Bringing it back.

I'm sitting on my parents' deck looking out at the school children loudly climbing into yellow buses and large SUV's and minivans. I'm watching this one kid walk past all the buses into the neighborhood behind this one- he's wearing a bright yellow safety belt- like he's a "safety" for the school- he helps kids at the cross walk. I remember in fifth grade I wasn't allowed to be a safety because I called some kid an asshole ("say 'pillow' instead." a teacher who wasn't even my teacher suggested.) I wasn't even upset I didn't become a safety because I would walk to school in the morning and they, my classmates who were safeties, would be standing outside freezing until the bell rang, and even in my childhood I understood the value of sleeping in and warmth. Sure, they then would come inside and be served hot chocolate and boast about it, but ultimately sleep always beat their stupid hot chocolate that didn't even have marshmallows.

I'm smoking a Davidoff cigarillo that my dad gave me but wishing it was a joint. I've been living at my parents house going on three months now and days like today, where I have nowhere to be, and have the house to myself, I still feel a tinge of teenage mischief and want to do something that I wouldn't do when my parents are home. However, at my age now, I pretty much do anything I want to whether they're around or not- including sleeping all hours of the day with my best friend Roxanne. Roxanne is the only one who really loves me. That is, Roxanne really loves me while my mom is out of town. When mom is home Roxanne usually loves her more. Traitor. My parents must think I'm the weirdest ever. I'm so mopey. "Hmmm Hummm" all day from me. My dad asks daily, "Are you bored?" I am taking classes at the community college but that's dumb too. I'm a blast to be around these days I imagine. I sort of feel bad for cramping my parents' style. But not that bad.

Ah, so, post Moldova life, is, well, as anticlimactic as many days in Moldova were. It's a continuation of this 'relaxation' that everyone keeps helping me justify. My parents say, "relax! Just relax! You'll be so busy and stressed in Law School, in The Future, in Life, just relax now while you can!" My Moldovan boyfriend, Misha, would always say "be lazy! You'll have plenty of time to be busy once you get back to America!" My head says "whatever, whatever. Just do whatever. It doesn't matter. TRANSITION."

I thought I wasn't going to write in this anymore. I left Moldova without any conclusions on this and then once I arrived home figured no one wants to read about my lame life living with my parents in the suburbs while I wait for law schools to figure out what they want already. No one will want to read law school waiting rants, I don't even like reading law school waiting rants. (That's a lie, I refresh law school message boards all day, in between trashy blogs, news, and watching TV.)

As for Moldova, I'm still in touch with folks there, thanks to the internet. I'm on odnaklassniki.ru which is basically Russian Facebook without all the pokes and relationship status, and I e-mail and call people on Skype. I hear mixed things about what's going on at the sport school/Action Club. I've heard aerobics is completely over, I've heard that over 80 people go to the club. I know pretty much who is telling the truth and who is exaggerating to keep me from forming any new opinions about them. However, most of the opinions are exactly as they were when I left, for better or for worse. I really liked being out there. It felt important and interesting even when it wasn't. Though it was really quiet in terms of my social life or things to do, it was different and showed me a lot about my personality. Being back home, with little in terms of my social life or things to do, I'm just coasting in this weird way. I work out a bunch but realized today that I'm still pretty out of shape because I'm in denial that I really am that lazy. I am obsessed with thinking about where to go next or things I should've done (maybe I should've continued being abroad somewhere during this time, right now. Picked up another language. Traveled some more.) I have a shortage of friends but at the same time not at all because there are people around here who want to hang out but I'm sort of a bitch and no one is funny/interesting/good enough plus I'm here in Detroit temporarily and thus treat my relationships as such. My good friend(s) out here have there own stuff going on and there really isn't that many of them left anymore. Plus I pine for new friends.

Holy shit. This just became the blog I didn't want it to be. Ok, that's enough of that. Let me refocus on Roxanne for a second. That bitch is so sneaky. She totally knows how much I love to sleep and gets all up next to me and looks at me and then subtly doses off in an inviting manner I simply cannot ignore. One. Two, when we go for walks and she goes potty, she kicks up back legs afterward and I LOL every time. Three, she ate cottage cheese and it got all over her face and she didn't even know it so I let her walk around like that. HOW EMBARRASSING FOR HER RIGHT?

So it's back on I guess. I felt bad folks have me linked and I don't even write anymore, so maybe this will get me my points back. All things considered, it's nice being back.

Making news...

