thatnight.net

Since I’ve turned 21, I do this thing when I walk into a liquor store.

I’m so unreasonably proud of myself for accomplishing this extraordinary feat, living for 21 years, that I get a kick out of acting callow when purchasing alcohol, so that when it comes time to check out, I can smack down my ID with the satisfaction of disproving the cashier’s suspicions.

And so I strolled in today, the only person in the store besides the older, skinny man with sharp eyebrows behind the counter. I wasn’t in much of a rush, so as I browsed the aisles, I looked up, placing my finger on my lips, all wow, some of these bottles are pretty and lovely, and unusual to my amateur knowledge of intoxicants.

I settled on a brand and made sure to walk with a certain self-doubt to the front of the store, even though my two-year tryst at a state school made me well aware of the different qualities of budget vodka. I carefully set down my bottle and looked up with wide eyes and an innocent smile, the obnoxious assumption of, my, how young I must look! in my mind, leaving my wallet open for the moment he asked me to prove my youth.

But that old man, he took my money, and handed me my heavy paper bag with a smirk, followed by, “Have a nice evening, ma’am.”

And as I walked through the glass door to my car, I quickly searched my memory, consoling myself by trying to come up with another moment in time that I looked like more of an asshole.

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I swear, for the past week, I’ve awakened every morning to beautiful, sun-filled blue skies. I’ve stretched and smiled and said, “so pretty!” And it never fails, by the time I get myself together and set foot outside, the sky is overcast and it’s at least 25 degrees colder than I feel it ought to be.

I went to watch the first lacrosse game of the season yesterday, and by the time the final whistle blew, I noticed that my manic sideline pacing had not only caused mud to crawl up to my knees, by also that the denim was frozen solid from the wind, resulting in a back-to-the car wobble resembling an uncomfortable non-cowgirl in chaps.

I’ve also been doing a lot of driving to various city outskirts lately, and it never ceases to amaze me how far away you can be from downtown while still catching small glimpses of the skyline. I always get at least a little excited when I’m over 20 miles from the city and can see four spikes sticking out of the hilly horizon in front of me.

It’s kind of like that thrill you got when you were a kid and your parents were driving you down that main street in Homestead to Kennywood and in the distance you saw the hazy loops of the Steel Phantom, and that’s pretty much still the case for me now except that the Steel Phantom was turned into the Phantom’s Revenge and instead of loops there’s just that one big hill which is still daunting but slightly less threatening.

Bello has been joining me on a lot of my road trips, and has finally become brave enough to do the dog thing of sticking his head out the window as I drive. I’ve taken to pulling his hair up, as it’s growing at an alarming rate, and the weather’s still too cool for a shavin’.

What? Stop rolling your eyes. It’s blue. Jesus.

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I’m either drunk, half asleep, half drunk, or subconsciously wanting to spring clean my life, but in any event, here’s a post of everything that’s out of my comfort zone.

Things I avoid writing about in my attempts to be safe (because putting them in a common list makes it that much lighter):

1. Serious relationships
2. My immediate family
3. My coaching job
4. My feelings on marriage and family
5. My ex-boyfriend’s suicide
6. Politics

A list of six things, respectively, that I replace them with:

1. Pictures of my dog
2. My extended family
3. Reasons I enjoy college
4. Reasons I do not enjoy college
5. Nonspecific introspection
6. Blogging

A list of six reasons, respectively, that I haven’t gone there:

1. I had an on-again/off-again relationship for several years with the same guy. I moved in with him. I think I may have mentioned him, oh, three times. It wasn’t that I didn’t want people to know — people knew. I didn’t want the relationship to influence the focus of what I wrote. And God, the breakup? I was happy to get out of having to explain that one. Perhaps I wanted to protect the identity of the wicked troll he cheated on me with. Moving on!

That was then, that was him, things are changing now, and I’m beginning to feel differently on the subject of, giggle, boy details.

2. That’s a dike of which there will be no rebuildin’ if the waters are set a’free.

3. I love my job so much that I would carry my camera to every practice, game, and event, but not only do the middle-school girls know of this website, but since the Bloggies, their parents have also gained intelligence. And you don’t mess with putting such things on the internet.

