What are 5 things that make you happy?

1. The situation going on with my beverage professor’s pants. Someone needs to tell her that none of us want to see that and she needs to buy properly fitted pants and/or blindfolds for her students.

2. Mystery bruises that continue to appear on my body.

3. My comforter at home refuses to let my body reach a proper temperature. I have to become a contortionist in order to sleep with just enough of my body covered. I occasionally find myself so knotted in my covers that I wake up in the middle of the night and have to wiggle my way out of the cocoon I have created just so I can breathe again.

4. My father.

5. I seem to be falling all over the place: falling down, falling onto the street, falling in love, falling out of it.

6. In addition to all the falling I’ve been doing a lot of dropping, I think I may have seriously dropped the ball this time.

7. The intense professor flirting competition that goes on in my film class. Why can’t we just have an old, ugly professor? Who isn’t funny?

8. The fact that I could sort out all of my problems in 5 minutes if she was still here.

9. The fact that now I’m the only one who laughs so much at the world and I can’t find anyone who just gets it.

10. Today in my beverage class one of my classmates, Patrick, was talking a lot about food science  and asking questions. I agreed with a lot of what he said and I was really happy that someone else was as much of a food science geek as me. Then everyone in the class starting teasing him for it, and I was the only one to stand up for him. At a culinary school. Half the class took food tech classes, why is it that only two of us seem to have learned anything? Grrrr. They now refer to us as “elephants” because we hold on to information and evidently that is an intolerable flaw.

11. The fact that my professor gave me a 107 on my test instead of 110 because on the extra credit we had to identify 5 scents and I wrote almond instead of roasted almond. Bitch.
 Actually, I should be more specific: raging bitch.

12. The vast excess of cheese in my life and the desperate demand for chocolate.

13. Pretty much everything about my body.

14. The fact that I have no one to talk to at my school under the age of 35. Why am I so old? I’m so sick of wandering around by myself.

15. The fact that I just can’t decide what to do about anything. This is so unlike me, and it’s torturous.

16. The fact that since my name begins with “A” a lot of people have me listed first in their phonebook, and people constantly dial me from their pockets. I get so excited because some old friend is calling me only to discover it is an accident.

I can’t decide how I feel about this and it is slowly driving me insane.

I have become a crazed woman, standing in a parking lot waving her arms and cursing at the sky.

It seems that since my emotions refuse to rest in one place I have decided to toss them towards the moon, and shatter them on the pavement.

Feel free to find them, pick them up, and show me where to put them.

Or maybe just help me find a better place to hide them.
Before they fall out accidentally, and one of us gets hurt.

You may or may not remember this little gem.

Well, I’ve done it again.

So…

I’m sitting on a bench in the hallway studying before my next class. The girl sitting next to me has her bag open between us, her books and folders falling everywhere and onto my legs.

So she says,

“I’m sorry if my bag is like, hitting you.”

and I say…

“No worries, I don’t mind being hit a little.”

Yeah.

I dont know why I said that. I did not mean it the way it sounded.

Ugh. Why am I so creepy sometimes?

I feel better.

Merg. Take all the nonsense I have been spouting about how I have not been panicking about school and ignore it. I guess it’s just not in my nature to be mellow.

I don’t understand why scheduling classes each term has to be so stressful. I basically just pray that I an registering for the correct courses and then desperately claw my way trying to take hold of them. I wake up at 5 a.m. on my register start date and refresh the registration page until it finally lets me start. By the time I have entered in my desired classes, inevitably 2 of them will be booked. It is so frustrating. I have been working so hard hard but I have this strange fear that I won’t be able to graduate in spring for some stupid reason. My school just has a way of fucking people over. Grrrr.

Could I meet with someone about this? Sure, if they weren’t all booked solid until after registration.

I’m also just really annoyed at how my classes are scheduled. Basically, the first half of this term will be spent teaching everyone how to subtly fall asleep at their desks. Then, suddenly, I have a million HUGE projects all due at the same time, combined with  bunch of huge exams. It’s as if they conspired to fuck us over. Are these project I could get ahead on-no. They’re “group” projects. Grrrr.

