The Post Where I Break Things and Get Confused

This semester I discovered I have this really amazing talent.

I can break things without touching them.

Awesome, right?

The first thing I broke was a bracelet from Icing. It was made out of old fashioned looking keys and was completely gorgeous. I'd only had it a day and I was in love with it enough to wear it on the first day of classes.

I was sitting on a patch of grass, catching up with some friends when I noticed my bracelet wasn't on my wrist. I quickly searched for it on the ground, hoping it hadn't gone the way of my dearly departed claddagh ring. It hadn't, but it was snapped in two, not a foot away from my hand.

I was a bit confused, because how did it break like that without me noticing? It was a pretty thick bracelet.

I decided not be bothered by it, and put its pieces in my purse to superglue later. Except when I took out the two shards to fix them, there were three of them. It had broke even more. At which point I was like, "fuck it," and tossed the bracelet pieces onto my dresser where they remain to this day.

Unless they've broken into four without me noticing.

Because I also managed to break this awesome clock keychain. Or it broke itself. Whatever really happened I might never know, but about a week ago, I was reaching around for my keys when I noticed that, oh hey, I had the clock bit but not the key bit. I freaked out for a second, but luckily I found them because I wouldn't want to owe my school the eighty million qruadrillion dollars I know they'd charge me. (Just kidding, it'd probably be something like 400 dollars. You know, something reasonable.)

Anyway, that's when I noticed that the keychainy thing that held the key part of the keychain (you can tell I'm a writer) and the mini clock was completely missing. As opposed to sort of missing. And I was confused again.

But I managed to fix it, by screwing the keyring with keys to the watch bit. Except then that broke like a day later, and I can't even figure out how that happened, but apparently I give up easily because after that I was just like, "whatever, I never figured out how to set you, anyway," to the mini clock, and now I don't even bother with it.

(I don't really give up easily. PS.)

Still alive, I promise

I swear I haven't abandoned you guys.

I'm just lazy.

Sometimes.

Anyway.

Hi, let's reunite. I'm Ashley and I want to go back to Ireland wicked bad and not much else is new, except for the stuff that is.

Oh! And I turned 21! Awesome, right? Finally a birthday I can be stoked about, except now that it's over, all the others will be a little sad. I mean, who wants to turn 22? I actually may have said something like that on my birthday, and I may have accidentally offended someone, but I can't completely remember.

Oh, and another, sadder thing? I lost the claddagh ring I got in Galway. SAD. Especially considering how I lost it. I was at work, at the cash register, and my ring was a bit loose. At some point, it must have fallen off my hand into some customer's bag. When I noticed, I was absolutely, a million percent heart broken. I almost cried. I started picturing the customer. I imagined that they must be the worst kind of customer. One of the old, Floridian retirees with summer homes, who stop at absolutely nothing to get their bahhhgains. And my ring must have been the ultimate bargain to them, the kind they would brag about to all their other Floridian retiree friends with summer homes, about how they got this ring for free, and their friends would all be speechless because they were about to brag about how they got this ugly pink visor for 20 percent off because there was a string hanging from it, but they know they've got nothing on a free ring from Ireland. So they suggest a game of Yahtzee instead to hide their shame.

I was devastated.

Other things happened, too, but that was definitely the saddest part of my summer.

I had another story, but I've already forgotten what it was supposed to be.

Anyway, I'm back now, and I'm definitely going to be blogging more.

The Revenge of Helen Keller

A while ago-- weeks, already, don't ask me how-- my Vermont besties, Meg and Ryan, came to the Cape for a week. And by came, I mean they suddenly appeared in my doorway. You know, homeless and stuff. Except not really because it was all planned by everyone except me. I have NO CLUE how they managed to keep it a secret, but it was funny, Meg was all, "didn't you think it was strange that your parents bought a new air mattress and a bunch of other stuff?" and I was all, "no, my parents are weird!"

Anyhoo, I guess we must be weird, too, because what we ended up doing most of the time (in between going to the drive ins and P-town and clubbing and stuff) was laughing about Helen Keller.

(I'm pretty sure he was pretending to be Helen Keller.)

They liked the fact that Cape Cod has a bunch of braille trails. The kind with ropes to hold on to while you walk, attached to splintery wooden posts that you smack your hands against because you're blind and can't see them.

