Cramping My Style

One of the things I've really been making an effort to do since breaking up with the bf/moving home has been to get out and do new things and meet new people. I was ridiculously anti-social for the duration of my last relationship, and I came out of it feeling very much like I had no friends and no life and a little lost because of it.

Since the kickball season started in mid-May, my social schedule has picked up enormously, thanks in large part to 2 good friends on the team. They're both wonderful about keeping me filled in on the latest plans and prodding me to get out and join them when I'm feeling like just staying in. One of them managed to get me out all weekend this weekend, and he wasn't even in town until Saturday night!

Friday night was the kickball Mid Season Party. Our team had a pretty sad showing, but those of us who were there consumed plenty of free beer and stayed out til about 1:30. I woke up at 8:30 on Saturday (damn you, work schedule) and got up and moving. I met up with some of the same guys from the night before at a pool party around 2 and proceeded to drink all.day.long. In the sun. I showed up at home at about 7pm, still pretty drunk, with the plan to clean up, take a quick nap, and go back out, this time with the addition of my Friendship Broker, who had just returned from out of town.

I showered and then laid down to pass the fuck out. For about twenty minutes. At which point the guys called and said it was time to get moving, we were gearing up for round 2. By the time I got dressed and to their house, I was maybe 90% sober and really not sure who the hell I thought I was, that I was going to keep drinking after the day I'd had. But rally I did, and when 2am rolled around and they were throwing us out of the bar, I was like "Really? It doesn't even seem that late!" So then I went back to my friends' house and proceeded to stay up til 5am talking and watching movies on TV.

So I spent 2 nights on friends' couches and drank more beer than I usually consume in, oh I don't know, months. I slept less than 8 hours between the 2 nights and still managed to make it through most of today. My favorite part, though was when I got the lecture about driving home from the pool not entirely sober. Wherein my dad proceeded to tell me, after I pointed out that he was a GINORMOUS hypocrite, that he was allowed to do it because he's had 40 years of practice. Well Daddy, we've all go to start somewhere!

Going out and being a twenty-something is a lot harder when your parents can see the aftermath. I came home twice in what I left in the night before and I didn't even hook up. Because who's going to drive you to your parents' house, drunk, in the middle of the night? All I have to say is, my friends are saints, and I appreciate all the future nights they'll be letting me spend on their couches and the basketball shorts and tshirts they'll be loaning me to sleep in. And this young and single thing? It's fun.

Attack of the Fuzzy Comforter Monster

I "officially" moved into my parents house at the end of April when my lease expired. It took me weeks to move everything from the apartment to the house or my 10x10* storage unit. For someone who had moved, what? 9 times since I graduated college (including the move back to Dallas, for which I did not start packing until 2 days before, I kid you not), you would think I would have gotten the hang of it by now. I couldn't really tell you why I dragged my feet so badly this time...some combination of actually being able to take my time (a luxury) and just having so much stufff and ohmygodwhereamIgoingtoputallthisSTUFF?!

So yeah, weeks of packing and moving. Unpacking? About that...

I still have shit stacked all over the place. In my defense, I have unpacked the majority of it. If by unpacked you mean shoved in drawers and on shelves and oh yeah! I need a closet about twice the size of this one! Moving a whole apartment into one bedroom? Shit don't fit. And then there's the bathroom...

One of the more ridiculous results of marrying my apartment with my new bedroom at my parents' house is that I now sleep on the comforter from my old bed folded in half like a sleeping bag on top of all of the bedding on the guest bed. Why? Because I like it better. Because the pretty bedding Mom has on the bed no one ever used to sleep in? It's itchy. And it makes these little white fuzz balls that I end up eating/snorting any time I actually attempt to sleep under it. Also, the kitties like it better. We feel more at home in our old comforter, thank you very much.

