Statistics

I've had a cell phone for just over a week.

Here's what I've learned:

People called me more when I had a landline.

"Bailey, you have a landline? How am I ever going to get ahold of you?"

"Bailey, you have to get a cell phone!"

People, I'm not exactly seeing the evidence here that my recent acquisition has really improved my life or yours. So either get to dialing or don't ever plan on telling me again that cell phones are superior to landlines.

This may be a little harsh, I realize, but the facts speak for themselves.

Infi-blog-ity

Dear friends, readers, fans from around the world.

Ha.

Maybe? :)

I just wanted to inform you that I'm cheating on you. Okay technically not yet, but before I go to bed tonight, I plan to.

Hey, calm down, simmer down. I am trying to be proactive and honest here by telling you ahead of time. If that doesn't help, just know that it wasn't my idea. In my journalism crash course that I'm taking these next two weeks--both lovingly and terrifyingly nicknamed "Boot Camp"--we are required to post things on the class blog.

So I'm sorry. I love you. It's not you, it's me. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. And I will be cheating on you with another blog before the night's up. But this doesn't mean we're breaking up!

Oh snap. I'm gonna lose all of my followers by morning.

Please forgive me. Please understand. Please support my future career, that which you have so faithfully supported thus far, and just ignore these next two weeks of peripheral blogging that is against my will (well, sort of, except that I support commands made of me that will get me a master's degree).

Remember: I looooooooooooove you.

I do.

I really do.

Please keep reading my blog.

Please.

Big Bad Grad (that's me!)

Hellooooooooo!

I know, I know, I know. So many days since my last post. Slacker! Except, not really, friends. Because in the past week I have been, let's see...

-moving
-unpacking
-reading for class
-traveling
-witnessing my brother's wedding (hey, witnesses are needed to make them legit--Congrats, Kelly and Jenny! <3)
-traveling again

And today...

Going to day one of class! Yay! I survived! Can I have my diploma yet? No, not yet? Okay, fine, I guess I'll go back tomorrow.

Overall, feeling good about day one. Missing my cat, the fam, friends from home. I am going to count tonight's reading assignment as a blessing, as it will be a distraction from the homesickness.

Other items of note:

Wonder of wonders, there is another person in my program from my tiny undergrad institution! Say what?! He and I had an excited little meeting during our first break today. Would tomorrow be too early to offer him half of a "Best Friends" necklace?

Two very handsome, tall gentlemen drove me home last night, and were oh so sweet enough to drive the whole way and let me sleep the whole time (thanks are also due to Tylenol PM).

Next week I will be reporting, yikes! Nervous, but excited. Talked to Michael tonight, I would say at this point he is even more excited for me than I am, but don't worry I am getting there.

Riley just taught me via (cough, cell, cough) phone how to add favorites to my Google Chrome task bar. Thanks, Bro.

Are you guys bored yet? Hey, I am a busy graduate student, don't be so demanding of my time and talents for creative, entertaining blog posts! They might suck for a while, you're just gonna have to deal. The good news is, eventually lack of sleep will set in and these posts will ideally become hilarious. Or maybe just funny to me. And then you'll have to continue to deal.

On that note, if you'll be so kind as to excuse me, I'm going to do some yoga, eating, and reading for the evening.

Big fat smooches!

Love,
(Big bad grad student) Bails

Sharp intake of breath

Okay I am officially nervous.

I am not ready to be a reporter. I have a book to read by Monday morning, and what will I be doing Sunday night? Getting my beauty rest? Reading the final pages of my assigned reading? No no, none of that. I'll be driving in the middle of the night to get back to my new home to crash for a few hours and go to class the next day!

Sad. Tired. Oh so very tired. Nervous. Anxious. Excited, but wondering if and when I'll reach the moment in my semester where I'll feel like I can relax, because right now I'm wondering when I'll ever sleep without an alarm again. I would say Thanksgiving break, but I'm guessing I'll have homework then.

I always seem to accomplish hard work when I'm not aware of the demand that I do so. But when it's right in front of me, labeled ominously and pretentiously with the declaration that "This will be very hard work," I cower. Somehow I tore up the GRE, got into one of the best journalism programs. But I am suddenly terrified for my first day of school. Having nightmare visions of the professor calling on me, stumping me. Things moving too fast, Bailey racing behind, taking sharp, scared breaths. Faking it but not making it. Who will pack my lunch? Certainly not me. What will I eat? Pistachios and Oreos? Unacceptable. All the other kids will laugh at me and point fingers at my Ziploc baggies with their lack of nutrition inside.

I think I can safely say this because neither bride nor groom will read this until after Sunday, but if you can ever control it, please refrain from scheduling your wedding--or any other major event, for that matter--the day before one of your siblings begins graduate school. It's just very hard for said sibling. (Bride and/or Groom, if you do read this before your big day, know that I do love you both dearly and am truly happy to be there, wouldn't miss it for the world. If it weren't this weekend there would be some other complication another weekend--such is just life.)

Okay I suppose that's enough paranoid exhalation for now. Pray for my journey tomorrow, for energy levels, stress levels. May the hugs abound and may they keep the emotions calm and loving. And please pray that I can get ahold of my textbook that I failed to realize I needed to order a long time ago!!!!

