Given a Choice Between Buses and Magic Carpets, I'd Choose the Bus

I've been meaning to write for a long time about my trip to England. I'm not sure exactly what sparked the inspiration, but here is part 1 of what I assume will be at least 3 on my adventures in Cambridge. I went there with small group (11 women, 1 man, and our teacher) for 4 weeks for a study abroad program in August 2010. We lived in the Homerton dorm, about two miles from downtown Cambridge. This is what I remember:

Classes started at 9 or 10 in the morning, depending on whether or not we went sightseeing the night before. If I didn't wake up in enough time to grab free breakfast in the commons, I would take the bus to the Pitt building (where we conducted our studies), and before going to class I'd wait for the bakery across the street to open so I could grab an apple turnover. When class was over (at noon or 3pm, depending on whether we were watching a movie that afternoon), I’d ride the city bus the two miles back to my dorm in order to drop off my books and grab my purse. From there, I'd take the bus back into downtown and spend the afternoon in the marketplace.

I didn't mind backtracking to the dorm just to drop off my books; I was a big fan of riding the bus for a number of reasons: it made a bunch of fun clicking noises, it was always transporting interesting characters (which I will expand upon), and it was a marvel to watch the driver navigate the narrow, crowded streets. But mostly it was because it was a double-decker, and if you sat on the second floor in the very front, you could watch the bus "eat" and then "throw up" the car immediately in front of the bus as it went in and out of the view of the front windshield. Some of my best memories from England are on the second floor of those buses, sitting up at the front, joking and laughing about the events of the day, pausing momentarily to make puking noises when the car in front of us would drive away.

The most unforgettable memory I have of those buses took place on an afternoon in early August. We were off to Grantchester to enjoy tea in the Orchard, and most of the girls in our group decided to sit on the second level. In the back of the bus sat an unfortunate duo of white gangsters who were quiet at first, but only because they were searching for the next horrible song they wanted to blast from their MP3 player.

Their music was very hardcore, and it that made us tsk in protest. Just as we were about to pass the point of politely asking them to "turn that shit off or we will throw you off this bus," the mood changed very drastically. The girls and I found ourselves looking at each other, completely perplexed. And then we started giggling. The boys were not only listening, but singing along to "Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney.


For their backwards hats, "wifebeater" tanktops, dolla bill bling, and pants near to their knees, it just didn't seem quite the right fit for them. But that didn't stop us all from having a singalong. The boys serenaded us, and we pretended to swoon. When we got off the bus, they blew us kisses. We blew them back.

Burying the Past

Brian: You have a boyfriend?!

Jared’s Mom: Yeah!

Paul: And I’m a great guy. I’m unemployed, but that makes her feel useful in the relationship.

Jared’s Mom: I’m gonna fix him!

Paul: Our relationship will do fine on that basis.
Jared's Mom: If he had his life together, I wouldn't be into it!
Paul: But I don't!

-Family Guy, Season 6 Episode 11,"The Former Life of Brian"

It feels silly, but I have a very difficult time finding reasons to write when my life is going well. I'm addicted to flowery language, and I don’t think “fluff” makes for the best writing; I am easily distracted by large amounts of corniness, and that’s not what I want to look back on. It’s embarrassing to reread my posts and say, “Yeah, I get it, I was happy. But this is just disgusting.” In addition, there is only so much to say: the Giant and I are doing incredibly well, I love my job, and living with my parents isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. (Obviously, communicating my happiness in a worthwhile way is something I need to work on as a writer, but I’d rather practice in my private diary than on my public blog.) So I’m sorry for the lag in posts, but I’m going to try and be better about it for my (six?) loyal fans.

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately are the people who no longer influence my life or the decisions I make—specifically the boyfriends who left the biggest impression on me. For some reason (I’m trying to figure this out, and I’ll update you guys if I do), it would have to be Freckled. Maybe it's because we were together for so long, and I never thought I'd have the courage to get out. Maybe it's because we were engaged and I really thought that he was going to be my life. Regardless of the answer, it’s awkward for me to think that I should be married now for just over a year. I guess it doesn’t bother me, but it’s peculiar that I don’t remember shit about my relationship with Freckled timeline-wise. I have no idea how long we were really together. My default is, “We were together for 3 years,” which is quite possibly an exaggeration. So let’s figure it out.

He and I met in mid-November of 2006. I was a freshman in college. I had a boyfriend, he had a girlfriend, and both of us knew that our relationships weren’t going anywhere. Eventually, near the end of the school year, we both broke it off within a week of each other. We didn’t plan this: it just happened that way. Seeing as I am a combination of both hopeless and romantic, I must have taken it as a sign that he and I were meant to be together for however long. He proposed three months after we officially started dating (overall, we’d known each other 11 months), which was a few days before my 19th birthday (October 2007). The reason I didn’t say "No" was because I didn’t know how to refuse someone who wanted to give his life to me. Instead of saying, "I don't think this is a good idea," I said, "Yes."

Well, more accurately I said, “Okay, sure.” For those of you who are wondering why I complain when anyone says “sure,” “fine,” or “okay” to me, imagine the following scenario: You’re kneeling before the love of your life. You’re asking them to marry you. You hear the word “sure” come out of their mouth. From the most extreme to the piddliest of examples, “sure” is a cop-out. It says to me, “I don’t really want to, but you asked and I don’t have anything better to do.” It is a horrible excuse for a solid answer. I know that’s not fair and it’s just me, but it’s there in my mind as that. 

Eventually, I broke off our engagement only a few months before I officially called it quits on the whole shebang in November of 2009.

And it hasn't just been Freckled who has been on my mind. Lately, I've been musing over what I’ve put myself through, what men have put me through, and how stupid it all seems once you find a person who’s good for you, good to you. These men weren’t predominantly bad, but the last few months of every relationship were sour ones. Those are the last moments I went through with these men, and these memories overshadow everything that was good. I forget what I ever even liked about them.

The trend that I’ve picked up on is that I’ve always dated men who can be aptly termed "nothing special." I could have had good relationships with them had they not possessed one of a vast variety of major faults; I can put up with a lot, but manipulation, a lack of motivation, a short temper, or any type of abusiveness are deal-breakers to me. All the men I’ve been with have had one fault that they really, really needed to fix, or I needed to get out.

Obviously, I’m not impressed with my past behavior. Like the above-mentioned Family Guy quote, I seem to gravitate toward men who need to be fixed. I’m your typical woman in that I want to be the one that saves you, the exception to the rule, and all those other drab cliches.

So I'm happy to announce that, with the Giant, it’s not work anymore. We’re open and honest with each other, and especially with ourselves, and we realize that we do have issues we need to address if we want to make this work. It seems an oddity to me, but we’re both pitching in—there is nothing one-sided about this relationship, like so many have been in my past. We’re balanced, and our issues aren’t the overwhelming type that keep you up at night. We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them, and not a moment sooner.