Almost Home

Well, finals week will be coming to a close for me tomorrow after an 8 o'clock Spanish exam. And then it's rush time. Rush to get a last few Christmas gifts, mail Christmas cards to the friends I never see anymore, and then a rush to Tyler's house to play Lego Harry Potter (EXCELLENT!)

Of course, with this home traversing there is always the lack of internet going due to living in a cave that has dial-up. Every time I sign on I expect for a caveman to run over, bonk me on the head, and steal all my sabre-tooth kabobs. 

I hate cavemen.

So, Merry Christmas! And Happy New Year.

Sometimes my lonely one room apartment makes me sad. Especially after big happy Thanksgivings.

Candy Canes Equal...

Yup. Those are in fact Scott Pilgrim plushies. I did drive an hour and a half out of my way and battle my way through pre-Thanksgiving traffic for these.

Candy Cane Update

So, I've been worried sick that the store that carries the candy canes would run out before I get there tomorrow. So I called them to reserve them...and they were out. WHO RUNS OUT OF FREAKING CANDY CANES?! Right...Code word.

So I call around until I find somewhere else that sells candy canes and I get them to hold them for me. Take that, you poops. Take that.

Also, when you find out what I'm trying so hard to get you are going to laugh. At my boyfriend. Not me. I'm awesome and sweet. *thumbs up wink*

Sun and Futile Struggles (Not To Be Confused with Feudal Struggles)

My life seems to be a constant struggle to delude myself into thinking that everything is peachy. This has never worked, but looking at all the things pulling me down and dealing with them the best I can has.

I'm worried about money, how my classes are going, being alone so much, my family, and a million billion other things. Yet, I'm decently happy for the first time in awhile. It's not that I've been extremely unhappy all the time, but happiness has been fleeting like sun on a cloudy day. It's wonderful when it breaks through, but then it's gone again and you feel like crap.

Sometimes my inability to trust and my extreme paranoia screw me over. Those are things I've been fighting with for as long as I can remember.

I've faced up to the fact that no matter how much I worry over something, it's not going to change how it is, and sometimes the best thing to do is to put it in God's hands and work hard to change the things you can, and not futilely waste your energy on the others.

Candy Canes

So, my boyfriend Tyler wants something for Christmas. But I can't tell you what it is just in case he reads this (which he probably won't). So I shall refer to the present as candy canes.

My boyfriend Tyler mentioned he'd like to have some candy canes awhile back, and I stored this information in my mind for Christmas shopping.

They used to cost about $30, but they are VERY popular candy canes and are now in limited supply. So now, I am on an epic quest to find candy canes in a brick and mortar store before Christmas.

I know a store that had them this past weekend. I saw them there. For $30. So Wednesday, I'm going to brave pre-Thanksgiving crowds and leave Cookeville to go to Knoxville. Then I shall frantically grab the candy canes and bare my teeth at anyone who wanders anywhere near me. Then I will drive home and feel accomplished.

This will probably be followed by giving candy canes to Tyler for Thanksgiving because I'm so excited at managing to get them.

But it's worth it. I shall keep you updated. And eventually tell you what kind of candy canes they were.

Pointless Post Midnight Post

There are many things that frighten me about this apartment of mine.

I am not superstitious. Superstition deals with being irrational, and then you have to define rational. Which leads to...scientists. There is a time and a place for scientists, but scientists do not always have a time and place.

I was raised on stories of ghosts, spirits, and wonderful things. They were told to me in complete seriousness and in jest. Most importantly, they were told with great relish. So, I am a believer of things that cannot be measured by science, but dare to call me irrational and I'll dare to call you a bigot.

Because there are wonderful wonderful things that cannot be defined. The feeling of security when you walk through a sunny meadow where you have lived all your life. The feeling of unease that suddenly goes through you when you walk over a certain part.

But all that was beside the point. What I am most frightened of in this most small and innocent apartment is the peephole in the door. I would take a picture and put it here, but I am currently avoiding it. Hence this post.

One day when I look out, what if there is someone looking in? THE CREEPINESS BLOWS MY MIND!!

My Cogs Are Loose

(Well, the tea dilemma I had previously has been solved! Okay, it was never really an issue. The factor that solves this for me is a general lack of funds. Any extra funds I may be hiding in the bottom of my socks are engaged in buying Christmas presents. So if I DO get tea in the near future, it will be from Adagio because I have a $10 gift certificate for being a loyal customer. Take that Teavana with your fancy cups and tiny little tea tasting machines!)

