Things In Cincinnati I Will Miss

Oh, Cincinnati. We have come to the end of our time together. It's been real. VERY real. First off, I would like to say thank you. You've been good to me. Xavier was the best four years of my life and I'm sad to be leaving behind some of the things, and people, I've grown attached to.

Sure, there is the fact that it's ridiculously expensive to fly in and out of your airport. You also have neighborhoods without sidewalks and this blows my mind. And it's true, I'm not a fan of humidity. And sometimes it makes sense that Mark Twain would want to come to Cincinnati when the world is because it's ten years behind. I know I carry on and on about how I'm excited to move back to Colorado, but there are things I will miss here in the Queen City.

Skyline's

So yummy. And the only way you can get it in Colorado is if you order it off the Internet and it comes in a can and that just doesn't taste the same. Oh well. I'm pretty sure that for the rest of my life, whenever I hear someone sing "what can make me feel this way?" I will sing back "Skyyyyliiinnneee....talkin' 'bout Skyliiiiine."

Hyde Park

So many of my favorite restaurants and hangouts in one convenient place. Arthur's, Indigo, and Teller's are my top 3...not to mention Graeter's!

Mt. Adam's

I never have a terrible time when I go to the many hot spots. Summer nights in this little neighborhood so wonderfully nestled on a hillside are highlights of my plus 21 memories.

Xavier

I will miss going up to campus for basketball games and just the general happy sight of seeing a beautiful blooming spring campus.

Having a "crisis" and my family is there to help

My family has saved me from the following problems:

-My dress for Senior Ball will not zip up. Can I borrow a dress?

-I am freaking out about schoolwork. Can I come to your house and study?

-I have no clean underwear. Can I come to your house and do laundry?

-I'm lost. Where am I?

-I have no where to live. Can I stay with you?

-It's hot. Can I come swim at your pool?

-My flight get in at 8. Can you pick me up from the airport?

-the list goes on...

(They also forgive me when popcorn gets burned while I'm babysitting.)

Hofbrahaus, Oktoberfest, Labor Day Fireworks

Pretty sure Denver doesn't have either of those things and if they do, they are probably very lame.

Clifton: Indian Food and movies at The Esquire

Clifton boasts two of the best Indian food restaurants, Amol which has fabulous naan and a great lunch buffet, and Ambar, which is classy Indian food cooked to perfection. The Esquire, the indie movie theater, not only brings good movies, both mainstream and independent, to Cincinnati, but it has really good deals. Tuesday night tickets are $6, and the student discounts are great. I will really miss an affordable movie-going experience.

1 a.m. cabin fever

Oh God, it's past 1 a.m. and I have to work tomorrow. Oh well.

I have noticed that this week, or really, since Christmas break started I have been frustrated a lot. I attribute this frustration to cabin fever resulting from being trapped in this house and being trapped in Cincinnati.

I like cold weather every now and then, but this is ridiculous. I'm freezing almost all the time now and I can't sit in my favorite spot at the dinner table because it's by the window (in unrelated news, people are dying of cancer and extreme poverty). I had gotten into running again, which is hard to do considering there's a lot more of me to drag around then there was in the summer and fall, but in this weather it is literally impossible to run. I'm either running by the river, which is really effing cold, or I'm running into the wind which is also cold and it hurts my face.

I know what you are saying, faithful readers. "Hey Emily, join an indoor gym." Well, easier said than done. First of all, I hate running on a treadmill because it is terribly boring. I'm not a hamster that can stare at the same spot on the wall for hours upon hours. Also, joining and indoor gym costs money and I've already been told by my cousin that the rec center is a rip off and the gym membership is too but sometimes I can find them at a discount.

So all of my pent up frustrations and energy have nowhere to go until the temperature gets above freezing. Sigh. Or until I get some money, which would require me getting one of the zillion jobs I have been trying to apply for. Only, the bad weather makes it difficult to actually physically go to places, and when applying for a job like a waitress it's always nice to see a physical face.

I could get a job babysitting, but, let's be real. At my real job, I do a lot of babysitting, or at least what feels like babysitting when I tell them to "stop poking him/don't eat that/put your feet on the floor/sneeze into your elbow/etc."