Like this:

(Conveniently, this trail's winding and there's also lots of roots to trip on!)

But yeah, we laughed at her lots. I mean, with her. I guess she started to get annoyed with it. (Though she had to admit that I hula hooped just like her.)

See? Just. Like. Helen. Keller.

Anyway, the last night they were on Cape, we were figuring out what to do. I didn't get out of work till ten at night and they were leaving at like one in the morning (slight exaggeration), so they didn't want to do anything too intense. SO, we went with the obvious option of going back to Johnny Kelly Park with a ouija board to contact Helen Keller's ghost. Obvious choice.

Since the Cape doesn't believe in street lights of any kind, it was wicked dark and sketchy and we ended up never even taking the ouija board out if the box. We just huddled on a piece of playground equipment like cool kids and giggled. (See?? We are so cool!) We stayed like that for a couple minutes before I mentioned that Helen Keller's ghost doesn't talk, it touches. Which, you know, was a great idea, because then we kept expecting Helen Keller to reach out and touch us and got wicked sketched out and ran away via the slide. Zak Bagans would be so proud. Except not, because we never yelled at her, bro.

(The funny thing is that I was hanging out with another friend a few nights later, and we decided to walk around a graveyard because we were bored, and it was only a little sketchy.)

Anyway, as we were going down the slide, the strap of my purse broke. Right away, I knew is was the ghost of Helen Keller. Touching my purse.

That was pretty anticlimactic. But, you know, Helen Keller hates climaxes.

Stuff (just pretend I said that in an Irish accent or something)

I always get inspiration at the worst possible moments. A million page essay due in an hour, and I haven't started it? Oh my God, I just got the best idea for a novel ever, and I must write the entire thing right away. Do I have to do laundry and wash dishes and pack up everything I own? One sec, just got the most amazing ideas for 80 poems. Do I have to write a story for school? Oh, I think I'll just sit in my comfy chair all night and watch stupid youtube videos. As long as Word is minimized, I'm sort of writing, right? Or, maybe I have nothing to do at all. Of course I get no inspiration at all, then.

So, it's kind of a problem. Kinda.

This week I have a bunch of essays due, and I really should be working on them. But, you know, being a person and all, I don't really want to. I want to write out this idea that fell into me last night (by last night, I mean about four in the morning. Also not the best time, exactly!*) Though, honestly, I can't really complain. It's not like I'd magically feel like doing work-like things if I just didn't have this story in my head. I'd still wait this long. And, you know, I like this. I like writing. So, really, I'm not sure why I'm complaining at all. Damn, I'm tired.

Dublin Has the Best Random Statues

How can you not adore Oscar when he looks like this? He's just... lolling around on this random rock. And I don't know if real Oscar Wilde ever did opium (probably) but his statue definitely did. Still does.

Oh, so he's not actually a statue? Well, actually, he is. Under his trench coat and plastic manikin skin, he's all metal. The mustache's fake, too. He's, like, undercover. You know.

So, maybe most people wouldn't consider a poster to be a statue. And maybe I wouldn't, either. Because, you know, it's flat. And stuff. But this Santa's spirit, and his wicked sketchiness, is definitely not flat. Whatever that means. I mean, he is really, really sketchy. And it looks like he's pointing a laser beam at you. I guess that's what happens when you're not nice, then.

Granite World! Yeah!

There's this little store in Hyannis called Granite World. I think it sells granite. And, it makes me laugh. I mean, "Granite World." That's basically the most exciting world ever, right? It's like Candy Land. But with Granite. Granite lollipops, chocolate flavored granite, granite flavored chocolate. The possibilities are endless.

You know, I think all stores should be named like that. Like, Shaws could be Grocery World. Best Buy could be Electronic Shit World. Or Stuff I Can't Do World. Everything would just be so much more exciting. Or something.

(I'm bored. And tired. But mostly, I really really don't want to do my homework. Sadface.)

Two Homes

Living in college is a weird thing, especially when that college is so far away from your other home, the place where you grew up. You live in one place for a couple months, and then another, and then you go back to the first. It's strange, and it feels strange each time you come and go. You never even entirely know whether you actually want to leave.

And then, when you get to wherever you were going to, it feels as if you've never left it, until you remember that really you've been living hundreds of miles away for months.

