’s contrasting features, and I kissed him while Leslie and her new friend, Tom, watched in amusement. I think that was the night I got friendly with our cabbie, too.

There was so much more to come. There would be a wine tasting excursion, trips to the mall, an overnight in a township, African dance parties in the Afrikaans room, a night that Katie and I never came home and thought we would be kicked out of the program, and many conversations that centered around Leslie doubting my judgment, but laughing at me anyway. After that weekend, we would go on to share a friendship with Tom, a special place in our hearts for Western Province rugby, and more nights at Oblivion and the Dubliner. We would share countless meals of chicken and carbs on the porch, Leslie’s hair dryer, secrets, cabs to Rondebosch for chocolate, inside jokes, our love for the staff, a penthouse suite at the Mandela Rhodes, and tearful goodbyes. Most importantly we share a bond with each other and memories that will undoubtedly last a lifetime. And it all started because of that one little weekend.  

I am...Bergen West

Over the weekend, Jenny Boe and I went on a spontaneous road trip. She thought that Duluth sounded fun for a weekend trip, so we loaded up the Yaris that I rented after my first attempt at getting to Minneapolis failed when my car died on the highway. We booked a room through Hotwire, and headed north singing at the top of our lungs. We were inspired by our Yaris, by our fictional identities as travelers from Jackson, Idaho (which we later discovered actually exists) and by a bumper sticker we saw on the road that encouraged drivers to practice random acts of awesome. 

We got to our hotel and went to the desk to check-in. The employee at the counter was courteous enough to ask if we preferred a specific location in the hotel. Did we want a room near the pool, on a lower level or perhaps on one of the upper floors? "Let's get high," replied Jenny Boe, thinking of the view. I giggled. She giggled. The guy checking us in smiled, and asked us to excuse him for a moment. He returned from a back office with a paper for us to sign, legally binding us to pay two hundred dollars if we smoked in the room. Once we got to our quarters, we stashed Jenny's case of beer, my Captain and our wine in the mini-fridge. Jenny Boe cut to the chase and started talking logistics. If we brought back guys, someone had to take the shower. That was the only way. This inspired our brainchild, a public service initiative to "Bathe a Hippie." We were full of good ideas.  

We decided to call my cousin, Christina, who lives in Duluth, to see what she and her boyfriend, Chuck, were doing that night, and to get advice from a local about which bars are good. This was a fantastic idea. She told us about a bar with a band that she said would be a combination of hippies and hip-hop. A perfect combination for Jenny Boe and myself. I took to calling the event the hippie-hop, and could not wait to get my hands on a loofah and my first victim. 

After we got to the hippie-hop, things start to run together in my pickled brain. I remember several trips to the bathroom and Jenny Boe pointing out how many people in Duluth drink Mike's Hard Lemonade. I remember describing the crowd as, "a little something for everyone," but also that I wanted to see my cousin. When she texted to say that she was at Quinlan's and that there was still blood on the sidewalk from the stabbing there a few days earlier, we jumped into the next cab. 

When we got to Quinlan's we found Christina and Chuck. I also spotted this guy that I remembered seeing earlier standing in the rain smoking a cigarette. Christina saw me pointing him out to Jenny Boe and informed me that he was Vincent Cadillac, a local musician. This inspired Jen and I to come up with aliases. We were inventing fictional lives, after all, weren't we? Jenny decided to use Vincent Cadillac's successful formula, and came up with Pablo Ferrari. My cousin helped me come up with Bergen West, but when guys asked I couldn't remember it. I think that defeats the purpose of an alias.  

The night was one of those beautiful blurs reminiscent of riding a merry-go-round. I remember a lot of it, but found out the next morning that I didn't remember everything. This realization hit when I told Jenny Boe in all seriousness that someone stole my money. The conversation quickly snowballed.  

"I know that I had some money left," I told her, miffed. 

"Annie. Remember those twelve Captain and Cokes you drank? And remember how you calculated that you had enough money for eight? You do the math," she said.  