That’s what they have private MySpace pages, on which they can befriend any person who is not their parents, for.

4. I have enough elder, wiser, (mostly) female figures IRL to tell me I have plenty of time and I’m still too young, but for the record, my daydreams more commonly consist of weddings and family dinners than frat parties and penthouse apartments.

(Note to my boyfriend’s mother: I promise that this does not entail pressuring your son by any means! See you at Easter!)

5. Depression, from any perspective (in my case, someone witnessing it from the outside), is a touchy thing to get into, especially on blogs. And yet, it’s everywhere. My biggest concern is, if I decided to take that step, that it would seem as if I were using it to be edgy. Once people cross the line of delving into mental illness, it’s difficult to proceed without judgment, awkwardness, and concern from their readers. I’ve seen the harsh, uninvited responses to attempts made by others, and I’m not sure if I could handle that just yet. Question mark.

6. Besides classifying myself as a liberal, I can’t convey a damn intelligible thought on anything political, and therefore opt to keep my mouth shut.

Happy Spring!

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During my first semester of college at a state university, I was perplexed at the situation I found myself in. I was five hours from Pittsburgh, and at the time, let me tell you, I was happy to be away from that place. I mean, there had to be better places! With people, who were completely different! And better skyscrapers, in different shapes!

I ended up out in the country, at a nice school that was somewhere between Harrisburg and 12,465 cornfields. “This is it,” I told myself. “This is the college part of my life. And good golly, am I ever ready!”

And so I lived in a dorm. I went to class. I met some learners. And then I went back to my dorm. Now what?

Well, there are parties tonight, with people from the college! And we have studying to do, for the college! We can take a stroll to that park near the college! We can play a game of basketball at the gym at our college!

We could drive somewhere, but we need to stay close! To the college!

And someone from home would call and ask, “Hey, what’s going on with college?”

And the only answer was EVERYTHING.

Eventually I came back to Pittsburgh, transferring a couple times until I felt comfortable enough with my school : life ratio. It took a few tries.

The point of all this? That’s a dangerous thing to do. Because now, the only interest I have in college is being done with it. I’m like that annoying kid in 10th grade algebra — Math? Maaath? Why do I need maaath? Can’t I please use this 50 minutes to read this Anne Boleyn Wikipedia article 57 times? I like it more than maaath.

It seems as if I’m turning into a more simple version of myself, which is completely backwards. I really wish I had the motivation to write a four-page paper on mitosis, but I’ll wait until tomorrow. Because really? I’d rather just sit in that chair and cross-stitch for six hours. But not seven, because King of Queens comes on at 9.

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It apparently started in the comments section of this blog entry, and when I arrived at a screening of Ghostbusters last night with my very favorite people, I was greeted with wine, a chocolate fountain, and the biggest award I could’ve ever hoped to receive.

Norm got it on video:

“I went all the way to Austin, and all I got was this stupid Burghie.”

I was so surprised that I really couldn’t get many words out, despite the honor of such a prestigious recognition, but if I did present an appropriate acceptance speech, it would probably go something like this:

First I’d like to thank my fairy blogparents for making all of this possible. To my two beautiful children and wonderful husband, thank you for your constant support, and my dear uncle for your guidance. To my representatives, Gallant Management, for guarding my reputation after all those destructive, Keystone-filled evenings, and my fantastic media consultant for keeping me in the know. And, of course, I’d like to thank God.

But really, Dawn, Norm, and Uncle Crappy, I’m thrilled. Thank you.

Related to this post:

Tweet: [Screw the Bloggies, I won me a BURGHIE.]
Photography: [jimshireman | Ghostbusters Party March 2008]
Blog: [Who You Gonna Call?] [Twitter helps my social life]

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As I nervously shuffled down the aisle of my second flight yesterday, trying to lift the large black suitcase I should’ve checked, my boarding pass hanging out of my mouth, I looked up towards my row to see if I could scout out the people near me and evaluate how awkward I’d be for the next two and a half hours.

