Final(s) Daze

You know its finals season when you wake up at a normal breakfast hour on the weekends. 9 pages to write in a day? Helloooo 10 am on a Saturday. We haven't seen each other in a while. Yeah, finals mean heightened levels of stress and lower levels of sleep, but they also mean the end is in sight. And all everyone can seem to be focused on is getting out of here. Every day I see a countdown someone has posted, or hear "home in 6 days!" My friends from home constantly ask me when I'm coming home, and we talk about all the fun things we'll do this summer. But what's the rush? Yes, there are things I'm looking forward to about returning home; Dunkin' Donuts. my dog. stars. Maya. Salt bagels. driving somewhere. driving nowhere. Tedeschi's at 1 am. Mucho Mangoes. Sleeping in. But are iced lattes and stick shifts enough to make me drop everything I have here and run?

It's so weird to think that it's the end already. To think about everything that has happened this year, and know that it's over. But I don't want it to be over. I don't want to have to come back and start over again next year. I need more time. To figure things out, to finalize things, to get closure. I can't leave not knowing. How is that so much seems to be starting just as everything is ending? And when I return home it's the opposite; everything has ended and I will have to start it up again. Seems a little backwards. Can't I just stay a little bit longer?

First semester I would could down days until I could go home. I felt that was where I belonged; that I was at some sort of cruel summer camp here and just wanted it to end so I could go back to my life. Now I don't want to leave? When did that happen. For the first time in my life, summer is too long. Minnesota is too far away (this is not for the first time. it has always been too far. from everything.). So I guess I'll start a new countdown. While everyone else's is getting to be in the single digits, mine is somewhere over 100. 113 days of sun at the Ridge, of making cookies with my aunt, of enjoying dinner on the deck, of surfing the waves with my cousins, of lying at NARA at night. And 113 days til I'm back, with a whole new list of things to enjoy.

Meet the Parents

My family is in town. I called my mother at 12:30 to see what time she thought they would arrive, she said 3:00. I was surprised at the good time they were making. Car rides with the Lorias are always of epic proportions; whether it is leaving at midnight avoid traffic en route to North Carolina, or my dad choking on a peach pit while driving and somehow blaming it on my mother, or having a rug fall off our roof and roll across 495, road trips with the fam are nothing less than entertaining.

good looking group, eh?

for reference; pat: mother. kevin: baby boy. dennis: father. amy: biggest sis. ker: middle sis. also known as ker, kiwi, weewee, middlepath. and me! awkward third one. lost in the ways of the world. independent, but not by choice. but thats for another time.

My mother calls me back at 2:45. They're here! I can't believe they got here without any problems. Oh--spoke too soon. The car broke down. The trusty T&C made it the 480 miles with no problems, and decided to call it quits within walking distance of my school. They are now waiting for a tow truck to take the car to the dealership and get a rental car. Of course. I smiled, thankful that not too much had changed since I've left. This got me thinking of other adventures we've been through that have given the Griswald's their well deserved nickname...

1. The Italian Job: April, 2006. The Loria family takes Europe (clearly foreshadowing to Kelly taking DC)! As we're doing the usual touristy things, we decide to take a tour of the Sistine Chapel. Instead of standing in the long line of people waiting to buy tickets from the establishment, Den decides to "be like a local" and hire a guy on the street to take us through. He says its a great deal; for a low price, we get a personalized tour and headsets to listen to the official guided tour. What a steal! Okay even the kids could see through this like it was doused in Windex. Despite our testaments that we were being cheated, Daddio decided to go through with it. Guess who was right? After paying a large man on a street corner who then mysteriously disappeared, we are taken inside yet all the perks of this tour are no where to be found. After many complaints, the tour leader, or the Scam Man as he was deemed by 10-year old Kevin, starts walkie-talkie-ing his honchos, saying how we were starting a revolution and he couldn't control us. Unexpected twist! Amy understands the entire conversation. Guess that gig is up. How do you say coup d'etat in Italian?