"Why does my nose hurt so much?" I wondered out loud. "Did I hit it on something?"

"Yeah. Your cousin's hardwood floor," she said. 

"How did I do that?" I asked. 

"You fell." 

"I did?"

"Yeah. During the dance party."

"Oh, God. I don't remember that. How did we get to her house?"

"We took a cab." 

"Where did I sit in the cab? The front?" I asked, hoping that this would evoke some memory that it actually happened.

"No, I sat in the front. You sat in the back with your cousin and Chuck," she said, "and you told your cousin that she had to sit in the middle between you and Chuck because when you get drunk you sometimes get frisky." 

"Oh. My. God. I didn't," I pleaded.

"I wish I could come to your Christmas."

She filled me in on other details. Like that I kissed a really gross guy and a couple sorta gross guys, and that the really gross guy was rubbing my back in a disturbing way, but I seemed to have liked it. I covered my face with my hand, because I knew who she was talking about, and told her that I was too mortified to look at her. Thankfully, I was still drunk as she was telling me, so it was a little funny. She asked me if I remembered the black guy from the bar and his girlfriend. I informed her that he told me that said girl was not his girlfriend. "Well, she was calling you a bitch from across the bar anyway," she said, laughing. 

I am not sure how I feel about the impression that I made on my cousin and Chuck. I know that I pissed off their cat, Toonses, because I distinctly remember him hissing loudly and swiping a paw toward my face. I am relatively sure that, if anything, I showed them too much affection. But I had twenty-three years to make up for. Now that I know how much I like them, I really hope they still talk to me after this. Plus, Jenny Boe wants them to find her a soul mate. 

I puked on the car ride home, because I always get car sick if I ride in a car (or drive, and let me tell you, that was not pretty) after a long night of drinking. Jenny Boe just laughed at me hysterically, rolled down the window and tried not to gag. This, in turn, made me laugh hysterically and puke simultaneously. "We get closer every time we hang out," she said. I smiled. It was the best weekend of my summer by far.  

I Ain't Seen the Sunshine Since I Don't Know When

I started my weekend with a visit to the federal prison in town. My aunt works there and offered to guide me on a tour around the institution. This probably comes as a shock to no one, but there are a lot of rules at prison, and you have to start thinking about the rules before you even show up. My aunt informed me that there are rules governing what prison tourists are allowed to wear, so I showed up in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, despite that it was close to a hundred degrees outside, because it was the only shirt that I felt adequately covered my boobs. That is one of the rules. I also sported Nikes, because flip-flops have recently been outlawed for people who find themselves at the institution out of their own free will, instead of due to something more along the lines of butchering a mailman. If you butcher your mailman you are allowed to wear sandals. You also don't have to worry about covering your boobs. I know this because I saw plenty of chests glistening in the yard. Nothing makes you feel dirtier than finding yourself checking out an inmate. Or a few, if I am honest.      

When I arrived, my aunt met me in the security building through which anyone going in or out must pass. Let me tell you, this woman does not look like she belongs in a prison. Not even as an employee. For one thing, she is teeny-tiny. She is also probably the sweetest person you could ever meet. She got a paper from the guard that I had to fill out to be granted admittance. In the center there was a section with a humongous list, and after each item there was a yes line and a no line where I was to check whether or not I was carrying any of the listed items. I'm no genius, but I think that if you do have any of these items, you fail this part. I scanned each item and checked no quickly, with a sort of rhythm. Cell phone, still in my purse in the car, checked no. Marijuana, glove compartment, checked no. Narcotics, at home in my medicine cabinet, checked no. Weapons, tucked safely under my mattress, checked no. Then they got me, those bastards. They put something so horrifyingly ridiculous on that list that they broke my concentration. I couldn't resist. "Oh, man! I forgot my camera," I said to my aunt in mock disappointment, and none too quietly, as if I was visiting a ZOO instead of a PRISON. She immediately threw her head to the right to gauge the guard's reaction. Luckily, he was distracted, attempting to keep order with the group of eight Mexicans (three adults and five kids under six) who were in line ahead of us, unfortunately there for a sadder reason than a tour. My aunt turned back to me with wide eyes and told me another rule. Apparently, one must not crack jokes or laugh while passing through prison security. Lesson learned. I am a work in progress. 