One of the hardest things about this whole process has been that I don't really have my own space anymore. When my brother and I left, my parents made quick work of removing/storing everything that once belonged to us. Which, hey, who could've guessed that their very successful 18 year old college student would ever need to move back home? I get it. But yeah, just cause it's stuffed full of my shit...doesn't make it mine. Maybe that's why I can't seem to get motivated about finishing the unpacking...because I'm just trying to make my life fit in their space.

I used to say in college, home is wherever I'm not. If I'm in Austin, home is Dallas. If I'm in Dallas, home is Austin. I think the idea still stands. I miss home.

*Yes, a 10x10 storage unit and I still can't fit all of my stuff. My couches? They're HUGE. Two couches + washer/dryer + dresser = full storage unit.

A Cautionary Tale

Welcome! As this is my first post to this blog, I thought it appropriate to provide a bit of background on myself, my life and my current living situation.

The Players:

My name is Mary. I am a 24 year old college graduate who, after 2.5 years of living on my own in the "real" world, moved back in with my parents in April (to quote a favorite blogger of mine "BE YE NOT SO STUPID"). There were a lot of factors that went into this decision, the most pressing of which was the debt I acquired while trying to make it on my own (I am not, apparently, Mary Tyler Moore).

My parents have been married for nearly 26 years. My dad will tell you he married my mom because she's the only one who laughs at his jokes. I laugh at them too because I'm a daddy's girl. My mom and I? We can coexist, but we have to make an effort. Sometimes, it's a lot of effort. Go into my bedroom and scream into a pillow effort. But hey! We're trying!

The addition of my 2 cats brought the household total to 4. Yes, 4 cats. Since our arrival, the oldest cat (but newest addition), Belle, has been sentenced to life outside after proving that she wasn't likely to adjust to the exponential increase in feline residents. Helen is the longest-residing (and also dumbest) cat in the house. My 2 cats are Romeo, a fat orange guy who likes to yowl, and Slim, a grey kitten and the "cattiest" of the bunch.

I also have a nearly 23 year old brother who...well, let's just say we're polar opposites. He lives with his girlfriend and a roommate they can't stand about 20 mins from us. If you put all 4 of us in the same place, things get...interesting.

The Rules:

I am living in my parents' house with the understanding that I am saving money to pay down my debt. This means no rent, but it also means unsolicited commentary on every.penny.I.spend. I must provide proof each month of how much I'm paying toward my debt above what I was paying before moving home. Let me tell ya, figuring out how to do that without giving them total access to my finances required a few extra brain cells.

There are 2 more rules, as dictated to me by my father shortly after my homecoming. They are, and I quote:

1. You don't have to come home every night, but if you aren't coming home, call.
2. There will be no entertaining men in this house.

He said "entertaining men," no lie. Not only will there be no sleepovers, they are not to enjoy themselves in any way, shape or form at any time! Way to cover all your bases, Daddy.

The House:

We have lived in the same 4 bedroom, 3 bath house since I was 2 months old. Shortly (and I do mean shortly) after my brother's and my departures from the nest, my parents rearranged the 3 extra bedrooms in the house. What was once my bedroom is now my mother's office, what was once my brother's bedroom is now my father's office, and what was once the office is now the guest room/my bedroom.

I have pretty much free access to the kitchen and the large television in the living room. I have a small (ancient) television in my bedroom that you can't see when laying in the California king-size bed because the bed is SO.FUCKING.BIG.

The size of the bed lends itself to the stacking and accumulation of laundry and other crap. Which would be ok except every time my mom walks past my open door, she has to comment. Also, there's the fact that the SO.FUCKING.BIG. bed leaves little space in the room for anything else. It's fun in the dark, I promise.

For the most part, if I go in my bedroom and close the door, I am left alone. Unless there's a cat crying outside of it. Or mom is drunk.

This Blog:

My intention in writing here is to chronicle the...insanity? hilarity? hair-pulling frustration? of living at home again. I'm sure it will also involve commentary on other parts of my life as well. Join me, won't you, as I battle in the utimate cage match to the pain? And yes, that was a Princess Bride reference.