Though I will occasionally post on here, this isn’t really the place to find out more about me. I am still particularly fond of this title.

Find me here.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and my Facebook newsfeed was consumed by pages upon pages of people expressing just how thankful they were for this, that and the other. I like to think that, as a good ol’ Southern girl, I’m thankful everyday, but I suppose it is helpful to have one particular day to write a word of thanks for the good I see around me. It’s especially important this year because these last few months have been outstandingly sucktastic, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see past the slop to the diamonds.

That’s not to say that everything is shitty these days. No, it’d be gross melodrama to suggest that. It’s poignant, really, this whole situation. To be 20 and scarily alone is in so many ways positively thrilling.

This year, I’m thankful for so much.

• Education. Plain and simple – I am lucky enough to attend the best journalism school in the United States - and that’s become such a powerful thought. There’s the constant threat of, it seems, my future being yanked from my grasp, and my education is becoming increasinglyprecious.
• Friendship. It’s amazing how much my conception of that word has changed in the last three years. I went from priding myself on knowing everyone to realizing it was really only important to me to have a handful I can count on.
• In that vein, The Tripod. I don’t think I could ever really say it to their smiling, well-coiffed, bang-framed faces, but those three have made my last two years so full of laughter and warmth, sometimes I feel I can’t stand it. And when The Acronym Enthusiast heads off for six months abroad, I may just cry. A lot.
• Ducky. This one should go without saying. The Boy is still my best friend, despite our ups and downs and his crushing inability to return text messages. He’s still the best hugger and a fairly good listener, and he never fails to make me feel punctual.
• Judaism. I could say so many contrived things about the community and how much it’s meant to me – but that would be trite, right? Countless Friday night dinners, friendships, worries and promises. A whirlwind year and a marvelous sense of home.
• Al-faa-fee. Again, trite. More important now than ever.
• Journalism. I’m a winner. Things are going to change, I can feel it.
• Fryan Pan & Mush. Lifelong friends.
• Sororital family. To my two sisters, hand to hand, heart to heart.
• Unpaid internships. A weird thing to be thankful for, right? But I’ve got a pocketful, a pocketful of EXPERIENCE. Hired?
• Coca Cola. Seriously. Still.
• The future. And the fact that I’ve still got one.

Conceptually, my thanks this year are pretty overarching things in my life. But this is what’s become important to me, I think. The ability to survive and love and be loved. I couldn’t avoid being trite, after all.

Thanks, finally, to you. To the reader, to the writer, to the stumbler, to the friend. You’re just great.

Happy Thanksgiving, and a healthy and happy holiday season.

And a part of me can’t wait.

I’m feeling introspective and a bit reproachful from my perch in the clubhouse of my grandparents’ retirement community. Led Zeppelin is inauspiciously playing on the loud speakers, and the wifi here is spotty at best, and I’m feeling sluggish and languid in this miserable heat.

Happy times in Florida abound!

It’s incredible to think of the things I’ve lost in the last year. It’s a running count, in some ways: two best friends, one boyfriend, innumerable electronic cords and untold numbers of well-intended e-mails. And it’s a bit too late, I’ve found, to make amends for some of the more intangible things I’ve lost. I can purchase a new USB cord for my digital camera (done) and re-send e-mails to my heart’s content, but I can’t reanimate the relationships I seared, the battle wounds I wrought as I fought my way to this place.

And no amount of late-night text messages, no pleas in unanswered apologies will bring them back. If you’re reading this, and I can nearly guarantee that you are not, I am so sorry, and I wish things had turned out differently.

But amidst loss was much gain. Strength, courage, self-confidence, poundage. I have a relationship with my parents that is more than just muttered malediction, built on a sort of mutual respect I didn’t think possible last year. I’m happy being alone, I’m enamored with my position in the world, I am optimistic about my future and I am in so many ways encouraged by the relationships I’ve forged over the last year.

There’s the best friend, a holdover from high school, whose tormenting mystery manages to hold my attention. The one who seems to know me best and requires so little effort to impress.

