Tee Hee

When I applied for university housing, way back when, I remember selecting as my first choice one of the freshman high-rises. They had sort of a bum rap — sardine cans of clueless freshmen, essentially — but I'd had a great experience in a high-rise at GHP and thought it'd be a bonding experience. I've since heard from others that it did help them integrate and make proper friend groups that have lasted well past university.

One of my other choices (there were three blank lines to fill in) was Mary Lyndon, selected sort of at random from UGA's website.

That summer, at a pool party, I met a really hot guy who was apparently going into his second year at UGA. "What dorm will you be in?" I asked. "Mary Lyndon!" Thought I: DAMN. There's a chance, though, right?

The chances were minimal. Everybody got put into the high-rises because they didn't get into all the other dorms on campus.

Not a month later, the phone rang, and — like one of those crisp scenes recorded in HD forever — I remember the conversation exactly.

"Hi, I'm phoning from UGA's housing department. We've had some sort of a mix-up and can't seem to find the form where you indicated your housing preferences! I'm so sorry we've left it this late to contact you! I'll do my best to place you in your first choice. So sorry. So... what was your first choice?"

"Mary Lyndon."


It was an easy lie. And bless her, that lady DID allocate me into Mary Lyndon.



Only now, 8 years later, did it occur to me what incredible consequences my flash of a lie might have had on the rest of my life. Who knows? Maybe if I had been in one of the high-rises, I wouldn't have walked out on UGA after two years; I might have chosen different majors; I might have made a lot of different choices in a lot of different ways.


I, for one, am laughing about it.

[Un]Interrupted Prosperity[/Romance]

Have you ever been about to kiss somebody — like, both of you holding your breath, intense gazing, inches away — and then had somebody walk through the door and interrupt you?


This happened to me, once. ON VALENTINE'S DAY, too. It was maybe a year or more before I eventually snogged the guy.

Home

Shortly after we moved from Shetland to Cornwall, I told my then-husband that I wasn't sure Cornwall would ever feel like home the way Shetland did.

... and it never did.



Shetland may have been fucked up, but Cornwall and Devon are juuuust close enough (culturally) to my nook of the USA to make me resent the differences.

April Fool's Day is the worst day of the year.

I hate virtually all practical jokes and always have. I'm just not a practical joke type of person, and then my resentment deepened when, year after year, people would think March 31 was almost April Fool's and get me some "hilarious" gag gift. Thanks, but no thanks.


I was born congenitally gullible; practical jokes are a minefield. You know how you can say, "Hey, look! Here's 'gullible' written on the wall!" — and some people will look? I'm one of them.

This of course then became The Paradox of Gullible People: I became (and still am) totally paranoid and frequently refuse to believe what people are telling me — or if they're telling me something I don't want to hear, I refuse to believe they have my best interests at heart. And then the problem with paranoia is that every so rarely, some crazy, horrible fear proves to be spot-on, so then the paranoia bulks itself massively, feeding on this incident.


All I know is that when I was about 13, on April 1st, a few of my classmates in the gym told me, "You've got a wasp stuck in your hair!"

I refused to believe them, thinking it was another crappy April Fool's Day joke, until I finally thought I might actually feel something squirming around. I reached up to feel in my hair —


Aaaaand then I got stung by a wasp, and the day after a birthday is always a bit of a downer anyway, and honestly, there is NO worse day than April 1st, wasp or no wasp, so April can just bite me, and if my classmates hadn't tormented me constantly anyway, I might have believed them, so it's obviously all their fault.


Right?