If I could scream and cry as loud as the infant I currently feel like, I would.  My sinuses are full of God-knows-what and under horrible pressure, causing the teeth on the right side of my mouth to HURT like nothing’s hurt before.  I imagine this is what growing teeth as a baby felt like– I’m in so much pain. Now that the unnecessary medical updates are out of the way…

I LOVE MY NEW JOB/INTERNSHIP.  ’Tis only my second day, but this stuff is the big leagues, baby.  It’s a little bit of everything– event planning, marketing, public relations. Apparently I became an adult at some point and have full-on events, responsibilities, projects, and deadlines without someone holding my hand the entire time.  Yesterday (after an annoyingly long commute in which I decided the only thing I hate more than traffic lights is morning radio shows) I rolled up and was not nervous.  You know I’d tell you if I was, but the feeling simply wasn’t there.  I kept waiting to get all anxiety-ridden and piss myself halfway through meeting the staff, but it never happened.  I suppose I’ll thank the whole Germany experience for this new addition of personal confidence.  Living at home is… getting better.  Someone wasn’t being very optimistic about it in the beginning, but it’s not too bad of a gig.  Knowing he’s only two hours down the road, I miss NPH possibly more than I did when we were separated by an ocean, but let’s not get into that crying jag via Skype on the public blog, mmmkay?

Yes, I realize this post was a mundane update on my less-than-blogworthy life, es tut mir leid (how many languages can YOU say “I’m sorry” in?)  Get excited for a MOVIE REVIEW tomorrow (Robert Downey, Jr. and kettle corn?  Um, yes please) and Vegas preparations because there are officially only two weeks until my 21st birthday and 16 days until my favorite, favorite, favorite (American) city.  And more importantly, In-n-Out Burger.

I just  kneed myself in the eye.  Let’s not ask how this happened.

So today was my last day at the hospital.  Just a typical morning of waking up too goddamn early to ride a bus full of far better looking, higher achieving students than I… UNTIL I went into the child psych clinic to get the papers from our mailbox and BAM “This will be the last time I ever do this.”  <–Sadness.  Weirdness.  Not sure how to feel-ness.  You see, I’ve held the same job for longer than I’ve been a student in college.  That’s a long time.  We’re talking winter breaks, summer breaks, snow days, in between classes for over two years.  While part of my perfect work world was shifted this summer when our department got merged with another and my lovely boss abandoned us, for the most part, it’s been a pretty smooth, fun ride.

I am (was?  SAD) ferociously good at my job.  If there’s one thing no one can fault me, it’s that I’m extremely loyal and extremely good at whatever work I do (we’re not talking schoolwork here, people– just go with it.)  I know that hospital like the back of my hand, am oddly protective of our psych patients, have clocked more hours there in the past two and half years of my life than I have in class.  My job was not a bed of roses– often it was mundane, boring, tedious, pain-in-the-ass busy work– but it was my job and I was damn good at it.

Enter my two co-workers, K & D, full-timers, moms just a few years younger than my own.  We weren’t super close when I first started, I was just another student who would scan charts for a couple months then find something better.  But then they realized I wasn’t going anywhere.  And together we weathered break-ups, divorces, their sick kids, my hangovers, perhaps their hangovers, deaths in the family, shared inside jokes to make the horrid time at the hospital just a little more bearable.  They were the surrogate moms who would Tsk Tsk when I came in with bar stamps on my hand on weekdays but then give me Tylenol, ask “Where are your gloves?!” when I showed up half-frozen, and made THE BEST peanut butter Cap’n Crunch cereal bars and cream cheese salsa dip for office parties or just because. Today, when I walked in and saw them, I was like “Holyfuck this is gonna suck.”

And it did.  Everyone brought in a bunch of food (the sugar coma definitely eased the pain of the good-bye) and I got some cards and I made K & D cards and my boss cried and gave me some presents.  But then 4:00 came (okay, 3:52– I always skip out a bit early to catch the bus) and I was like Well, catch you on the flip side and IDIDNTCRY but almost did.  On the inside, folks.  Brittney cried on the inside.

