This weekend oops

I was home alone and iced in.

There were multiple sittings of eating tortilla chips out of the bag and salsa while lounging on my couch. Yum  

I also successfully flooded my bathroom every time I showered and I'm still not sure what my shower curtain has against me.

A little self-conscious about whether or not my neighbors were able to hear all the questionable music I found to blast through the place. See: Timeflies goes Disney and every 2011 remix of Pumped Up Kicks. 

Oh and the 5 gallons of Northland cranberry juice I bought because they were buy 2 get 3 free. Harris Teeter does this thing to me where I decide 5 is an appropriate number of bottles of cranberry juice to buy. Crushed bottle #1 within 8 hours. 

The way the boy says "thank you" 

Myspace.com has become a longstanding tab on my browser but i swear it's the only way to listen to The Tallest Man on Earth repetitively and uninterrupted this side the Mississippi.  (You see talking Southern is my coping mechanism for the -86 degree weather going on outside. That and making smoothies inside and cranking the heat up so I can wear tank tops) 

Came to an understanding with myself that walking home from the studio today counts an overall workout for the entire weekend. I was wearing sneakers so it counts.  

Ohmygod I can't get the way he looked in his gray pants last night out of my head. 

Or the warm, fluffy biscuits we had for breakfast that he called "little clouds." AW  

Earlier I realized the unattractive smear of gesso on the leggings I'm wearing, but not sure exactly which day of the weekend that happened. Soooo I'm taking it as some kind of sign to go ahead with the lululemon shopping cart I started this weekend.......? WOULDN'T YOU 

Help I'm wearing his thermal as if I think I'm some precious girlfriend or something but the sleeves are extra long and it smells like legit magic and I actually don't plan on ever taking it off. WHY IS IT SO DELICIOUS  

Just. This is all.

http://www.thetallestmanonearth.com/

couldn't be more obsessed

Cool videos and hot tea

Made it another week without blogging but at least I'm consistent! Here we are Monday again, and all I can think about is how thankful I am right now. That's so cheesy and I know it, but after this weekend, I'm on such a high I can't help but share. So I'll make it short, in case you really are going to read this, then that way you can still catch up on all the good inauguration tweets, in case you were accidentally watching the Bachelor instead. 

Thank you life for grandparents and the sunny afternoons with them that relieve all my stress from a rapidly beginning semester while tricking me into thinking they don't live 3 whole states away, at the bottom of the 3rd one. 

And for the hot tea made by the roommate I can never take life seriously with.

And lastly for the book I never find time to read, but waits around so patiently for nights like this when I do. 

Since this is like thanksgiving, can we get a feast? Maybe I can interest you in last night's box of leftover nachos and philly cheesesteak still sitting on the floor next to my bed? Jokes aside (I know no one would really be interested in eating that) I am forming a particularly adorable habit of eating out of take-out boxes in my bed.  Funny thing is, so far it's all been brought to me by people who actually did the getting dressed and going out to eat part. Good thing I don't have a TV in here yet or else I am certain we'd have ten times the fun. 

Goodnight blog, and thank you for not thinking I am a man, even though I'm not too convincing sometimes.  That's what all the LOVE PINK is for.

Venus did blow my mind and it was everything I wanted to find

Now that I'm back in the atmosphere (America at least) I've got all these things to tell you about!

Like winter break, which was amazing, and wasn't supposed to be a break from blogging but when you get a new iPad from your grandparents with your name engraved on the back, you really, realllyyyy don't want to break out the old Lenovo like, ever again. And then I remembered about the Blogger app and now don't have any excuse at all.

BUT, I didn't forget my Blogger password and now that I'm back from that soul vacation, all you really missed were Harris Teeter days and Red Box nights and my beautiful mother who likes to listen to country with the windows down (or heated seats) and my cuddly little brothers who make me laugh, literally all the time, and my best Cary friends that you wouldn't get all of our inside jokes with anyways. Did I mention my dad who will do anything to make me happy, including but not limited to walking into Urban Outfitters and waiting for me at the cash registers? Well there you have it folks, spoiled girl blog moment of 20...13! But it was Christmas and I did spend the entire day prior to that running around the triangle with him looking for the perfect thermos for my mom.

And as good as home is and always will be, I couldn't be happier to be back at school, in the best of all those best places in the world, Chapel Hill.

So here I am, I've traced my way through the constellation, and this is my reality. Which is not that I am partying in Florence or that there are any more drops of Jupiter in my hair. But that I'm in our tiny little flat we call ~The Bungalow~ sitting in my bed eating chocolate ice cream out of a wine glass, realizing I missed The Bachelor earlier, still needing to shower, take some antibiotics still left from a nasty sinus infection and finish some illustration work.  I do have class tomorrow and I do recognize the lack of sleep I'll be getting this semester, but I couldn't imagine no love, pride, or deep fried chicken for that matter. So yes, I am fully aware of the glamour of my life right now. And there's none. But I'll tell you what, I love it.

And I'll tell you what else.

I did, I fell head right over heels for a shooting star, and I missed him, oh how I missed him while I was looking for myself out there.

^I could have done something romantic and cute to this picture in Photoshop or something, but then you wouldn't be able to tell how it's actually in a grocery store at 2 a.m. while getting stuff to make sandwiches. And that we're on a motorized scooter for handicapped shoppers because his ankle was sprained... 

We're no plain old Janes. 