2. Sayanara Sanjaya: April 2007. Being the avid American Idol fans that we are, not even a trip to California was not going to cause us to miss an episode. So Wednesday night comes around and the clan is gathered in a hotel room, waiting anxiously to see who will be voted off. You remember the season--Sanjaya Malakar confused the singing competition with a season of What Not to Wear...on your head.

Well tonight was his night to go. We had been waiting for this moment for months. As soon as Ryan Seacrest announced it was the end of Simba's journey, it was like October 27th, 2004 in Boston. And yes. You should know that date. There was jubilant screaming, kicking, flailing, hugging, probably a few tears shed. And not only because my glasses were broken in the process.

I really wish I was kidding.

3. Far from Home: July 2006? Kelly, Kerry, Pat coming home from Mississippi. Flight cancelled in New York. Drive home with strangers we just met? No rental cars. Stay the night? No hotel rooms. Get picked up by Den? Phones die. Thank goodness for air mattress--sleep in airport! 1 am... vacuums. 3 am... Fire alarms. 6 am bus. 10 am commuter rail. noon, home sweet home. Who said Planes, Trains and Automobiles were just for John Candy and Steve Martin?

Honorable Mentions: That time we went to Florida... by way of California. economical!

That time we lost our dog the day we got her, only to find her asleep under the deck.

That time Pat called the neighbors in the middle of the night to protect the house from robbers...turns out the noise was just the gerbils.

That time Kevvy spilled the whole tank of sea monkeys all over the kitchen (yeah...we're not really good with pets).

I know, I know you want in. Most people do.

Life is like the Movies. (?)

I can come up with a song for everything. Give me a word, I'll find you a lyric. I have a playlist for every mood and I always know what to listen to to cater to whatever I'm feeling.

I don't have a song for this one. It's a little Naturally, a little Goodbye Waves and Driveways. It's a whole lotta Rascal Flatts. But I just can't find that one thing that it really....is.

Therefore, I have turned to the film industry. There's always a good chick flick that makes you want to smile and cry at the same time. In that light, I have compiled the top 10 Displays of Affection in the (some of the) best movies of all time. AHEM....

10. Adam Sandler making Drew Barrymore a video recapping their life together: 50 First Dates. Basically, Sandler finds an issue in the fact that his girlfriends memory resets itself everyday, so she never remembers that they met. Orrr.... maybe her memory is fine and she's trying to send you a hint buddy. Who knows. I'm not the writer. But so it goes, they get married (because why wouldn't you believe someone you thought to be a total stranger when they come up to you telling you you've been together for years and you're getting married today? logical.), have kids (new dating tip: tell the girl she has amnesia, youre actually married, and she's been wanting to have kids for years. in the morning, she remembers nothing. no strings attached at its finest). But so that she does remember him as she wakes up on a boat every morning, he documents their life together and has her watch a video so that she can pine over the wonderful memories she will never remember. But it's sweet. I swear.

9. Alfalfa singing "You Are So Beautiful" to Darla on the water: The Little Rascals. These kids can't be older than 7 and good old Alfie is crooning away to his love while in a boat. It's like the precurser to The Notebook (FORESHADOWING!) He'll do anything for her; get frogs in his pants, belch out bubbles, join a ballet show. But I mean look at her,

...who wouldnt?

8. Roberto Benigni convinces his son the Holocaust "é un gioco": La Vita é Bella. Guido Orefice and his family get sent to a concentration camp while living in Italy in World War II. So what does he do? Make a game out of it, of course. He tells his son Giosué that the whole thing is a game, and whoever can make it to the end wins. A tank. Yes, he who makes it out alive wins a military tank. The 5-year old could not be more excited. And while (spoiler alert!) poor Guido does not make it out of the camp alive, the game is the thing that saves his sons life and reunites him with his mother upon liberation. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. Ti fa piangere. And yes, he finally gets his tank.

