Mega-update

I haven't updated in almost a week! Yikes. In my defense I have been busy. It was the last week of fall term, and although I finished most of my assignments early, I was busy seeing friends, packing, and getting ready to come home for six weeks!
I am writing this from my living room at home. It's so nice to be back. This weekend my boyfriend and I baked bread (first time for either of us). We somehow destroyed the sourdough flavor but it's good bread all the same. He made me a vegan dinner on Saturday! And we went out for a nice dinner last night. Yes, a lot of our relationship involves around food. We also watched many hours of the Food Network yesterday (it's the only TV I actually enjoy watching).
I think my favorite moment from the weekend was on Saturday night. I was playing guitar and he asked me to play "that song" from Juno. We sang "Anyone Else But You" together and it just felt really perfect. I was crying by the time we stopped singing.
This week is going to be great. This afternoon I'm going to the gym with my sister, and then we're drinking some vegan peppermint hot chocolate, eating candy canes, and watching Christmas movies. On Wednesday I'm going to pick up my number/shirt for the 5K I'm running on Thanksgiving morning (and hopefully getting some autographs from Joan Benoit Samuelson and Bill Rodgers..EEEEK!!)...as well as doing some Thanksgiving cooking. What's on the menu?

• Vegan stuffing
• Vegan pumpkin pie
• Apple pie
• Fish (for the non-vegans/vegetarians)
• Baked sweet potatoes/regular potatoes
• Salad
• Roasted vegetables
• Cranberry sauce
• Tempeh (for my sister and I)

I LOVE THANKSGIVING! We were originally going out to eat but I am so glad my parents decided it made more sense to stay home. It'll be cheaper, more fun, and there will be food I can eat (I don't think there was anything vegan at the buffet we were going to). I'm baking the pie on Wednesday and making the stuffing too, since we only have one very small oven and my mom needs to use it Thursday morning. 

And on Black Friday, my best friend and I are going to NYC to see an opera...and then we're going to participate in Occupy Wall Street. He went last Thursday and almost got arrested...and was photographed by some reporter. His photo was on CBS and CNN. I am so proud of him. I really need to go to OWS...I've needed to for so long. I will regret it forever if I don't go, and honestly, I'm not afraid of getting arrested. The more I think about it, the more I realize getting arrested is a small price to pay for standing up for what's right. Sounds corny but it's true.

In other news...MY BOYFRIEND GOT INTO COA! Wow actually a lot has happened since I last updated. He'll be starting in January! We're hoping we can get an apartment together but still not sure if that's possible...I'm waiting for the housing person at OUR school to get back to me. Regardless it's going to be amazing to be there with him...and amazing for him because he'll be at a school that's right for him (versus the huge state school he's at right now).

I ran four miles yesterday! Longest run in a while, and it felt great. During the last mile and a half I was running at a pretty consistent 9:30 pace (!!) Idk if I've ever maintained that pace for so long..it felt really good and not that difficult. 

I am determined to run the half-marathon in February. My parents are paying for my registration as part of my Christmas present. And next fall? I will run my first marathon. Watch me. 

To sum up, I am very happy right now. The end. :)

Oh hey there

Last night I dyed my hair reddish brown. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision but I'm happy with how it turned out. The first time I ever dyed my hair it was a similar color.
Things have been okay these past few days. I'm having food-related anxiety again. It's so weird- I'm either bingeing mindlessly or feeling like I don't want to eat at all. Today it's the latter, but that certainly has something to do with the fact that my stomach is in knots and that no one has emptied the trash in the kitchen for a while and it smells horrible. Like, it made me gag several times this morning when I was having breakfast.
I'm not even going to start listing all of the reasons why I want to live off-campus so badly, but there's one of them. Anyway. My closest friends are all going to Washington D.C. this afternoon (to participate in a protest). They'll be back Monday morning but I'm still going to miss them a lot. Hopefully I'll be productive in the meantime. I have to spend all day in the museum today and I'm hoping to finish the program I'm designing. That's pretty much my only goal for today. Also to do the rest of my laundry and work a little bit on another project.
I think I might drive to Ellsworth because I want to make sure my car is running okay. Thinking about stopping at the Goodwill since I haven't been there yet.
Okay time to do things! Bye.

10,000 days

Old friend, trying to hunt me down again
Old friend, this is your exit, you're no, no, no friend

Yes you are

I've written about you a few times in the past year. I thought I'd gotten everything out but I realize now I never will because none of my questions will ever be answered.

I don't know who would be typing this right now if we'd never met. You set so many things in motion and I'm sure you have no idea. I keep digging through all of the transcripts of our conversations I saved, but there is only one that I want to read, and it's lost in cyberspace forever. I wonder if you ever think about that night, if you ever think about me at all anymore. I'm not certain we would have become anything more than what we were, but I miss having you as my best friend. Sometimes.

