Oops.

I guess by "tomorrow" I actually meant "in two months".  Well, shit.  My bad.  Here goes, round two.

I just cooked my first Sunday Roast. And yes, I am capitalizing both sunday and roast, because they deserve the distinction.  A whole chicken is really fucking intimidating.  So much could go wrong.  But, I'm happy to report, that Murphy's Law did NOT prevail, and my first foray into culinary statelihood was a success!  Juicy, delicious chicken meat. Perfectly roasted potatoes and carrots and onions.  And a lovely home made gravy whipped up in the pan with some white wine and the delicious drippings.  

Yes. I did all of that. And yes. My mother did help me.  But the gravy-- that was all my doing. Anything involving wine and eventual food consumption-- I'm all over that shit. Like white on rice, baby, like white on rice.

Alright, I'll cease to recount my glorious kitchen experience, but I will say this.  There is very little that is better on a freezing cold, New England day as it's pissing down rain, than a bottle of white wine, a roasted chicken and the time to putter around the kitchen making it all come to life. I feel a bit like a magician.  Or Nigella Lawson. Or I guess me, grown out of my Annie's Mac limitations. 

Personal growth man.  You heard it here first.

Back in the Literary Saddle

Or something.

Regardless.  The silence that has consumed this poor piece of internet real estate has officially come to an end. 

Starting tomorrow.

Until then.

New Idea.

Job front still looks bleak...... but thought I'd share what my free time has been spent doing. 

http://web.me.com/e.anastasiamurphy/www.gloucesterbeat.com/Welcome.html

My new project is in it's very really stages.  Consider it an infant. 

I'll be developing it into a full grown, kicking and screaming toddler soon.

Jobless.

Tomorrow marks the first week I've been home.  I am

jobless.  

Which wouldn't be so bad except that looking into the future all I can see is the looming piles of DEBT that I've accrued from my time at school.  

I want to start up a website where I can begin compiling all of my writing-- reviewing local art, profiling local artists, advertising interesting upcoming shows.  In a perfect world I'd set that up and then get one of the local newspapers to give me tiny bit of space.  A link up.....print news and the world wide web.  A little taste of what I'm doing landing on people's doorsteps with the opportunity to experience more if anyone felt so inclined.  "Read my column! Like it?! Check out my website!"

That is my little dream right now.  But I keep getting this nagging feeling that I should be WAITRESSING. Or churning out lattes. Or doing something to start putting dollars in my bank account.  

As to not drown in debt.  I'd be okay with just keeping my head above water.  I don't need a yacht or anything.  Just a buoy. 

Okay.  Lame oceanic analogies aside.  I am in a conundrum.  Getting a job serving lobster to eager tourists would make me some of the money that I need, but my life would have to revolve around that work.  My writing and creative aspirations would inevitably take a back seat to the realities of schlepping seafood and cocktails....the time and energy spent dealing with harassing customers and intense restaurant managers and dramatic coworkers.  

Just thinking about it makes me feel so defeated.  Why did I even get a degree if I'm not using it?!  If the only employment I can find is working in a business where high school diplomas aren't even mandatory-- why am I $60,000 in debt?!

I know I'll probably just get over it.  Suck up my pride.  Hand out the lobsters.  But part of me is fighting it all the way. 

A battle between my sense and my sensibility.  The victor is yet to be determined. 

Rain Rain Go Away

I am exhausted.  My body feels heavy and my head feels very full.  It is exciting to feel like your life is moving forwards, but difficult forward is not the same as.....

happy

fulfilled

adventurous

loved

wanted

challenged

Movement forwards is movement out of stability. But what was ever really stable?  We all knew this would end.  So. I suppose.  Moving forwards is moving towards all of those things I wrote above.  Or at least my own definition of them.

I'll have an extra lime, please.

I am finished with college.

Which is a bittersweet sentence to type and a confusing set of emotions to wade through.

Right now it seems like everything is so incredibly BRIGHT and IMMEDIATE and FRESH that any hope of a decent amount of insight is lost.  Right now. Maybe later.

In that spirit I will write about something else. 

Like...

Gin and tonics.  I really like them and these are the reasons why:

1. My grandmother drinks them.

2. They were never featured on Sex and the City

3. I enjoy the taste of limes.

Simple, classy and good.  I think I'm going to get on a G&T kick for the summer.   Or at least for Senior Week.

Michigan Pete.

Michigan Pete.  Or was it Steve?  Or Dave?  I'm not entirely sure.  I was working today at the Outing Club house, reading Persuasian and generally not doing much work while I was earning my work-study money when a father-son duo walked through the doors.   

 Awkwardly stood there.  

And I awkwardly looked at them. 

...........And then we both seemed to acknowledge our mutual failure at acting with acceptable social decorum. 

I launched into a smiley welcome and the father asked me to "give us the real tour" while the son twisted his UVM brochure tighter...tighter....tighter...tighter.....

They were tall, thin, similar builds.  Runners I later learned.  They had travelled here from Michigan and were doing the college tour during spring break.

"Give us the real tour!"

I had to think for a minute.  What does that even mean?  I have two weeks left of classes before my life as an undergraduate comes to a bitter-sweet end and yet I couldn't just launch into anything "real" without pausing.                 

Pause.

The university system is such a system! The "real" deal is that you have to work that system.  Pay a small fortune, hope you land somewhere you mildly enjoy, find people to create a home with, a subject that inspires and impassions some part of you and do it all within a pretty rigid system created way before you got here, that will last way after you leave.  

This all went flying through my brain as I stared at Father and son Mid-west.  What came out of my mouth was.  Burlington is stellar.  UVM is fun.  Beer is plentiful.  Professors are approachable.  The Mountains are fun to hike.

Because I in reality all of those things are true.  And the father paying the thousands of dollars to send his son here wants to hear those things.  And I honestly wanted to say them.  Because I love this school and this town and these people.  Even with it's long-ass winters, hard-ass president, and stupid-ass hippies. 

When the Michigan men left, I had to laugh at how quickly I became UVM's cheerleader.

I may have worked the system, but the system worked me too.