UPDATE

www.drunkandsingleinoxford.blogspot.com

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Pass it on to your friends.

And of course, reading the fucking thing.

I'm here!

I am here.

I am exhausted. I have xanax sitting in my top drawer for emergency use. Knowing that it is there has helped me manage my anxiety, bizarrely enough.

www.drunkandsingleinoxford.blogspot.com

And no there is no new posting, but start to check that site.

Because, thie NYC chapter is now officially over.

It's Official

I decend upon England Sept 27 at 6am in the morning.

What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

The Duality of Insomnia

There is something beautiful about sunrise in the city. An otherwise fast-paced hectic metropolis becomes this idyllic almost sleepy-town, slowly waking to another day. The exorexiacs are heading off to the gym—I have never seen more fit people in my neighborhood, I guess this is where they hide—the nice El Salvadorian men saying hello to me as I realize my boobs are hanging out of my tank top. Everything that characterizes this city still happens, but at a slower pace.

And then I go inside and put on the tv and realize that if I don’t want to watch news, the only alternative is Barney.

See, the reason why I am awake at 6:45am, typing away, is because I need to fight with the Ox about my student loans. It appears that there was a small problem with the mail and getting it to the place that it needs to be processed. I spent the entire weekend worried, crying all day today that I may not be able to get my student loans in time for me to apply for my student visa, because NYS has not acknowledged that they have received the paper work from the school.

In my fit of freaking out, I couldn’t sleep until I spoke to them.

So I call them, without sleep at 9am British time—4am NYC time. I got schooled this morning in a lesson in British culture.

See, I call the college and speak to the woman who deals with loans. Keep in mind I am an exuberant and emotional fucker. Little things excite me. Most people, rather most Americans, think this is adorable. I mean, how many 24yr olds jump up and down and get excited about little things. I find out from chatting to the woman that my fears are unfounded and that a paper stating that I am eligible to receive loans will be sufficient for me to get my visa, so I can leave the country next Tuesday as planned.

In my excitement, I say, which is a very Shannon-esque thing to say, “Oh my God, that is such fabulous news, I love you!”

Of course I love the woman who is telling me that I was being an emotional freak for nothing. She is taken aback and begs me to calm down.

Uhm, “calm down”? Because I told her in an exuberant manner that I was happy with the news?

They must think I am on a cocaine binge.

I wonder how that will work out when I run for social chair of the college.

A proper farewell

I got my wish and went to a fashion show.

I sat five seats away from Scarlet Johansen.

And of course as I am going to take pictures of the show, my batteries die. But I did manage to get two shots of the pre-show.

I am missing NYC already

Or maybe...

Maybe, the reason I've had nothing to write is because it is the end of this story. The character has become developed, she found her purpose, gave up her drinking and self-exploitative ways, and has settled down.

We had the climax of the story at the height of my depression/hating my job/applying to Oxford, and now we have resolution. I got in, am in the midst of preparing for my degree. My life reflects this contentment now. My indulgence at the moment is cheap wine (bottles under $15), BYOB restaurants, and my stripper class. My move to the UWS has cemented my lameness.

So once a story ends, it's time to begin a new one. Much like replacing the book on your night stand once you finish it. Keep an eye out for my new blog addy about being a Drunk and Single Girl at Oxford.

I know I suck

With so many things on my mind, trying to get everything in order for my venture overseas, the blog postings have sucked. I'll admit it. It's just not a high priority for me at the moment, instead I'd rather chain smoke and worry whether I have enough money in my bank account to satisfy the Brits for my visa.

So, to be perfectly honest, don't bother reading for the next week or so. I'm boring when I am worried and running around. And I am tired of subjecting you to this.

Another hurdle

I went to book my one way flight on orbitz, and in this world of heightened security, my flight needs to be confirmed by the airline.

So, I am flight-less as I wait for Virgin to confirm that I am not a terrorist.

