Adrienne Nadeau

I have been working like a dog.  Crazy hours, tons of stress, horrific eating habits, too much caffeine . . . it hasn’t been great.  Although, I must say, grinding pays off.  I’ve been getting a tremendous amount done. My original plan was to work till Thanksgiving break  (which starts tomorrow!  Yay!)  and then let the irresponsibility wash over me.  But with papers due, homework assigned, and chores to accomplish, “break” probably won’t be too restful, so I just took yesterday off.  True, I got some e-mails sent, some phone calls made, attended accounting class (begrudgingly), but mostly just watched TV and hung around in pajamas.

After class The Solider came home with me.  He wanted me to help him with his facebook page, and we were going to pre-game my poetry show.  It was ridiculous amounts of fun. I cooked up some food, broke into the beer, and it’s funny how much of an adventure life can be when you’re drunk.  It’s a blur of laughter and sexual tension, but there are pictures  of us wrapped up in a blanket like the Phantom of the Opera wearing my masks from New Orleans, so clearly we had descended to some interesting places.

This wasn’t the first time The Solider’s been to my place.  Last month he stopped by to study . . . which resulted in us making out and creating a tense energy that hangs heavy over the friendship.  The first time he came over,  I showed him around my awesome campus-owned apartment.  It was set up for 4 girls (we rent by the room) but only 2 of us showed up (my roommate, by the way, is amazing).  As a result, we each have our own bathroom, entrance, and a huge living room.  We even have 2 empty bedrooms that were using for storage . . . until Campus Housing came up and locked up the 2 spare rooms.  We weren’t paying for them, so we couldn’t have access to them.  I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t lock up the extra bathroom!  Of course, my luck being what it is, the locked up the rooms on the day that my Roommate invites 3 friends from home to spend the night in the city.  We were going to have plenty of space, but now her girlfriends would have to pile up on the living room floor.

Anyway, The Solider is over, standing in the hallway, and asks what the closed doors are.  I explain the situation, and he jokingly turns the door handle just to check and see if it’s really locked.  I have no idea what happened, but the door opened!  Like freaking magic! I moved everyone’s stuff to the spare room, and happily told them what happened.  Of course, by the time the Roommate got home, he had concocted an elaborate story about how he took apart a pen, picked the lock, put the pen back together, and basically saved the day.  My poor, trusting Roommate believed him and spent the next couple days asking me if I could get my friend to come over and try the other door.

Last night, he admired his handiwork, asking us how we liked having our spare room back and saying how lucky we were that he was so good with a pen.  Boys are ridiculous creatures.  Anyway, I had a lot of responsibilities, but drunkenness, boys, and poetry felt vastly more important.

The poetry show was phenomenal.  Just one of those lucky nights where a bunch of talented people show up and do their thing.  Very inspiring.  And it’s great to sit at a table with a bunch of talented people you like and respect and just enjoy each other.  We were all gossiping, and writing in notebooks, and just having a hell of a time.

The Solider drove me home.  A little early, the show hadn’t ended, but we’d had it.  Which was for the best because we got a little lost on the way home.  Thank goodness for GPS.  Sobering up, The Solider started lamenting about all the stuff he had to do and the stress.  I’m sympathetic, but I told him he had to just carve out a little peace for himself to keep his sanity.  We were having a fun night.  A homework free night.  He shouldn’t ruin it by listing his homework assignments in his head.  That was for tomorrow.  I need to take my own advice.  I’ll veg out and watch House or something, but it’s hard to shut my brain down and just indulge in rest.  I need to get better at it.

Espresso and Adderall probably don’t help.  But I am still a work in progress.