Vanilla-Scented Eggplant

It's 7:29 p.m.. For about the past 20 minutes I've been trying to do some reading for class, but I keep getting distracted by the Eggplant. She's sitting on the coffee table next to a burning candle, just staring at it. For a while she was lying next to it, then she sat up and looked directly down at it. Fascinating! A little piece of fire! She has no idea what to do. It's hilarious. She pawed at the flame a couple of times, and I had to warn her to not get burned. She looked at me and seemed to understand. Seriously, how could she be so intensely focused on something for so long! Literally like a half an hour, just staring at a burning candle! I'm pretty sure she's retarded. I mean, "kitten with a disability". She does tend to run into things a lot. And sometimes she walks sideways. I'm thinking we should stop playing fetch with her on the kitchen linoleum and making her slam into the cupboards. . .nah.

Curiosity Killed The Spider

I definitely had an adventure yesterday! Well, it wasn't so much of an adventure as it was just me doing something really random and weird. I tend to do that, and then call it an adventure. Okay, enough about me. I want to talk about my adventure!! So it all started when I moved into my room last year. There was this panel screwed into the wall. Still is, but at the time I sort of wondered what was behind it. Then I forgot about it. Then I noticed it again - this cycle happened quite frequently every few days. It wasn't necessarily an urgent matter; no, I was content to live in my room and just let the mysterious panel be on my wall. Then yesterday I couldn't take it anymore. I had to know! The chemistry was right: I had my curiosity, a toolbox in my closet, and plenty of time. So I took the dive and went for it. I pulled my toolbox down from it's shelf, dug out my phillips screwdriver, and pulled my bed away from the wall. You see, my head had been resting next to this panel every night for a year, and I never once had the motivation to actually see what was behind it. To tell you the truth, it was pretty slow going with the un-screwing. It had been painted over at some point, and despite the fact that this panel is probably there for a reason, I'm guessing no one had really bothered to use it in a while. So, I wore my forearms to the bone (or some such metaphor) working on THREE screws. Yeah, that's all it was, but it took me like an hour. Or probably ten minutes or so. Anyhow, when I finally got the panel off, I was majorly let down for a second because there was nothing but the backside of some insulation. As you can see from the picture, it looks like that would be the end of the road. Well, that might stop your average person taking their wall apart, but not me. I grabbed my hammer and started poking around. I obviously didn't want to go sticking my hand in there because who knew what kind of bugs and crap might come flying out at me. I literally had visions of Indiana Jones and the Mummy and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and pretty much any kind of situation where I might inadvertently get turned into some sort of mutated freakish THING. . . (There I go with my super-long sentences. Sorry, I'm working on that.) So like I was saying, I started mashing the insulation around to see what was behind it. My dad always told me to not touch insulation with my bare hands because it was like cotton candy made with glass. I guess it's one of those things that looks delicious but you should stay days away from it. Just like dirt and bar soap. Mmm! Blech. I actually got a little nervous that I would get the crap from the insulation all over my room, so I got my roommate Michelle to come help me. We moved the insulation around and realized that there was a huge opening behind it! To be honest, we both sort of had the suspicion that there very well could be dead bodies and stuff back there. Or Narnia. But we were brave, and carried on. Michelle manned the flashlight while I took pictures. I was documenting the entire thing in case we actually found bodies, or treasure. But alas, there was nothing of interest other than just the sheer awesomeness of opening up my bedroom wall and finding lots and lots of spiderwebs and dirt. It was kind of a let-down, but later I realized that I had just done an incredible thing: I had discovered what the inside of the wall looks like! I did something that most people seldom do: I noticed an opportunity, I took a chance, and I explored the unknown.

 

One Whole Year

I just realized last night that as of today, it's been exactly a year since I moved to Ashland. It honestly doesn't seem like that long ago! I still remember Brennan helping me load up all my stuff into Jason's truck, driving down here, and carrying it all up the stairs into Sara's old room. I stood exactly where I am right now, staring at the walls and trying to imagine what it would all look like when I made it my home. Well, now I know. 

Total time lived here: 1 year

Total rent paid: $3,000

Total times I've been locked out and had to climb out on the roof and crawl in through my window: 5

Total house-sitting gigs: 3

Total times the eggplant has peed on my bed: 6

Total awesome homemade pizza parties thrown: 3

Total college degrees earned: 1 (#2 is currently in progress)

Total jobs held: 5

Total times I've walked places instead of driving: lots and lots 

Total fights with roommates: 0

 

I'm pretty happy about that last one. Here's to a couple more awesome years in this town! 

Dude My Brother Is Famous

Apparently I'm now a proud sister. That didn't sound too convincing, did it? YAY! I'm so proud of him!!! That's better. Usually boys go off to Hollywood or Nashville to be rockstars, but Brennan went to Michigan. What's in Michigan, you might ask? Well, to be honest, I have no idea. But they toured America, shot a video, and did some other stuff. I think. Can you tell he didn't call me much? Then he moved back home and is doing. . .some other stuff. (He still doesn't call me much.) Yes, I'm definitely a proud sister. Here is the video they shot - Brennan is the guitar player on the left. 

For All We Know - You Can't Kill a Deadman from Thunder Down Country on Vimeo.

And here's another one of them just being silly boys!