So technically, I am currently unemployed.  Way to be even more of a bum than I already am… AND, save for one final next week, my semester is O-V-E-R.  It went supercalifragilistically fast.  Let’s not talk about what comes after this one.  If it was this hard to say Peace Out to two ladies I see a couple hours a day, I don’t even wanna think about when I have to do it to NPH or my pops.  (Ooooh, Brittney’s being all serious– weird.  Usually this is supposed to be funny.  Now I’m just uncomfortable.)

In other news, Miley Cyrus got her Grammy nominations revoked today.  I am beyond pissed.  “Party in the USA” is an goddamn lyrical masterpiece and YOU KNOW IT.

For the time time in 20 years, I found my inner Zen at around 4 pm today.  Tomorrow will come whether my paper reaches five pages or not, whether I keep rambling about Nazis in it or not (I am sadly not kidding– somehow my Legal & Ethical Issues in Mass Communication term paper has turned into a diatribe about the undercurrent of raw emotions that surely must exist in present day Germany because of the Holocaust.  I am so not getting a decent grade.)  It will come whether I know what the O’Brien Test is (I don’t) or whether or not hidden cameras are legal in Iowa (they are… I think.)

There is a french silk pie chilling in the refrigerator, courtesy of my awesomeness, that will be devoured at a very 713/529 Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night.  Bestie’s making the turkey and said we probably won’t eat until almost 10 pm anyway, so I can go see Adam Richman AND have an awesome time recreating the slaughter of thousands of Native Americans by greedy white people first Thanksgiving.  And then get really drunk only to wake up really early possibly still intoxicated to travel two hours down the interstate in time for an oil change at 10 am.  Gotta love the end of midterms week.

Today I am thankful for my boss.  What?  But, Brittney, you loathe your job to the very core!  Well yes, but that’s because it’s inane busy work spent in front of a computer when I could be sleeping or eating or doing really anything besides wearing business casual clothes to class when all of my peers get to wear sweatpants.  I’m super pscyhed because I’m not working AT ALL next week.  Weeeee-hoooo!!  I invision a lot of lounging and eating and sleeping and sweatpants-wearing in my future.  Happy Turkey Day to me!

Also, I hate Murphy’s Law.  While on a given day I’m usually rockin’ an attractiveness rating of a good four or five points higher than your average college student, today was an exception.  I looked like the Elephant Man.  I consciously went into public full-on knowing this, thinking I wouldn’t encounter anyone whose opinion really mattered.  Boy was I wrong.  And I paid for it in ten minutes of super self-conscious conversation, followed by a complete melodramatic over-analytic meltdown about said meeting. 

This is when having a female best friend and a male best friend really comes in handy.  While both of them were supportive and assured me that  they have both seen me look like this elusive Elephantitis creature and they’re still talking to me, their follow-up approaches to talking me down from the ledge were varied.  Kayla lied to me and told me what I wanted to hear.  Apparently other Bestie is a walking copy of He’s Just Not That Into You and told me what was up, straight up no chaser.  I am now fake mad at him for doing this.  CLEARLY he does not understand girl logic, as I told him, and he replied with, “Nope, because it’s not logic.”

Anyway (hey, Natalie!) I’m gonna go do one of the million other things on my to-do list that you would think I’d have done by now, but you would be wrong.  I have to like, plan our end of the year social?  For PRSSA?  And talk on the phone to strangers to get estimates on how much banquet service will cost ?  Barrrrrrffffff, I HATE talking to strangers on the phone.  Perhaps there was some incident in my youth regarding rejection via landline that I’ve repressed but still scars my subconscious.  Whatever the case, NOT. Looking. Forward to it.

Sports Illustrated cover + parents’ weekend + Ashton Kutcher in attendance + Northwestern = inevitable loss.  All season people kept saying “When we lose it will be to someone like  Northwestern” and then their friends around them would explode into a fit of giggles because the 9-0, 4th ranked Hawkeyes are just so much better than that.  Except everyone, including us, knew we weren’t.  As someone from my immediate family who was not my mother or brother texted me after “Thank God that’s over.”   I’d have to agree– we had a nice run, but OMFGSHUTUPPPPPPPP.  And now they will.