You were the only person who actually understood me for a long, long time. The only person I opened up to about, well, everything. And you betrayed me, but not in the usual way, of course not- that was never your style. You always had to be different, even in your less-than-shining hours.

I know now that it was about you, never about me. You weren't trying to protect me from you- you were trying to protect yourself from your feelings for me. I won't pretend I've never wondered about how events would have unfolded if you would've just let them unfold...but I don't wonder anymore. It doesn't matter. This was only three years ago but it feels like two decades ago.

You feel so far away from me but sometimes I think I still remember what your voice sounds like. I remember one of the first times I heard it; I was at an amusement park and you called me and I stepped away from my friends to talk to you. 

And everything we felt for one another built and built and everything we wanted to say was left unsaid for almost a year. And then it all came spilling out, messily and unplanned, in one night. You couldn't handle it- in some ways I couldn't handle it either. You were adjusting to college. You were meeting other girls. And I had a boyfriend-- a boyfriend who was hundreds of miles away, but a boyfriend nonetheless.

I still have all of the books you sent me. For a while, I wanted to sell them and buy new copies- copies you hadn't paid for, copies that came from some large impersonal bookstore...not in a package with your return address on it. Then I decided to keep the copies you bought for me- it seems only appropriate. I would have never read those books if you hadn't given them to me.

I feel indebted to you in so many ways, and I wish I didn't. But mostly I just miss being able to talk to someone about all of the things we used to talk about without feeling judged. I watched a documentary about Ted Kaczynski the other day at the gym and all of those conversations we had- and well, in true "us" spirit I won't say much more on the Internet. I'm sure if you think long and hard enough, you'll remember.

That's just the problem- I can't stop remembering, sometimes. I wish I could because it would be easier but deep down I know I'll keep hanging onto the part of you that brought out the best in me, so long ago (but not really that long ago at all).

I would say I hope you're happy but that's not really it. I hope you haven't sacrificed your principles, your beliefs, yourself...for less than worthy causes. I'm somehow certain you have, though. Certain you've been sucked into the shiny, pretty world of academia. Certain that you're hiding between stacks of philosophy books and clever but vacuous conversations about nothing tangible. Certain you've divorced yourself from the world you once wanted to save.

That's what I can't forgive, old friend. I can forgive all of the things you said, what you did that night and never fully explained to me. I can forgive; I can forget. But I can't forgive your hypocrisy for some reason- mostly because it terrifies me. 

All the more reason why I have to remind myself every day I cannot turn my back on the truth, as hard as it is to open my eyes to such bright light over and over again when I wake up in the morning. I'm stronger than you are, and maybe- maybe we both know that. 

But enough about the collective Judas,
Who could deny you were the one who illuminated
Your little piece of the divine
This little light of mine
A gift you passed unto me
I'm gonna let it shine to guide you
Safely on your way
Your way home

And the last stanza of a poem I wrote you so long ago, that you will never read:

Goodbye, goodbye
But you're always here
You're only all I see
Barely it's true, but you exist
(Somewhere else)
This quiet evaporation is...complete
Love is all that remains
As the screen goes
Black

I am an old lady

I really can't understand (any longer, that is) the desire to get drunk whenever the opportunity presents itself. In fact I'm slightly concerned about the fact that some people I know here are getting drunk 3 or 4 times a week- and not just Thursday-Saturday nights. I mean, yeah yeah, it's college, whatever. I have to keep reminding myself I've already been through the excitement of attending college parties as a freshman, and that I drank a lot more in high school than most people seem to. So I sort of feel like I'm "over" the whole drinking-to-get-wasted thing. Don't get me wrong- I am looking forward to turning 21 so I can go to to the bar with my boyfriend and have a beer while he forces me to sit through a soccer game (just kidding, I don't really mind that much =]) or have a glass of wine at dinner. But getting drunk really isn't all that appealing to me anymore.

Last Saturday night there was a huge Halloween party somewhere off-campus. I think a few parties were going on, actually. I felt like I should have wanted to go to one of these parties. For a brief period of time I even contemplated forcing myself to go. Then I was honest with myself- and admitted I truly didn't want to go. Sometimes I'm just really antisocial and it's good for me to force myself into interaction with others, into social situations. But that was totally not the case re: Saturday night. So instead I had a potluck dinner with a lot of people (most of whom ended up going to parties afterward), then watched a movie with some friends...and came back to my room and Skyped with my boyfriend.

I would almost always rather stay in than "go out" (whatever that means here...it's not like there are any clubs or anything of that nature). I'm still working on accepting that, however. It makes me feel abnormal, and maybe it is abnormal- but since when have I cared about being normal?

=]