Today I learned an important lesson: do not buy the cheapest thing on Amazon. It will come with poorly translated directions and generally frustrate the hell out of your already exhausted self who only needs this music player to get her through her very early run tomorrow morning. Yes, I’m officially on a training plan for the half marathon and it feels AMAZING and I have renewed faith in both the heavens and my shoddy left knee. While I’ve been suffering through with just my thoughts (RIP iPod, you went above and beyond the many years I asked of you) now that I’m going 5+ miles, some heavy dance beats do wonders for my morale. In Iowa City this weekend I did my first “long” run with the help of NPH’s iPod (which he gave me, then TOOK BACK when his newer one broke. Goddamn Indian Giver. Is that a racist term? If it is, I apologize. That’s just literally the only term I know for someone who gives you something then takes it back. Other than Giant Butthead.) I move into my apartment THIS WEEKEND and am beyond excited to have my name on an apartment in IC again after eight months of separation and/or couch-surfing at 713. I’m also looking forward to resuming a somewhat normal blogging schedule since perhaps life around my peers will inspire me more than life working for the man (albeit a very fun, exciting “Man” who has been an amazing experience) does. Back to individually converting MP4 files to MP3 to go on this new piece of shit contraption even though I’m sure there’s ten other easier ways to do this AND I should be in bed if not staying up to watch the season two premiere of Jersey Shore. How I got into this show (just recently! Over the weekend!) is a tale for another post. Or maybe never because I’m very, very ashamed I know what “GTL” stands for.

The next season of Teen Mom on MTV starts on Tuesday. This has to be in my Top Five times I’ve ever been this excited for a television event. I’m not going to apologize for being MIA because silence is better than forced posts that are me recapping another booze-fueled weekend in Iowa City, my growing attachment to my boyfriend, owning up to the fact I’m barely running anymore, or the angst-y trials of feeling like an adult while living with the ‘rents. I could tell you about the glowing mid-season internship review I had at work, but that would just be gloating. I suppose a problem I’ve been having with blogging is that my insides are rebelling against this whole sharing-everything-with-the-Internet thing. I’m starting to become agitated with the blogs that fill my Google Reader– if I read another race recap or see another photo of a perfectly nutritionally-balanced breakfast I’m going to leave my laptop lying in an intersection. My Facebook usage has plummeted and absolutely no one on Earth has been negatively affected by this. I’ve many times contemplated deleting my Twitter account altogether, though I won Pancheros Twitter Trivia a few weeks ago and dammit those burritos are reason enough to stay activated. I actually– drumroll, please– went to the LIBRARY the other day and checked out a nonfiction book that I am LOVING. It’s called The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller and it’s quite thought-provoking (a phrase I don’t like now that I’ve used it.) Lollapalooza’s in three weekends, and I seriously need to sit down and provide instructions for NPH in the very likely event that I undergo some sort of physical bodily reaction from being in the same airspace as the Lady herself– i.e. heart attack, stroke, seizure, or just peeing my pants in public. Once the excitement of that dies down (WHO scheduled her to play Friday night– aren’t you supposed to save the best for last??) I’ll be making weird amounts of toast at Neil’s parents house because I don’t know what kind of bread they buy but DAMN it’s good. And then after that, well, summer will almost be over and I don’t really wanna think about that yet.

Did the Fourth of July seem not at all like a holiday to anyone else? Except for the absurd amount of time I was given off from work, actual Independence Day itself went off like any other. NPH and I traveled back to the Chicago suburbs to visit his family and friends from home, watch fireworks over Lake Michigan, and attempt the Taste of Chicago (only to decide we could get food and much cheaper beer in air-conditioned facilities not surrounded by thousands of other sweaty bodies. Though I did get a plate of sweet potato fries as big as my face for only seven tickets.) I met and became best friends with his family dog AND made a surprisingly fantastic rhubarb pie to win the rest of their hearts; we’ll see if I’m the new favorite when we go back in August for LOLLAPALOOZA!! Upon our return to Iowa City, we watched Inglourious Basterds since I hadn’t seen it post-Germany, and it mostly made me sad to hear them speaking German (though happy because I could understand it?) That has been the most challenging part of this summer– oh God, she’s trying to get all deep here at the end– dealing with the I’m-an-adult-but-living-at-home thing. I have to actively remind myself that I’m no longer in high school and in fact have much more freedoms this time around. Also, I miss D-Bag a boatload, but that’s secondary to the constant inner turmoil I’m going through maturity-wise. I read an article today that said it costs a quarter of a million dollars to raise a child to the age of 18– do you know how much Bavarian beer that would buy in Munich over my lifetime? 1. A lot, 2. That segue to tie the whole post together really just did not work at all.