Dressing a 21-year Old

Yesterday, I quite literally got over ‘the hump’. We had our presentations out of the way, met our attendance goals, I survived the test yesterday morning, and as of last night, it was a downhill slide to the weekend. I relaxed, had a phone-date (the excitement of a long-distance relationship), read a little in my new book, and drifted into a content sleep.

I woke up this morning, had my breakfast, caught up on e-mails, and started to get ready. I wish my brain had warned me for the disaster that was to follow.

Normally, I have no problems getting dressed. Obviously I don’t mean that in the sense of, Well sometimes I can button my pants, but some days you just never know. I mean, I can pick an outfit out in my head, put it on, and be ready. Aside from the weekends of course, where every outfit I own must be worn and contemplated and modeled. But that’s another story. I don’t usually have to try on 5 shirts before I like the look, or switch shoes, or change pants. Because it’s just a day of classes and work, I’m pretty simple and quick about it.

Not today.

Today, I saw a pair of khaki’s that I forgot I even owned, and thought “I should wear those”. We’ll call that, Mistake #1. I then remembered that said khakis always stretch out after about an hour, so I threw on a dark brown belt. Mistake #2. Then I was stumped. I hardly ever wear anything but jeans, unless I’m going out or dressing “business casual”. So I’m looking at my shirts and have no idea which direction to go. The belt is presenting a problem because I hardly ever wear belts anymore, all my shirts are long, and the combination is Not Cute. I try to match a long shirt, and ignore the bulge around the waist. Um, ew. Mistake #3. After about 3 outfit changes, I finally decide that one of them looks “okay”.

Then I think about shoes. Well, of all things to be hurting right now, it’s one toe on each foot. Yes, I’m serious. For some reason, these long distance runs are hurting my toes. My legs aren’t sore, my feet feel fine, but my toes? They are complaining. Ehhhh. So I wanted to wear some comfortable shoes. Mistake #4. They looked weird with current outfit.

Okay. Fine.
Time to change everything.

Khakis are out, jeans are in. Life is easy again. Rethinking the “top” choices, I had to start over. At this point, browsing my closet is beginning to irritate me, so I step into the roomie’s room. I pulled out my favorite knitted green top (with cute little buttons diagonally across the left shoulder!). Yes! Now I’m happy, because wearing something that’s not yours always seems more exciting. I layer it with my white polo, and I can breathe again.

The jeans I picked are long, so I have to sacrifice my toes and wear my boots. Which is fine, because they look better anyway. I threw in some earrings, put my hair up, and I’m finally ready to go. With about one minute to spare. Agh.

As I’m heading out the door I remembered that today is the first day of Spring. And quite frankly, you’d never know here in good ole Pennsylvania. Surprised? Of course not. But you know what, I went back and grabbed my sunglasses. Because it’s Spring. And whether I need them or not, I want to wear them.

Indoor Icicles

I had no idea this was possible, but be assured, it is.

As you may know, our apartment flooded last week, and the damage continues. In the last week we have had de-humidifiers, commercial-strength fans, a corner of our living room carpet pulled up (and not replaced), and our carpets cleaned and “sterilized”. We walked around in slippers and flip-flops for the week to avoid soaking our feet in dirty carpet-water (ewwww), and burned numerous candles to the wick because our apartment smelled like a wet dog.

Out of all this, one de-humidifier remains. It’s hangin’ out in our bathroom, not doing too much. There have been a few times where the condensation on the windows has indicated it’s getting too humid from the still semi-damp carpet, so we turn it on. We were blessed with somewhat “decent” weather on Sunday and Monday, so we could finally open a window and let some of the air circulate without getting frostbite.

Last night it was approximately 5º outside and I could see the water droplets forming all over my window. I opened it a little bit to test it out, because bringing a de-humidifier into a small bedroom and shutting the door for 10 hours really does nothing. However, the blast of cold air I was hit with quickly changed my mind, and I slammed it shut. Covered in condensation. Hello, I’m dumb.

I woke up this morning and couldn’t even see outside because of all the watery-ness. I thought: Since I’ll be gone all day, I guess it’s just better to open this up a little bit and deal with the fact that it’ll be a little cold when I get back. At least it will let out some of the humidity right?

I tried to open my window. I pulled reeeallyy hard. I locked it and unlocked it. Then pulled again. I can’t be that weak, I can open this damn window. The window will not beat me.

Ehhhh. No, but the ICE that has formed in droplets and mini icicles along the window-sill….they beat me. My window is actually frozen shut. Oh.My.Gosh. I have icicles IN MY ROOM. Wow. End of story.

When your Apartment Floods…

…many unpleasant and unwanted situations will result.

Yesterday morning a pipe in the ceiling above our bathroom decided to burst. This left inches of water in our living room, one bedroom, and all over the bathroom. Luckily Crazy was home to take care of things! I can safely assume that I would have freaked out, ran down to the office and yelled at somebody. She chose the more logical path, teaching me a few things about how to handle a situation like this.