7. The Bradley Cooper/Eric Dane/Julia Roberts/rando lil boy love square: Valentine's Day.

Cooper: zomg Roberts ur so hawt, i bet ur guy is so lucky ur comin home 2 see him

Roberts: Tnx creepy guy next to me on airplane but I'm just a homely military woman goin' home to my hubby, leave me alone.

Eric Dane: I'm a football player havin career probs n i needz to tell yew a secret. (it's that im retiring)

Rando Lil Boy: i am a little angsty and want to tell this girl i love her. ohhh elementary school luv. hurts so good.

Writers: NAHT! BC is actually just a nice guy, Roberts is traveling 6000 just to see her son (rando lil boy) for the day, McSteamy comes out of the closet to save his relationship with BC and RLB has a crush on his teacher! SO CUTE.

6. "You're not the rule, you're the exception!" : He's Just Not That Into You. Fact: this movie changed my life. And while it was weird to see Justin Long without his buddy,

it was exactly what every girl has ever wanted when he showed up at Maggie-Gyllenhaal-look-a-like's door after spending the whole movie that she is no one special and all the rules of dude-are-douches dating apply to her and tells her that indeed he was wrong. Ah there's nothing like an admission of fault. Can he teach my dad that?

5. Two Places at Once: A Walk to Remember. Okay, Mandy Moore is dying. DY. ING. That automatically makes anything in this movie THE MOST SENTIMENTAL. theeeee most! So one thing on her Bucket List is to be two places at once. Who does she think she is, Hermione? Nonetheless, nameless-attractive-bad-boy-boyfriend of hers takes her to the town line, as her straddle it (euphemism?) so she can be in two geographical locations simultaneously. Magic!

4. Alice, Are You Blind? : Remember the Titans. Nothing makes you see what's importance to you like a near-death experience. Just ask Charlie. Or Des. (Or Locke? Time will tell.) While visiting Gary at the hospital, Julius is denied entrance because only family is allowed in the room. Gary clears up the miscommunication by telling her, "Alice, are you blind? Don't you see the family resemblance? That's my brother." Clearly he didn't realize that they didn't mean the "from anotha motha" kind.

3. The Birthday Cake: P.S. I Love You. Anything where a husband dies is sad. Anything where Gerard Butler dies is just tragic. Yet somehow even after death, he manages to be his amazing altruistic beautiful self. He arranges for a birthday cake sent to his wife after he dies with a recorded message, showing that love lasts even beyond the grave.

2. I Hate the Way You....: 10 Things I Hate About You. Let's recall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC0_WmotPR0

mkay? mkay. man, i really wish Heath Ledger didn't die.

ANNNND drum roll please.... number 1 issssss (no shocker here).....

1. The Kiss: The Notebook

"It wasn't over... It's still not over." oh.em.gee.

Soooo ... yep. Now that I have just fawned over their fictional lives, maybe I should figure out my own. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

k enough emo kelly. aaaaand scene.

Common Scents

You know that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and have something to look forward to? In high school, I would come up with a reason to get out of bed every morning; something to keep me going that day. That stuff is important when the alarm goes off at 6 am. Now I get to sleep in so thats reason enough to wake up happy. But sometimes, I need that extra push. Today was one of those days. I had 75 minutes of hell in the form of a singing class ahead of me, it was freezing, and somehow IT IS ONLY WEDNESDAY. This week could not be going by more slowly (slowerly?). So at 9:00 this morning, as the Kane show was telling me of spin-offs of the Jersey Shore that are coming up (Boston's Wicked Summah? I'm there), I really needed this motivation.

I rolled over, entangling myself even more in my blanket (fun fact: i have not slept with a sheet this entire semester. i don't like sheets. the ones that go over you. i like sleeping on sheets. not on bare mattresses. alas, i digress) which was not helpful because then i really didnt want to leave my deep sea of blankets. But then I thought of it--the one thing that would make this morning not so bad. So I schlepped (I hang out with too many Jews) myself out of bed, turned my swag on, looked in the mirror, said whats up, and finally it was time. New deodorant. It's like getting a new air freshener for your car; you've gotten so used to the old scent that you don't notice it and then when that new dolphin or christmas tree or whatever your preferred shape is shows up, it's a whole new driving experience. That's how I felt today. A whole new walking experience. It was like I had a secret that no one else knew and just kept a coy little smile on my face all day. Yeah, it was a good day.

