February 29th 2012: This one is for Mallory. :) "Dear Boys...."

I have been inspired! By two wonderful posts, my roommate's here, and this fabulous blogger, here. Consequently, I felt like writing my own, so here you have it, folks, drum-roll please. Here is a peek into the oh-so-spicy (cough) love-life of me. Lucky you.

Dear Recess,
You were my first crush. Moving schools was about as traumatic as it could get for a 2nd grader. You kissed me on the cheek one day--Harry-Potter style-whilst we were standing in line at recess, and then ran away as fast as you humanely could. I turned bright red and was triumphantly twitterpated. Remember when we used to play house? Those were some good times. Then you grew up and acted super weird. It was never meant to be.
Love, The New Girl

Dear Beach-Shorts,
Oh, those beach shorts were definitely.... unique. And you had really nice hair. I apparently liked those two things enough, and you didn't seem to mind my awkward perm, glasses, and leggings pulled up to high heaven. Those 3 months of tag at recess were fun.
Love, Science geek

Dear Root Beer,
I should have known that ward-romances never end up going well. I liked you for a LONG time. I think you know I'm not exaggerating. I thought it was so romantic that I left that "anonymous" note in your locker one day, but really, it was just grade-A stalker behavior. You used to hit me with your safety-patrol flag while I walked by you across the street. I know you liked me too, because of all that oh so romantic eye-contact we always made, as we stole glances at each other during church and in the halls. But that was really the extent of our relationship. Once I tripped in front of you, and you actually talked to me, asking me if I was okay. I was on cloud nine for weeks. Once I tried to look behind my shoulder to catch a glance at you, and I ran into a garbage can. Awesome.
Love, Grown Up

Dear MSN,
Oh those 2-AM messenger conversations we used to have. And that orange gum? That was pretty much what started it all, in Mrs. Howell's class. Also, the fact that we played duets together was quite romantic. We were a pretty good duo. You were almost my first kiss, but sadly, lover boy was in my life and I had moved on. I'm sorry I turned my head when you tried to kiss me. I'm sorry I backed off and dropped you because you overwhelmed me with your emotional ways. I instantly put you right into the friend zone. Thank you for forgiving me for that. I'm so glad we're still friends.
Love, The Piano Player

Dear Lover Boy,
Why were we so awkward? I am sorry I was too nervous at homecoming to give you a real kiss. It would have been perfect, and you know we both wanted to. But we couldn't even hold hands on the love-sac, even though our hands were pretty much touching. We were both too nervous. Then a few weeks later, as soon as I musted up the courage to kiss you, you instead went ahead and kissed my close friend. That was just classy. I liked you a lot, but was just too shy for my own good. When lover-girl told me you had kissed her, I'll admit, I reacted with a little bit of tearing up. I then immediately had to go take student government pictures for the yearbook. They turned out horrible. I blame you. It took me a long time to get over you, but I succeeded, and now I look back on that whole experience with a smile. I'm also glad we're still friends.
Love, You Missed

Dear Gravedigger,
You were my first boyfriend. You were my first kiss. You wooed me on the first date by dancing the waltz with me. I was flying. You were as close as I'll ever get to choir-tour romance. You got the same job as me just because you thought it would be fun to have a secret restaurant-romance. Well, that was weird.  Our relationship was weird. Why it took so long to get over you will always remain a mystery... I was kind of really hung up on you. Looking back, I see how ridiculous I acted....I'm glad that's over. Also, Avatar is a stupid cartoon. I lied to you that day when I said I was enjoying it. And I own a microwave. Sorry.
Love, Tally-Hall

Dear Guitar,
You fooled us all. And I still get the willies when I think of you. But I do not regret dating you, because I learned how vital communication is in a relationship. "King of Anything" by Sara Bareilles describes to a "T" exactly how I feel about you. You decided to plan my life out for me without my content, which was a stupid idea. You were also manipulative, needy, and controlling. Sorry. I was a college freshman and too shy to figure it out at first. But I thank you for opening my eyes. You are the reason I have such a big bubble. I wish you the best and am so glad you finally found someone. Also, I WILL own a television in my future home, thanks.
Love, Thanks anyway

Dear Sharks,
"Apology muffins" are not going to cut the fact that you totally played me. Also, the girl you chose over me is totally dating someone else right now instead of "waiting" for you to return from your 2-year mission.Woops!
Love, Too Bad

Dear Shvenn,
I have never laughed so hard as I did with you. You are fantastic in so many aspects of the word. I still get butterflies when I see you, which really stinks. I regret not letting you know that I liked you more than a friend when I had the chance. But I was leaving for Ukraine and was kind of focused on other things. You were the first person I felt comfortable singing around, and you made me feel like a million bucks. Sadly, as soon as I started liking you, I put you on a pedestal. This frustrates me like none other, because I can never quite be myself around you anymore, no matter what I do. Now you have a girlfriend. But I'll get over it, because I think she is fabulous. Thanks for still treating me genuinely well even though I act like a goat around you because of that pedestal thing.
Love, Working On It

Dear Ukrainian,
I would have gone for it had I not been scared to get sent home at my own expense. Also, as fun as it would have been to have a fling in another country, I knew it would never have gone anywhere, and that I would have been completely selfish in choosing that. I didn't want to get in the way of you finding someone really perfect for you. Which you did, and just happened to marry this month. CONGRATULATIONS!
Love, Katroosya

Dear Psychology,
You overwhelmed me. I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance, but you were controlling from the get-go.
Love, Pre-Nursing

Dear High-five,
I'm sorry I made you cry on Valentine's day. I honestly didn't mean to. I just wanted to be friends.
Love, Heartbreaker?