There was a girl my age, maybe a year or two younger, in the outermost seat. I would be by the window. No one in the middle yet. I finally made my way back and, looking down, noticed there was someone in the seat next to me. Just hanging out. Sitting up, looking forward, clutching a banana like he’d be using it to taxi the plane to the runway.

After taking my seat and suppressing the urge to gnaw on his curiously tiny feet, he smiled with his whole face and used his sticky-from-banana hand to make sure the fabric on my right knee was denim. His mom pulled him back, but I was totally cool with it.

Against what is normal for me, I stared along with him out the window during takeoff, and had an unusually calm flight home.

Related to this post

Tweet: [Second plane. The guy in the seat next to me is a baby. A BABY. Sitting! Like an adult! But a baby!!!]
Photography: [More plane shots from Houston]

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Towards the end of his PostSecret presentation (which was incredible, by the way, but more on that later), Frank Warren invited audience members to share their secrets with the crowd. I managed to quickly grab my video camera as a guy proposed to his girlfriend.

It was a little nerve racking for a moment, as she took a while to get to the stage, but she finally got there and said “yes.” And he cried. And I cried. And Frank said some funny things.

Watch it.

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Ok, so I didn’t take home a Bloggie this year, but the ceremony was really cool. I finally met Aimee, who was the cutest and sweetest, and continued to creep on the Armstrongs.

I didn’t take notes on all of the winners, but you can find them at the main site. Dooce cleaned up, winning “best American,” “best-designed,” “lifetime achievement,” and “weblog of the year.”

I Can Has Cheezburger? won “best topical” and “best photography.” I almost lost it when he gave his acceptance speech: “K THX BYE.” Seriously.

Lifehacker won for “best computer or technology.”

And a lot more! Thanks to Michael and Woy for tuning into the announcements (it was the coolest feeling ever to see your names in the chat room, which was projected on a screen in the middle of the room), and to everyone for their tweets.

Now I’m watching Frank Warren, and he is absolutely the best speaker I’ve seen all weekend. And all is wonderful.

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Tonight was probably the most fun I’ve had so far in Austin, and it didn’t really even have to do with SXSW. Next time, I’m going to just use the money and spend the whole week with Leah, who is outgoing and hilarious and gorgeous and all things wonderful.

As it turned out, she ended up working at a wedding event that was also going on at the convention center. After wrapping up there, me and Richie met her for the first time, said hi to Taylor, and drove to a little pizza place and ate delicious food. We talked and talked and talked some more. And we took pictures. And then we talked about everything else.

It was really incredible. Leah and I read a lot of the same things, we don’t understand a lot of the same things, and we’ve both been publishing our lives online for a pretty long time. It was completely comfortable and very satisfying to talk to someone who not only understands what blogging is, but can relate to everything it entails when you’re a 20ish girl. It was another crazy moment, since Leah’s was one of the very first blogs I ever started reading, back before Wordpress and Flickr and Facebook.

It was the perfect change of pace to get away from the crowds and into the city with an Austin native, especially one that awesome.

(She wrote about it here.)

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It was yesterday afternoon that I was walking across one of the many hallways at the Austin convention center and saw Heather Armstrong standing alone by an exit, casually talking on her cell phone and blending in with the mass mob of techies. It was sort of a revolutionary moment, as it was the first time I saw her in real life. Where is the paparazzi? Where are the swarms of followers? What would be the most unobtrusive way for me to worship her?

I guess I always knew that there were circles in the online world. It’s been brought up a lot here. No matter what, there will always be people with huge followings, and thousands more who have never heard of them. I’m still surprised when I talk to someone who blogs and they’ve never heard of Dooce. It suddenly hit me at the beginning of her panel that while I felt like a 13-year-old backstage at a Hannah Montana concert, others in the room may have been as interested as I would be at a lecture on the inner workings of JavaScript.

(Not as interested.)

Seeing her and Jon earlier today was still pretty surreal, but as I’ve been following her site since middle school, it really isn’t all that surprising. She was lovely and clever. And really tall.

I talked a little more about the actual panel content here. She was really heartfelt when explaining the challenges she’s faced with her audience and feedback. It was very easy, even inspiring, to sense her obviously strong emotional investment in her blog. It’s incredible how far it’s taken her.

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