The tour was great. My aunt showed me around the whole place, and I met some of her co-workers. One suggested that I get a job out there, strike it rich and find a guy. He quickly clarified, "A worker, not an inmate." I think that's another rule. The strangest part of the whole thing is that hardly any of the criminals are locked up. They are all just everywhere. Some are working, some are taking classes or researching something in the library, some are working out in the gym or on the yard. I was clearly outnumbered, and didn't see anyone who would be able to save me if anything went horribly wrong. The razor-wire and the acute awareness that if anything happened to me it was one hundred percent my own fault for putting myself into that situation, reminded me of last summer. Some of my best days have happened in places that I probably never should have been, the exhilaration of knowing that I averted some kind of danger only adding to the greatness of the experience as a whole. 

Leaving on a Jet Plane

A couple of days ago, I learned how to count to ten in Arabic. 

Yesterday, my dad told me that I don't have to join the Air Force to pay for college. I can just take out student loans like the other kids.   

Tomorrow, I am going to Ireland. After the aforementioned conversation, my dad gave me considerable spending money for the trip. In addition to the dough, I am bringing snacks and my best friend.  

Life is good.  

Subtitles Please

A friend of mine invited me to a party last week. He mentioned it to me, and I knew immediately that I wanted to go. The next time I saw him, he produced a legit paper invitation. I think that the invitation was born as some sort of flyer, but found its way into my hands folded into an envelope with my name on it. The flyer-turned-invitation briefly explained a celebration for new hope for Somalia, because of the election of new president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, and new prime minister, Omar Abdirashiid Ali Sharmarke. The bottom informed me that the party was Sunday night from six to eleven at a public venue. It appeared to be quite a large party, so I took the chance of appearing incredibly rude, and asked if I could bring a friend. I knew that Jenny Boe planned on visiting, and that she would appreciate an event like this. My friend, who I will call Abdi, gave me the go-ahead. 

All day Sunday, while shopping for clothes for our upcoming trip to Ireland, Jenny Boe and I speculated about our elusive party. What should we wear? I had told her to bring a fairly conservative outfit before I was able to give her all the details that I knew, which did not amount to much. When I asked Abdi for insight on the dress-code he shrugged and smiled, paused for a bit and offered, "I don't know?" Never ask a man for fashion advice. Our lack of communication resulted in Jenny Boe bringing brown pants and a button-down shirt. It was an outfit that she later described as "something a banker would wear." We opted for casual dresses with tights and boots. 

{Author's note: Jenny Boe and I are not usually the kind of friends that coordinate outfits. I blame cultural uncertainty in both of the aforementioned circumstances as the cause of our co-dependence. Our actions are a pledge to each other. If we look stupid in our new surroundings, at least we look stupid together, because looking stupid together is something that we are comfortable with. We've had years of experience.} 

Jenny Boe and I got ready for the party that we were prepared to attend. As it turns out, we did not go to that party. That party was held in a large decorated ballroom (it even said ballroom on the invitation) crowded with Somalis and a smattering of white people mingling. At that party we would discuss politics and gain insight into something that neither of us knew anything about, discovering an appreciation for a government on the other side of the world, in solidarity with the city's Somali community. We would do all this while munching on delicious Somali food. We were banking on that part because we were hungry. So we walked in and made our way with uncertainty to an area buzzing with activity. We stood in the doorway of a gathering area. Organizers sat at a table to our right that was covered with images of leaders we didn't recognize, and Somali and American flags printed on 8x11 white paper and glued to wooden paint-stirrers. Three sets of doors interrupted the back wall of this small room. Beyond those doors we caught glimpses of an auditorium with a humongous screen as the stage backdrop, playing video from a faraway land. In white letters across the picture was the word "Muqdisho" (Mogadishu in English). We spotted a podium with a microphone occupying a position stage right, surrounded with various flags. More startling than the realization that we were at this party and not the one were prepared for, the fictional one that existed only in our heads, was the fact that there was no food in sight. "There is no food here," Jenny Boe said with wide eyes and panic rising in her voice. 

