Call Me Ishmael - A Teeny [Themed!] Update

Tying up all these little loose ends makes me feel nautical.

I find myself drawn to pictures of old steam boats, books on tying knots, songs about sailing to the edge of the world. I can hear your chuckles. "Oh, Killian, you silly girl. You're always thinking about the water."

That is true. Not a day goes by that I don't catch myself daydreaming about great big bodies of water. Just roll that over on your tongue! Bodies of water. Mmmmm. Positively voluptuous. And maybe a little bit unattainable. Now tell me you don't want to daydream about it, too.

But every once in a while, little ol' "spontaneous-isn't-even-in-my-vocabulary" me gets that real hankering for adventure (not to mention manual labor). For the first time in my life, I can satisfy this urge! Granted, it's still me, so I won't be going crazy and catching any plane headed anywhere, but I am moving to Seattle and (instead of finding a "grown up job" i.e. "a super boring office job") will start writing full time (!!!). That novel needs to be finished, and at least one short story is aching to be something longer. Funny enough, I tend to have a theme in my work. I'll give you one guess about what this theme is.

Yeah, man.
T-minus six days.

Until then, I will be listening to this song on repeat. Also, every Hold Steady album. Craig Finn and Josh Ritter know what I like.

HOTEL ECHO LIMA LIMA OSCAR  
WHISKEY OSCAR ROMEO LIMA DELTA

P.S. if anyone wants to purchase a fancy nautical dictionary for me, that's totally cool. They're a little on the expensive side, but they pay for themselves instantly in awesomeness.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Today, I finished college. I'd say that's worthy of a blog post.

It's funny--during my last final (which was actually a writing workshop/portfolio submission hour), things still seemed pretty anticlimactic. Just like every other fall term, you know? Turn things in, say goodbye, run back out into the rainstorm. But NOW I'm feeling it. It doesn't matter that the chances of me going back to school are about 110%--I will never be a little novice undergrad again. Every class I take from here on out, I take as someone with a bona fide* BA. Any other educational opportunities I get to pursue are icing on the cake! Which is insane. I've paid my dues to Everyone's Expectations. ...Now what?

I actually feel a little bit like a grown-up right now. When I drop by my old high school next Friday to give Mr. Joy (The Best High School English Teacher, as well as a top contender for Best Human Being, In General) a hug and show him how well I turned out, I won't just be giving him an update. I'll be able to tell him that I absolutely positively did it. And that makes me pretty freaking proud of myself. There's this idea that lives in my head--and I know I'm not alone in thinking it--about how a Bachelors degree is practically useless now, and blah blah economy blah. But screw you, doubt! I feel like I spent over four years, pushing along in the best Sisyphean tradition, never thinking I would truly make it. But then I did. It's sort of overwhelming.

And now I'm going to move to Seattle! Out of the family house and into a home of my own. My list of priorities is undergoing some pretty drastic rearrangement, trying to figure itself out now that School and Paying For School aren't my top two. In fact, my list of priorities has no idea what to put where. Love is first, probably, and it's tied with Writing. Those two are closely followed by Pursuing Other Things Of A Creative Nature. Maybe Travel should be put on the list? I never got an English degree for practical reasons; now I can't help but feel a little lost because of that. There are plenty of  choices, sure, but why do they all reek of Administrative Assistant? Can't someone read my palm and my cards and my mind and maybe suggest something I would enjoy a little bit?**

Alison (a co-worker of six years, and adopted big sister for just as long) told me she wishes I could be a teenage girl for a while because I never had the chance before. I have no idea what that means. I think that was kind of her point.

And, to think, this blog post was intended to be full of charming/gruesome anecdotes about college. Ooops!

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."   

-Anatole France 

*yeah, that's right! I know Latin now, too! College is a crazy place. 

**I need a job to support my writing habits. You know. Until I make millions on my fiction. ::snort::