Puddle of Ink

Or, more odd thoughts, but without the f-bombs.

This whole “people walking into my room and touching my things while they talk to me” deal is turning me into a territorial little monster. Get.The Hell.Away.From my things. Don’t wash your paws off in my sink—that’s my bath towel you’re drying your hands with. Don’t help yourself to my bed—I actually SLEEP there. Don’t come over here and try to read over my shoulder while I type—there’s a good chance I’ll flip to a new page and start typing THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS in 72pt font repeatedly. And can you please at least TRY not to stare so openly at my underwear on the shelf? Yes, I know it’s colorful and that the shelves are conveniently placed at eye-level when you’re sitting down (again, on my bed), but dude, that’s just not necessary. And for the love of God, can you NOT snoop through my open browser when my back is turned for thirty seconds?? See, it’s this funny little thing called “personal space.” I get that you’re living next door to the creeper or the party animal or the teacher. I get that you’re bored. I get that my door is always open, seeing as how we would all melt into the carpet if we kept the doors closed. And I’m sorry. But that’s not an excuse, nor is it an invitation to plunk down with your BUTT ON MY PILLOW and start yammering. I also get that you don’t like eating alone—but can you please try to wrap your head around the idea that I actually quite enjoy it? Because I do. I HATE having people watch me when I eat. It creeps me out.

So, what have we learned today, cats and kitties? That Inky is far more antisocial than we thought! Biiiig shrug. How sad. But holy crap, it’s like being surrounded by bored little children! I was just thinking, “Gee, it’s a shame they don’t make child-locks for teenagers” but then I realized that actually, they do. And they’re called padlocks. *Claps excitedly.*

Moving on, my poor purple pajama pants with their happy little Mutts characters have officially been dissed, so I am thinking that maybe, next time the fire alarm sounds (because there will always be a next time), I should just go out in my undies and break it down to the Heavy as I go. Oh yes, I can totally see myself flinging open my door and belting out, “How you like me NOW?” before shimmying down the hallway in only my under-things and all their glory. Hmm … *Raises eyebrows deviously.*

First of all, I’m not dead (just floating … bonus points to anyone who gets the lyric).

I have been dealing with the fallout of the self-injury episode (yay!), plus the dog drama, plus finding out that my brother somehow got a hold of the blog address and has been having a field day with it while I’m over here. On the one hand, I don’t care because I don’t go to any particular lengths to hide who I am. On the other, I do because once cornered, he said he’d stay the fuck away and yet our IP still showed up on my IP tracker yesterday, the IP tracker which I installed just for the occasion. Motherfucking fuckity motherfucker … have I mentioned lately how much I detest my family? Yeeah. CAN I NOT HAVE FIVE WEEKS WITHOUT YOUR FUCKING BULLSHIT FOLLOWING ME ACROSS THE FUCKING POND? Please, and (obligatory f-bomb) thank you.

And now Louis is limping and oh, what do you want us to do about it? Um, three guesses, dumbfuck. God. At this point, I just want to go home and verify that my dogs are, in fact, still alive.

So, that bit of fun aside, I have a crap-ton of photos to show in the next few days. I do have a paper and a speech to knock out first, though … then I’ll resurrect the Puddle from it’s neglected state of near-death and go back to our regular programming. The dorms are continuing to provide endless entertainment in the form of the resident teenage girls, and I might actually miss the petty, air-headed drama when it’s all said and done. Might. No guarantees. They’re kind of like real-life soap opera stars, though. Or train wrecks, one.

Anywho, I’ll return soon enough – and in the meantime, can someone please explain why I am always naked when the fire alarm goes off? This makes Event #3 during which I was insufficiently clothed when the sirens started blaring. I am beginning to feel like a closet nudist, and not just a sweltering college student in a dorm without air conditioning, who is caught between wardrobe changes at extraordinarily bad times.

And on that wonderfully awkward note, I am off to research a paper.

“What’s on your arm?” She’s standing in my doorway, clearly expecting a detailed account of the previous night’s happenings. We’ve taken to leaving our doors open for both socialization and air circulation purposes, and it seems that someone got a little curious. I forget that something that’s so routine for me, and only mildly distressing to most level-headed adults still potentially offers a tabloid-level of fascination for certain other people.