Hopefully I will learn to better master the deadlines required of journalists....yikes. Whose idea was it to let me into this program? Meh, must be some reason. I'll leave that up to the Big Guy. ;)

Smooches!

Are we there yet?

There is your last night in a place. Your town, your apartment, your home. The last night before you move away. The literal last night, your last night in the room/bed you've been sleeping in for however long, your last night with your roomies, your last night with the familiar rhythms of the A/C, knowing so easily which moments the furnace will shut off and kick back on that your gut doesn't even flinch but eases into it like the touch of a mother's hand on your face as a child; you roll over and hug the blankets without even waking. It is on this night that you don't even think about the fact that the next night the furnace will wake you. You will wait for the air conditioning to shut off so you can fall asleep, but you won't be aware of the reason for your insomnia. You've taken your nightly rhythms so for granted that you never suspected that you would have to create and adjust to new ones. Just like everything else in life.

But there's a night before this night, that is your actual last night in your current home. This one pulls the rug from underneath you with even greater stealth. It's the final night that your routine is intact. The final night that everyone eats dinner together, the final night where "regular" things are discussed,

how was your day?
there's clean laundry downstairs
oh we're missing Wheel of Fortune

After this night the cat is sleeping in the wrong place, conversations are replaced with swappings of information as bodies pass hurriedly in hallways.

Did you remember to stop at the bank today?
Well then make sure you do tomorrow.
Could you hem this skirt for me before I leave?
Thanks, I love you.

I've passed this night. We could maybe say it was Sunday, but even then we had already passed the threshold that afternoon with a family meeting concerning the ins and outs of Bailey's move/Riley's drive back to college/Mom and Dad's visit to Grandma/Kelly's wedding. And the snuggle with Dibbs was less than stellar, which is our normal caliber for human-pet love.

When you pass the night, you don't go to your normal place in the morning for coffee. You make a pot at home, because you are crunched for time. You spend your days busy and sweaty, wearing the clothes that are nearest and doing emergency loads of laundry, flitting (or trudging, depending on the moment's energy level) around the house in your bathrobe while you wait for your undies to dry.

Hearing your boyfriend call you "beautiful" just a few more times before you leave becomes a higher priority than playing solitaire on the computer, so you spend more time with him, yet your day feels off without the mindless clicking of cards. Stacking twos on aces instead of paying bills; this is your normal schedule of procrastination. In the final days before a move, after you've passed the actual last night of your normal life, in your normal, intact home, you feel dirty playing solitaire. You no longer feel like you're spending innocent time putting off a chore that you know will get finished; you feel like someone is going to come around the corner and scold you for being so irresponsible.

And I feel sad when that moment comes! There's just something so mean about the disruption of one's everyday. We know that giving children an unstable environment is unhealthy and hindering to their potential growth, especially emotionally; in the most extreme cases it can border on being classified as child abuse. Yet we do it to ourselves all the time. Oh sure, I'll have another drink and stay out for dinner another hour. I won't be that tired at work tomorrow.

I am eating shortbread cookies and drinking V8 at 2am. This is not a normal combination for me, just to clarify in order to make my point, although I would not be offended if you suspected that I eat this way every Tuesday at 2am. I am eating cookies because even though Michael so dutifully fed me three pieces of pizza hours ago, I am hungry again. And I would drink milk, but we're out, because each one of us in the Daily household is preparing for a stressful weekend of travel and when the calcium supply ran out none of us jogged to the grocery store to replenish.

Plus I like V8.

So here I sit. I would like to take a shower, but it's pretty late. The practical side of me (which is really more of a tiny sliver than a side, really) says "wait 'til morning" for a shower. But the uncomfortable, tired, stressed side of me (that is, 99% of me) wants a piece of her daily routine, even if it is at the wrong time on the clock, because it is soothing. Showers are my reset button. When I shut off the water and dry off, I can move forward and tackle to-dos. Or I can spritz on some perfume and let Mike spoil me with dinner. Either way, it is not an activity that is usually piled amongst hundreds of others.

But I shall hit the sack instead. I told Mike tonight while we were taking a late night dip in the pool that I just need school to be started already, because once it's in motion that will mean that my stuff has already moved to my new apartment, textbooks will be purchased, all the major details will be taken care of. But until then I just have to grit my teeth, learn to sleep on a stomach full of tomato juice and cookies, soak up the moments I have to receive hugs from family and friends, and just trudge through until one night I go to sleep in my new place and wake up to my first real morning there. Not the literal first morning, with boxes opened and silverware unlocated. But the first real morning, when my hot pink coffee pot (thanks, Deanna and Joe!) brews the java, Dibbs gets a snuggle, the crossword gets some attention, and, without realizing it, my gut realizes ahead of me that I am home. The first morning when that last night, the sad night when all steadiness for a time ended, is forgotten and but a memory.

Prayers for me as I pack my way toward that memory are greatly appreciated in the next few weeks. Thanks, faithful followers, my apologies for the lack of quality posts as of late.