Moral of the day, folks: Don't take yourself too seriously. It's more fun this way.

Counting Sheep

It is 11:03 pm. I only want to go to bed. There are still 31 minutes on my dryer cycle. Therefore, I shall make a list of all the things I am thinking about right now.

1. In the Dashboard Confessional song "Vindicated," he says: so turn up the corners of your lips, part them and feel my finger tips.

....what lips is he talking about here? I'm confused as to why he is putting his fingers in someone's mouth. But I don't want to think about anything else. Man I really wish I hadn't thought of that.

2. I have been living in a dark world for 5 days now. No, this is not some emo metaphor. The lights in my room do not work. It is literally...dark. Well, for the many hours when the sun is out, it is okay. But then nightfall comes aaaand... I'm like a bear in a cave. We sent in to get them fixed sometime earlier last week and a very large man showed up promptly at our door. Despite the fact that I'm pretty sure he said "youre under arrest" when he knocked on the door, he assessed the issue and went to get some back-up...or tools...or something.... the world may never know because then he never returned.... sooo here we are. still in the dark.

3. I really wish Michael Bublé would work on his song openings. As much as I love him, some of those songs are just ridiculous. The intro to "Dream of You" belongs on Sesame Street and the beginning to "Coming Home" sounds like an N*Sync Christmas special. And why does he have a chorus line yelling to him observations to start off "I've Got the World on a String?" i just dont understandddd. stop it.

4. 12 more minutes.

5. I got nothin'. Although the coat of nail polish I just put on looks extra glossy. It'll be gone by the morning. damn sheet imprints.

6. DONE. (yes, it took me over 12 minutes to get from number 4 to here. i was thinking very hard.) aaaaaand goodnight.

and good luck.

Remote Controlled

A few weeks ago, I had the greatest idea. Now, when I say "greatest idea," I'm not going by the Alexander-Graham-Bell-inventing-the-telegraph or Lincoln-freeing-the-slaves kind of great idea. Its more of a, this-seems-to-solve-my-current-predicament-or-entertain-a-fun-idea-for-now kinda thing. Past "greatest ideas" i've had?

Having a scheduled once a week Skype date with my best friend because I felt I never got to talk to her. (It never happened; we decided to just pick up our phones more often.)

Take my roommate home for Easter so she could meet my friends. (She decided she'd rather stay in DC).

Put up motivational quotes all over my room to get me pumped up for life. (I guess I got too lazy... ironic.)

You get the idea. The ideas are not only not so great, but also usually disappointing fails. So this time, the idea was that Facebook should make a setting where you put in a time limit, and you can't log in for that amount of time. For purposes of doing homework, having a life, whatever it may be. Now I don't know why Facebook (I speak about it as if it is an actual entity capable of making anything) would want to create something that kept people OFF their website, but at the time, it was a great idea. AGAIN, DISAPPOINTMENT.

Apparently, someone else had this great idea before me, as something of this nature already exists. And not only for Facebook, for any website you choose. It's a downloadable program in which you input the websites that you wish to stay off of and an amount of time, and until that time runs out, your internet browser is unable to reach those sites. Doesn't matter if you turn your computer off, shut down the browser, anything. You're not getting on. And here's the kicker--it's called Self Control.

Again, the irony. Clearly if someone is using this program (as I did all afternoon, in an attempt to complete my research paper... in Spanish), they have no self control. Because clearly they cannot just stay away, they need a computer to make it physically impossible. But hey, someone (or thing) has to do it, right? Why not get computers to do everything for us? Sounds like someone pulled a Jonas Brothers and jumped to the year 3000. now all we need is to live underwater. and a great-great-great granddaughter. to be doing fine. okay. too far.

*authors note: please excuse the excessive use of parentheses in this post. i don't know whats gotten into me.