going puppy to puppy

A few months ago, my boyfriend’s then-roommate brought home a package of toilet paper intended for consumers with children of the potty-training age. On the TP, spaced five or six sheets apart, were puppies in various jungle scenes. The idea was simple: children were to follow the paw prints that separated the dogs until they reached a puppy. Once the child tore at the puppy, he or she would have acquired roughly five sheets of toilet paper, an amount the manufacturers declared average for one wipe.

We three (my boyfriend, his roommate, and I) took to the training-paper immediately. We were nearing the end of our undergraduate careers with no set plans for the future. There was so much we wanted to do; there was so little we knew how to do. We imagined potty-trainers and we envied them. How confident they must be! we thought, sure to find a guide dog at the end of those paw prints.

There are no toiletries to guide the recent graduate. Nor is there a standard amount of time between graduation and “what I want to do with my life.” More and more graduates are pursuing temporary careers, putting law school, etc. on hold. I am no exception. I plan, eventually, to enroll in a graduate program and get my Ph.D in Literature, but not quite yet. This blog will serve as a record of my time in the paw prints.

Jan 6

“adults and how to be one”



Max updated his facebook profile the other day, and while those things tend to be rather tongue-in-cheek (my current interests, I believe, include “really old bangers” and “girls who eat their feelings”) there is a lot of truth in that third interest. 2009 will be the first year that Max and I have to be real adults all year long. We did OK in 2008- we made rent, we took responsibility for the life of one mangy beast, we skated along happily. But 2009 will be different! We are REAL PEOPLE now. We are keeping the apartment clean, doing our dishes, writing thank you notes, looking for new jobs. I am researching health insurance. We are planning our first European vacation! These are all little things, but I guess all you have to do to be an adult is keep the little things in order. It’s not so hard, it’s just not always awesome.

The wireless internet we were stealing stopped working so today we decided to do another real person thing, which is to order and start paying for our own internet. Lacking the internet, this process was a little more complicated than I expected.


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