One of my main projects here made international press! It's an important subject and I'm so proud to be a part of this effort and am pleased it is getting coverage.

Read about it here.

The radiator is at 7 until bedtime.

Ok so it's my birthday now. It's 0:04 in Moldova so it's already November 11th here. Not sure what my mood is like this evening. I feel silly for even writing here now as it's been extremely rare in the last few months for me to write anything at all, so writing something now seems a little anti-climactic as far as blogs go. I've had a busy few months of being more stressed out than I was actually busy. I was doing law school applications (writing statements and resume, etcetera) and dealing with work stuff which is still being dealt with. It's hard to be motivated when it's so much easier watching youtube laying under a blanket in my warm living room, but it's been a struggle I've worked to overcome in these last few months. My birthday this year is going to be like really quiet and peaceful, I think. I plan to stay inside all day and sleep until I want to. Maybe I will do some big cleaning (packing stuff up) or maybe I will bake something festive. As for evening, I doubt anything exciting will happen as it is a Tuesday and it is Moldova. The birthday excitement will be combined with goodbye sadness in a couple weeks when I throw myself a birthday/farewell party at a restaurant in town for 25 people who sort of shaped my life out here. I wish I could invite everyone- the ladies who work in the store across the street, the kids from the newspaper who I don't really talk to anymore, every woman who has ever taken my aerobics class, the children who play outside my apartment and their parents, my laundry lady, the boys around town who always say hi to me because we may have had a conversation once, but I don't want to overdo it with this celebration. It's bittersweet enough as is, my leaving, and I'm still not quite sure how to handle all my goodbyes out here. I want to give everyone something from me, and my plan was to take a ton of photos with people and then print them and give as little memories of me, but now that I'm camera-less that plan is sort of hard to do.

No, I think I feel sad tonight. I feel sad because it's my birthday, I'm not super excited about it, I'm alone, and I'm bored. 24 is a pretty uneventful age to be, but I hope it'll be a year of developments. This year I will be accepted and rejected from law schools and figuring out where I will be living potentially for a large part of my adult life. It will be a year of family and Roxanne, as I will be living with my parents for a majority of 24, and hopefully Roxanne will be coming with me wherever I go for law school. It will be a year of pulling heartstrings as I'm sure I can't even begin to imagine how painful missing people here will be from over there. I'm going to miss the nuances I hate about living here, and pine after the things and people I love who I will be leaving behind. I think 24 is going to have its ups and downs like any year, but these will be that much more dramatic and intense as real things are going to be happening in my life what with the big move back to America and then to a new city where I could potentially be on my own again, knowing no one, depending on where I end up.

Anyways, Happy Birthday to me. It's been a good year, and a great couple years in Moldova. I don't regret too much (regrets: LSAT, lost camera, can't think of another one but I'm sure there's a couple more) and I have a feeling that this coming year I'll have even less to regret as I return to my natural habitat.

Gray area

I've gotten a lot more gray hair since living out here. I assume it's because I'm getting older and I inherited the gray from both my parents.. Yet, I also can't help wonder about the old wives' tales about going gray. Have I been more stressed living here? Did I pull out too many gray hairs and they've since multiplied?

I kind of like the gray; it's mine, y'know? But it's the reactions people have that make second guess my decision to not dye. I became an 'honorary' God-mother this weekend and when I arrived at the church the mother of the baby's first reaction to me was "whoa, where'd all that gray come from?" Last week I was with my Russian tutor and I was looking down at my book and she says to me, "Amy, you really need to stop thinking so much, you're going gray!"

But maybe it's been this denial inside me that's turning my hair inside out. I'm not feeling like I'm leaving soon, but I am, and I'm not doing my law school applications as diligently as I thought I'd be by now, but I should.

When I was younger I used to play a game with myself that was like, for example, if the traffic light turns red before our car gets there then I will eat ice cream tonight. Or, when I had a dialogue with God when I was kid, I would think if God let's me get an A+ on my spelling test then I will never swear again. Well, tomorrow morning for me will be like if the first thing I see in the morning is a gray strand of hair right in front of my forehead in the mirror, then tomorrow my essays for my applications are going to be completed.

This is how I feel when I think about Roxanne.

...and you know I cried watching this.



thanks to Videogum.

The good life

In between two pressing projects I still find myself waking up in the morning at whatever time I want to and try to figure out what to do during the day. Today is one of those days.

Like yesterday, it looks like reading my book on a blanket in the woods will beat out sitting at home on the internet this afternoon.

Why don't you just...

It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.
- Malcolm Forbes