(Had to)

The last weekend

Maybe I should start with Amsterdam where I saw an entire arena of people from all over the world come together for one rave. Or I could start with the 16 hours of sleep that followed. Or with the Sunday that began with banana pancakes and bacon on our big wooden table.  The last weekend is over but it's really been one of the best. And not just because it started on a Wednesday. But maybe.
Some cute stuff all us roomies did includes waking up at 3 pm every day and starting the discussion of cleaning the place up for move-out. We hit up the Christmas markets at Santa Croce to look around and eat Polish sausages.  It was so pretty when the sun started setting and all the lights looked like magic. We watched Home Alone in a dark kitchen with these grocery store sugar cookies that may as well be crack. We walked out to the duomo and perfected the art of asking different people to take our picture in front of the Christmas tree. See you have to pick someone out that a) looks like they know how to use a camera b) is with a significant other so you can return the picture-taking favor c) isn't wearing a puffy jacket holding a baby wearing a puffy jacket. I almost asked this one lady to take the picture but when I realized she was in this puffy jacket baby situation, I knew better. And I did think about offering to hold her baby while she took our picture, but then we'd have a picture of all of us in front of the Christmas tree holding some woman's baby. And that's just awkward.

Speaking of babies I AM ONE, I left the apartment for a few hours today to finish up some paintings and already started missing everyone at home. Like I just wanted to go back and be with them. And we're supposed to say goodbye on Thursday? I'm so screwed.

Grow slow

Going to another country for a semester, it's like all of a sudden you have to be smart like an adult.  So much to remember for yourself. Keep your passport somewhere safe. Don't take your debit card out with you.. Be a smart drunk.  I know this all was supposed to happen 4 years ago, and it did, in a way, but living in a different country is different. You have to be responsible not just for your classes and commitments, but for yourself, for your well-being. My mom wasn't here to drag me to get my ends trimmed or to tell me oh it's nothing, you're probably just dehydrated.  And it's not even that I didn't have my mom, I didn't have anybody. It was me, 10,000 unknown street names and that god-forsaken language barrier. What do you mean no capisco??? But in the chaos of it all I had to remember all the important stuff. To shave my legs, keep track of important documents and figure out how to do stuff.

FYI, I am not good at that. My brain prefers long weekends and minimal common sense requirements.  So in the wisdom of my roommate I had to learn to say, "if you don't know how to do it, just.. figure it out." 4 months later, I learned a little, fucked up a lot, and found that the roommates in kitchen when I get home is a cure for any bad day.

I'm not saying I know anything, and I surely don't know everything, but it is in these little things I learned while living in Florence that I found life can be really, really, so damn good. Or maybe I'm just a 89 year-old-man at heart. Either way, see if you agree:

1. When trying new food at the foreign grocery store, only buy a little bit in case you don't like it. But I went to Italy and I found that, more often than not, I liked it.  The best is when you do actually like it but run out, so you leave class and go straight to the grocery store before you go home to get more. See: salami toscano

2. Ask your professor questions.  That's so cliche but so something I needed to learn.  You don't even know all the answers they got out there.....

3. Don't leave your keys at home. This crazy thing will happen where you'll be locked out and it will probably be raining.

4. Don't forget to fall in love with yourself, first.  Then break all the hearts you want. Karma, bitch.

5. Do laundry before you run out of clean underwear. Or else it will be bikini bottoms in November and people will wonder why you smell like sunscreen. Also because we don't have a dryer and it takes +24 hours for my clothes to dry. Isn't there some kind of Chemistry law against that?

6. Look people in the eye. Especially at first when you don't know anyone. People say this all the time and I was always like ok ok sure, but when you start really doing it, you're like ohh. That's why.

7. When he offers you the world, remember you have your own. But who ever said 2 worlds weren't better than one?

8. End each day with a glass of wine. The 1.99 kind if you're going to be doing this every day. It's up to you/which day of the week it is to decide if by glass I mean 750 mL glass bottle.

9. Don't compare your sketchbook with someone else's gallery piece. You'll just start cursing at everyone and blaming your paintbrushes or attributing all your problems to the fact that you don't have a Mac.

10. Every day (I'm serious. Every day.) take an hour to do nothing but sit, talk, laugh, drink, and do nothing.  You'll make the best friends, laugh the hardest you've ever and finally understand the whole happiness thing.  Which, if you can believe it, is not standing at the stove eating pasta out of the pot in your underwear.

11. If you don't believe in magic, you won't find it. Oh, but if you do..

12. Learn how to say "go fuck yourself" out loud, with total confidence and no reservation to the filthy strangers on the street who figure out some way to disrespect you with their snakes of hands. Convince yourself that saying those words in public is totally respectable, in the name of your temple of a body. And if you're in Italy.... they are Italians, after all.

13. Grow slow. Make 13-numbered lists of things and swear to yourself to live by each one, but remember there's always something else. Something you didn't know. Something that will tell you you're wrong. About everything. Accept that, and keep growing.

When I get back I have so many people to thank, to hug, to remember again. I have debts upon debts to work back up, pounds my thighs and face could do without, two delicious black bunnies to snuggle. When I get back, I'm going to be happy, but I'm going to be so, so sad. I'm going to be the girl walking around with a bottle of wine in one arm and everyone I love in the other, refusing to believe we're anywhere else in the world besides Florence, Italy.

Live-action blogging

Scene: going in to work on stuff at school. Stopped to grab a panino at the bar next to my school. While I wait for the sandwich to heat up, I nod and smile at the two old ladies talking rapidly at the same time to me in Italian and waving their hands all over the place in my face. I give Mario, the man with a black ponytail who works there, the what is going on help me look. Mario winks and laughs, then wraps up a free pastry to go with my sandwich.

Now can you see why I'm in no rush to leave??