On that note, let me share a funny story in Shannon history that makes me smile when I think of Virgin Atlantic:

As we all know I have a small fear of flying. The only way I can get onto a plane is if I have a bit of liquid courage. A few years back, when I was still a virgin (not the plane but hymenly challenged), and meeting a few friends for a trip around Europe, I met a bloke in the waiting area. As our flight was delayed, we decided to pass the time at the bar where we got LOADED. As luck would have it, we saw that we were sitting a few rows away from each other.

When we boarded the airplane, we asked a woman to switch seats so we could sit next to each other, to continue the conversation. We order more drinks and continue to chat. The lights in the cabin grow dim, and we are getting drunker. He puts a blanket over us and starts to lightly touch my leg. Now, I could say that I had no idea, but that would be bullshit. I wanted to see how far it would go. His hand moves up to my breast, and he begins to kiss me. Between sips of our vodka tonics, his hand ventures into my pants and he feels that I have a brazillian.

He invites me into the bathroom to join him and the mile high club. I turn him down. I was a virgin and didn't feel like losing my virginity over a toilet at 37,000 ft. He went to the bathroom, and waited for me. And returned all disapointed. I fell asleep with my head in his lap shortly after he returned to his seat.

It was one of the biggest regrets of my life. I mean, how fucking poetic would that have been? Losing my virginity on Virgin Atlantic...But that wasn't the only time I've been invited to join the mile high club.

Let's hope this trip will have the same luck.

Do the Unemployed Need a Vacation?

You know the problem with health living? It’s not that it is difficult to keep up—it isn’t. Find the discipline to cut the bad shit out of your life, and once it is out of sight, it’s out of mind. However, once you find yourself out of your routine and all of your temptations that you banned from your apartment become readily available and couple that with an inability to exercise and a house that begs for you to sleep in on the $2K sheets, and sip gourmet coffee for an hour on the porch admiring the view of the Blue Ridge mountains, as the dog laps at your feet begging for attention, it is easy to find the sloth inside that you thought was buried.

And then we have the chocolate sheet cake, a dinner party that started a bit late but the appetizers already made, and a constant stream of rain that has not allowed me to leave the house—this is my vacation in Virginia. Pure decadence on every level.

I wish I had something interesting and hysterical to report, except all I’ve been doing has been sleeping, eating, playing with the dog, and watching movies with Lu and seeing the C-ville gang.

Well, and playing house.

See for us girls who have been socialized to want the beautiful house, kids and dog, housesitting a place like this is like playing “house” as a grown up. Instead of the Easy Bake Oven, we have the gourmet kitchen with the staff room on the side. Replacing Barbie’s dresses is changing the collar of the pure bred dog. And fuck the pink Corvett, there is a cherry red Porsche convertible parked out front to play with. I played lady of the house on Sunday night: dressed in a skirt and cute heels combo, I straighten out the house as the pasta dish simmered on the stove, keeping the dinner warm for when the guests arrived. Ok, fine, Lu straightened the house as I got dressed and played with the dog. Semantics, people, but you get the picture.

I’ve gotten in touch with my domestic streak this summer: clipping recipes that look interesting, tidying up the apartments I’ve lived in, and going to the gym constantly. It’s like there was this little housewife buried inside that I’ve just unleashed. All I need to do is develop an addiction to prescription drugs and learn how to make the perfect martini and I may become good enough for a low-statused Rockefeller, you know, like the distant cousin who never finished rehab Rockefeller.

I’ll be posting pics on here of my vacay and the dinner party, and of me circumcising a sausage—don’t ask. Right now, I just want to lay down on the couch in the library with the dog, and scratch these fucking bites all over my leg. I hope they aren’t venomous spider bites because I am without health insurance since Sept 1.

When you are confined to the apt

I am watching a baby story.

You know, it's pretty easy to see a baby and just see the cute smile, the little hands, and the little pink or blue outfits. But, dude, we always end up blocking out the moment that it took to get there.

There is a 6-9 pound thing popping out of a woman's vag. And they showed it on a Baby Story. This woman, spread eagle, with her legs in the squatting position in the air, pushing the baby out of her vag.

