I was blogging via more private means when I rediscovered a word.
“I’m flummoxed.”
The sentence hit me outta nowhere.
And I am so thrilled!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve a repuation for being quite the insomniac. Why sleep… When I could simply put it off? I procrastinate thoroughly and thrive on the gut-wrenching urgency of deadlines. The deadline-high is probably the reason I like working for a newspaper so much. If something doesn’t need to get done this particular instant, well, why even bother?
My boss at the lovely Highsmith University Union suckered me into taking a 9 hour, 6 PM til 3 AM shift at the info desk yesterday/this morning. Okay, it really didn’t require any verb as devious as “suckering.” The prospect of cash is a stimulant almost equal to that of a deadline. I happily agreed to 3 more hours of mindlessly occupying the spinny chair situated at the building’s main entrance.
Block Party — one of UNCA’s annual school year kick-off traditions — commenced tonight in the Union parking lot. The cover band’s rather mellow nineties tunes kept me awake for a good chunk of time. By 1 AM, however, I was becoming unhinged. A lady kindly offered me a bottle of bubbles, a souvineer from the little shin-dig. Cheap, blueberry scented bubbles. They kept me entertained for the rest of the night, simply because it took about 15 tries to produce a bubble willing to part with the wand.
Being on such public display for 9 hours straight forces me to come back to my room and unwind before finally retiring. By unwind, I mean, sit on my floor with a laptop and perform inane Google searches, you know, like my own name.
Thanks to this blog, I’m linked to on Wikipedia now. Isn’t that fabulous? Whoever did that — Thanks for making me feel like a star!
I remember the days back in high school when Googling my name in quotation marks yieled just about nothing relative. It was depressing, let me tell you.
So anyway, happy 4:41. I am going to go to sleep, I promise.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The next time I answer the landline, that’s what I’m saying.
Details, later.
Current pet to people ratio in the Culbertson household…
5:6
… plus the possibility of puppies.
I like a quiet life. Really, I do.
My ideal Friday night? Curled up with a book, incredibly long movie, or fabulous playlist. A new case of Diet Mountian Dew, maybe some pizza, nachos preferred. My dogs, my favorite Ramones shirt… Etc.
I don’t remember the last Friday night I spent at home. I’ve been dragging myself up and down the east coast for the past few weeks. Though I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the travels… I’m exhausted.
This is probably the last Friday of summer vacation I’ll have to my own devices. I’m planning another beach excursion… And after that?
Move-in weekend.
… Cringe.
Within the next couple weeks, college students nationwide will be cramming dorm rooms full of “essentials.”
My must haves? A vintage armchair, Persian rug, six-month’s supply of Clorox wipes, and possibly a fish.
… I’m shaky thinking about move-in day. So I think I owe myself a low-key Friday night.
When not contemplating dogs, new notebooks, or cheeseburgers, my mind launches into frenzied dreams about next summer, when I (at last!) cross the Atlantic again to spend a solid month in England (and hopefully a week in Ireland!).
I’ll take Art and Humanities at Cambridge University. I think that merits the use of an emoticon.
=]
I’m going to completely clean out my life savings and return absolutely penniless, probably in a good bit of debt, but hopefully it’ll all be worth it.
I really don’t shut up about this trip. It’s a study abroad thing… Since I first found out I’m going (all the Teaching Fellows at UNC Asheville do it), I’ve harbored a big, giddy colony of monarch butterflies in my tummy.
Seriously.
Whenever my life runs amok, I stop, inhale deeply, and in a dramatic internal stage whisper utter:
“CAMBRIDGE!!!”
and immediately my spirits soar.
Ah, it just soothes me to know I’ll be on the wrong side of the road again with a bellyful of little McDonald’s cheeseburgers!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: North Carolina, back to school, shopping, tax-free
I’m doing a story on back to school shopping in Sanford. Anybody have a creative way to save money as you buy your kids all the new shoes and jeans and crayons?