Pretty much all of you already know this, of course, but I'm from Cape Cod and go to school in Vermont. Burlington. I adore both. They're both crazy amazing and crazy beautiful. They both have the things that can seem hard to live without.

Burlington is living with your friends and going out every weekend. Cape Cod is family and seeing friends only when cars and schedules can make peace with each other. Burlington is city and walking everywhere. The Cape is nature, but nearly always needing to use a car. Burlington has its brick, Victorian houses. The Cape has its white, centuries old farm and captain's houses. Burlington has the waterfront, with layers of pristine mountains shadowing behind it. The Cape has the ocean and never ending clouds. Burlington has trees with leaves that turn so gold, you can see their color glowing even against the navy night sky. Cape Cod has pine needles the color of rust. They're impossible to rake, so they stay strewn across most everyone's lawns, poking through the light snows, until spring. They make good additions to magic potions when you're little.

Sometimes, it seems like if these two different homes were able to blend into one, they would make something almost perfect.

I wonder how it'll be when I go to Ireland. I'll have three homes, then. Three different kinds of fantastic not-quite-perfection.

(Except, I'm sure, Ireland really will be perfect.)

(This is coming out to be a really muddled post, but it's kind of a muddled thought, too, I think.)

I Woke Up Flapping My Arms

True story, actually.

I had the weirdest dream last night, though I really just remember the end of it.

I was walking along the beach with Michael Cera and some really, really British actor with brown hair who may or may not be a real person. (Also, the British actor earlier told me that the Christmas Tree Shops that do the best are the ones with the most books. Pretty sure that's not true, but that's actually the only part of the dream I remember that wasn't at the very end.)

We kept walking farther and farther along the beach, talking about something I can't remember. I started to walk through a tide pool, when the little shrimp swimming in it rose out of the water and started to fly. Oh, holy shit. They began flying all around me, buzzing and buzzing. I freaked out, of course, and waved my arms around like a crazy person terrified of being bitten. Which I was still doing when I woke up. It was pretty awkward. And really terrifying, actually. I don't do bugs. Nor little fish turned into bugs. Especially not them.

It was wicked sketch.

Oh, Hey

I'm even more officially going to Ireland! Plane tickets equal bought. Now, I just hope that the plane doesn't crash. And that we don't get any turbulence, because if that happened, I know I'd freak out really pathetically. People would point and laugh. It would be terrible.

I kind of wish I could skip the plane ride all together, though. Or, take a boat. That would be pretty badass, actually. I could be all, "I'm on a boat," and then everybody'd be all, "aw shit!" and get wicked jealous. And since I was a pirate for Halloween, I could totally wear my costume on the boat or something. Like, the whole time. Which would definitely be the best thing ever. Basically.

I'm really tired. I promise I'll have a real blog post soon, though!

Better Ways to Procrastinate

When most people procrastinate, they do it on the internet, with their essays minimized and just a click away. This, however, is wicked lame. Almost as lame as their essay. I mean, say for whatever reason, one of your friends just desperately wants to know how you spent your Sunday night. You don't really want to end up saying, "Yeah, Facebook. And Stumble Upon. And Facebook. And then I wanted some Antoine Dodson. Then more Facebook. And then I finished my essay at 8:00. Sucked." Nah. What you want to say is, "yeah, dude, I went out and learned how to juggle three swashbuckling bears with throwing stars, and then I went to Hogwarts and Dumbledore, after I brought him back from the dead, bought me exactly eighty hundred things of butter beer, all of which I finished. And then, Dumbledore wrote my essay for me. It was chill. I'm wicked stoked, right now."

Admittedly, I don't actually know how to do any of that stuff. So, if any of you figure it out, you need to tell me. I really wanna go to Hogwarts. Anyway, here are some much more awesome ways to procrastinate that you can do:

Change your Apples to Apples Cards. Seriously, who cares about Anthony Hopkins and Corn on the Cob? Um, yeah, no one. But what if every card was as good as a Hellen Keller card? Yeah, you can do that.

Paint your Laptop with Nail Polish. Fuck it. Paint everything with nail polish. Your dresser, desk, bed, the walls. The carpet. Yeah, I mean, it'll probably will come off later, with nail polish remover. Probs.

Run to the Store and Grab Ice Cream. You can't do work when you're eating, right? Especially ice cream. And chocolate. I'm pretty sure there's some rule against it.

