tuesday june third.
otherwise known as EMILY'S TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY.
last year i blogged about turning twenty-two and the whole gist of it was like "when you're twenty-two people expect you to have your shit together and maybe like, have an apartment and a significant other and all that good stuff".
last year, on my twenty-second birthday, i didn't have a real kid job, i was still in college, and i was single and not quite ready to mingle because my two and a half year relationship ended and i needed to fall in love with myself before i could fall in love with a man that probably picks his nose.
when you're twenty-three, what do people expect out of you? like, what are societal expectations for being a twenty-three year old?
i am twenty-three and i have these things going for me:
1. a menial, part time job at a grocery store
2. a pretty swell significant other (that i don't believe picks his nose?)
3. a sixteen year old minivan with a michigan sticker on it
4. a super low alcohol tolerance reputation at an alma pub
5. my very own bookshelf adorned with lots of books
6. A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
7. little to no sense of financial security
8. a vague idea of what i'm doing with my life
9. this blog
i mean, that's some nice stuff going for me, right?
things i am lacking:
1. a real job
2. by real i mean where i actually use my english degree and i'm not stocking green peppers
3. my significant other being IN THE SAME STATE AS ME
4. living in my own place (though i do have a bunch of stuff to move into an apartment on a moment's notice)
5. actual ownership of my sixteen year old minivan
6. did i mention a real job?
soooo i legitimately just googled "societal expectations of being twenty-three" and what popped up was a summary of chapter twenty-three of great expectations by charles dickens.
the english major in me should be thrilled, but good lord, i hated that book. the only redeeming quality was miss havisham catching on fire and dying.
there are a lot of things i could be doing with my life, but what happened was i got hired part time as a producer at kroger, which is entertaining in its own way, but nowhere near what i should be doing with my life. but HAYYY IT'S MONAAAYYYYY.
i'm really starting to feel the whole "marry rich" thing. i'm getting a good vibe from it.
me getting hired at kroger is a gigantic post in and of itself, and don't worry, i'll make sure to post about it.
but here's how working on my birthday came about.
me: heyyy doug?
doug, the creepy supervisor: what's up
me: uhhhh do i have to work on tuesday... it's kind of my birthday
doug: lol
i worked a four hour shift today stocking vegetables and washing broccoli.
a very intense italian lady yelled at me for not having organic bananas that we were not the ripeness that she required, another lady almost ran me over with her cart while i was stocking cilantro, i accidentally put a bunch of cucumbers in the zucchini bin and some lady caught me, an old guy told me i was beautiful, and another old guy decided that it would be funny to start dragging my cardboard cart backwards while i was diligently taking it to the baler.
like, who does that?
who sees a college-aged girl dragging a huge-ass cart of cardboard down the frozen foods aisle and thinks you know what'll be really funny? if i grab the back of her cart and drag it backwards.
blake, this guy i work with, is pretty fun. he was kind of being an asshole to me in a friendly way and finally i threw some broccoli at him and i yelled IT IS MY BIRTHDAY AND I HAVE A BACHELOR'S DEGREE and then he was nice to me.
when you work a menial job, flaunt your degree. people start to respect you.
when i clocked out of my shift, i ran into my US history teacher and he nodded at me and said hello and all i could think was oh my god i bet he expected so much more out of me, i bet he expected me to have a real job that makes real money and doing real things and oh god what am i doing with my life
then i calmly reminded myself that kroger is temporary. (life is temporary, but let's not get all existential on my birthday.) i'm working at kroger to save up money for graduate school in ENGLAND so i can have a MASTER'S DEGREE and become the next JOHN GREEN.
maybe without the sharpie.
and without killing all my characters.
besides working at kroger today, i spent some quality time watching hannibal with hamlet, my bearded dragon.
he was being all cute, just sittin' on my lap like this
HE'S SO CUTE
and then suddenly he trembled a little bit and then
HE POOPED ALL OVER MY WHITE DRESS.
i put him in time out for that.
it hasn't been one of the best birthdays i've ever had, but it's been a birthday, and birthdays are exciting and special. i got a new book and my momma is getting me a new bookshelf and i get to help pick it out.
a girl with a bachelor's degree in english needs a good bookshelf for all of her books, even the weird ones, like grasses of a thousand colours.
you know, that one play i blogged about forever ago about the dude that has sex with cats.
(pssst here's my badass birthday cake that should make you insanely jealous)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ME.
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