We decided to wait for Abdi, who was on his way. While we waited we second-guessed ourselves. We must have appeared aimless and out-of-place because a security guard approached us and asked us if we required assistance finding something. 

"Uh, we're just not sure if we are in the right place," I said. 

"This is the Somali thing," he told us. I think that blind people would have figured out that it was a Somali gathering by that point. 

"But is there another one? Or just the one?" I asked. He smiled. 

"This is it." 

"Then we are at the right place." 

He wondered what we were doing there. We told him that we were invited by a friend. He went on to share an enthralling story about ordering six plain cheese pizzas because "they can't eat anything". 

Not long after that, two young men approached us.

"Are you coming inside?" one asked. 

"Yeah, we are just waiting for a friend." 

"Oh, we thought that you were scared."

We were a little apprehensive, but only because we had no idea what was going on and how we were supposed to act. It was a very gracious gesture, and we both appreciated it. We didn't want to lurk, though, so we decided to walk down the hallway and around the corner to see if Abdi was there. We passed vending machines that sold coffee and bottled drinks. Jenny Boe made the comment that there wasn't even food in the vending machines. "Annie, I am going to be disruptive at this thing. My stomach is growling." 

As we made our way around the corner, I spotted Abdi. I greeted him and introduced him to Jenny Boe. Then I looked up and saw one of my students from the ESL class that I used to volunteer in. He is an elderly man, and his writing was some of my favorite. I was excited to see him. I lit up, ran over and hugged him. It was not a half-assed hug. The rest of the group looked at me. I made a mental note not to throw myself at any more men. 

Abdi led us back to the table covered with signs, and gave the women our names. Before he finished, one of the women told another, "A large and an extra large." The second woman pointed to Jenny Boe and replied, "No, I think she's a medium." I was pretty embarrassed at literally being sized up. They handed us T-shirts with the Somali flag that said, "Celebrate New Hope for Somalia." Jenny Boe asked if we should put them on right then, and they said that it would be appreciated. So we put T-shirts over our dresses and followed Abdi down the aisle of the auditorium to the third row. Everyone was looking at us. Abdi seated us and left. It is pretty intimidating to be seated in the third row, behind only the elders, when you are clueless. We looked around and noticed that with the exception of the elders and a few others, the section of chairs to the left of the aisle was filled with women and the side to the right was filled with men. Since we only knew men, we were on our own. One of the elders seated in front of us turned around and asked Jenny Boe if she could speak Somali. When she told him that she couldn't he tried teaching her how to ask, "How are you?" When he turned back around she asked me, "Is this going to be in English?" The second startling realization of the night was not that we are idiots, because that is not startling. It was that we were not going to understand a word of the next four hours. 

Soon a women came down the aisle and gave us head scarfs. We took them and looked at each other. Then we turned around to see a woman behind us put hers on Rambo style. Jenny Boe started folding hers into a band. She tied it around her head. I looked at her. I couldn't do it. "I can't," I said weakly. She hissed at me through clenched teeth telling me to put it on. I asked her if I could wrap it around my wrist. She told me that might be disrespectful and that I shouldn't chance it. For the first time in my life I didn't want to rock the boat, so I took a deep breath and let her put it on me. First the dress got covered, then the hair. I checked the mirror on my phone. I might as well have put no effort whatsoever into my appearance. When people started coming around with video cameras in our faces we struggled not to giggle. As Jenny Boe put it, "My first time on TV and I look like this." I wouldn't have been nearly as self-conscious if we blended into the crowd at all, but very few people were wearing the T-shirts and the pale blue head scarfs. Not to mention that Jen and I represented half of the white people in attendance, and one-hundred percent of the white females in attendance.  