It has come to my attention that I've gradually became insane. There are several kinds of insane, so let me detail what mine entails! Continuing narcissism of a blog is one of them (though, originally this blog was for being able to put my thoughts out in a form comprehensive to others, and it's doing it's job. So narcissistic or intellectual? Who knows. Hopefully a mixture of both, and not all of the former.)Next, I seem to have accidentally become a hermit. I've always been a bit of a homebody who valued privacy above all else, but I admit that perhaps I've taken it a bit too far. I just haven't found anyone who can appreciate silence. I would love to have someone who can just do their thing while I'm reading and drinking tea. Sometimes it's just nice to have a living breathing human who accepts who you are in the room with you. But I would like that without abrasive detailed conversations about who is sexing who*.

Which brings me to Tyler. I generally try to avoid talking about Tyler on here in respect for his privacy, but he won't mind if I talk a weeee bit about him. I love him. Tyler is the nicest person I have ever met. He always thinks the best of humanity. This is nice, because I tend to think the worst and make plans how to fix it. (Which oddly enough all include massive amounts of reading books that accentuate chivalry. Like Tamora Pierce series...What?! Everyone would benefit!)

A lot of my reclusive tendencies have to do with him not being up here with me this semester. He is my best friend. When we're together he can just sit there with his shoulder against mine, and not say anything. And I am so happy.

When I first started staying up here by myself it took me forever to get used to falling asleep without the sound of video games in the background. Once I thought it was a vague nuisance, and now I would very much like to have the sound of Dragon Age rumbling in the background and be able to look over and see him smiling at me.

A lot of our dates have been outdoors-y. Tyler isn't quite as outdoorsy as I am.For lack of a better descriptor...He's a gamer and spends his time reading and doing things not in the sunlight --He has lovely pale skin that looks wonderful with his dark drown hair--. He is also a bug magnet(It works well for me, none of the bugs bother me because they're busy eating him alive). I, like Clark Kent, am powered by sunlight. (See, I was raised in the creek. I can trip over a straight hallway, but my balance is superior on slippery creek rocks. Go figure. My mother has a strong Cherokee heritage-- I am jealous of her cheeks and ability to tan--and I've always attributed her tendency drag us around outside all over the woods when we were younger to this.*) But regardless of his aversion to being eaten alive and slipping on rocks, most of our dates the first year of our relationship were spent hiking or walking at the park. The level of awesome-sweetness that must have went into that is astounding.


I think the ability to just be with someone and know that they love you and you love them is underrated. I didn't fully appreciate it at one point, and not having Tyler around was like breaking off a piece of who I am.  I carry this niggling unsettled feeling around with me now, like there's cogs loose inside that rattle about when I think.  The only time it goes away is when I'm with him.

*So sorry about that segue, please do read it with non-shifty connotations.
*My father has a strong Irish heritage, hence my particularly pasty palor in perpetuity.

Potential Loyalty

I am having a deep and complicated debate within myself. What is more important? Being loyal to someone or leaving them for the potential to be happier? If someone has taken care of your needs for years, and when they screw up they fix it asap is that enough? Or do I betray Adagio Teas for Teavana and their White Youthberry tea? It's so hard!

I bought this cup from Teavana:

It's really awesome, the inside of the cup is a blend of earthy browns and blues.....And Teavana has a STORE that you can WALK IN 40 minutes away from my house. xD

Boo To You, Fashion.

Well, I finished reading Pegasus  ages ago, but I'm still contemplating what I'm going to say about it, so the review is still non-existent.

And the rest of my life is spent sitting around, studying for exams, and eating. Also, my hair is turning a mousy brown color. It has been getting progressively darker each winter (the sun makes it lighter) and now I think it is about to give up being blond. What a terrible time to do so. I'm freaking 20! This is ridiculous.

I finally have a decent (if not large) wardrobe that complements my shape and coloring. My coloring is changing. Boo to you, fashion. Boo to you.

Blinds Are Your Friends

Last time on Solitary Life:  Pegasus was received, and occurrences of terrorism and naked-ness were mentioned!

---~---

Over the past year and a half I have had to learn what neighbors were. Close neighbors that when you look out your window you look into their apartments. 

