frogs are loud too

My mother does not believe in air conditioning. At least that's what I tell people. In fact, the resistance to air conditioning that my mother puts up until peak days of summer is more based in finances than any odd belief system. Anyway. This means the first month of summer vacation is spent with all the windows open, fans at breakneck speed (I mean that literally), and sheets kicked to the bottom of the bed.

Every morning through my open window I am berated by a cacophony of horny birds chirp-chirping to potential mates and whist-whistling about the glorious morning sun. Some of them even start to sound like they're saying something: one bird says "GERmaneee GERmaneee" and about ten more will join in like cats in an alleyway.

Now, in addition to the distant sound of cars driving along the road behind our house, I can hear a frog. A throaty, chirpy, froggy frog. Well hop on back to the creek, kid. I am not in the mood for your serenade.

fallen leaves down a creek

So far, my summer vacation (this past week) has consisted mostly of hours upon hours of television, even more hours of sleep, and a few interludes with a friend or two. I can not believe I have been home for less than ten days. It feels like years. In a good way. Or maybe not...

I know that if this were all I had to look forward to, the remnants of my sanity would begin to drift away from me like fallen leaves down a creek. Or dandelion seeds in the wind. Or helium balloons into the abyss. I know because even now, after living through one thirteenth of my vacation, I can feel it starting.

The GOOD NEWS IS that I start my job tomorrow. Or today, rather. I take on the exciting position of splash park supervisor/ concessions stand cashier. Huzzah.

I know that after a week or so of that, I'm gonna start to lose it again. And that, my friends, is when I pick up my quilt!

things grown-ups do

Since enrolling in college, I have found that I am expected to act like an adult and contribute to society. These new expectations can be exciting, but often I find I am not exactly ready to do all the things grown-ups do. For example, I don't exactly enjoy:

• filling out tax forms- this should be easy, but I feel like whoever designed the W4 or W2 made it complicated on purpose, probably out of fear of job security. He/she wanted to make it look like you can't just hire anyone to design a tax form, even though I'm pretty sure you can.
• paying taxes.
  
• "having it all together"- I find that as I get older, I am more responsible for myself, which usually means I have to be better at making up excuses for why I didn't do something I was supposed to, like completing my time sheets.
• being responsible for current affairs- I would be lying if I told you I got my news from sources other than Comedy Central or SNL's Weekend Update. Not only do certain adults shame me for not being up to the minute, there are a fair number of hipsters at school who enjoy feeling superior because they catch CNN as they are rolling up their blue jeans every morning.
• going to the doctor alone- a doctor's office is twice as scary when you are alone. This is a fact. This also brings me to my story:

Today, I was drug tested for the first time EVER! Exciting, right? No.

It all started when I woke up this morning, and participated in my daily routine: pee, wash face, brush teeth, contacts. Not very complicated. However, I realized a little too late that I should have saved my urine for the cup at the clinic. Crap.
I decided to stop by Dunkin Donuts to get an iced coffee, accessing the knowledge stored away from volleyball camp that caffeine is a diuretic, and would therefore fill my bladder and render it ready for bursting. I bought the drink (and some donuts, because, really how could I go to DD and pass up donuts? it's practically a sin) and meandered over to the used book store. I sold a few books, bought a Bill Bryson and a book-club read, and continued to gulp down my beverage as heartily as I could without procuring a brain freeze. I sat in my car, rolled the windows down, and cracked open the book. I waited patiently for the coffee to settle into my bladder and waited for the alarm-bells to start. Except, after chugging at least half of it, waiting patiently is not a valid option.
My attention started to wander, my hands started shaking, and I realized quickly, that in my attempt to pass a drug test I may have OD'd on caffeine. Smart, Claire. My gaze darted around like a squirrel and my anxiety-prone mind began to worry that I would show up at the clinic twitching and they would check the "Deranged! NOT suggested for hire" box as soon as I walked in.
They didn't of course. I passed my drug test, and actually had a bit too much :ahem: material for the plastic cup. Now I just have to wait for my hands to stop shaking. It's been three hours. How much longer could it take?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

My mother is Kathleen DeBuys. She works in a CBI classroom, she mothers four (awesome, sometimes awkward) children, and she is married to my goofy father, Rhett DeBuys.
She loves coffee and reading the newspaper, which she told me is because of the movie Working Girl with Melanie Griffith.She worries a lot, which can be scary, especially when she makes us practice what to do should the car in front of us lose control of the canoe strapped to the top of it.
She doesn't like to be referred to as she, which is why writing this is making me a bit uncomfortable. "who's SHE?" my mother would say. [Please forgive me mom, for all the shes in this paragraph.]
She likes blogging and reading and the color purple.
She likes painting the rooms in our house, but she never changes her clothes to do it. When she feels like painting, she just starts. New jeans be damned.
She doesn't mind if you're dirty or sweaty or wet from the pool- she'll hug you anyway.
She's always there to help with homework, read a term paper, look at a picture you've drawn, or read a blog post you wrote (even when they're not about her).
She is loving, compassionate, beautiful, magnanimous, courageous, lively, funny, patient, and wonderful. She is my example for everything I do. She is the yardstick with which I measure my life. I am so lucky to have such a shining example for a mother, even if she doesn't realize how true what I am saying is. I love her with all my heart, and I can only hope to be as good to my children as she has been to me.

