The thing I miss most about living in Virginia is my friends. Since my Delta Delta Delta days at Penn State, I hadn’t had such a tight knit group of girls with whom I could talk about absolutely anything. In fact, it always seemed like our book club was the place where we had the most hilarious conversations, so it makes me sad I’m missing out on that tonight while all my NoVa friends yuck it up.
When we started the club five years ago, no one had kids. The funny part about this was that when it was a pre-baby book club, all we talked about was labor and delivery. I’d say 99% of our book club conversations revolved around what we heard about women pooping on the table during labor. Ironic, because none of us even had babies — so what did we know?
The truth is, once you’ve actually given birth (or at least in my case), you could care less if you poop on the table or not. In fact, during my last labor, I could have taken a shit on Grey’s head and I wouldn’t have cared. Indeed, I could have dumped on an entire room of people and not batted an eye, but I digress…
The point is, I always knew we could talk about anything during book club and I’m very grateful to have been a member for so long! And who knows, next month I’m going to a new club here at the beach, so maybe it’ll be the same way. I have a theory that if you give women from any state in the country a few glasses of wine and some appetizers they’ll all wind up talking about third nipples, poop during labor, and celebrity gossip. It’s in our blood!
Here's a pic we snapped at BC a few years ago. No clue why we all rubbing our nipples. I think we were making some sort of reference to Pride and Prejudice or Grapes of Wrath? This is a very intellectual crowd, as you can tell.
Last night I met my college girlfriends Amanda, Gwen, and Sairyn for dinner. Over salad and pizzas, we rehashed our four years at school and discussed the hairlines of countless ex-boyfriends. We laughed about things we did in college, that, at the time, just seems so normal (ie. drinking vodka cranberries ’til we peed the bed, dancing on mantles in skirts so short they were technically just underwear, and only eating Subway and Pokie sticks for weeks on end).
Of course we caught up on what’s going on in our lives currently too, but somehow it’s always more fun to talk about every single person who was in the Greek system at Penn State between the years of 1997 and 2001 — where they work, who they married, and how their skin looks.
After living in San Diego where the closest PSU girlfriend was 100 miles north in LA, I definitely value having girls who lived the same college experience as me right here in town. Granted, now that I’m taking care of a family, the life of a student seems SO far removed, but it’s always nice to have people around that share the same memories. Because really, when there’s no one around that remembers the same stuff you do — doesn’t it feel like it never happened? That’s why nights like last night are so great — they reaffirm that yes, at one point, I did wear a size 2 and stay out until 4am. Because as my belly gets puffier looking by the day and I have trouble keeping my eyes open past 9pm — I can hardly imagine anything else!
As Grey and I are try to sell our house, I can’t help but think of all the former places I’ve lived. I lie awake at night stressing about unloading this place and I count my former homes like sheep. There’s my parents house in Erie, dorms at Penn State, a waterfront condo in Pacific Beach, the “Underground Youth Hostel” in Sydney, an adorable Cape Cod cottage in Newport…to name a few. Nothing too fancy, but all memorable just the same.
Yet, of all the places I’ve lived, I must say, my first real apartment (meaning the one I paid for without my parents help…. most months at least) was the most unique. It wasn’t the location — it was in Manayunk, a funky little section of Philly where tons of Penn Staters gravitate following graduation. And it wasn’t the cost of rent — $450 bucks per month. What made my house on Hermitage Street so special (for lack of a better word), was that it was a former funeral home. No wonder it was so cheap; dead people used to hang out there!!
The funny thing was, when I moved, I initially had no idea. I just thought it was just a really big old house with tons of parking (perfect for keggers!). I lived there with my TriDelt sorority sister, Amanda and apparently both of us are clueless because we never made the connection that the giant double doors in the front of the house actually let people in to pay their respects or that the chilly laundry room was in fact an old embalming chamber. It wasn’t until one night when we ordered pizza and the delivery boy said, “So, you girls decided to rent the old parlor?” that we finally figured it out. Then it all made sense. The old signpost in the front yard. The circular drive with an actual parking lot in back of the house. The gigantic viewing area. Yep, we realized we were living in a creepy death chamber. So what else was there to do than gather some girlfriends to create a coven of witches for a seance?
Our little paranormal ritual was pretty run of the mill. Lots of wine. A few spells involving locks of hair and ex-boyfriends. Nothing exciting. However, post-seance, I woke up in the middle of the night  to find ALL the windows in the house WIDE open. Mind you, these were the giant old school windows that went from floor to ceiling and they each had about 10,000 coats of paint on them. Neither Amanda nor I had ever had much luck cracking more than a couple and all of a sudden, on a dark October night (too close to Halloween for comfort) they were all agape with neither of us having pried them open. It was like something was trying to get out. Or worse — IN. We were totally freaked.
So of course, this is what I like to remember when I start getting stressed about not being able to sell our house. I mean, our place here in Arlington is not haunted. That’s a good thing. And any house that doesn’t have a crematorium, well, that’s alright by me!
Home Sweet Home. Why I didn't immediately think: HAUNTED DEATH CHAMBER when deciding to rent it is beyond me. LOOK at the place! It screams PSYCHO ZOMBIE!
Amanda and I a few years post-funeral home residency at a friend's wedding. Surprisingly, the stress of living with ghosts didn't wreck our friendship.
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