(image by Todd & Barbara)

I want to go and feel the real heat, none of this 80-one-day-55-the-next Oregon summer. I want to see the giant Saguaro cacti and trip over a prickly pear, be paranoid about meeting a rattlesnake or a scorpion, visit pueblos and get sunburnt. Drink a diet cola and feel the ice condensing around the glass in a place that gets less than a quarter the amount of rain I consider the ‘norm’.

But this post isn’t about that eventual trip, really. I’ve realized in that last few months that I really, really, really like cacti. And succulents. Succulents are really neat, shaped like twisty-orby-jointed-creatures, bent over and leaning against each other like drunken friends or something out of a Doctor Seuss book.

My family thinks I am crazy. (This is not different than any other day of the week, just a fact.) I keep looking at all the cacti in stores or in stranger’s yards and talking about how I want some. I want an aloe vera plant, I want a theolocactus and a Arthrocerus rondonianous and many, many, many, Sempervivums!

I recently bought a little pot of assorted cacti. I love it. I named it Horatio and smile whenever I see it around my house.

I like to think of Horatio as “a collective”.

I just figured out that my favourite part of Horatio is actually an aloe aristata, and that makes me very happy. I don’t know why. I just love little cacti.

This week, I almost turned into one of my beloved cacti.

It started out with attending a class with a professor that set me off in any way and I immediately started growing prickles. My roots expanded, absorbing all available water during the three-hour-class that I ‘endured’ and when I left, I was prickly and puffed up with my frustrations and loathing.

I tried to let go of my irritations and my anger, but every day I walked into that classroom a giant bloom grew out of the side of my face and I lashed out sarcastically at everyone around me, a little prickly pear of hatred.

It culminated on Thursday. I called my Mom after class (like I had the last three days) and we ended up getting into a completely unrelated argument. I realized then, that a four-credit class isn’t worth turning into a cactus.

So I dropped the class, and breathed a sigh of relief. I’d like to think that there was some romantic image associated with this, the cactus revealing the true desert flower or something romantic and disgusting and cliche, but really, nothing happened. I’m still pretty prickly about the entire subject, but my prickles are smaller and more like feathers than jagged edges, and I’m letting go of my frustrations.

But I still like cacti, even though I don’t want to be one. I hope that next time I can recognize the cactus symptoms a little bit sooner, though.

Because I then had to ride the train back home after waiting for a half an hour for him to show, I was able to run into an old friend’s older sister who is only in town for the day.

Because I left class early I got to see a co-workers brand-new baby niece, complete with baby flip-flops and chubby arms.

Because today is Wednesday I got to spend the afternoon with my Mom and go to Goodwill and find a new outfit (that I LOVE) and have a milkshake and basically find the coolest thing $1.99 can buy you:

So put in persepective… today was an amazing day.

And I have to say, right now, I kind of agree.

I’m attempting to juggle an online class, the impending doom of a five-day-a-week-four-weeks-total-summer-writing-class, three grad school applications, and maybe hopefully passing the CBEST oh and also organizing when I’ll volunteer next term and also working 20+ hours a week and being completely AD—-

DID THAT SNAIL JUST TRANSFORM AND FLY AWAY.

OH MY GOSH I NEED TO ANALYZE THIS.

CLEARLY SCIENCE HAS LIED TO US ALL THESE YEARS–CLEARLY MY HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY TEACHER HAD NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOU–

Hey! I could look up more gifs!

I like gifs.

gifs gifsgifs gifs gifs

Oh. Right.

School. And Work. And organizing.
And grad school. And The Future.
And sentence fragments.

I have no attention span, and I don’t know what to do first when I can’t eliminate or check things off my list, just do a half-jot or a dot indicating that I tried to do something, I thought about getting it done, or I attempted to figure it all out.

I don’t know you guys, this stuff, this part of adulthood, this period-of-life-where-I’m-up-in-the-air-and-so-busy-I-can-hardly-breathe is really really not cool.

Here’s another neat article about packing… but a bit more hardcore than mine!

So it happens. And I feel kind of like a dork for Writing A Blog Post about Surviving My Very First Week Of School, but that’s how I roll. I was filled with way more anxiety about returning to school this year than I was in previous years, it boils down these three things:

1. I’ve been in community college for what feels like an eternity now, and this was my first week at University (finally!).
2. I met someone, who now lives far away. University means we can’t talk as much as we have been these past few weeks. (Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!)
3. All the girls downtown wear sexy boots and tights and dresses and ivory-carved necklaces and I have to catch a bus, a train, walk 12 blocks to get to campus AND then run across campus halfway through my day and sexy boots, tights, dresses and ivory-carved necklaces just don’t really fit into those wardrobe choices, right? I have been making do with my brand-new (for the term) graphic tees and my ever-trusty plaid shoes.

I am very excited and also dreading the coming term. I have two literature classes and a history class, which means I will be doing gobs and gobs of reading and also gobs and gobs of writing. Hopefully I can get past my initial hatred of doing work of any kind and find a way to enjoy the inevitable work I will have to do.

Because I don’t live on campus (though I would love love love to) I can’t quite wear the fascinating boots and skirt combinations that 99% of the girls on campus here wear, but I can make my own attempts with flats and my own cute tights. I will post an update on that next week!