Oh my god I am so frustrated! Where the fuck is Jason when I need him to scream with me?! AAAAGGGHH.

Thanks JWU. I’ll be sure to send a big fucking muffin basket your way when this is all over, you mildly competent monkeys.
 

I have always been prone to jealousy, but this is something I have worked on a lot since beginning my year of happy. I must say I am doing quite well thus far. Maybe I am just feeling better about myself and realizing how lucky I am. Maybe I just trust people more.

Though one thing as of late has been plaguing me, and it has to do with ATCB. I know this is going to sound kind of ridiculous but: I have become a bit jealous of his relationship with his sister.

Whoa, let me clarify. I am not jealous of his sister. I am jealous of how ridiculously functional they are. It’s just not fair.

When I first heard about how well they got along, I was apprehensive to believe it. No one I know gets along with their siblings that well, no one. Though when I met his sister I finally understood it.

She is super adorable, she is nice to him, and-wait for it- she works in a chocolate factory.

I know, she is every girl’s dream sister.

I don’t think he realizes but I really enjoy watching them co-exist and living vicariously through him. When he comes home they actually talk to each other. Not yell, not mutter passive aggressively, they talk. They even listen to some of the same music. He shares all of his fancy music and television gadgets with her! WHAT?! When someone owns something nice in my house we hide it; and check for fingerprints each time we use it.

To think, having a sibling where the threat of an eventual beating isn’t constantly looming over your head. To not be afraid they are going to steal your things and sell them for drug money. To not have to worry about them so much you start have a breakdown at work. I bet his family has never had to have an intervention, or bail anyone out. So adorable.

They look so cute next to each other. She is just a bit shorter than him. I love watching them dance around to kitchen, popping up on their toes to grab things from high in the cabinets. It looks almost choreographed.

The other week ATCB was running all over the kitchen cooking dinner. I was sitting on the couch in their kitchen(yes, there is a couch in their kitchen) pretending to read. ATCB is doing his “I’m cooking dinner” dance across the counter. He slides dramatically from the stove to the refrigerator to grab butter (mmm…) and throws some into the pan. He occasionally stops to think out loud about what steps he is going to do next. He likes to coordinate his timing perfectly. When he chops vegetables he can usually feel me watching his fingers slide precariously close to the blade, and he lets me show him how to slice.

So he is standing at the stove and his sister bobs her way in, peering into his pan,

“whatcha makin’?”

So he tells her about dinner, and she compliments the plan. She doesn’t criticize any of his choices, she doesn’t guilt him into cooking for her. She just dances off to the fridge to find something to make herself. I peer over the book balanced on my knees with a ridiculous grin on my face. I take deep breaths of the kitchen air as it fills with the scent of dinner and not a hint of passive aggression. It’s so pleasant.

So she decides to make herself tortellini. For some reason, I find this option to be adorable, but at that point I was just hopelessly smitten watching them together. She gets a bit dismayed when she realizes that the tortellini she had purchased contains ricotta. She shares her brothers disdain for fresh Italian cheeses. They mourn this discovery together, and once she has been sufficiently comforted by him she decides to go ahead with her dinner plan.

At this point I can feel just how ridiculous the grin on my face is. ATCB turns around and I try as hard as I can to peel it off my face, but I can’t. When he questions my unnerving amount of joy I explain that I am just really excited for dinner.

At work, the girls and I constantly lament our relationships with our siblings. Sweet Pea’s sister (a.k.a. the destroyer of taco night) seems to just want and want and take advantage of Sweet Pea’s-well-sweetness. Another girl’s sister only talks to her when she wants something, and has had her share of substance problems. My sister occasionally beats me with a shovel. We bond over these issues.

In my head I imagine taking the work girls for a night at ATCB’s apartment. We could sit on the kitchen couch with popcorn and just watch them co-exist healthily.

Though mostly it just makes me happy, I have my moments where I become a bit jealous and angry. It just doesn’t seem fair. I realize they have their fights but I don’t want to hear about it. I just want to maintain the image in my head of them being the happiest siblings in the world.

So. Fucking. Cute.