Eventually, we moved back about twenty rows. Less pressure that way. We could watch the women ahead of us, and emulate. Two hours in, Jenny Boe confessed that she didn't know how much longer she could hold up. Her hunger pains made it that much more difficult to sit through hours of speakers that we couldn't understand. She also had an hour-and-a-half drive back to Minneapolis, and work at seven the next morning. I understood, but wanted to stay. We decided to leave for a minute to grab something to eat and that I would come back and she would go home.  

When I returned, things seemed more relaxed. People were moving in and out, and there was more music (the music was fantastic). Three different girls asked me where I got my T-shirt. I told them that I got it from the people at the door when I came in. One told me that she couldn't get one, even after she offered to purchase it. I told her that I was sorry. She said it looked good on me. That made me feel even worse. 

I decided to sit at the very back of the auditorium when I got back, since I was alone. A group of girls sat near me. One asked me about my lip ring, and told me that she wanted to get her lip pierced. She asked me if someone asked me to come to the celebration, and I said yes. It got awkward when I realized that she thought that it was a date or something. It wasn't awkward to imagine being on a date with a young Somali guy seated on the other side of the auditorium. I am open to just about anything. It was awkward because Abdi, the friend who invited me, is past middle-aged and married, and I didn't want her to get the wrong idea because I am not open to that. 

I looked for Abdi at the end of the night. He went backstage so I decided to leave. I talked to him yesterday. It was like being debriefed. He asked me if I left early, because he was looking for me. I told him that I left for a bit in the middle to see Jenny Boe off, but that I came back and was there until the end. He told me that I blended into the crowd with my T-shirt and headscarf, and that the reason that he looked for me was that he wanted a picture. I wish that we would have gotten one. I told him that everyone was asking about my T-shirt. He told me that he gave the organizers our names ahead of time, and that we were on their list. My very first Somali party and I was VIP. That explained the great seats. "Oh, Abdi!" I exclaimed, "You hooked us up!" He told me that they wanted me to give a speech, but that he told them that I wasn't ready. I thanked him for that, and laughed as I imagined my ignorant self getting up on that stage in front of this amazing group of people. How ridiculous. 

"What would I have said?" I asked. 

"You just say, 'God loves Somalia. Go Obama.'" He told me that he would invite me to every Somali function from now on. Next time I would be ready to give a speech.

"I don't know Abdi. Maybe after a couple more times," I told him, "I am shy." 

"Everyone is shy, but you are loved," he told me.

Being a Muslim function, there had been no alcohol. There wasn't even food. My best friend ditched me, I didn't get to flirt shamelessly with any guys and I went home alone. But I was VIP, did get a T-shirt, learned some things about Africa and listened to great music. It was definitely the best party that I've attended in months.                   

My Return

Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been five months since my last blog post. 

It's not like I didn't have material, either. So much has happened during my hiatus. It started with my descent into a bleak period of reverse-homesickness. It might sound hokey, but I swear it is a real condition. I don't know the history of psychiatry, but I am quite certain that even Mr. "Doubting Thomas" Cruise would have backed me on it if he had seen me. I was a hot mess. Picture this: Me in my room, hunched over my keyboard chatting with my volunteer friends on Skype with tears running down my face, alternating between laughing and crying over stories of the good ol' days that were my six weeks in Cape Town.  Throw in an iTunes playlist named Africa and set on repeat, with selections from The Winds of Change for good measure. In retrospect, it made for a pretty pathetic existence for a few weeks. Not to mention that venturing outside my house became a liability. I almost vomited when I walked into Wal-Mart for the first time after being exposed to abject poverty. So much excess. Pleasure came only from knowing that I did not have any money and getting something cheap or free was a two-for-one because it came wrapped in cellophane with a little dose of euphoria. This mentality was exhibited in my last post, after which I realized I needed to get a grip before blogging one more sentence.     

