Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.

So I had a Rory Gilmore moment at a fancy shmancy country club over the weekend.....I believe it was the first time someone has attempted to seduce me via the wine-'n-dine. Well, I drank water. I also ate two pork chops and two spring rolls filled with burgundy apples. I believe I impressed our somewhat metrosexual and portly waiter who had attempted vainly to steer me toward the salads for something "light." I've never been one much for "light." I mean, if you're going to pay more than ten bucks for a meal anyway, you may as well not spend it on lettuce and baby tomatoes.

Most of my students have grown up in country clubs and coached me all week on how I should act in such a hoity-toity environment. Despite my fellow's repeated assurances that the place "wasn't THAT fancy" (it was), I still enjoyed being alluded to all those crap Julia Roberts' movies where she is poor or Italian or a prostitute and someone rich (or from rich stock) pulls in to sweep her off her feet in a glamorous and passionate fashion.

My Brit. Lit. class at the south campus told me I shouldn't wear leg warmers to the club and I shouldn't shout things like "HOLLA!" which is how I occasionally begin class if my blood sugar is low. One of my favorite students, a snarky snowboarder with the longest blonde hippie hair this generation has seen, asked if I couldn't, as a favor to all the girls at school, go to the mall dressed as a hooker and finger all the expensive threads I could find at the Provo City Towne Center and wait for people to give me questioning glances at my fishnet tights and slut boots (my girls don't yet realize that just because THEY have a closet full of revealing outfits at home, not EVERYONE does), and then I was supposed to pull some credit cards out of my petite little red pleather purse and say: "Yeah, I got money! You don't think I got money?!"

Well, I didn't do that. But I did have a girlfriend doll me up with beefy curls and ringlets, eye shadow that would make Ferris Bueller's sister look tame, and lipstick to boot. Aubs, if you're reading this, I love you. My fellow told me I didn't need to look like that all the time, but it was a bit fun to role play the lord and lady bit for an evening. We took his dad's Mercedes Benz and the Janis Joplin inside my heart screamed against it but I just kept pulling the Rory Gilmore card. I can hobnob it and still retain my soul. At least for one night. I don't own a vase, so there is a bunch of flowers in a water pitcher on my desk at home (a real good mix of flowers, too, not roses...he opted for roses but figured I wasn't the rose type. I'm normally not one for bouquets in general......but they sure do spruce up my room!). Anyway, they spread out better in the water pitcher as opposed to a vase that would only constrict and formally compose the little plucked garden.

Ah, me. It is only fitting that a weekend full of fancies and fineries and Frightmares at Lagoon with the old gang, the new fella, and the sister Amanda should be followed up with a routine, ritualized, sheer-Emily push for SABOTAGE. Huzzah! My inner mongrel of escape and get-the-hell-out refuses to be bought off! The she-devil demon emerges, raising its pious, self-righteous, scared shiznatless, razor canined teethclaws, out for thrashing as passive-aggressively as humanly, nay subhumanly, possible at any and all hints towards commitment and shared identity and the subtle flaws and miscommunications that lurk in them waters. .......How terrifying to be a Brangelina, a PB&J, a Tomkat........a cankles or a moob.

Surprisingly, to both me and the she-demon, my fella didn't even really strike back, he just quieted the beast (not unlike that chick and her brother on Heroes....you know the couple. She gets panicky and her eyes turn black and start to bleed and kill off everybody around her, but then her brother can take her by the hands and stare into her eyes into her soul until the black enters his eyes and dissipates? Same story). There I was all, "KALI MA! KALI MAAAA!" with my hand ready to rip out somebody's heart, anybody's heart, in the name of whatever sick religion my soul runs to go sacrificing for when I get freaked out about the future, but he stopped me before I could pierce anything deeper than dying epidermis. Then he saw all my recent Facebook wall comments and we decided to go public. Hence, my change in status. I secretly despise my activity on the internet and Facebook is such a clever snake in my bag of procrastination tricks, but it seemed the thing to do yesterday afternoon. Holla! Next thing you know I'll be doing something REALLY crazy, like clearing the slate of wall-of-famer conquests you see on the picture panel to our right. It began as a film reel of my favorite people and memories, but no, it isn't completely unlike a wall of mounted animal heads, either. When those old boys go, then you'll know I'm really in it deep. In the meantime, it looks like I'm going to learn to skateboard, snowboard, and get a taste for punk music. Luckily, I already know how to climb and write real good. So.............haaaaaaaaaaaaaa............grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........
whompwhompwhompwhompwhompwhomp.
Here goes nothing!

***jumps into the black space, lets go of the easy ledge, takes one last breath before the deep plunge, presses the red button of the Great Glass Elevator, [insert favorite related cliché or pop cultural reference here]***

I have a boyfriend.