So when I first met ATCB (after the rose incident) I made a joke that members of “we” have 500 words they use to describe food (and beverages). So today in my beverage appreciation class I tried to list as many words as I could come up with, because I am SO cool. I’m about 300 short of membership.

BUT I just had to share the result of my efforts. Please comment with suggestions to add.

So, here is the beginning of my list:

Acerbic

Acetic

Acidic

Acrid

Ale

Allspice

Almond

Ambrosial

Anise

Apple

Apricot

Astringent

Balsamic

Banana

Beeswax

Berries

Big

Bitter

Black

Black-Tea

Blue-Red

Blueberry

Blush

Bold

Bordeaux

Bread

Brilliant

Briny

Brown

Brown-Sugar

Burgundy

Burnt-Caramel

Butter

Butterscotch

Carbonation

Cashew

Cedar

Chemical

Cherry

Chewy

Chocolate

Cinnamon

Citrus

Clear

Cloudy

Clove

Cocoa

Coffee

Corked

Crisp

Currant

Curry

Dark

Deep

Dry

Dulcet

Dull

Earthy

Espresso

Floral

Fresh

Fruity

Full-bodied

Gamy

Gasoline

Ginger

Gold

Grainy

Grass

Green

Green-Pepper

Green-Tea

Hazelnut

Hazy

Heavy

Honey

Hot

Intense

Iron

Jalapeno

Jasmine

Juicy

Lactic

Lager

Leather

Lemon

Light

Lime

Liquorice

Lush

Macadamia

Marzipan

Matte

Mellow

Mild

Milk

Mouth-Feel

Mushroom

Musty

Nose

Nutmeg

Nutty

Oak

Oily

Old-Gold

Olfactory

Opaque

Orange

Orange-Blossom

Oxidized

Palatable

Pale-orange

Peach

Pepper

Pine

Plum

Pronounced

Pungent

Rancid

Rank

Raspberry

Red

Red-Berries

Region

Retro-nasal

Rich

Ripe

Roasted

Rose

Rosé

Rough

Rusty

Saccharine

Salty

Savory

Sesame

Sharp

Smokey

Sour

Sour-milk

Spicy

Sticky

Subtle

Sweet

Syrupy

Tangy

Tart

Tobacco

Tough

Treacle

Truffles

Umami

Vanilla

Vinegar

Violet

Vivid

Walnut

Woody

Yellow

Zesty

Hey you, love the new sneakers. I guess great minds think alike.

I didn’t realize until a few minutes ago how much I miss having you around.

Now if only I could stop staring at the floor and running away.

My subconscious is all about it,
but the rest of me is sort of “meh.”

I am feeling so trapped by this routine, by my house. Not my job, I love that, more school. I hate it there. It’s such an effort to get down and back. I spend my whole day alone. My only friends are my professors. I think the lack of challenge this term is stressing me out more than taking 5 incredibly difficult classes.

These are the days I start thinking of hopping on a plane.

Coincidentally, last night I dreamt I was going to fly you to Europe. I had a map of the world laid out and I was drawing on it the places we would go. My hands became a bit carried away, and just decided

“Fuck it, let’s go to Morocco.”

I had the map in my hand and I was thinking of giving it to you but I started to panic. I was thinking I would just go alone.

This being a dream, I was suddenly on the beach in Lerici with you. The whole city was abandoned and kind of run down. We were thinking of trying to find the house that had been my family’s. We got lost on a side street and then I woke up.

What does it mean?

“I am terrified that I’m going to hurt him.”
I guess the fact that I worry at all says
more good than it does bad.

                 Do you hear that?

That’s the sound of me trying to run away quietly.

Today I lied to you for the first time,
but I quickly changed my mind.
I was determined to leave you wanting more.

I was too tired to carry on the conversation for both of us.
I drank too many cups of coffee.
I’m just tired of talking and laughing
Tired of smiling all the time.

I’m tired of introductions,
Re-telling stories
Writing things down that I’m
              Never going to remember.

My name is Alessandra,
I’m from just outside of Boston,
I hate running into people I barely know but
I am obligated to talk to.

Don’t you dare,
             “Hi, how are you?” at me.
Just leave me alone.
Can’t you see I’m busy writing something about you?