Go on a Walk. Nature's fucking awesome. And pretty. And sometimes you see really great things, like incredibly fantastic sunsets, and old men skateboarding while their dogs run along, barking at the skate boards. So, just do it.

Go to a Playground and Play on the Swings. Doitdoitdoitdoitdoit. 'Kay?

(PS. I'm procrastinating right now.)

I feel smart

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that there's really a correlation between feeling smart and being smart. Shit. I guess.

Anyway, do you wanna know why I feel smart?

It's because I totally debunked an urban legend. Yes. Debunked.

You know the one with the girl and the creeper in the back seat of the car? I'm guessing that most of you do, but I like telling stories.

*

So, this girl is driving home after a basketball game at her school. It's nighttime and there probably aren't many street lights, so everything's wicked dark. She starts to get uneasy for some reason she doesn't understand, but she keeps driving, knowing that she'll home in only a half hour or so.

After a few more minutes, she starts to notice that there's this car following her. Not only that, but every so often he puts on his high beams, like he's staring at her. She finds this just wicked sketchy. Naturally, she wants to get rid of him, so she decides to drive home the really rural way that no one ever takes. Of course, he does take that way, and he keeps following her. By now, the girl is really afraid, especially since the dude is still turning on his high beams. After what seems like hours later, the girl finally gets home. The guy in the other car stops right before the driveway and starts to get out as she does. The girl is overwhelmingly terrified, and runs as fast as she can to the doorway, screaming to anyone who can hear her to call the police.

The police come pretty quickly, luckily. But as they're arresting the man, he cries, "wait! I'm not the one you should be arresting!" and the police stop arresting him and say, "I am intrigued by your outburst. What is it, good sir, that you need to tell us so urgently?" because that's obvs how they are. Anyway, the guy points to the girl's car and explains that there was some other guy in the back seat of the car, with a knife. He was following the girl to make sure the the sketchy dude didn't kill her; whenever the creeper was about to actually do it and slit her throat, he would turn on his high beams and the killer (because you know he's killed before. He's probably an escaped convict from the ye olde towne mental hospital) would shrink away. So, he saved her.

*

Of course, as I epiphanized* one night coming home from work, it isn't really possible to see inside the cars at night. You can't even see shapes. Just blackness and sort of shadows. Um, yeah.

Honestly, I don't remember how that popped into my head. But I felt unreasonably proud about it. I still do, actually. Yay for an inflated ego.

In other news, I'm tired.

*new word. Copyright, me.

(Totally) Rational Fears

It can sometimes be hard to say what is more evil: bees or jellyfish. They're both dastardly little sonsofbitches, definitely, but which is worse?

I didn't know, either, until I came across this series of photographs. Just so you know, they are deeply disturbing. Younger viewers may wish to look away.

***

Babies are unfortunately the favorite prey of the jellyfish.

Not only does this jellyfish have the Dark Mark, but, contrary to the books, he killed Fred Weasley. As tears fall from poor Fred's frozen face, the jellyfish can be spotted wickedly gloating.

Despite the fact that the pipe clearly reads, "OIL LINE DO NOT CUT," (well, the word 'line,' could have been clearer. Whoever built it definitely did a shoddy job of it) this jellyfish is about to cut it open, wreaking unknowable amounts of harm upon the ocean, and the world.

Oh, Twilight

Me, freshman year of college. I don't remember why I took that picture. I think I was just really bored. Really, ridiculously, exceptionally bored.

Pretty much everything about Twilight amuses me. The fangirls (and, oh my God, Twilight Moms) can be hysterical. And then the people who absolutely despise Twilight and everything it stands for. You know, they're almost as bad.

Back in high school, I adored Twilight. Really. I might have read the series (remember, this was back when there were only three books) twice in one week, I loved it so much. I would read them during school, when I knew I wouldn't get caught. I mostly did that in Latin, because compared to the other kids in that class (oh, we really had some good times), I was totally an angel and I could get away with anything. I mean, there was a reason I got the Latin award twice in a row, and seeing as my translation technique was, "look up the word in the latin dictionary and guess where it might possibly fit into the sentence," that reason had nothing to do with either talent or any particular effort.

But, yeah, I really really really really really liked Twilight. And I liked Edward even more.

Honestly, I think it must be wired in teenage girls' brains to totally obsess over things. Because there were a lot of us who wanted Edward Cullen.

