"But I could never follow, no I could never follow. If you ever want to find me I can still be found, taking the long way around, taking the long way"

"My friends from high school married their high school boyfriends, moved into houses in the same ZIP codes where their parents live. But I could never follow No I, I could never follow. I hit the highway in a pink RV with stars on the ceiling. Lived like a gypsy, six strong hands on the steering wheel. I've been a long time gone now, maybe someday, someday, I'm gonna settle down. But I've always found my way somehow, by taking the long way, taking the way around, taking the long way, taking the way around. I met the queen of whatever. Drank with Irish and smoked with the hippies, moved with the shakers. Wouldn't kiss all the asses that they told me to. No I, I could never follow, No i could never follow. It's been two long years since the tope of the world came crashing dow and I'm gettin' it back on the road now. But I'm taking the way way, taking the long way around, I'm taking the long way, taking the long way around. Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself, I opened my mouth and I heard myself. It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself, guess I could have made it easier on myself. But I , I could never follow. No I, I could never follow. Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else, maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down. If you ever want to find me I can still be found, taking the long way, taking the long way around, taking the long way, taking the long way around."

- The Dixie Chicks, "Long Way Around."

I’ve been having a lot of difficulty writing lately, which is quite odd considering the cascade of emotions and feelings I’ve been dealing with. Perhaps that’s why there hasn’t been any updates- because I’m feeling so strange that I can’t seem to get a good grasp on what I’m feeling and its pretty challenging to express to the world how you’re feeling if you yourself can’t manage to figure it all out.

I’m happy to be back at Mizzou. I think I needed to type that sentence as reassurance for myself. Because I really am. I love this campus, I love sitting outside Memorial right now in gorgeous weather and spending my Saturday afternoon writing and people watching. Its just that last year, everything was so new and shiny. It was my freshmen year of college, so regardless of the college itself, I would no doubt be exhilarated by a new environment and freedom. Yes, it was upsetting having to leave the east coast, but Mizzou was such a frenzy of excitement and opportunities that while I missed my roots, I was happy to be enjoying where I was at the moment. Like that toy you so desperately wish and pray for at Christmas and then abandon three weeks after getting it, Mizzou is slowly fading in its novelty.

OK, that’s a bit drastic, since there is still so much for me to do here, but I’m just more aware of all that I gave up in coming here. And I’m still ecstatic about my choice but I wonder why the hell I have to make my life so difficult. Imagine if I were just like most other college students who just loaded up the car with their families for move-in day. No. God forbid I’m not a pain in the ass. And its fine and it all works out, but after being home for the summer I’ve really realized how east-coast I really am and how much better I just fit in there. Not that that is really a surprise or anything, and it isn’t as though I won’t be returning, but something about the start of this year made me question my decisions. Not necessarily my decision to come here but the way I make my decisions and how driven I am by intuition. Which so far has always taken me where I really want to be, but what if I’m just lulling myself into this false belief that I’m always going to be making the right choices based on feelings? But that got me think even further…. Who would I be if my decisions were a result of just my mind? Maybe I knew I needed to come here, not just because of that initial feeling upon seeing the campus and the J-school, but because there is something I’m supposed to gain from here that I just haven’t discovered yet. Isn’t this just the way that I am? Not that I purposely making decisions that complicate things (In fact its quite the opposite) but I’ve always followed my own path and have always had this reassuring feeling that life was working out as it should. So can I keep that feeling alive, can it trump these fleeting moments of doubt? Because I really don’t doubt my decision in the least bit, I’m just curious as to how I can be so steadfast and sure in making these decisions. How can I be so secure in taking the long way ‘round?

Yes, I’m a strong individual, but honestly when I first heard this song years ago I felt shame. I was not the girl the Chicks were singing about. I play by the rules (well usually), I think before I act and I like to have a plan. Jumping into a pink RV and riding around is not my thing. But I guess maybe just following your own heart is you taking your long way around. It isn’t that I’m some crazy, hippie, life-is-good chick, but that I break the status quo because I really make my own choices. It isn’t that I could never follow the “live-in-the-same-town-all-my-life” mold, its that I could never follow. I could choose to live the ordinary life, and that would be just fine, I could have chosen to stay in Jersey for college, but I felt like that wouldn’t have been much of a choice, that it would have just been me following a mold. And I don’t follow.

Even sitting here now I’m not really sure why the hell I’m in Missouri, how did I wind up here? What is even going on?? BAH! But it’s just me taking my long way round. Not just physically either, its me living out my choices and even if they’re bizarre ones or seem to detour me, aren’t they still valuable? After all, as much as I like to have a plan, I could never plan out what I really want to get out of life. Because those experiences and lessons cannot be predicted and planned out. I just have to live and see where it all takes me, which is absolutely fucking frightening, but also sort-of the point, no?