My apartment complex is built with four buildings in a square. Each building has three floors and two studio apartments per floor (Tall and skinny, hence Tower Apartments). And I would say there's probably...ten feet between my window and my neighbors. So unfortunately, if my living room--slash bedroom slash dining room--window is open and so is theirs, then we get to see what each other is doing. This generally results in my blinds being down 90% of the time.

That percentage used to be much lower until...THE NAKED EXERCISE BALL MAN! Imagine my surprise last winter when I walk to my window, open the blinds, and then am confronted with a rather hairy buttocks bent over an exercise ball. Who the hell leaves their blinds open when they are unclothed?! Who uses exercise balls naked?!

My reaction to this was to double take, look apalled, look even more apalled, and then to throw myself away from my window and make Tyler close it for me. He insists that he saw no exercise man, but I'm assuming this is because naked dude moved out of sight. Why do I assume this? Guess.

You got it. He has made multiple appearances. And though I had hoped of his moving far far away to a nudist gym, he is still here. I saw him a few weeks ago. If I'm not mistaken he was holding a bag of popcorn. I wish I was making this up, but unfortunately....

All of this being blinded by lifting the blinds has resulted planning different ways to keep Naked Dude from opening his blinds. The best one I've come up with is to get a glass stink pellet (Can you still get those at dollar stores?) and use a blow gun (Hey, I was 15. They were cool then.) to shoot the pellet at his window. It will be so stinky he will have to close his window and hopefully his blinds. I am giving him one last chance to get some gym shorts. Then it's stinky time for his window.
 
On a less creepy note: I've become to be more accepting of the craziness that comes from having too much time to talk to yourself. I've made scarves, read a lot, and sometimes I even watch TV.

Pegasus by Robin McKinley or (SQUEEEEEE!)

I just now got my Robin McKinley book I pre-ordered MONTHS ago. I am freakishly excited and there will be a review here Monday if I am not mistaken. I keep meaning to blog about these stupid things that keep happening to me (Things that include a naked man on an exercise ball, and a brown jumping terrorist.), but I keep getting distracted. I'll get on that after the weekend. Until then I shall be looking like this:

This Made My Day

As I'm sitting at a gas station with my door slightly cracked talking to Tyler on the phone, two guys get into the pick up truck beside me.


Me: Blah blah blah, Tyler. Ha ha ha!

Guy 1: Hey look at that girl.

Guy 2: Yeah.

Guy 1: She's pretty as hell!

Guy 2: And not married...She's probably like 17, though.

As I leave the car: I'm 20, and I have a boyfriend.

Guy 1&2: .... ... ...

Me on the inside: HAHAHAHA!


Today I made two rednecks blush. I totally win.

College Cuisine: Bacon Grease is King (or) How To Use One Pan

First, fry some bacon in a medium sized pan. Once fried, fork out bacon, but leave grease behind

Next, put a large helping of kale in pan. Salt lightly. Watch the kale until it is wilted. Dip it out onto a plate, removing all bits from the pan.

Lastly, crack several eggs and scramble them in the same pan.

Oh my gosh, it is SO tasty.

Clubhouse Makes The Heart Grow Fonder!

I have my own apartment. It is an apartment made for collegiate children recently divested of their homes. So, it has one large living/bed room, one bathroom, and a kind of hallway that is also a kitchen. The dreaded studio apartment. What's worse, my carpet looks like this*:

Is it grey? Is it blue? I don't know! But there is a far more straight forward question I can answer. Is that a yellow Curious George alarm clock in my nightstand? Yes. Yes, it is.

So, I have striven in vain to make it a stylish apartment. I have fruitlessly tried to make it look color coordinated! It's mostly a mash up of furniture and decor. I've found on sale with a bookshelf and my junk. This might make some bitter. The sad lack of funds to really live up your small apartment...

But (aha!) not I! It's a third story apartment referred to as King's Towers. This fact inspired me to view my living space not as an apartment...but as a club house! And it may make a rather uninspired first one, it is a freaking awesome latter! Heck yes! The little rascals got nothin' on me.

*Those are my pants in my floor that I, pathetically, am too lazy to get out of my chair and move. Not denim fungus in its progressive stage.

So, Robin McKinley...