Last night was my final shift at my beloved job, at least til I return from abroad.  My boss and I decided I’m the Stanzi of the store, with me being out for the season and all.  I also was complaining that my leg was broken hurt  a lot because my back was hella messed up from some awkward couch-sleeping followed by miles of trekking to tailgating before 7 am.  In flip-flops.  All night I was having quite the mental struggle over what my final free sandwich for a while would be.  In the end, I got my favoritest favorite– I can make a ham sandwich at home anyday, but the world does not get any better than  black bean patty with avacado, BBQ sauce, some hummus, some other stuff that’s SUPERDELICIOUSINMYMOUTH.

If it rains this month, I will fah-REAK out because it will be November Rain.

Today I have to like, vacuum my living room and dust the TV and get things all ready for our PRSSA social.  I may even put out a plate of cheese and crackers.  Step aside, people– domestic goddess coming through.

Bestie’s parents came yesterday and his mother brought the best pumpkin bread in the history of the world.  You think I’m exaggerating here, but nay. It had raisins and walnuts in it (don’t barf, it was sophisticated quick bread).  Unfortunately the pan was set between college boys wielding a knife– I fear that one slice will be my only experience with that magical, magical treat.

This was my last weekend in Iowa City until the last weekend in November, and I am beyond ok with that.

My hair is reallllly really red.  Think Lucille Ball.  Or Daphne from Scooby-Doo.  I probably won’t dye it back because this will come out in a certain number of washes anyway and I dont’ care enough to do anything about it until then. 

Our group for the Halloween bar crawl looked amazing.  There was a matador, his bull, Robin Hood, the entire cast of the Office, Ned Flanders, a surgeon, Hannah Montana, etc.  One bar was having it’s Halloween party a night early so it was wall-to-wall with some really great costumes; I saw the most spot-on Bret Michaels and kind of wanted my picture taken with him.  Kind of.

6:30 am Saturday came all too soon, but Daphne made it out of bed, grabbed a bunch of Halloween cupcakes and hit up kegs n eggs which was super fun.  Also, while I thought the cupcakes were a tad dry, it apparently doesn’t take too much to appease a houseful of college guys.  “This is the best cupcake I’ve ever had, I may have fallen just a little in love with you.”  I’m sure the fact that they were stone cold sober helped as well.

Bestie and I watched the game at his house– I managed to flip an entire DiGiornio pizza over in the oven onto the burner, rendering it inedible.  That game was a nail-biter, but somehow the Hawkeyes pulled their heads out of their asses in time to win by the largest margin than they have since the ISU game.  9-0!!

Work was fairly entertaining with customers all costumed-up until I got a MASSIVE tension headache thingy from sleeping all wrong on my neck.  The last couple hours were completely miserable– I had to bitch out on going out on actual Halloween and was in bed by 8:15.  I would wake up every couple hours because of the pain, but it appears to be gone after twelve hours of sleep.  So the good news is I’ve been up for quite some time and have nothing to do today but some homework and cleeeeeean.

Today is the first of the month– rent is due, 7 months until my birthday, 2 months and 5 days until I fly to GERMANY!!  Papa K’s got the tickets all nailed down, I’m pretty psyched that we get a meal from Chicago to Frankfurt.  I’ll be hauling out some boxes soon and packing up my room– since I have to go home so often between now and Christmas (three weekends in a row in November…) I’ll take small loads each time.  Oh and hey, if you know someone who needs to sublease an apt for second semester, I’m your girl.

In conclusion, I would like some ice cream.  I need to do laundry today.  I had a black bean patty from Which Wich for breakfast– it was bombtastic, even though I made it last night.  Ooh peanuts and candy corn would be good, too.   Roomie is sick, if she gets me sick, I will murder her then drive all night to Mexico.  Bed is calling again… at 9:30 am.

Hate: the dishwasher.  Dear dishwasher, you are supposed to clean the dishes.  Not leave weird pieces of food congealed on said dishes.  I tried to unload you today, but physically had to remove myself from the situation lest I kick you and something bad happens (i.e. I have to do my dishes by hand pff).  <– that is one of the many numeous reasons I will never have children.  I will either a.) punt kick them in moments of frustration or b.) walk off in order to calm myself from said frustration only to come back and find they’re gone.  I feel this is generally frowned upon, especially in large public places.

