I’d clearly make it as an international spy

People are always asking me about my roommates and honestly, I can’t tell you a thing about them. Seriously, I don’t even know their last names, or even how to spell their first names.

I don’t even have their numbers even though I offered them mine and they took it…is that like roommate rejection? I didn’t think it’d be that big of a problem until coincidentally enough today on the bus to work I began to wonder if I turned the stove off. Cue the inner panic that’s rapidly mounting when I realize our fire alarm is of course disabled and oh god I’m gonna come home in 8 hours to a whole apartment complex of smoke and ash and why do I not have my roommate’s number?? Don’t worry y’all. The apartment’s fine.

But anyway. One of the things my roommates like to do is lock the deadbolt on the door so I can’t get in even if I have the key. Normally this is okay because I just ring the doorbell and they open the door and we’ll exchange our one word of the day (“Hi,” or sometimes even “hey!”), unless their friend is there in which case then we can start talking. Is it weird that I’m better friends with their friend than I am with them?

Sidetracked again–the bus rounds the corner on the ride home and I see my lovely, lovely apartment quad standing there so beautifully unscathed by any sort of fire that would result from a silly, careless girl who left the stove on. and then because my brain hates me I begin to wonder if maybe my roommate is dead (too morbid?) from carbon monoxide poisoning and maybe it’s one of those things where the fire is contained and I’ll open the door and BOOM, you know like in the movies? Does this even make logical sense? Someone let me know.

I feel the door, and it’s not hot–good sign, right? It won’t open though, because it’s been locked again from the inside since I left. Initial joy that my roommate is not dead inside is quickly replaced with annoyance after waiting for about 30 seconds…she’s taking a nap and can’t hear the doorbell.

I scout the area. The balcony railing looks climbable, even though it comes up to my chin and there’s only one notch like thing for me to put my feet on. But I watch too much Jason Bourne and I think I can do it.

The chair we keep out there is on the other side, which slightly annoys me. It’d be so much more convenient because then I can just step down efficiently and gracefully instead of potentially falling down. A few jumps and a couple of squashed bushes later (sorry) though, I’M IN (albeit in a very inefficient and ungraceful way).

Because I then realize I could have just climbed the other side to use the chair.

I’m throwing myself a pity party

It’s 8:52, which means there’s only 8 minutes left, but you’re all invited. Because misery loves company, but you know what’s even better? Having misery AND all your friends with you feeling sorry for you.

Whoops, seven minutes.

Six minutes because I don’t know what to write.

Here’s the thing about feeling sorry for yourself. It feels great, because you get to complain and play the world’s smallest violin and if you have great friends (read: suckers) you can get all their sympathy, and maybe even get some sympathy cookies too.

I’m talking small potato feeling sorry things here. The kind of things that happen because it’s usually somehow in a little way your fault and you realize it but you’re still allowed to feel sorry for yourself right before you begin hating yourself. Usually they’re first world complaints, like “wah wah wah I can’t finish my filet mignon.” “wah wah wah I forgot to tell starbucks I wanted my latte iced”

Today it’s things like like “it’s over 100 degrees outside but I’m sick and have a sore throat and stuffy nose and I’m constantly cold and THESE PEOPLE KEEP TURNING THE AIR UP AND I’M TURNING INTO A POPSICLE.”

or, “I came home late from work and all I wanted to do was fall into my bed and find sanctuary from my sickness. Instead I found bed bugs all over the apartment.”

or “wah wah wah I really really wish I bought those apples but I was too lazy to carry them for the THREE MINUTE WALK HOME and now I’m hungry and sick and all I want to eat is an apple.”

By the way, all these things are happening to me. See what I did there? I started complaining about my problems in such a subtle way I bet you didn’t even know you were being complained at!

Now where are my cookies?

cliché on cliché on cliché

The other day I told someone I was 19 years old.

“No-No. 20.” I blurted out thirty seconds later. “Sorry, I’m twenty.”

It seemed silly then; insignificant at the time, like forgetting to put sugar in my coffee or pushing the floor button in an elevator. Because more often than not the stranger who gets on next will stand there with me a moment until finally reaching over to press “G.” I’ll laugh sheepishly, but it’ll happen again the next day. So I’m still getting used to not being a teenager anymore, you see. I’ve only been twenty for 42 days.

Twenty.

Sometimes I feel like (warning: cliché) my life is over before its even begun. Graduate. Get a job. Work eight hours a day, go home, eat, sleep, repeat. In a blink of an eye, I’ll be 50.

Other times I feel like (warning: cliché) my life is just beginning. Because I’m twenty goddamn it and everyone knows that’s the age that you–find yourself! Discover what you were truly meant to be! Change the world!

Remember when we were young and we dreamed as big as we wanted because everyone knew we’d grow out of it some day? I told people I’d be the first female president of the United States.  Then I went to school and realized that politics just depress me. I also dreamed of being a Neopets millionare, and when I finally achieved that, I forgot my password. Every so often I think about my poor, starving meerca and the 176 neopoints I’m losing every day in bank interest. Now I wonder if he’s still alive. Can neopets die?

Somewhere along the way I became half-hearted, content. I lost my passion for—for what? Living? Life? Dreaming? Have my own musings really become such a cliché?

It’s okay though. It’s only been 42 days. For now.

-Edit- How ironic that after a re-read I’ve noticed that telling myself “It’s only been 42 days” only reinforces my  passiveness.