My diabolical inner monologues

Imprimatur, 1: a license to print or publish especially by Roman Catholic episcopal authority *2: sanction or approval.

Today I gave myself the imprimatur to travel to Italy mid-March, Paris at the end of March, Athens for my Birthday and London the following weekend. However excited I am about my future travels, I am making a public complaint against Ryanair and their asinine change-of-booking fee of 50 euros. I loathe you--you pathetic joke of an airline. If I didn’t love my computer so much I would have karate kicked the website screen. I would call and make a formal complaint but it’s impossible to talk to someone over the phone. To conclude, to Ryanair, Tiene huevo la cosa.

So yes, I decided to start my 23rd year on the planet with a big step. I wanted to go somewhere really special. I have always dreamed of going to Athens, Greece. I’m not sure where it comes from, maybe all the classic Greek literature I’ve read in my life. But, I decided that’s where I’m going to turn 23. I’m smiling just writing about it.

In not so hopeful foreign life news, I woke up this morning as if someone had thrown ice water on me. I woke up just after I had had a dream about my Dad. I was standing somewhere in a store by the check-out, reaming my Dad out for everything. I think he had tried to blame me for everything and I just went off, telling him I didn’t want him in my life, I didn’t want his last name, and that I wanted him to forget mine. I’m still kind of reeling. The weirdest part of the dream is that my favorite teacher Maria Bravo was there and she was standing in the background, looking at me with disappointment. Like my outburst was inappropriate? I thought it was a random dream--sadly, Kenny and his dream book aren’t here to help me sort it out. The best I can say is that amongst the hurt, I have some repressed anger towards my Dad. Anger I wasn’t aware I had been carrying around for the past 2 years. The most ironic part of the dream is that I had previously been patting myself on the back for not having any small moments of sadness thinking about my Dad. When I was talking to Amy the other day, I had told her that I had gone on a really long run without thinking about anything stressful--it occurred to me on that hour run, that I am really content lately. Spain is like a bubble, where I control what is going to stress me out and what is not important. Here, I don’t have any reminders of my father, no car to worry about, no upcoming exam to keep me up at night, and no dramatic people in my daily life. Yet, for 2 days I have been unable to sleep, pestered by some unknown discontentment bubbling under the surface--so what gives?

It begs the question--am I traveling or am I escaping? It pops into my head every now and again when I stare out my window onto the quiet life outside. I would tentatively answer--I’m not escaping, I’m taking time for myself. Here, it’s about what I want to do, rarely what I have to do. I’m far enough away from my normal life to get some perspective on things. I need to work on overcoming stress: usually due to my haphazard talent of taking too much on at one time, or trying to complete too many tasks in one day.

It’s silly really, thinking about myself running around all worked up all the time. I guess that’s what makes me entertaining, my diabolical inner monologues about blockbluster late fees, airplane change-of-booking fees, chatty kathy’s on their cell phones in line...etc. I think Will is now fully versed in the weirdness that encompasses my personality. I was curious about the cleaning products under the sink in unmarked spray bottles. So I took a whiff, which probably killed about a million brain cells--and then proceeded to spray them in different spots on the counter: testing their cleaning power. I ended up putting them away, worrying about poisoning us both. Later, I decided to ask Will if he was curious what they were as well, he said no, definitely not. I said “we could test it on the stove cover...just to see..” he shook his head and said whatever I wanted to do. Ultimately, it cuts grease incredibly well and now our stove cover isn’t greasy but is shiny and sparkling. I eased my mind by putting it into the stove-cleaner category. I’m still thinking about asking the landlord’s mother who works at our school if she had any idea what they were. But that might be exposing my weird/random inner monologue too much, some things are better kept to ourselves.