I almost puked, especially when I realized that all women go through that they have children.

4am and it hits--I am going to Oxford!

Those of you who know me are probably wondering why I have been afflicted with this sense of modesty when it comes talking about my admission into the Ox. It could look like to some that it is false and that I am trying to get more attention by being humble, or maybe after reading this blog you may think that it comes from self-doubt and my inability to not talk about it is really an admission that I am scared of playing with the intellectual big boys.

Well, those reasons are fucking wrong.

The real reason is that I am petrified of jinxing myself.

I am an easily excitable person. Ask me for a restaurant recc and I will say that the food there is “amazing”, ask me what I think of a person and I will say that “she is my bestie”. I have a tendency to get caught up in the excitement and use a lot of hyperbole. At first this can be annoying because it’s like being around a PR girl all the time but, like most people you eventually grow to love it because life is always exciting for me and I like to share my excitement with other people—I mean, just ask my co-workers at the Agency and they’ll tell you how I used to walk around the office serenading everyone with my renditions of Ella Fitzgerald. You know slaves used to sing in order to keep their sanity—well, the same went for me, I created my own creative outlet.

But by having this easily excitable personality comes a downfall, I am a firm believer that the “evil eye” is watching over me, ready to take away my happiness, so I end up sweeping the truly special things under the rug. Last year I bragged how I found the most amazing apartment, with the most amazing best friend in the entire world and employed by the most amazing agency, and within three weeks I was in the hospital with meningitis, crying at my desk daily, and trying to explain to my roommate that if he clogs a toilet, it should be him that uses the plunger. The evil eye has it out for me.

Like, I haven’t even told the alumnae magazine yet about me getting into school! This was a fucking secret. I am not blowing my escape. I mean, I even went as far to make appointments with doctors so that I could get a clean bill of health, you know, to ward off the cancer causing evil eye. I am covering my ass on this one, and part of that is not discussing it.

But when you choose to ignore a moment and not talk about it, it’s easy to forget that it exists. Much like me heading off to Oxford in the fall. It has been very easy for me to say “I am going to Oxford” when I didn’t know the dates of the term or when I was supposed to arrive. Like, it didn’t feel real—just something that I was going to do in the future without any commitment that I am actually going to do it, like saying that I am going to get married or going to have kids. Someday I will, but I can’t tell you when that someday will be.

However, I’ve just been jolted to reality in receiving my “induction” packet. And it motherfuckingly hit: I am going to a foreign country, 5,000 miles away from my family and friends and the only life that I have ever known—a stereotypical NYC/LI gal and throwing myself into the place that the term “old skool” refers to. I will be donning my sub fusc to take exams and have sherry before dinner and go to parties called bops.

What the fuck did I get myself into?

As if the culture shock isn’t even more astounding, I am further reminded that I am no longer in Jew York—the first day of orientation is on Yom Kippur. What school in the NYC would ever have the first day of orientation for new students on one of the most holy Jewish holidays? I might as well draw a star of david on my forehead at this point.

It just served as another reminder that I am going to a place that is completely different than anything that I have ever known. But there is an excitement in having the ability to reinvent yourself—learning from the mistakes and lessons from the past and applying them to your new circumstances. The people there are going to think I am just naturally wise instead of realizing that I have put myself in every crazy hair brained scheme imaginable all in the name of experience—and yes, I really did work as a dominatrix for a night because I was curious.

But what is even cooler, is that the Jewish community there, well from what I saw from the pics on the Jewish Student Society’s homepage, is something that I have never seen before. As a Jewish single gal in NYC, I realize that finding a nice Jewish boy is a “challenge”. So much so, that the veto power skews for the guy. Work in finance, law, or medicine and no matter how nebbishy you look, how many genital warts scars you had lasered off, fat, ugly bald, short, acne scars and you will have a half way hot gal on your arm to take home to mom for shabbos dinner. The more zeros in your salary, the hotter the girl. A direct relationship in stats speak.