Somehow, between neuroses, I managed to find time to start completely hating my roommates. Logan went off to school and was replaced by a guy from Duluth that Jenny found on Craigslist. What a tool. I don't think he stopped talking about himself from the moment he moved in. Jenny totally ate this guy up, and the two of them made a deadly combination. My house turned into a round-the-clock hippie-wannabe convention for two. On the menu? Clif Bars and anything you can drink out of a Nalgene. Household fashion trends? Rolled pant legs were en vogue, as was anything with Northface stitched across it. Reading? There was actually a book about surviving in the forest. Oh yeah, you're an individual because you can identify animal tracks. Guess what? This isn't Into the Wild. You live in Rochester and spend your weekdays at school and work. You spend your weekends in a bar. Reality check: None of those places is in the woods. You bought a new mountain bike and skis, neither of which you use on an actual mountain. So instead of explaining to me the dire consequences of eating rabbit when lost in the wilderness, Lewis and Clark, how about I explain something to you? You'd actually have to spend some time in the forest to get lost in it. I decided I couldn't take it anymore and told them I was moving out. A perfectly legitimate decision considering that we had a month-to-month lease and they were douchebags. It got pretty ugly and ended badly, but it was the sanest thing I'd done since coming home.   

The timing of the move was perfect. I got out of the nuthouse just as Grandma prepared to move to Florida for the winter. I could not resist her offer to stay at her place while she soaked up the sun for the next six months. I appreciate the pad immensely, enjoy living alone for the first time ever and am not even stressing yet about finding myself homeless in two months. 

Living at Grandma's has saved me mucho dinero. I also got a second job over the holidays at a department store at the mall to supplement my income. That killed my short-lived non-spending lifestyle. I went in knowing that it could only be a matter of time before the old me rebounded. Rebound I did. I must say that I came back with a vengeance. I graciously returned the wages they paid me and more, approximately four times more, by making several purchases that I convinced myself are classic, timeless pieces that I will wear and use for years to come. It turns out that the only person I can sell things to with any success is myself. I am too honest to be a sales person. I realized it early on when a customer, who are now called guests, thanked me for telling her honestly that the cheaper necklace looked better. It was a combination of one of my adorable little high-school co-workers telling me that when a guest asks a question and she doesn't know the answer she makes one up because it saves time, and my personal realization that most guests do not want to hear the truth, that turned me into a shameless sales-driven fibber. This climaxed in a sale in front of my mother, who was doing some shopping of her own, when I repeatedly reassured a middle-aged woman that I, too, thought that the hideous $400 hot-pink patent leather Coach purse she had her eye on was as adorable and "fun" as she did. I told myself that she would have gotten it anyway, whether it was from me or someone else, but then I chastised myself for that thought. Should I sell crack to kids to make a buck just because they'll buy it anyway? I realized that if I ever do get a real job, it cannot be in sales. Supermodels shouldn't sell coke, and I shouldn't sell retail.    

Around the same time that I was working two jobs, I took part in a research study as a test subject at the hospital where I work. I got paid $2000 to ride a stationary bike five days a week for eight weeks, stay overnight at the hospital twice and have four muscle biopsies done. It was so worth it. I am using part of it to go to Ireland for St. Patty's Day with my best friend Jenny Boe. I really miss my Irish host-family from my high school study abroad days. They even have a new addition to the family that I haven't met yet. I cannot wait. 

After almost a year of trying to decide what to do about school next year, I applied and was accepted to the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts. I have decided to major in Global Studies, and am very excited. My area of concentration will be Africa. Yes, I know that we are in a recession, but I tried my luck at nursing, which is supposed to be a practical career that guarantees jobs, and look how well that turned out for me. It's as good of time as any for a recession as far as I am concerned because I have nothing to lose. 

Since my last post I have also become a huge fan of India Garden, spent inordinate amounts of time watching reality TV on the Internet and inordinate amounts of money on phone calls to Africa, gave a damn about politics for the first time, remembered how to snowboard, got my lip pierced, promised Leslie she would make it into my blog and thought about Cape Town a whole lot. After so many failed attempts, I am ready to start blogging again. After all, I might have it a little more together than I did last year, but I still have a long way to go...