Oy. I'm back in Denton for a visit and I must say it is mother funkin' hot. Matt and I went for our weekly Thai Ocha fix and our usual waiter says in his thick Thai accent, " what no basil duck today??" when for the first time ever, matt didn't order a huge plate o' duck. Something felt good about that; someone recognized us and our mannerisms and habits.

So all I've been doing in big D includes: sleeping, watching about 10 hours of TV a day, studying GRE vocabulary, and working at Kohl's. All I do is pick up the dressing rooms and fold stuff. This is a great job. I stand around and day dream and get paid for it. I had to take a drug test as I may have before mentioned. Not that I had anything to worry about, but I always get nervous. " What about all that smoke that drifted out of my old wake-and-bake roommate's room? Will they think the pseudoephedrine in my claritin is meth?" And then there's the whole peeing in the cup thing. There's a big sign on the restroom door that says " YOU HAVE 4 MINUTES TO PRODUCE YOUR SAMPLE." Pressure. Luckily this time I was able to get myself in such a zen-like state so I could tinkle in the cup. my mantra: " You will not pee on your hand. You will not pee on your hand." Anyway.

I went to Houston on Monday with my mom and Ian as a day trip to help out with my 3-year-old cousin Mikey. Although my mom is addicted to her cell phone, we get along. She's alright as far as moms go. My brother, however, consumed a sausage egg mcmuffin, a bag of chex party mix, pringles, starburst, chicken fingers, fries, 3 cokes, and my cousin's food all in about a 6 hour binge. We took Mikey to the mall and it was a hundred-and-fuck degrees with Houston humidity, so it was hot even inside the building. At one point my mom was going back to all the stores to find where Ian had left his game boy case, so I was in charge of both Ian ( 8 ) and Mikey ( 3). They wanted to play in the fountain outside, where there were about 4 little girls running around in their underwear. Moms nowhere in sight. I tell the boys no and explain that they will feel bad if they're sopping wet in my car. ( And I don't want my car to be wet.) I tried my time-tested 'distract distract distract" method, but the kids saw through it and started begging to go run in the fountain. ( Mikey: Pweeeeeeease!!!") I gave in and said, " alright but just your hands and your face..." but before they could hear the rest they shot off and out the doors , right into the water. Mikey was already soaked but I caught Ian in time and yelled at him for not listening. He got pissed off and ran back in the mall. My initial reaction: uh, he'll come back. But, guilt got the best of me so I grabbed Mikey and ran back in the mall with this thrashing screaming little kid and yelled " IANNNNN". I thanked the lord jesus right then and there for birth control. I aprehended him finally and totally got him in trouble with our mom. It was cool to just feel like a big sister than a second mom. You're never too old to rat on your siblings.

Ok, computer time is taking away from Matt time and he's looking at me like a sad, annoyed puppy dog. I will add that I finally went to this " Lower Greenville" I've heard so much about last night with friends. It reminded me so much of Fry Street and how much I will always have a special place in my heart for Denton. I just read the blog of a girl I knew from freshman year ( yes, I admit I'm a blogger stalker ), and she was about to move away from here too. She wrote a really good post about measuring her 4 years, 8 months, and so many odd days in classes and tests and parties and pounds ( haha ) . In friends, in lovers, in triumphs and in heart breaks. It was good. A lot of shit goes down in college. A part of me misses it a lot.

So that is why I am concentrating on learning these bullshit GRE words. One day I hope to not be impecunious and am chary of all good fortune. Everything is so ephemeral.

I'm going to finish memoir #1 and write memoir #2 tomorrow.