It’s rough being a single Jew gal in this city. It’s a fierce competition among the participants to snag the best guy—including sabotaging each other by telling one another that those jeans don’t make our ass look big, when in fact it makes it look tremendous. We work out and munch on salad, wear our ivy education on our sleeve while highlighting our nurturing instinct, because lets face it, there is an element of truth to the premise of Jewtopia (a Christian guy wanting to marry a Jewish girl so he never has to make another decision again). We work in order to be attractive to the Jewish male species.

But over there it’s different. The power is skewed, and for once, in my favor.

The men were HOTT. Yes, I am using the word HOTT (two t’s and in caps for added emphasis) to describe the members of my tribe. Which is usually not an adjective that is thrown around to describe my people. We are known as funny, smart, good with money, a bit Japy, but as a whole you would never use the word HOT to describe Jews. Maybe Brazillians, maybe Israelis even, but definitely not the Jewish population as a whole. But what makes me excited is not that the Jews pictured were hot, but that the girls were BUSTED. I can’t even say that they “weren’t that pretty” or any other euphemism to say that someone’s face reminds you of the elephant man, a lot of these girls were unfortunate looking. And I’m not.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be a contender in capturing the prey and not have to take the left over scraps from the lionesses who’ve feasted first?

And maybe, just maybe, I might be able to have a normal relationship with a guy who shares a lot of my quirks, is smart, and hopefully hasn’t been with men? But I think being with men thing is less a religious thing than it is a Shannon thing. I need to break myself out of the habit of sharing the same taste in men that my crushes do.

So, yes, I am excited but also freaking out. The smoking has commenced. The late night phone calls and insomnia has begun. And my obsessive streak kicking in by me pouring over the college website and memorizing what exactly sub fusc is.

But to share with you readers my moment of irony—remember a while back how I bragged that I got my grade in my stats class because I talked to the professor, after I failed the tests, never showed up for class, nor did any of the homework? Yea, well, the evil eye actually has reared its ugly head. It seems that I need to buy a stats text book and “review” chapters 1-6, material that I should already be familiar with for my required statistics course.

Why do I think at Oxford that it will take a lot more than just dinner and out drinking my professor?

It’s funny, as soon as I got my homework assignment, I stopped romanticizing my undergrad experience. Think about it, often times we look back to the times where we were comfortable with this fondness, idealizing it because in many ways it is simpler than our present life. Undergrad is fun. Drinking all the time, your friends within a fifteen minute walk, omelets catered to your liking after a rough night drinking. In wanting to hold onto a memory, I also created a fallacy in a sense at the same time. The reality: I enjoyed college because I was drunk all the time and I had friends and my wifey to escape into. As much fun as it was, it was also an incredibly unhealthy, physically and emotionally time for me. There was a semester that I couldn’t even get out of bed because I was so depressed—instead I stayed in my room and drank jugs of Carlo Rossi wine.

We don’t remember that shit, now do we? Or rather, we choose not to remember that shit, now don’t we?

But I am incredibly excited. It’s like I feel like I am given an opportunity to take the lessons I learned thus far and apply it to this amazing experience—so I can actually take full advantage of it and not spend it drunk and doubtful about myself. It’s very symbolic for me, it’s like I am revisiting my fourteen year old self, the healthy, kinda mouthy, dark brown haired girl that somehow whose identity got muddled. It’s almost as if now I can find her, spare her the pain and frustrations of the next ten years, and let her reap the rewards of this new experience. If you think about it, we go through shit, and then somehow end up full circle from where we began. But just this time, a bit wiser having gone around the block a few times.

So yea, this is where I stand on Oxford. It’s fucking hitting me. I am off to grad school in three and half weeks. I am having a going away party in a few weeks. And I am leaving a lot behind by the month’s end. Bittersweet is too clichéd a word to describe what I am feeling right now.

And it’s almost 4am as I finish typing this. This stream of consciousness enabled by my inability to sleep due to mole removal #2. This one was on my back an I am sore sore sore. But off to VA on Sat for a few days to visit the wifey and my gay platonic soulmate.