“An iodine patch.”

She rolls her eyes at my response, but presses the issue.

“So they found out.”

“Actually, I told them,” I correct. I’ve been in it long enough to know when to call in the reinforcements.

“Oh. Well, we all knew already so, yeah. This is kind of an awkward conversation.”

“Huh. Not to me, really,” I shrug, opening a document on my laptop. “But you can change the subject if you think so.”

Apparently, she doesn’t think so. She flops onto my bed and leans against the wall.

“Well, honestly, I think it’s good that they know about it. I mean, everybody has stress. And that’s just not, you know, a good way to deal with it. I mean, you’re doing it the dangerous way too—like, you could actually die doing it that way.” She keeps the corner of her upper lip raised slightly in a knowing smirk.

Um, no shit Sherlock. And who asked you, anyway? I tend to be an open book about this kind of crap, but c’mon. Really?

“My aunt was raped,” she says, as if that proves that she knows anything at all.

“Sucks to be your aunt then,” I say absently, not turning from my computer screen. She, of course, misses the sarcasm and is thus not offended by the remark. Instead, she keeps talking.

“I have a lot of friends who’ve done what you do. Like, two of them used to do that.”

“Oh,” I nod, still looking at the screen. “That is a lot.”

“And my dad used to hit me. I mean, he actually left a bruise on my face once. You could barely see it, but that was humiliating. But you know, I never mutilated myself because of it. There are other ways to deal with things. Like, you couldn’t just, read a book or take pictures, or eat chocolate or something?”

I try, oh-so-patiently, to explain the process for the umpteenth time but give up when she asserts that it really is just a matter of choice and that I just shouldn’t do it again because it “isn’t good.” Yeah, okay. Save it ’til you’ve done it, airhead.

“Well,” I say mildly, with a tone bordering on disinterest. “If it were that simple, I’m pretty sure I would have ‘made that choice’ somewhere along the last eight years. But,” I add, brightening. “I guess you can think of it however you want to. No skin off my —” I suppress a completely inappropriate giggle and stop. “Well, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Yeah. I just feel like being so abused made me have, like, a lot of wisdom and stuff that other people my age don’t. [Note: she’s nineteen] So if, you know, you want to talk to me or anything, then like—”

“Cool, thanks. I’ll holler,” I interrupt cheerfully, squinting my eyes closed when I yawn so she won’t see me rolling them. “Night, dude.”

I am thinking that my door will be staying closed tomorrow evening, lack of air conditioning be damned.

“Can anything else go wrong today?” I asked, laughing, at the pub. Laughing because, barring the major life stuff, I tend to find derailed plans entertaining (if not a teensy bit aggravating) and see Plan B as just a slightly more adventurous, albeit inconvenient, variation of Plan A. Roll with the punches, right? Anywho. Today, despite a morning of good humor, was one of those days.

There was the part where my class group spent five hours walking through London and I discovered I had left my bank card in my OTHER purse on the OTHER side of the city when we decided to stop for lunch. And then walked another three hours without food. Refer to recent low blood sugar fun to understand how much joy this brought to my afternoon.

There was the part where half of the underground trains we needed were closed for Olympics-related improvements, resulting in more walking, stop-shuffling, etc.

There was the part where I left the schedule I needed to make plans with my sister in the dorms and realized it only after we’d arrived at the pub.

There was the part where the pub’s reader denied my card, and the part where the ATM around the corner was closed. There was the part where I left my receipt in the ATM that did work.

All minor irritations that I just chalked up to bad luck and shrugged off. Whatevski, deal with it and move on.

But then—THEN—there was the part where I came home, got online, and found an icy message from my other sister, who is supposed to be taking care of the dogs, saying that on second thought, she can’t do it and that I need to make other arrangements for them. While I’m eight hours away and five hours ahead. It seems that she just doesn’t see how they’re going to fit into her schedule after all—with a few utterly unconvincing sad-faced emoticons thrown in as an extra slap in the face. London, meet panic attack.

So now I am going to sit down and pull my hair out while I try to figure out what THE FUCK to do with a pit bull and a presa at the peak of boarding season back home. Because honestly, I don’t have a clue.

And I really thought I could de-stress a little over here—ha ha ha. God, my optimism just slays me.