I also feel a lot of cabin fever here in Cincinnati. As the months have progressed I have become more and more enraged at the city, at it's drivers, at it's stupid road system and how it literally makes no fucking sense, at it's westside/eastside politics, at it's politics in general, at the obnoxious Bearcats and their equally obnoxious fans, and at it's small town, gossipy nature. I need to get the eff out of here, but I find that extracting myself is going to be difficult. Well, not for me let's say, but for others. People seem to be taking it very personally when I say that I am leaving and I haven't told my principal this yet and he is going to be none too happy. But really, all I promised was a year, it's not a full time job, and I miss Colorado like you wouldn't believe.

Those Internet courses at UC were a waste of my time and my money (which would be nice to have right now!) and, call me old fashioned, but I prefer school with actual people. I feel like I take a lot of steps forward but then sometimes I go backward again. Frustrating, no?

I also feel like everybody in my whole family knows every single thing that I do and it drives me insane. The complete lack of privacy in many ways is probably what is most frustrating to me. I am longing for the days with Danielle where I can play my music whenever I want and I can walk around the house in my slip and no one will care.

It's only the beginning of January and already I feel lost in this wintery abyss and like I'll never see the warm June rays of Colorado. But I KNOW I will. I just can't let these frustrations get to me.

Thank goodness I can pour them out onto the interwebs.

My beef with the Cincinnati Public Libraries (or maybe all libraries in general)

Ok, so do not get me wrong. I love libraries. There are billions upon billions of books there that you can read...FOR FREE. They are wonderful institutions and librarians are wonderful people because they help put books in the hands of many, MANY people.

Now, the Cincinnati Public Library is downtown and it's actually an impressive building. It's huge, has lots of books, DVDs, CDs and lots of other things (including old newspapers and records of families in the Cincinnati area!). So, because of it's massive size, I was positive that it would have the books I needed.

I was looking for a couple of books that are considered classics: "1984" and "All Quiet on the Western Front." Most people, if they don't know what these books are about, have at least heard of them before. I have, that's for sure. Well I couldn't find them at the public library on my side of town and I had to go downtown anyway, so I went over there and in that huge building I was unable to find "1984." It's either not in the library or checked out and not in their catalog system yet.

Part of me was apalled by this. "1984" is definitely a classic. It's read in high schools all over the country, it is one of the most well-known dystopian novels, and probably George Orwell's most popular novel, and the library didn't have it. I investigated further and went to look at their stock of Dickens and Steinbeck, both which were pretty poor in numbers. How can institutions that exist purely to house books not have "1984"?

I got mad at the public library. I got very mad. Then, a thought occurred to me. The library cannot possibly afford to house every single book. I mean, let's face it, Cincinnati is in a bit of trouble financial wise and I understand that the city (and entire state, really) have to cut the hours and staff of the public libraries, so I'd assume that they might have to cut the supplies of the library, which are mainly books. So then I got angry at the government for not giving public institutions like libraries enough money to at least have one copy of literary classics on the shelves.

Then I was reminded about the essence of our very economy which I was blaming for the libraries having no money. Capitalism, which I would argue is mostly a good thing, is based on supply and demand. There may be little demand for 1984, and therefore, there is no supply of it in the library. No one in the Cincinnati area seems to feel the need to read 1984, so the library is simply not going to carry it. 1984 is probably taking up valuable space that could be used for Janet Evonovich books or that stupid Twilight Series (the library does, however, have somewhere around six copies of "Breaking Dawn" because HEAVEN FORBID THEY DON'T HAVE TWILIGHT).

So perhaps the real root of my anger is that people are not reading the classics anymore (unless they have to in high school) and so libraries are not carrying them. I find this to be a shame. I know I'm an extreme example, but I like to have a well rounded reading background and I'm sure there are people out there who do as well. 1984 is on the list of so many classics that I'm sure someone else at some other point in time wanted to check it out.

So, basically what I'm saying is, it's a shame that people don't want to read classics and instead want to read about vampires that sparkle. But still, if the option never exists, if 1984 is never on the shelf to begin with, then it eliminates even the possibility that someone would check it out.

And there. That's my beef with the public library.