So, readers, you probably know that I have an extreme love affair with Robin McKinley's books. All of which are amazing and feuding with each other as to which is my favorite. I mean, they're mostly* heroine centered books with fantasy elements and a fluency in writing that very few writers can achieve.

My love of her books has led to a love of her, and a habitual reading of her blog and tweets. Yes. You read that right. Robin McKinley has a Twitter account. Twitter excerpt and direct R. McKinley quote:

"4tunately hellhounds r CUTE. Like apples off yr tree & sweetcorn out of yr garden r transcendently delicious. But OK, I want perfection. So?"

Forgive me, but she is SO old lady it is adorable and hilarious.

And uh, she apparently has a large amount of converse shoes if you pay attention to her blog pictures .

This lady is constantly walking her "Hellhounds" and wears Converse?! How do you do that? REALLY?! I stopped wearing Converse when I had to start trekking a mile to class (When I deign to brighten the classes with my shining presence). Walking in shoes sans arch and squishy soles HURTS. Especially when you're flat footed like I am. Though, I pretend like it gives me super swimming abilities because I'm "flat footed as a duck".


Erm, I'm going to bed now after a completely random excursion onto the blog in the middle of my sleeping. If this doesn't make sense, well then, it goes well with all the other posts.

*Though, God Forbid, that I'm labeling her. Because I'm not. She seems to exude great hatred for those who do so. (But I kinda am.... Ah well.)

In The Great Tangle: Why I Am Semi-Coherent

My mind has been deteriorating for awhile now. Do you remember when you found out you were sheltered? Were you sheltered? I was. I thought I knew what the bad things in life were. I've seen some of them. I thought I knew what a pervert was. I didn't.  I thought I knew what knowledge was. I thought I knew what good and bad was. I thought my black, white, and shades of grey were enough. Why is there green in there? Why is there purple? Is that teal?!

So, my well organized strands of brain matter were squashed together like so much yarn, and now I'm trying to some sense of them. Which you think would be easier as much time as I spend alone in my apartment. I'm still refusing to socialize now that Tyler isn't here. I'll stop being surly about it any day now, but probably not tomorrow or the next. So I don't speak of things that don't  make sense except when I want to appear insane. [

And to celebrate his memory I've randomly taken up video games, which I used to be not so very fond of with few exceptions.  THE HORROR! But I'll live. I've grown quite fond of the Super Nintendo.

I keep meaning to post reviews from the many books I've read this summer up....That will probably come before I stop being surly. I hope.

I am an Old Lady.

I recently bought some pictures to hang in y apartment. That along with the decorating scheme has led to a very cluttered Victorian look, combined with the knitting basket, random tea paraphernalia, and the chocolate chip cookies I  just made...

Why am I old?!?!

Oh my gosh I'm so happy this is the greatest thing EVER!

Guess what's going to be in Nashville, an hour and a half drive away, on November first?


MUMFORD & SONS!!!!!!!

Today I Laughed

My parents came to visit me at my apartment today. Which I really super appreciate because my parents are my favorite parents and I like them.

After we ate some Chinese, I wanted to go to Wal-Mart for some baby dill wholes (which makes my mom giggle maniacally every time I say it). As we checked out:

Dad: Starr, why did you have to go to the self checkout?

Me: Because it's fun! I like the scanny thing. Makes me feel all space age. *Dad puts money into the machine*

Machine: Please take your change! *Spits out four dollar bills on the floor quite vehemently*

Mom: .....

Me: .....

Mom & Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hahahahahahahaha!

Mom: That's how real checkout people should give you your change. Just chuck it at you.

Dad: *eye roll*

It's 1 a.m. and Egg is in Alignment

I'm sitting here at one in the morning listening to Pandora (Based on Mumford & Sons).

This is a rather lovely quiet. I'm lying. It's the quite of the city. Which is quiet with occasional squealing tires and the eerie sound of sirens (Unfortunately not the cool kind of sirens. No Odyssey for me) in the background. I have solved this problem partially by ambient farm noises, or sites like THIS. Though, there's a large chance that you'll creep yourself out with the flute bit, or really super need to pee not long after the creek noises start. I found myself feeling very Native American...

And then mixed together honey, yogurt, and egg yolk for a homemade face mask. Ummm, eww? It was stinky, sticky, and made my face look like a sunflower puked on it. (Egg is in alignment with my face!) Plus side, my face is so freaky smooth is crazy.