Love: paper towels (apparently another hate: the environment?)

Hate: I quit my job (the one I adore) yesterday due to me only working weekends and needing basically every weekend from now til study abroad off.  While I am deeply saddened, they said they’d probably take me back upon my return.  And yes, most of the “hate” about this one is the void free sandwiches will be leaving in my life.

Love: Pumpkin Spice lotion from Bath & Body Works. 

Hate: there were MUSHROOMS in my bag of frozen stir-fry veggies yesterday.  G.R.O.S.S.  Luckily I was able to pick out the vile poison before I choked to death and died.

Love: how FREAKIN AWESOMELY CLEAN our kitchen is.  Way to go, Roomie!!  Paired with my room which I cleaned yesterday, my living situation is for the first time in a while, actually liveable!

Hate: my left knee hurts.  Pretty much only when I go up or down stairs which is, you know, the majority of my day.  Also, I’m getting a stye in my eye.  Not like I’m going to a wedding this weekend where I’ll be a bunch of photos… oh wait a minute, yes, yes I am.

Love: bestie and I are going to find Halloween costumes at Goodwill tomorrow and have apple brats from Haight’s Hawkeye Meat Market.   I’ve missed him and that house of hooligans after a week of separation– how I long to live there one day (and by “one day” I mean next year– whaddya think, Pops??)

Hate: the ladies in my office apparently think that because it comes in limited edition Halloween colors, they need to buy ALL OF THE CANDY IN THE STORE and bring it to work.  If you haven’t realized by now, self-control isn’t one of my strong suits.  Thankfully I only work a few hours a day or I wouldn’t be able to fit through the door by Christmas.

In conclusion: the first half of my week is over.  It’s not all downhill from here, but whether I bomb my presentation tomorrow or if I only have one source for my article due Thursday or if I just stay in bed til Friday morning (that’s my pick, but hey, apparently my grades are dependent on “going to class”) I WILL be chowin’ on BBQ in KC come Friday night.  Be jealous.

Piano Lounge = awesome.

Work tonight was the busiest I have ever, ever seen it.  Not to be outdone, Mesa also had the longest line I’ve ever had to wait in (spincach, tomato & feta?  Ehhh, turns out cooked spinach still isn’t that great…)

Speaking of work, at the very beginning of our rush, I looked over at the line gathering out the door & a guy about my age had just come in with a group of friends, overweight & with an afro of curly dirty blonde hair extending about a foot over his head.

It was the hair.  Not even bright red, but that apparently didn’t register with me.  You’ve probably heard the phrase “my heart leaped into my throat”?  There is really no other weay to describe the physical reaction I had to this person (the name he put on his bag was Turk) sharing the same airspace as me.  My initial thought was,

“Ohhh cool, Boner came with some of his friends for homecoming!!!”

About 3 milliseconds later, however, I remembered that nope, the jovial afro kid wasn’t in fact my prom date from senior year.  He wasn’t the guy I let get away with giving me shit for all of my dumb high school mistakes when no one else was allowed to breathe even a word of them.  He didn’t even order the Subway equivalent of the BMT, Boner’s favorite sandwich.

This kid wasn’t Boner because Boner isn’t around anymore.  And that really, really sucks.

(Disclaimer: I certainly didn’t mean for this to be only post #3, but this happened today so I’m going to talk about it today, suck it.)

We were too busy making sandwiches for me to lose my composure, but goddamn if I didn’t want to lock myself in the cooler and sob my eyes out.  I full on stared at this kid every chance I had, just willing for the name on his bag to be Jesse, just waiting for him to wink at me and tell me the joke’s over.  I guess I was just surprised at the suddenness of it all– here I am having a perfectly normal day/week/month and then BAM he’s right there, his absence, staring me in the face saying You’re not over it, you may never be; if one of your favorite people in the world can be gone in that quick of an instance, how much faith can you have in the rest?

