Drama with the kids
I'm trying a new approach to increase my posting frequency: I'm posting before I read all of your entries. Usually, by the time I read and try to comment on your entries, I'm just not in the mood to post. So here this goes.
I've mentioned before that my program is dominated by women in their early to mid twenties. I am not longer any kind of twenty. At first I thought it was funny that I was the only one who seemed to notice, until I remembered that when I was 23, I pretty much assumed everyone else was 23 unless they were parents or homeowners or ate dinner at 5pm. Anyway, I have a small group of school friends who are much younger, but it's not much of an issue. Most of our social time revolves around school, studying, or assistantships. But my friend Becky, with whom I share my assistantship and every since class I've taken so far, started taking issue with this.
Becky's lots of fun- she's a trouble-maker, and extremely sarcastic (though secretly tender-hearted). And she spent many happy undergrad years in Evansville, Indiana. I'd been hearing about Evansville and its merits so consistently that I had started picturing it like that big room in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, where you can eat everything (pretty much the best place in the world in my estimation, minus the creepy monotone guys with the orange faces and green hair, and all those bratty kids).
Becky started getting sore that I'd never gone with her to visit Evansville. With my budget and our school schedule, it was just not going to happen last semester. But I knew I'd relent eventually, if only to stop hearing about how I HAD to COME TO EVANSVILLE. I ended up pushing it all the way back to the very last weekend of winter break.
Our other friend Moniek came with us, and we stayed with Becky's good friend Lilly. As soon as we got there, the girls all started weeding through their clothing selections, which looked a lot more like formal cruise-wear than out-for-a-night-in-midwestern-January-wear. I didn't need any wardrobe consultations. I'd brought one outfit only. I think even if you'd never seen a picture of me, you could pick out the 30-year-old New Yorker among this bunch:
I look like the Amish school-teacher chaperone.
We went out to six bars that night. It was pretty much insane. And I was extremely happy about my little black shrug and my non eff-me boots around 5:30am when Moniek took her boots off under the table at Denny's, couldn't get them back on because her feet were so swollen, and had to walk out bare-foot. We had a lot of fun, but I paid for it. I can't really drink anything these days without waking up in the middle of the night with alcohol sweats, severe dehydration, a pounding headache and a desire to sit on the floor of the shower Crying-Game-style. And then there was the drama.
Moneik had just broken up with her boyfriend. Becky's friend Mitch was looking after Moniek all night because she was wasted and could barely hobble around in those boots. Then we we get back to Lilly's house after Denny's, we find out that Moniek has called her ex from two and a half hours away to come and pick her up, and she says that Mitch had been "creeping her out." I put on my eye mask and ear plugs and went to sleep. But when I woke up the next morning, Becky was bullsh*t that Moniek had said that about Mitch, one of her oldest and best friends. Then it came out that Moniek had also texted Becky during the early morning breakfast saying that another one of Becky's friends was being an @ssh*le, and.......you know what? Just.....drama. I would've been amused if I wasn't so alarmed. It's like adult acne- something awful and ugly I thought I'd left behind in high school surfaced and was just as irritating as I'd remembered.
Becky gave me another earful before class today, and I didn't think it could get any worse until I was out tonight returning some things to Staples with Moniek and Becky called her and they got into it while Moniek was driving me home. I just sat there in the passenger seat, mortified that I was being forced to bear witness to yet another dimension of this Moniek-Mitch-Becky incident. They managed to get their cards on the table, and Moniek promised to call Mitch and apologize (apparently, even though Moniek was creeped out, Mitch hadn't actually done anything overtly creepy?).
Dude. If I've never sid this explicitly before, I'll say it now: I love being thirty!
I've mentioned before that my program is dominated by women in their early to mid twenties. I am not longer any kind of twenty. At first I thought it was funny that I was the only one who seemed to notice, until I remembered that when I was 23, I pretty much assumed everyone else was 23 unless they were parents or homeowners or ate dinner at 5pm. Anyway, I have a small group of school friends who are much younger, but it's not much of an issue. Most of our social time revolves around school, studying, or assistantships. But my friend Becky, with whom I share my assistantship and every since class I've taken so far, started taking issue with this.
Becky's lots of fun- she's a trouble-maker, and extremely sarcastic (though secretly tender-hearted). And she spent many happy undergrad years in Evansville, Indiana. I'd been hearing about Evansville and its merits so consistently that I had started picturing it like that big room in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, where you can eat everything (pretty much the best place in the world in my estimation, minus the creepy monotone guys with the orange faces and green hair, and all those bratty kids).
Becky started getting sore that I'd never gone with her to visit Evansville. With my budget and our school schedule, it was just not going to happen last semester. But I knew I'd relent eventually, if only to stop hearing about how I HAD to COME TO EVANSVILLE. I ended up pushing it all the way back to the very last weekend of winter break.
Our other friend Moniek came with us, and we stayed with Becky's good friend Lilly. As soon as we got there, the girls all started weeding through their clothing selections, which looked a lot more like formal cruise-wear than out-for-a-night-in-midwestern-January-wear. I didn't need any wardrobe consultations. I'd brought one outfit only. I think even if you'd never seen a picture of me, you could pick out the 30-year-old New Yorker among this bunch:
I look like the Amish school-teacher chaperone.
We went out to six bars that night. It was pretty much insane. And I was extremely happy about my little black shrug and my non eff-me boots around 5:30am when Moniek took her boots off under the table at Denny's, couldn't get them back on because her feet were so swollen, and had to walk out bare-foot. We had a lot of fun, but I paid for it. I can't really drink anything these days without waking up in the middle of the night with alcohol sweats, severe dehydration, a pounding headache and a desire to sit on the floor of the shower Crying-Game-style. And then there was the drama.
Moneik had just broken up with her boyfriend. Becky's friend Mitch was looking after Moniek all night because she was wasted and could barely hobble around in those boots. Then we we get back to Lilly's house after Denny's, we find out that Moniek has called her ex from two and a half hours away to come and pick her up, and she says that Mitch had been "creeping her out." I put on my eye mask and ear plugs and went to sleep. But when I woke up the next morning, Becky was bullsh*t that Moniek had said that about Mitch, one of her oldest and best friends. Then it came out that Moniek had also texted Becky during the early morning breakfast saying that another one of Becky's friends was being an @ssh*le, and.......you know what? Just.....drama. I would've been amused if I wasn't so alarmed. It's like adult acne- something awful and ugly I thought I'd left behind in high school surfaced and was just as irritating as I'd remembered.
Becky gave me another earful before class today, and I didn't think it could get any worse until I was out tonight returning some things to Staples with Moniek and Becky called her and they got into it while Moniek was driving me home. I just sat there in the passenger seat, mortified that I was being forced to bear witness to yet another dimension of this Moniek-Mitch-Becky incident. They managed to get their cards on the table, and Moniek promised to call Mitch and apologize (apparently, even though Moniek was creeped out, Mitch hadn't actually done anything overtly creepy?).
Dude. If I've never sid this explicitly before, I'll say it now: I love being thirty!