Dear Chuck,
I love that your voice goes higher when you get nervous. I think you are fabulous.
Love, The Pilot

Dear Musician,
Please, when you ask a girl out in the future, call instead of text. It'll do a world of good.
Love, Uncoordinated

Dear Doctor,
You are fun. I'm excited to see if this goes anywhere.
Love, Loganite

Later...

Spunky

Today I was looking through an old 1941 yearbook with one of the residents, and she was asking me to read a few of the notes that people wrote to her, as she had trouble reading the small, curly handwriting. I happily obliged, and began to read aloud from a very long note in this fancy cursive (sad that cursive is such a dying art). Anyway, I begin reading. (For the sake of the story, we'll just call this resident Meg.)

"Dear Meg... I think you're the tops. You are a really swell girl and I've really loved getting to know you.... "

(Do you not love their slang? tops, swell.. in fifty years our kids are going to be rolling their eyes at the weird slang we have adopted in our generation)

"...I was pretty sad when you said you were going steady, not because I didn't think you were capable, but because I always wanted to go steady with you, and it was sad that you were unavailable. I liked you even more than Nancy, even when I was dating her. After a while I realized she was just like everybody else. But you aren't, Meg. You aren't like all the other girls. You are really swell. And I'm not just saying the same old B.S. that people write in yearbooks..."

(yes, they said B.S. back then, too) 

"....I really mean that. And I know a lot of other guys who feel the same. I am really glad that we are friends, even though I'd like to be more than friends. Just remember you can always come to me for anything.... " 

Oh yes, it got pretty spicy. Turns out Meg was quite the man-killer!

I never doubted. I hope that if I get Alzheimer's, I'm the Meg of the place. She always laughs at her own jokes, sneaks food to the dog under the table, and is just spunky.
Then we of course had to look up his picture. And as soon as I pointed at it Meg said,
"Oh HIM? He's ugly!"
That made us all laugh.  He wasn't even that bad looking. She apparently just had a lot of room to be choosey.

Later as we flipped to the pages, next to some random girl's picture, Meg had written a line across the page pointed to her face and one word. "CROOK!"

I love her. I love them all. I love my job. :)

L O V E L Y

Please tell me you don't think this is FANTASTIC.

White Knight

So, seeing as I am not living in Kyiv anymore, it is time to jump back to this much-neglected blog. (If you have nothing else to do and wish to read of my adventures, you can find them here.)

Pictures always make everything better. I am already missing this place

Right now I am in London, sitting by myself in the London Airport and eating a lovely breakfast of eggs and salmon and toast with marmalade, in my little corner, in my hat. I must say I feel quite sophisticated. This is not to say that I am, but do I have a feeling London has a way of making even the most uncoordinated creature feel sophisticated. I am really gonna miss this whole independence travel the world adventuring thing.  But that's an entirely different rant. I made a mistake last night, and it happened somewhere in-between Kings Cross and Royal Victoria.

     Here is what you find on the platform when you board the tube. For some reason I am fascinated by the way they phrase things

You see, I went to Kyiv with one carry-on, one large suitcase, and one medium one. I ended up having to throw away the medium one, send the large one home, and have been living out of a teeny tiny carry-on for the past 18 days (Britney, your backpack has SAVED ME, ha) How I have accomplished this downsize, I still do not know. As you can imagine, my little carry-on has gotten significantly heavier since we started out, as I have been picking up souvenirs here and there and everywhere, and after visiting 15 cities and 7 countries, my suitcase is REALLY HEAVY. I'd say almost a good fifty pounds. That may not sound like a lot, but when you throw in a backpack and take into account my marshmallow arms, it is quite a challenge running around to different train stations and airports all night long.
Last night as we were trying to find our hotel, we got a tad bit lost. It got a little tricky pulling around all that luggage. At one point, I was trying to haul my suitcase up a big flight of stairs when a young man going the other way decided to stop and ask if I needed any help. I imagine I looked pretty flustered, which is great because it probably hid the bright red hue that surely hit my cheeks the second he turned around and spoke to me in his lovely british accent (then again, probably not, thank you genetics). I was already half-way up the stairs, and if course my instincts tell me that you can totally do this on your own. So of course I told him thank you very much but I was alright. He asked again throwing in this huge smile. I really think I looked pathetic at this point. "Are you sure?" ---yes, thank you so much! and kept right on swinging and hauling my little 5-ton suitcase up those stony stairs.
A few seconds later I was totally kicking myself. What a nice guy, and why in the world did I turn him down? Not in an, oh, he was really cute, swoon, sort of way, but in a, wow, he was really being kind and I should have let him help me sort of way. Because really, this world is so caught up in the business-woman working women doing everything on her own woman sort of thing. A man opens the door for us, and we tell him, "thanks but I am perfectly able to do that on my own." Then another man doesn't open the door for us, and we start ranting off about how Chivalry is Dead and how men have no respect for women anymore.
Well, what do we expect them to do?
I decided that next time a man offers to help me with something, I will let him and be all the more grateful for it. Yes, I am perfectly capable of doing it on my own, but that is the tried and true system, and it is fabulous! To all you many men out there who aren't afraid to be a gentleman, thank you! I praise you! You are appreciated! Keep it up.
That's my rant for the day.

Now off to board a plane! AMERICA here I come :)