constructive summer

It's been a few weeks, my friends (should I say friend, since there is apparently only one person reading this blog? Wooo, Emily!), and has it ever been an eventful few weeks. And when I say few weeks, I mean nearly a month. Whoops. I have now finished 7 weeks of my internship, which means that I have only 5 to go. I'm working weekends to cut off the 6th week that I was supposed to have, but need off to work on my thesis and pack.

Oy, my thesis. That's a topic for later. Back to the issues at hand- I am working every weekend, but usually only on Saturday mornings. I have to work all day next Saturday, and I'll probably go home the weekend after that. This means that I have, effectively, 3 more weekends in Milwaukee. Just as I was starting to love it and feel pretty comfortable, I'm going to be wrenched away. At least, for once, I will be returning to familiar territory. I'm so glad to be staying in my house from last year when I go back to Minneapolis. It sure makes moving easier. So, in three weekends, there are at least 6 brewery/distillery tours I need to cover, I want to take a river cruise, I have to go to the Calatrava, the Public Museum, hit up a Brewers Game, ride on the Hank Aaron State Trail, go to the Domes, and eat as much frozen custard and drink as much beer as possible.

I think I'm setting myself up for disappointment, here. I won't be able to do all of those in the time left. If there's one thing I've learned about myself over the last year, it's that I am nothing if not adaptable. Drop me anywhere, and I will ache for the first few weeks and whine and moan, but eventually, without my even noticing, I will be fine. I can handle things. It just takes a while. And with all the constant movement I've had in the last year, I haven't had a chance to get settled in before it's time to move on. I've been living on an air mattress for 7 weeks, and at this point, I am managing to ignore the back pain, and sleep through the night. I've finally started making friends at the office, and I don't eat lunch by myself every day anymore. All of this has severely cut down on my reading, though, and made my expenditures skyrocket. Then again, what am I spending my money on aside from room and board right now? Very little. I deserve to have a fun summer. It would have been more fun if I'd had time to make the trips I've been wanting to make, but I am now almost completely certain that I will at least be able to make it to Indianapolis the weekend I finish up work. Then, I have a few days in Chicago to run my thesis pilot, see my friends for a bit, and pack up.

My thesis- it's not going great. I agreed to work on it when I didn't have a job lined up for the summer, but when I got one pretty last minute, I couldn't back out of the thesis. I downloaded a load of articles that claimed to have anything to do with compost, and as I have started skimming through them, very few will actually be useful, and I don't understand much of the social science statistics used in the salient literature. So, in summary, I am screwed.

But let us speak of other things. Kickball has been fun. The team is great. Unfortunately, my best friend from the team, Morgan, is moving back to Green Bay this week, so who knows when or if I will ever even see her again! We've only been friends for 3 weeks or so, but everybody asks us if we've been friends since elementary school or something. Sometimes, two people just click as instant friends. I've been lucky with that a few times recently, but normally it takes me ages to warm up to people, and vice versa. The roomie and I have been going to trivia, and we got 3rd place last week, which I think was pretty damn good (as we only lost 1st by maybe 4 points). Matt wants me to come down this Saturday for the IL bar trivia champs, but I have to work. BOOOOO!

Summerfest has been going on for the last week, and I'm so glad I got the chance to go multiple times. I definitely missed a lot of bands I'd love to see, but I got to catch Girl Talk, Cage the Elephant, Florence and the Machine, The Black Keys, the Sam Roberts Band, Here Come the Mummies, and Michael Franti and Spearhead. I've been waiting since I originally became a fan of the Keys in like, 2005 to see them, and it was amazing. I wish I'd had the chance to see them before they got huge, though, because I imagine a grimy club show would have been way more awesome than a packed amphitheater. I was so far away, but I still loved every second of it. I'm going to see Ted Leo in 3 weeks, and I'm really jazzed for that. Matt, Hannah, and Hannah's friend Jeannie, whom I'd met on Hannah's 21st, came up for Girl Talk, and it was fun to have people visit. I ended up going home for the 4th because I like air conditioning. Nobody was home, so I also got to relax. I chilled with Amy most of the weekend, which was really nice since I hadn't been able to see her for like, a year.