I love you, Mom.
Happy Mother's Day.

a break from absurdity

I WILL continue the short story, but first, I wanted to share a website. Also, I wanted to brag about my submission making it to the website.

DEALBREAKER

GUESTBREAKER: You’ve (Recently) Been Photographed Wearing Jorts

Alright, so this picture was taken a while ago. Wait, what? That says 2008. We may have come a long way since 2008, especially in terms of Apple products, but not far enough to excuse you wearing jean shorts. I was excited that you liked the same music that I do and that you were ballsy enough to contact me through a mutual friend. So I admit it: I
Facebook stalked you. A bit. Not excessively, of course, because I stopped when I hit jean shorts. So unless you have an excuse of some sort or you turn out to be virtually perfect in many other ways, I’m gonna have to say “no, I don’t want to listen to your cover band, I have to wash my hair that night.”

An Anonymous Guest Dealbreaker.

The Absurdity of Life pt. 2

Morning.

The heinous sound of an alarm clock at an hour so early it shouldn’t be named.

He had given himself extra time. Matt had hoped, anxiously, as he was trying to get to sleep, that this fluke would rectify itself in the morning. But just in case, he had allotted himself two hours before class for the attempt.

Late last night, after clearing off his desk, he lay in bed, waiting for sleep. His eyes didn’t want to close. He shifted every few minutes, forcing himself to appear asleep, in case simply making himself look like a corpse would will his body into drowsiness. ‘I should be asleep,’ he thought. ‘I have a lot to do tomorrow. I need to wake up early!’ The anxiety crept in. He checked the clock. ‘Well, now I only have 6 hours of sleep. Great.’ He waited anxiously for sleep to come. But sleep doesn’t come when you’re anxious. A watched pot never boils.

Eventually, inevitably, he fell asleep. And now it was morning.

The red stapler glared at him, angling the early sunlight off of its shiny curved surface and onto the wall by his face. It was inviting him, mocking him.

Matt padded across the floor to the desk, ignoring the taste in his mouth telling him to brush his teeth because he just woke up. He slid open the drawer and dragged his nine pages out of its depths. He placed the paper in his left hand, stapler in his right.

Three more tries. One fruitlessly hit air; the other two were nearly-bloody technical failures.

This was getting ridiculous. He couldn’t remember this ever being a problem before. He had stapled millions of things in his life! Hadn’t he? Matt thought back to school projects in elementary school and book reports in middle school. He had the memories- he even remembered the feel of spongy construction paper between the cool metal of the classroom stapler. The satisfying ‘thunk’ it made when he leaned on it, the success of the staple’s closure.

So what was different now?

The Absurdity of Life pt. 1

"Please describe, in detail, the effects of parental alcoholism on the family unit. Use at least 7 peer reviewed sources and make sure to avoid personal attacks. Remember, this is an empirically based research assignment, so use of anecdotal evidence is not permitted. 5 pages minimum. This paper must be stapled or no credit will be received."

He had been staring at the assignment for the past hour. His desk lamp cast a yellowy glow on his face, dewy with the sweat of academic stress. He glared down at the paper again, hoping to see it again with less anxiety. But reading the sentence for the fifteenth, sixteenth time was not going to change it. "This paper must be stapled..." It was interesting how the simplest part of the assignment posed a greater challenge than the 7 pages he had already spent days researching and writing, revising and citing.

His desk was messy; which is normal for a college student, some would say. However, this particular clutter was of a different nature. It wasn't energy drink cans and residence-life fliers, or snack bags and to-do lists. His paper, all 9 pages (including the cover page and references) sat in a neat stack in the middle. His chair was lined up with his assignment, perpendicular to his desk. What made the desk so disordered was the staggering number of futile staples coating the desk and his red Schwinn stapler, unhinged and hostilely abandoned, near the edge. Each staple was different. Some had closed around an imaginary stack of papers, the arms bent inward like a friend giving a hug. Others were bent in the most bizarre ways, while some had even broken into two (or three) pieces. He hadn’t even known that was possible.

Frustrated, he put his elbows on the desk and thrust his hands into his hair.

Staring at it wasn’t going to help either.

He reached for the stapler again, not entirely defeated, it seems, and the staples stuck on his elbow fell to the desk to join the others. He bent the stapler back to its usual state, opened the back, and placed one more line of ammunition inside. He picked up the papers, angled them back into their neat stack, and held them steady together in his left hand. His right prepared for one more shot.

-Crunch-

His right hand hovered some three inches above the page. Not even close. One more time.

-Crucnchh-

This time the staple had mysteriously shot out of the stapler, ricocheted off the wall by his headboard, and missed his ear by millimeters. ‘Ok, this is getting dangerous again,’ he thought. He put the stapler back down, gently, afraid it might spit out another one. He decided to abandon the attempt for the time being and return to the project in the morning. In the meanwhile, he paper clipped the pages together, slid it into his desk drawer, and carefully swept the multitude of failed attempts into his waste basket.