There’s the best friends of the boy who have slowly transitioned to appreciating me on my own, independent of the initial meetings. Three in total, possibly more, of people who don’t hesitate to answer my phone calls.

And there’s the ones I never thought would matter, the ones whose friendships came in late night discussions spent ’round cereal and over homework in the common room. The ones whose beer-soaked shirts proved perfect for enveloping the lost nights when nothing seemed right, and though that may seem cryptically epicurean, I assure you they were merely innocuous. There were those who sought my affection when I felt incapable of providing it and who have stuck along for the wild ride of my remaining collegiate years.

It’s vague and possibly trite, but I’m surprisingly confident. With so much loss, there’s so much to come, so much that keeps reminding me of all the beauty in my world.

There’s than Lester Burnham speech from the end of American Beauty, about all the beauty in the world. How he fears his heart might burst? I can related sometimes, feel ready to explode as if it’s all rushing past. But then I remember to breathe, and I remember that I’m not yet twenty-one and still ripe for change and learning and language and understanding and love.

And then I remember to relax.

the girl with the dunce cap

I blog about music, things I like/abhor and all things pop culture.

Kthanks,
The Girl

• I got more sunshine. Lots of it. I even got a suntan!
• I drank a lot of water. Except I lost my Nalgene for parts of the quarter, and the basement (and the purifier) were just so far away, so I resorted to
• Drinking too much Coca Cola. Yup, on that front, I sorely failed. I consumed Coca Cola like it was my life’s mission.
• I listened to happy music. So much happy music. In the past three months, my top artists have included Belle and Sebastian, Modest Mouse, Slow Club and Phoenix. And Bon Iver. Somehow, that last one, all haunting voice and lingering, visceral, booming touches, seems a bit out of place. Still, lots of happy music.
• And the organizing didn’t really go quite as planned, either, really. But this time around, I’m golden. I splurged on a Moleskin planner (the big one!) and neon Post-It flags and corresponding index cards. I’m an organizing machine.
• I slept. A lot. I didn’t get enough sleep every night, certainly, but I was reasonably well-rested for the majority of the quarter.
• I got my work done. And got pretty damn good marks, if I do say so myself!
• Okay. I still watched too much T.V. But who can blame me? Glee, Parenthood, Bones, 30 Rock and Community? And Felicity? I mean, really. I had a suntan. It all balances out, right?
• Oh, boy, did I blog. Blogging became such an integral part of my existence, and while I didn’t necessarily make the most of this little endeavor, The Dunce Cap became something I invested myself in. And I’m pretty proud of that little engine that could.
• I had fun. Lots and lots and lots of fun and laughter and enjoyment with people I love and adore. And I really couldn’t ask for a whole lot more.

So, this summer, it’s all on again. My summer has just begun, and I’m empowered to do it all. To gain more journalism experience, to get myself organized, to save money for the big New York move, to lose weight and to get healthy. There’s a lot to do, to get healthy and to get happy, but I’m ready to really really take it on.

Happy summer, and happy changin’.

It’s terrifying. It’s so much promise and so much anticipation and, frankly, so much total fear that nothing will live up to what I want it to be.

Maybe it’ll be a total disappointment. Maybe I’ll be a total disappointment.

So, here’s my plan. My plan for that big, open, unnerving future.

Next summer. June. June 2011. New. York. City. The Big Apple. A little bitty internship.

Fall. September 2011. JR. Journalism Residency. New. York. City. The Big Apple. A little bitty big internship.

Winter. January 2012.

… that’s it.

Winter 2012, January – that’s it. I’m a real person. I’m an adult. I’m on my own.

In one year – I’ll be, with a little luck, living in New York City, on my own, in a tiny little apartment in Manhattan or in Brooklyn or somewhere. With a  job. Permanently.

Oh ma jay-zeus.

That is terrifying.

I’m biding my time, waiting on answers and YES! from someone, anyone. I’m still drinking Coca Cola. I’m eager and bright-eyed and laughing a lot and calling people names and planning and planning and planning.

Three summer goals:

1. Teach myself HTML.
2. Get my website up n’ running!
3. Sell my final magazine writing story to a big ol’ publication.

Keep your fingers crossed!