Oh, and for those who like a good fantasy RPG, this web comic is good for a few laughs and juvenile humor.

And now I sleep for in five hours I have Espanol. Which I cannot speak. (Or read, or write, or vaguely understand. Hole, porque? Porque!)

Hello, my imagination.

Hello Blogosphere and Many Many People Who Are Imaginary,

Thank you for your continued following in my absence. I have been incognito for awhile. This happens when I have dial-up, am lazy, or somehow wrangled my way into 8 a.m. classes everyday and one three hour night class that lasts til 9.

I don't have dial-up anymore, but the others are still applicable.

Nothing terribly interesting has happened in the recent weeks. My boyfriend is taking a semester off to put money up for college and is working at home since he has had the same summer job for four years at a pharmacy and they like him there.

This means I'm alone in my apartment pretty much all the time. I tend to go all Edgar Allan Poe when I spend large amounts of time by myself. Thankfully I can't bury any hearts under the floor, though. I live on the third floor. It would just plop bloodily onto the guy who lives underneath me who probably wouldn't notice because of all the wafting pot fumes that seem to continually be surrounding his door. Kinda reminds me of a high school bathroom, really.

I absolutely must put a list of books I read and liked this summer up (here or on Inside the Shelf). I a rather lot of young adult fantasy books in order to have a larger selection to recommend to my future students....WHAT?!

And now, I suppose I'll start getting re-acquainted with the wonders of blogging and talking to people who aren't my family or farm-life.

Tick tick tick. Time passing. Hello, time.


I wish I was as Sylvia Plath, because I feel just as angsty and slightly insane and don't have any poetic ability. I've been on anti-anxiety medicine for awhile. It makes me sick. I'm 5'7 and I weigh 129 pounds now. (Sorry, I know this isn't a personal ad.) It does not look healthy on me. I cry a lot. I write a lot of journal entries about nature because I dislike humanity. Also, I'm going to school to be a teacher. Leave your kids with me? Please? Please?! I'll teach them how to spell onomonopoeia!

I have the internet because I had to come back to my apartment after summer break started to get my plant. It's this lovely vine that I keep in the bathroom. I walked in and it had crawled half way down the sink (with it's leaves, no appendages to move about with.) There was also a pan that had heat up chicken Parmesan in it that I didn't deign to wash and is no a biological weapon. I'm keeping it in the closet.

One of my friends is moving into the apartment building next semester, so that's nice. She came in while I was napping today and told me I looked high. I'm not high, I'm just really tired. But I appreciate fresh frankness. It reminds me of Rhett Butler lines.

P.S. I'm on the look out for a sassy gay friend.

What are you doing? What, what are you doing?!

If I had a sassy gay friend I'd let them help me with my hair. As it is, I have to do it myself. Unfortunately I have really thin blond hair that refuses to hold curls, or even retain a modicum of volume. (I know, right?)

But I recently got this hair thing from Wal-Mart that is the JUNK. So I'm sharing the hair cool-ness.

An Excerpt From My Math Notes:

I'm sitting in my college math class and have absolutely no idea what is being droned at me. This has been a reoccurring problem since seventh grade pre-algebra.

I look around at my class fellows and observe their glassy-eyed blank faces. They remind me of computers in sleep mode.

Four minutes until freedom. He'll utilize every last second to reiterate the simple concept we all grasped before half the class period was over.

I pretend like I'm in Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum. It is an improvement.

Now The Day Can See Me

Today I woke up. This has happened every morning for over nineteen years. Almost every morning I am faintly surprised. Again God? I have at least one more day to go before I rest. I brush my teeth and methodically apply my makeup. Tick. Tick. Tick. Clack. Clack. Clack. My life is a steady rhythm. If it breaks I will have to examine all the abstract variables that are right off the path. Waiting, waiting, waiting to become obstacles. Large smears of foundation to cover the emptiness. Blush brushed on for a facsimile of life. Blackest black eye liner carefully curved around. Carefully, thoroughly until no vulnerability shows. A faint purple lipstick so that I can speak. Now the day can see me.

You have seen me with no make-up on.

I have a childish dream of loyalty, purity, and faith.
I want the world to be a good place.
I dream of a time where trust is not misplaced.

I wish I were a fairy tale.


And I will fight for every tiny infinitesimal ground I can get towards my ideal.