Around the time that the fourth book came out, I started treating Twilight more like a ridiculous joke. I mean, if any of you have read Breaking Dawn, you'll know how beautifully terrible it is. And sketchy. And pedophile-y. And skeevy. But, you know, you can't stop reading it, because you just have to know what completely insane thing will happen next. Like that, it's perfect in its awfulness. But, really, Breaking Dawn is the only book out the four that I would definitely (unconditionally and irrevocably) call bad literature. Not that I actually see anything wrong with reading bad literature. Bad writing can be incredibly fun, and I think that's what people forget. Reading is supposed to be enjoyable, and if anyone finds Twilight enjoyable for any reason in the world, then there is nothing wrong with that.

However:

Middle aged moms crushing on Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson? That's really almost unforgivably sketchy. (I'm thinking that maybe they're thinking that if it's okay for a seventeen year old werewolf to fall in love with a rapidly aging creepy demon baby thing, it's okay for them to fall in love with the actor playing said werewolf. It's the only explanation, and even it only works if the moms in question have absolutely no grip on anything nearing reality. Or if they're Stephenie Meyer.)

And I don't know how many of you have heard about "Cullenism," the religion of Twilight, but it's wicked weird. And cult-like. I mean, "Cullenites," don't live in a commune or anything, but I'm pretty sure that's mostly because eleven year olds are the only ones who literally worship Twilight, and they still have to live with their parents. I hope they're the only ones who do, at least. If you want to read more about it, its website is: www.twifans.com. And it's fantastic.

So, I'm psychic, now.

Okay. So, I was in bed, trying not to fall asleep because as soon as I do, I have to get up again, and once that happens, I have to do all the work I didn't do over the weekend because it was too nice out (and I just didn't wanna. I'm a horrible person.) Anyway, I was watching this guy slowly stumble up the walkway to his apartment (whoo, Sunday nights). As he was walking, I could hear this car getting ready to pass by him and my window. And I bet myself that it would be a cop car. And it was.

My first thought was, oh, shit.

My second was, I'm so gonna go blog about this.

So, I'm gonna actually go to bed, now, kind of.

(Do I say 'so' too much?)

Why You Should Get a Good Night's Sleep

I've been a really awful blogger lately! This semester has just been amazingly crazy. Anyway, though, I have a story. Sort of.

So, I went to bed early last night because I had to finish/write an essay in the morning because I didn't feel like working on it then. Well, as soon as I got into bed, the boys who live upstairs decided to have a birthday party, complete with singing (screaming at the top of their lungs) and what sounded like jumping jacks. Right above my bed. I'm actually amazed the roof didn't collapse. This went on until about four in the morning, when some of them left. And as they left, they made sure to jump on each stair so that my floor would be sure to hear it all.

My alarm went off an hour later. Somehow, even though I'd only had an hour (maybe two, tops) of sleep, I managed to dream. I can't remember my whole dream, but it had to do with a giant (by giant, I mean as tall as a two story house) bottle of orange soda about to explode. And, you see, I had to get away from it because this had happened before and a girl was killed. By orange soda. Oh, and in the dream I had a bunch of essays I hadn't written yet that I was stressing about. Well, that bit's realistic, I guess.

The weirdest part of it all, though, is what happened when I was actually awake. Because as I sat in my bed, trying to make myself get out of it, I saw one of my roommate's towel, hanging by the bed post. For a good moment, I just sat there, wondering whether it really was a towel, or if it was some creepy troll that would lunge at me and kill me if I got up. Not my proudest moment. In my defense, though, I did eventually come to the conclusion that it was a harmless towel, and I did finish my essay in time.

But I'm never getting up at such an inhuman hour as 5 am again. Maybe.

Orange M&Ms are really ugly

I'm at my work study job in the library, eating one of those barely-bigger than-funsize things of m&ms. I'm wicked tired because it's way too early for any sane person to be out of bed. Being tired makes you notice things you otherwise wouldn't (and not notice things you usually would, but that's obvious,) so as I'm eating the m&ms, one by one, I look down, and it's just like, orange m&ms are hideously unattractive. Especially next to the green ones- it's like aliens wearing those horrible neon hunting jackets. Those things don't suit anyone, but especially not anyone with lime green skin.


Also, the library now has a defibrillator. So, in case you ever need... defibrillating, you know where to go.