You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors. It’s the mornin’ of your very first day…

For the first seven weeks of this semester, I’ll be taking the first class in my concentration. In seven weeks, I will learn an entire semester’s worth of material. This is not a new concept, as all of my classes in grad school thus far have been in the seven-week accelerated format. This is just fine by me but it does mean that things go pretty quickly and doesn’t really leave much time to slack off and miss classes. Not that I ever would, of course,since I’m such a perfect student and never skipped classes in college- ever. If life was like Pinocchio and everyone suffered from the nose-growing disorder he suffered from, I surely would look ridiculous right now.

Side Note:  Speaking of Pinocchio, I haven’t seen that movie in forevs because the live-action version with JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, aka the love of my life when I was ten years old) really, really freaked me out. And I’m fairly certain the animated version by Disney was creeps as fuck too. Maybe now that I’m old and a grown-ass woman I should re-watch the movies that scared the hell out of me when I was younger. What would that list include, I wonder? E.T. would definitely be on that list. I haven’t seen that shit since before I can even remember!!

Anyway, now that this post has completely gotten away from me and gone to a way more exciting topic, I’ll go back to the boring shit I was telling you about at the beginning. My point was, it’s the eve of my first class of this school year. It’s the first class of my concentration, and just between you and me, because I’m a huge nerd and really, really like school, I’m SUPER excited to be getting into the core classes of the reason I’m going to school. I read my textbook for my pre-assignment and got really excited to be a part of class discussions. I’m excited for my brain to act as an eager sponge and just soak up all the information coming at me!

People with rolly backpacks disgust me.

The best part is, I really, really love the first day of school. As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved it. Well, except for that one year in elementary school when I was afraid of my teacher on the first day of school and was too much of a pansy to ask to go to the bathroom so I wet my pants and tried to hide the puddle of pee on the tiny chair I was seated in.  But, really, besides that, the first day of school and I are, like, besties.

I love brand new school supplies. I love shopping for school supplies. I love seeing everyone walking around campus and filing into classrooms. Everyone just seems so much happier on the first day of classes than all of the other times they walk into class. The first day of school just gives people a pep in their step! And frankly, I love that kind of shit.

I also really, really love getting the class syllabus. Sure, that gets sent out beforehand sometimes, but I like all the time the professor spends going over it, like we don’t have eyes and can’t possibly read or understand what they mean just by reading it. I love going through the class calendar and color coding my planner. I enjoy seeing how much I’m going to hate my life because seven weeks goes by in a flash and that means a large assignment is due every single week.

Anyway, I hope everyone has an enjoyable first day of school, whether it already happened for Fall 2010 or if it’s still to come after Labor Day.  I guess if you’re reading this and don’t have a first day of school anymore, then I feel sad for you. Because it’s one of the many joys in my life. And I look forward to the day I’m a parent someday (bahahaha I should never have kids) and can scar those children with how much I love the first day of school.

nobody knows where they might end up, nobody knows, nobody knows where they might wake up, nobody knows…!

So, I think I mentioned this before but my mom is building a house. Well, obviously she is not the one doing the hard labor and constructing a dwelling deemed livable. There’s just no way that could actually happen. But you know what I mean.

Because of this new house, my mom is basically a basketcase and walks around life like a ninny. (I really wanted to use that word!) She has been trying to get her house “ready to put on the market” which means making repairs and throwing all of our random shit away.

None of this would really be worthy of telling you about except it is now encroaching on my life. I have been told that I must pack up all of my childhood books and the rest of the crap in my bedroom that I haven’t taken with me anywhere. Okay, fine. I can do that. But the repairs?  At least give a girl some warning!

After a night out terrorizing East Lansing with a couple of my best gals, I awoke this morning at 6:50 am (ish) to hear my mother fluttering around the kitchen and down the hall as her heels clicked against the hardwood floor. I immediately rolled back over and continued right on sleeping. Much too early to be awake. THEN, a text woke me up (thanks a lot, Nikki- lol just kidding! love you!) around 9:30 am or something. I deemed this a suitable time to rise. So after texting back and forth a for a while, apologizing to a couple people I happened to inappropriately drunk-text, and deciding I needed to watch an episode of Dawson’s Creek, I heard someone walkin’ around downstairs. I assumed it was my mom. (I have this joke with her lately that she just never goes to work anymore- but it’s totally a joke. She does go to work. And she loves her job. FYI. hahaha)

So, because I assumed it was my mom, I got out of bed, opened my door and took a first few tentative steps out into the loft before saying something snarky to Tam (my mom) about how she’s a slacker and never goes to work.

Oh. It totally wasn’t my mom. Whoever it was totally heard me get up and was like, “HELLO!?!”

Uhm. That’s a man-voice. WTF?!

Uhm. Hello?

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SAID?! (Maybe I should have gone with something like “WHO DERE?!” bahahaha at least I crack myself up…)

“I’m John,” said the odd man in my home.

Suddenly, I was thankful I put pants on. I almost didn’t!

Uuuuuum, I’m Katie?

“I’m just putting up some drywall here for your mother?”

This is when I just retreated towards my room. I would hide until he was gone. My hair was huge and completely weird shaped. The X drawn on my hand in permanent marker from the bar last night was probably now transferred to my cheek. I didn’t need to know what this man looked like or what he was doing. Just. Go. Away. But he sounded busy, so I figured I’d wait it out.

Oh. Okay.

I hightailed it back to my room, closed the door, took my pants back off, and crawled back into bed. I texted my mom “it’s not awkward at all with this random man in my house or anything…” but she didn’t care enough about me to text me back.

It seemed like I was waiting forever. After an episode of Dawson’s Creek that I pretty much slept through, I decided I couldn’t live like a prisoner in my own home anymore. So I grabbed my clothes and tip-toed to the bathroom. After showering and getting dressed, I got the f outta there and ran my very-important errands. Yeah, right. I basically invented a reason to gtfo of my house for at least an hour.

HE WAS STILL THERE WHEN I GOT BACK. AND HE LOOKS LIKE SANTA CLAUS.

AND HE CONVERSED WITH ME AS IF OUR AWKWARD INTRODUCTION NEVER TOOK PLACE.

meredith grey knows what's up

So, I went right along with it. I pretended this morning never happened, just like the annoying thing that happened last night. And the awkward thing that happened yesterday after work.  If Santa can handle avoidance behavior, then I’m just gonna continue living my life “under a banner of avoidance.” Really, this just instills in me the idea that being “dark and twisty” and an avoider is okay. This all just really reinforces my belief that if I’m any one character from Grey’s Anatomy, it is indeed Meredith. And if you watch that show, she’s not exactly… stable. But whatever, she gets help and becomes bright and shiny. Maybe someday I’ll be bright and shiny Meredith too. Change does happen, you know. I used to be very Cristina, but as I just told you, I’m not so much anymore.

This got very off-topic. Where was I?

Oh yes. Santa. (Sidenote:  As I was writing Santa, I almost wrote Satan. Interesting.)

Santa Claus just continued on merrily, putting up drywall or something. And then he finally left, but not before asking me if it was okay to leave his ladder here since he would be returning at 9 am tomorrow morning.

I can’t wait. Maybe I’ll ask him for a pony tomorrow. Or maybe not since horses freak me out.

Oh, I know. I’ll ask him for a boyfriend an *NSYNC reunion tour! Ooh, or for Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears to bury the hatchet and get their love-fest back on. Or for Mel Gibson to not be so terrible and make him go away. (I could do this forever.)