So as I wonder about my choices, I have to realize that the sheer fact that I have choices to wonder about is all that matters. I could never follow.

Fa La La

because life's greatest lessons are only written small

in the margins...

I apologize from the very bottom of my heart for my lack of posts. Funny thing about Sorority recruitment it depletes you of all your energy due until you're so mentally and physcially exhausted you can hardly stand up let alone sum up enough concentration and creativity to write a post. This past week has been hectic and tiring to say the least, but it's what I signed up for when I joined Phi Mu and I know all the hard work will pay off when we score an awesome pledge class. I actually have a lot to share about what this past week has taught me, what I truly feel about sorority life and how much I've discovered life is all about your attitude. I wish all of my friends and family could understand and comprehend what Rush Week at Mizzou is like, sadly it is completely indescriable and I could never explain it, the only way for them to fully grasp how intense and involved it is would be for them to come to Missouri and witness it for themselves. That, of course, is not happening. And I don't feel like wasting my time attempting to explain it, people will never understand and I guess that's okay, after all it just makes Phi Mu that much more special and sacred. I could tell you that we spend hours each day perfecting our bops and having lollipop practice but I can assume that the majority of people will just be dumbfounded, concerned, or just plain scared

That post will be coming a bit later, I've tried multiple times to write it this week but thats the joy of living in a house with 123 other girls, you easily get distracted and caught up talking and laughing with your sisters until one in the morning instead of just updating your blog. And I'm okay with that. However, in the meantime I thought I would just share a fa la la moment since I really don't want to let my blog lie stagnant for another week.

On the plane ride out here I killed time devouring the latest issue of Vanity Fair. Surprise, surprise. As usual it was fantastic. Surprise, Surprise. And made me want to do magazine journalism instead of PR. Surprise, surprise, since that always happens whenever I read a magazine I adore. I plan on doing a post about the magazine overall because its seriously been one of my favorite issues of all time, but for now I just need to focus. Which is an epic fail seeing as "Fa la la" moments are supposed to be cute and little and SHORT things. This post is already you know, four paragraphs long. Great.

Anyways I was blown away by Lady Gaga feature. I thought the woman was a freak. And she is, and she's proud of it. But up until reading her interview I really just wasn't a fan, I mean I didn't think she was a menance to society or anything as ludicrious as some politicians seem to think, but I just thought she exgaggerated everything beyond need and took the whole "I'm such a deep, artistically insane performer that I'm going to scare people into loving me." And then Vanity Fair once again enlightened me. Lady Gaga is intelligent. She is extremely put together and has this beautiful sense of reality and she knows what matters in life. Reading this article made me want to personally meet her, that's how intriguing it was.

Yes, her sense of style is absolutely crazy but its 110% hers. Everything about her is genuine and authentic down to the last roll of saran wrap covering her face. She isn't trying to impress people, she isn't trying to be so ridiculous for attention. She is who she is, she loves that and she enjoys being crazy. She feeds off being different and while it might be an extreme version of uniqueness I think that desire to be distinct is something we could all strive for a little bit more in our own lives.

She isn't just this whacked out fame whore either. I thought she was a freak. And she is, but she owns that, and that makes her so undeniably intelligent and secure. She sounds like one of the most dedicated, ambitious, loving and professional artists out there. She comes across as competent and confident and she takes her work very, very seriously. And that is rare, not just in the entertainment industry, but for the general population. Needless to say, I am now gaga for GaGa and I'm so happy I was able to get to know the woman behind the stocking mask (literally).

"It's about loving who you are. I don't want people to love me; I want them to love themselves. I have a relentless pursuit in me to give everything to my fans to make them feel good about themselves. And if you don't like it, well, then don't come join the party."

"It’s getting late, It’s time to go, The paper moon is fading slow. But the night keeps moving on and it takes you in and brings you home."

I am dumbfounded that I’m returning to Mizzou tomorrow (or today since its quite early in the morning). Extremely excited and ready, but still sort of in shock that by tomorrow afternoon I will be in the Midwest, not to return home for almost four months. How can I be curled up in my enormous bed in my big, beautiful bedroom one night and then the next be sharing one of 125 rooms in a huge sorority house on a college campus in Missouri?

It isn’t the change that bothers me. I enjoy change, I find the desperate urge to spice things up every once and awhile, it keeps everything interesting. And I’m ecstatic to be going back to Mizzou and having a huge change of pace and environment. The issue I’ve discovered is not that I dislike change, but that I despise transitions. Change, overall is just fine and peachy; it’s that specific moment of undergoing the change that insights a melancholy within me.