I am sick with a fever and a severe
Case of writer’s brain
I promise it will be out of my system by the time I see him
On Sunday.

I would give up chocolate for a year if it could just be Sunday afternoon right now.

Dear Napoleon Complex,

I understand the fact the your penis is roughly the size of my pinky finger has probably caused you a lot of pain in your life. However, don’t let the fact that your inability to satisfy a woman has driven you to the brink of suicide cause you to bring others down with you. When you cut me off in your H2 and forced me to slam on my breaks and scream, your car sped off into the distance like a glimmering testament to your intense need to compensate. Please get some therapy, or maybe just get some. Otherwise it’s only a matter of time before you succeed in killing someone.As for me, I will be busy devoting my attention to men who know both how to take care of a woman and how to drive.

Fuck you,

Alessandra.

I don’t know what started this all but I have a few guesses. The past few weeks I have just been feeling overwhelmingly ugly. I feel completely uncomfortable in my own skin. I just want to hide.

I know it’s stupid but it has set off the same old mantras in my head and I can’t seem to get out of this funk. I found myself at Union Street with Karen-eating a salad. I hate that girl, munching on her pile of lettuce. I am not that girl!

The medicine I’m taking has killed my appetite, but it’s not what is causing this. I started feeling almost afraid of food. I have zero desire to eat. ATCB and I planned this nice dinner for tonight since tomorrow is my last day off for a while. I was so excited, but I started becoming ridiculously nervous about it yesterday. I feel totally out of control.

I know I should really just relax and have a good time. People tell me that all the time. They don’t know how I would kill to be that kind of person, and how I work on it every day. It has taken me this long in my life to find a way to keep myself happy, and I’m doing a pretty decent job of it. In fact, I have been feeling ridiculously happy-but I’m also a mess of worry and writer’s block. Maybe I should enter into a year of calm.

I’m pretty sure all these anxieties have absolutely nothing to do with food and everything to do with my anxiety about school starting. This is the last year I will ever have to do this. Holding on to that fact will get me through.

I think I’m also just annoyed because I thought I had some of this under control. If there was a “not freaking out” award I would have won it this summer roughly around the time I lost my luggage in Italy. I was so proud of the way I dealt with things this summer. I want that feeling back.

Ok, I’m just going to try and relax and have a good time. I love food. It makes me happy. Think happy. Screw feeling ugly, I am going to go out and have the greatest night ever (Well, except taco night, which currently holds the title of “Greatest Night EVER”).

Even though I’m being a total girl right now I know that as soon as I see him I will just relax completely and have a great time. I actually have to work really hard to finds flaws in anything I eat or drink with him because I’m already so fucking unhealthilly happy that everything tastes fantastic.

Wow, I totally just stopped worrying and started smiling.

 .

I have got to stop misbehaving.

It’s a shame but I think I may have figured you out. It seems you are composed of sulphur and bits of broken glass. I would love to tell you your fears are unfounded but I have no desire to lie to you. What to do, what to do?

I have so much to do today. Ok it’s really not that much but it’s a bunch of little tasks that become insanely difficult only because it invlves dealing with insanely difficult people.

1. I have to call my doctor and get her to fill my prescriptions, except this is complicated because one of them has technically already been filled but I’m going to run out before I can fill it again. This also means I have to deal with the stupid Keyes Drug people. There is a guy who is adorable and flaming and he always asks me about my love life and says how cute my ex and I are. I have yet to have the heart to tell him we broke up. So when he asks I just lie violently,
“Oh yeah, we are great. You know, soooo in love.”
“You two are so adorable.”
Yeah, so adorable.

2. I have to get my dad to sign some fafsa thing for school which always involves him swearing up a storm. I actually got him to the computer, which is step one. But I left him alone to have an angry fit. I will most likely find him playing solitaire in a half hour.

3. I have to pay my excise tax

4. I have to go to the rmv and actually renew my license. Any day that involves the rmv is bound to be full of fun.

5. I have to buy necessary school supplies

6. I have got to bake more apple (quick)bread because it was so delicous.

Ok, I can do this.