Speaking of long-time childhood friends, I went to Buffalo 2 weeks ago on rather sad terms (we were burying my grandpa's ashes. He died about 7.5 months ago), but saw all of my mom's side of the family, which is always great, and got to spend nearly an entire day with Kathryn, who was nice enough to drive in from the Roch. It sucks when you only get to see your bff a few days per year. We had a really good time though, wandering through a farmers' market (we got to pet alpaca!) then eating at a really yummy Vietnamese place, getting lost, and playing with my tiny cousins. We went bowling with my mom and aunts at night, and had a splendid time. I think I was able to hold up as well as I did over the weekend because Kathryn was there. Some people just bolster you. I know I've said this so many times, but I hope it doesn't lose meaning to any of you as I repeat it: I am so lucky for my friends. Without those of you who were with me in Scotland, when you barely knew me, you saved me. I would have totally, completely, and absolutely lost it if it hadn't been for all of you. I miss you dearly. Also, all of my friends at home who were willing to take my transatlantic phone calls or Skype at weird hours, and even people who just wrote on my fb wall or commented on my blog occasionally, you helped me get through such a difficult time.

All of that came back while I was in Buffalo. For the rest of my family, this wasn't really a big deal. They'd been together while they were going through all of this, and they'd been back to Buffalo since it happened. This was the first time I was back in the house. It was all so different from the last time I had been there. I know they changed things before he died, but to me, it was like being in a dream where you are in someplace that is so familiar, but the tiny changes make it extremely disorienting. I went downstairs, half expecting my grandpa to be there with a cup of coffee for me like he had been so many times before, but of course, then I quickly remembered what I was doing in Buffalo in the first place. My cousin, who is 10, kept asking me if Maddy (the dog) seemed sadder than usual, and then talking very seriously to her about the big changes around the house. I don't know how to respond to small children most of the time, and I was especially overwhelmed by trying to deal with a small child who was trying to deal with death. That just made me feel eight thousand times worse. It was kind of precious, in a weird way, though.

It's so weird to think that I don't know if I will ever go back to Buffalo. I spent so much time there, and in the 36 hours I was back over that weekend, I wanted to squeeze in all of my favorite Buffalo things. The only one I managed was Andersen's custard, and that happened while I was sitting in the car crying my head off after we buried him. Putt-putt golf, wings at Duff's, Shakespeare in Delaware Park, the painting elephant, Condrell's, Parkside, the North Tonawanda farmers' market, Niagara Falls, Old Man River, the harbor... the list goes on and on. I never realized how much I loved Buffalo (despite how much Buffalo freaks me out) until it occurred to me that I don't really have a reason to go there anymore.

So many of my formative moments took place in that city. My first rollerblading memory was in Delaware Park. The first Christmas I remember was in the house where my mother grew up. Grandpa read us Edward Lear, and I have a vague memory of Grandma playing horsy with us when I was very, very small. I realized also that I have very many fewer memories of her than I suspected were stored in my head. We were digging through a box of Grandpa's stuff, and I found some articles and more pictures. Everybody looked so elegant back in the day. There is a picture of me from Scotland on top of Arthur's Seat in which I, according to my aunt, look very much like my grandma. I wish I could have had a chance to have known her well enough to reflect upon that with meaning.

Shit, all of this is just coming out now. I'm bawling. I shouldn't be allowed to stay up past midnight and start waxing philosophical and rambling my head off. I apologize, dear reader(s?).

Reading Vonnegut reminds me of my Grandpa. He met Vonnegut at a party once.

I hate when people continually say that somebody "passed." Let's just call a spade a spade, please.

I think this is getting to rambly and weird, so though I have barely scratched the surface here, I'm going to end it. Maybe there will be more later. If not here, in my memoirs.