Coming from a family of four, we always wait for the big sales at Walmart and then buy an entire years worth of paper and notebooks (that’s an incredible amount, as, in addition to being in school, we’re all writers and artists of sorts).
The tax-free holiday is this weekend. I, for one, am avoiding the chaotic shopping event. I might, just maybe, buy my computer this weekend… But I think it might be worth 100 dollars to avoid the drive to the Apple Store in Raleigh.
Anyone else’s thoughts?
My little brother woke me up from my late afternoon nap.
“Cass, we gotta surprise for you!”
“You got a dog, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I mean, no, um… We just ate at the best Hardee’s, ever.”
“Right.”
“But… It’s like hundreds of pounds bigger than Snowflakey [our cocker spaniel]!”
More pictures to follow… But this is the one on Craiglist that inspired my family to rush to the Hoke County Animal Control to rescue him from euthanization, scheduled for this morning.
Spike, the boxer (dalmation?) mix
In preparation for my friend Adeline Moritz’s debutante party in Savannah this weekend.
All ladies know primping for any remotely formal event begins, at the very least, forty-eight hours in advance.
Try saying that with a straight face.
Despite the cynicism, I’m embarking on a grooming odyssey of sorts.
Seven o’clock Friday night will find me adequately tweezed, shaved, moisturized, spritzed, glossed, shined, scrubbed, polished and otherwise spruced up fantastically.
I will look, at best, marginally different than I do on the average Saturday morning. But I will, however, feel famished, exhausted and thus ultimately satisfied with my image.
It’s really exactly like sleeping in an hour late on a manic Monday morning, but skipping breakfast to shower. Honestly. Heh. What a morbid realization.
Ah well, it’s for my health. I will certainly benefit from a few days without burgers, fries, pizza and half-and-half in my coffee (these, by the way, comprise the building blocks of my diet). I’m fairly certain I’ve layered fresh nail polish over the old chippy stuff for at least three months. My fingernails might benefit from the oxygen exposure.
Brand new pocket folders, unsullied by penciled doodles and those “I’ve been shoved in a backpack too many times” wrinkles. A plastic box full of factory-sharpened colored pencils — they’ve not suffered cranking through a classroom pencil sharpener yet, they’re perfect. Maybe a few fancy-schmancy mechanical pencils, with glitter or unicorns or Batman or monster trucks whatever else you find particulary riveting. Big, fat, perfectly-shaped erasers, itching to hide your mistakes. A harsh, new backpack, the plastic still accustomed to Walmart’s flourescent lights. It’ll start to move a bit more fluidly in a few weeks, but for now it’ll retain just about any shape you want it to retain. Socks without sweat stains and sneakers that you can’t flex your toes in.
This is all very nice and all. But the best part’s not here, yet.
New notebooks. Brand new spiral-bound notebooks. And brand new pens, all full of ink.
I can’t think of anything more satisfactory than this. Don’t tell me I need to get out more. I will always love that sensation.
Faintly trembling hands opening the cover of that perfect notebook — none of the pages are crumply, the cover’s not wrinkled, you haven’t doodled something stupid on the back, it’s just perfect. And you pop the top off the pen, and you press it on the clean, white paper… And you usually don’t have anything to say, so you write your name or scribble a heart or something. And then it’s over, that notebook’s pretty average now, but good grief, that was fun.
FRIEND: I LOVE THE BRAND NEW NOTEBOOK/BRAND NEW PEN FEELING.
ME: ISN’T IT THE BEST?!
FRIEND: i just got a new notebook and pens last niiiiight!
ME: have you indulged, yet? or are you waiting for a bad day?
FRIEND: waiting…
ME: good plan. you’ve gotta be ready. you’ve got to really want it.
FRIEND: i know.
FRIEND: it makes me pace.
FRIEND: lol
ME: i bet your heart is fluttering right now. you’re thinking about those innocent, unspoiled pages. your hands, they’re practically twitching, right? you are just dying to press that brand new pen into the soft yet firm paper for the first time.
FRIEND: GOD YESSSS!
I am not alone on this. Haha.