Yes, I want to go back to school, but as I was doing laundry in my basement while watching TV and eating a flavor ice I was suddenly so sad about having to leave my home. I LIKE being able to do my laundry and leave it in piles all over my basement floor. I like that I’m in my house and I can just go about my business without having to worry about a roommate. I was upset about having to leave the comforts of home. Yet once I get out there I know I won’t even realize what I’m missing. And the same holds true on the other hand; the day before I’m coming home from school I get a little sad that I’m leaving my routine and independent living to come home to a noisy household, I dread not being able to come and go as I please without explaining myself. It’s that moment of actual transition that really irks me because once I’m back in point A or B, I don’t want to be anywhere but where I am.

It’s true for something not quite so drastic as moving between home and college, night and day for instant. I always got kind of depressed around 5pm. I would be finishing up homework, could hear my mom making dinner in the kitchen and my father would come home from work and I knew the day was essentially over, especially if it was winter because by that time it was pitch black out. I love night time, and once it hit 7, I was happy and fine. Its just the time where one thing is ending but the other has yet to begin that bogs me down. Obviously the same is true for the morning. I hate getting out of bed. Hate it. But once I finally get up, shower and dress, I’m ready for the day that awaits me. But those few, sacred moments where I snuggle between the sheets as I smack the snooze button really just suck.

You can probably infer that I’m in that state of transition as I write this. It’s the night before I leave, everything is packed and all the loose ends tied up. Yet I’m not there yet. I still have to get up, deal with the nonsense that is the airport, fly and get to school. Once I’m finally there and moving in I’ll be in heaven once again. I just hate the in-between, I hate being in the state of change. I’d rather have undergone change, or be approaching it than actually experiencing it.

I don’t have anything insightful to really add here, it’s as simple as black and white (none of that “in-between gray” shit, obviously I’m not in the mood). I haven’t fully left my Jersey state of mind but I’m still miles away from my fun, college being. I’m moving in between my two lives and while I love each and squeeze as much as I can out of them while I’m there, the short time spent stuck in between the two places me in this awful state of limbo. I’m still holding onto the previous life, sad to be leaving it, and the next one I’ve yet to fully reach. The excitement of one and sadness of the other seem to cancel each other out and I’m left with this hollow sort of feeling. Sigh. It will be gone oh-so-soon once I move into 503 Kentucky Boulevard and begin life in my new home. But until then, I’m undergoing a sort of identity crisis… no longer the jersey girl safe at home and not yet the crazy college (still JERSEY) girl. (What can I say? You can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can’t take the Jersey out of the girl…) The only perk to this transition is that most of it is spent in an airport with an ample supply of Starbucks and magazines.

I’m sure I’ll update tomorrow with a much more Mizzou-inspired blog post, but for now I can grapple for the anticipated excitement and try to ignore the little breaking of my heart, and just say MIZ--- ZOU! RAWR! <3

"So Bye Bye Miss American Pie"

Happy Monday! It is probably the last time I will utter that phrase since it is my last Monday of summer. Once I return to Mizzou I highly doubt you could pay me to say something so ludicrous. Although I don't want this blog to be a play-by-play of my life I do feel as though I should throw a bit of my adventures on here, just so you all don't think I sit around all day and do nothing. I'm going to post photos from "Cousins Weekend 2010" where all of us Pisauro (And Perruso and DeSantis) cousins spent the weekend together up at our farmhouse in Pennsylvannia. This is only a small handful of pictures of my beautiful family and there are some "activities" that will not be published on this page, since you know I do want to be employed someday. You can make inferences as to what a group of mainly 17-23 year olds did on a weekend night. We're quite the attractive family, if I do say so myself!

Fa La La

"Play with life, laugh with life, dance with life, and smile at the riddles of life, knowing that life's only true lessons are written small in the margins."

-Johnathan Lockwood Huie

Lately, for whatever reason unbeknownst to me, I've been saying "FA LA LA" randomly. I really do believe that I'm "fa la la ing" through life, but a Fa La La is not only a verb, it is very much a noun. A thing (anything for that matter) that is unique and makes me smile. It usually isn't much of anything, but it has the power to shed some light on what is usually a chaotic and noisy day. A good quote, an awesome picture, some little trinket that caught my attention; the definition of a Fa La La is undefined. I've decided that once a week I'll do a Fa La La post! Just a random little post to brighten the day with something small and sweet. After all if you learn to apprecaite small moments and simple pleasures, you will always be happy; there are so many of them. So here is my first "Fa La La" post, enjoy! It is a picture of Drew Barrymore from the recent issue of Elle magazine. Her quote sums up her mindset really well and I think the photo is gorgeous.