First, call somebody who can do something (i.e. the Maintenance people?). Then, take some action….

-Turn OFF the Power ( I never would’ve thought to do that….) to avoid being electrocuted. Nobody wants that. Especially when you are standing in water. Ehhh, not good.

-On that note, remove all electronic things from the floor! In this situation, that happened to be LB’s computer. Normally it is sitting happily on her desk, but on this particular morning it was in the living room from the night before. Problem. No worries though, Crazy is smart, and thought of that right away! Another reason that my apartment is lucky that I’m not the one who happened to be home…..

It’s also a good idea to unplug everything, because you won’t want to be doing that later while everything is wet.

-Do NOT try to use towels to soak up the water. Inches of water will win this battle every time.

-Remove all other valuable belongings from the floor, if possible.

Fortunately for us, the only things that got damaged were a few rolls of toilet paper. Lesson learned: don’t keep TP on the floor?

-Put on some rainboots, and head on down to the office to explain that your apartment is currently Flooding. Right Now.

They will say things like, “Why? What did you do?”
You will want to say things like, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”
Please refrain. Keep your cool. People don’t want to help you if you are mean.

We are currently living in 100000% humidity, with very loud fans and very wet carpet. FYI Maintenance people: the fans are not doing anything. We can’t open the windows, because it is Zero degrees outside, therefore the wet air is circulating and driving us crazy.

The only good thing to come of this so far has been eating dinner with the “fam” (all roomies) in the “Fun Zone” (aka LB’s room), because it’s so noisy in the living room that you can’t hear yourself think.

I came home from work and dinner was waiting for me, yummm! We all fixed ourselves a steak fajita and watched “That 70’s Show”. Good stuff.

Oh, Friday

It’s only noon and I have already had quite a day.

Celebrating a friend’s birthday until 1 a.m. this morning equals a very tired girl waking up for a 9 a.m. class. I don’t know how me and this class are going to get along all until May. Thursday nights out are not being compromised this semester. Sorry sleep.

The professor likes to ask a lot of questions. That’s fine, we’re seniors…we should know our stuff by now. What’s not fine? Asking so many questions, that within 25 minutes of lecture we’ve gotten through ZERO slides. We aren’t that smart. And it’s early. On Friday.

On the way to class, I thought “Huh, it’s pretty outside today”. The sun is shining and the sky is bright blue. Beautiful. I have on my shades and my warm coat, I’m okay with winter today.
After class I had about a 15 minute walk to an office to pick some letters up. About 1 minute into that walk it was not-so-pretty-outside anymore. Instead it was windy and freeeeeezing. I thought, “Huh, I can’t remember the last time my nose was this cold. Or my lips were this chapped. Or that I was this mad at the concept of wind. Brrrrrrrr!”

Letters in bag, face warmed up, hood ON this time. Back in the cold and on the way to the bus stop. I got lucky, the bus pulled up in sync with my arrival. Yay! No waiting outside. Good job me. And it wasn’t packed, so I sit my happy self down and pull out my Sudoku. Ready for the ride and pretty content.

HELLO Crazy Bus Driver!

This lady is slamming on brakes and taking corners so fast that the “CATA Bus Travel Guides” actually flew out of their containers!! As we are pulling into a stop downtown she actually scraped the bus against the curb for a good twenty yards. Sitting on that side of the bus, I looked out my window and guess what?? I saw Sparks. Coming from this union of speeding bus–curb-contact. Oh my.

She parked, opened the doors, and hopped out. Sometimes at this stop they take little breaks, usually to smoke a cigarette or grab a soda. And now we sit……..

……..as she smokes. I’m assuming this was the reason behind the I’m-gonna-do-everything-short-of-killing-you style of driving up to this point. Perhaps the rest of the way home will be a calm & relaxed cigarette-buzz-style?

Meh, not so much. But we made it; I’m still alive.

Our apartment complex always feels like a wind tunnel. As you head from the bus stop to our building, its an uphill battle. I trudged up the stairs, to my door, and start to reach for my keys. Inner thoughts:
“I hope I grabbed those damn keys this morning. I know they were sitting on my dresser….(rummaging through the bag)..hmm, gum, pens, trash, wallet, keys?! Wait, that’s a quarter. Pennies. DANGIT. I know I grabbed it. I thought about grabbing it. I told myself, in my head, don’t forget your key. Maybe the door is unlocked? Hmm, nope. No roommates home. AHHH that wind is COLD!”

Down to the office. Hi, I’m retarded and forgot my key locked out. Yes, please let me in. Thank yoouuu.

And now it’s noon. Only good thing to come of all this: I have a haircut appointment in 15 minutes! Yay!!

Oh, and it’s Friday. Happy weekend!

((Friday p.m. Update: The key was in the back pocket of my jeans. The whole time.
Why I put it in my back pocket I do not know. Why I didn’t check my back pocket, I also don’t know. Um, oops.))