I've had a long, eventful few days. The weather finally dropped its nasty attitude and graced us with sunshine. I celebrated by shaving my legs and wearing shorts and dresses all weekend. It's feeling a little like the first days of orientation. The weather is warm and people are friendly and chatty again. Also, my room is clean. Not as clean as when I first moved in, but clean nonetheless.
Thursday I had a meeting with my advisor, Nell, and we talked about what I might study over the next three years here. I want to be a creative writing concentrator, so when she suggested I study anthropology, I was a little skeptical. I had flashbacks to my forensics course in my second semester of senior year, and our forensic anthropology unit. So. Many. Decayed. Bones. I must have made a face, because Nell was all "Well, I'm a little biased because I'm an anthropologist." So of course I was fairly embarrassed (almost as embarrassed as I am when I continuously misspell embarrassed). But just as I was about to stick my foot into my mouth Nell told me exactly what she does as an anthropologist. She went into a village in Africa and lived there for a while, and she talked to the people about love and life and other things I wish I could talk about with everyone. So much cooler than decayed bones. We also now have a working title for my Division 2, aka my concentration: "Stories of Love and Trauma." It feels so legit.
So I celebrated that milestone by drinking a whole bottle of mango smoothie, getting my phone fixed, and taking my sister under my wing for a whole weekend. I was a little nervous about this venture. I wanted it to be perfect for her. When I was in high school, I so badly wanted an older sister to visit at college for the weekend. But she was content getting milkshakes and going out for pad thai. Afterwords, we browsed around Newberry Comics and I got a Kurt Cobain poster for my room. I've been crushing on him since eighth grade, when I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and decided that if I had married him before Courtney Love, I would have gotten him off drugs and saved him from his own shotgun. I wrote about him in my senior thesis paper last year on mental illness and rock musicians, and I cried as I took notes from his biography. Maybe someday I'll stop falling for the bad boys. But for now, I'm keeping him above my bed.
Now I feel like I need to swerve back on topic. On Friday, Julia and I wandered around Northampton and drank mint lemonades as we shopped for vintage and pseudo-vintage clothes. I remember when our mom used to pick out all her clothes. Now she buzzes around Urban Outfitters, taking skinny jeans and blouses off the racks. She's finally free of wearing a uniform to school every day. We went to a vintage store and she tried on a wedding dress. It was a hideous, old thing. But it hit me how fast she's growing up. That night, we got dressed up and went out and danced to reggaeton music. She fit in with all the college students effortlessly. As much as I love being able to be with her and talk to her about boys and clothes and naughty things, part of me still thinks of her as a little blonde baby who pulled my hair had an underbite.
The past two days were pretty low-key. We ate in the sun and did some work, then went out for dinner with some of my friends. There wasn't much happening on campus, except for the 12-hour Improv-a-thon. We managed to go to the last hour, and laughed so hard. We woke up the next morning, as the rest of the campus was drunkenly stumbling back from Easter Keg Hunt in the woods, and met our mom, grandpa, and dog for an outdoor Passover picnic. There was lots of food and jokes and stories. We didn't open the Haggadahs once, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. But maybe I would have remembered the sunscreen. I'm looking a little pink now.
Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa
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