Like I said, feel free to just skip this one if you didn’t know him or don’t care.  Sometimes I wonder if I dwell too much on it because believe me, I dwell.  People often say “there’s not a day that goes by…” and it’s true.  I think about Boner every day.  I’ve often wondered if I’m remembering him better than he was, but I think we all do that with the deceased (horrible word choice, I apologize, but it is what it is.)  No doubt about it, he could be an asshole.  They were all jackasses, but him always less.  He was always in on the joke with you; while what he said was offensive, it was never malicious.

I won’t even go into how Thanksgiving ‘08 will be the defining moment for our class, how much we’ve all changed and grown apart as a result of it.  Thinking about it, I didn’t really tell any of my college friends when or after it happened.  Describing him wouldn’t do knowing him justice, and I guess I don’t want to be that girl who has the dead friend so be extra nice to her, ok? 

In closing, I have no idea why I blogged about this.  Perhaps because there are approximately three people, on a good day, in my life actually reading this and this might be of some relevance to them.  Perhaps because I’ve wanted to talk about it for a really long time, like 11 months long time, but no one else likes to acknowledge it happened.  Perhaps because sometimes I just really miss the shit outta him & when freaky look-alikes are spotted I’m not strong enough to not notice and be really, really floored by it.

Weems’ class, while reviewing for a vocabulary quiz sophomore year.

“What does ‘predilection’ mean, Jesse?”

“Before an election.”

I’ve been up for approximately two hours and am already going to chalk this day up as an L.

The news of Obama’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize greeted me on my various social networks, with people’s reactions ranging from “Oh.Em.Gee.  Move over Rob Pattinson, Barack Obama is once again the only altar to which I bow” to “I’m going to punch him and the entire Nobel committee in the neck.”  My feelings were somewhere in between on this spectrum, leaning more towards the “Huh. Well whaddya know” but mostly because I remembered that I had pumpkin spice granola in my cabinet and suddenly getting a bowl of that for breakfast became priority numero uno. 

 ANYWAY, after getting the scoop on CNN & reading some people’s commentary, I’ll go ahead and say the whole Nobel Peace Prize thing is a bit premature (snicker, snicker, insert immature joke about ejaculation here).  I love Barry O as much as any other guy (perhaps more if the “other guy” happens to reside in the deep South, my hometown, or is a writer on SNL) but to quote a very limber pelvic-ed man, “A little less conversation/a little more action, please.”  Granted, the only other Nobel Peace Prize winner I could name without Google is Dr. King, so maybe there’s a litany of other winners who have done some so-so stuff and Obama’s win is par for the course. 

IN OTHER NEWS: after polling approximately six people, I dyed my hair.  It did not turn out well.  The following conversation happened yesterday.

Me: So I bought hair dye.  It’s called CinnaStick.

Kayla: Is it red?  Just don’t go red.

Me: No, it’s not red!  It’s called CinnaStick.  It’s just like brown.  And it’s not permanent so it’ll just kinda fade out.

At some point today, I’m going to have to call her back to let her know that in fact my hair IS red and that CinnaStick can go suck it.  Okay, it’s not that bad.  It has like a reddish tint (it didn’t really change much at all) which could also just be blood from my scalp since there was quite the burning sensation when I realized that I’d in fact left it on for FIFTEEN minutes when I was only supposed to leave it on for ten. but I have a completely plausible reason for losing track of time that may or may not involve me NOT WINNING a free burrito on Twitter Trivia AGAIN.

The good news is, it’s supposed to wash out in 28 shampoos (so with my hygiene schedule, it may or may not be back to normal by Christmas… ha.  That was a joke, feel free to guffaw.)

AND FINALLY, it’s Homecoming weekend.  I couldn’t give two shits less EXCEPT that I work all weekend so will get to enjoy absolutely zero of the festivities.  Oh, and we’ll probably be hellaciously busy at work, which I really won’t mind since it makes the time go by super fast EXCEPT then I won’t get to eat my free sandwich til after I get off at nine and I think you all know what happens when I don’t eat every fifteen minutes.

What should I be for Halloween?  Taking any and all suggestions.  Double points if it’s hilarious and half the people who see me won’t get it because it’s super intellectual.  Triple points if it’s half of some sort of pair since the IC bestie and I are obviously going to dress alike (keep in mind he is over six feet tall and has a beard that rivals most Amish.)