Take me home, country roads

Two years ago I packed up my car and watched Cincinnati disappear in my rearview mirror. Tonight I return to the Heart of it All, The Queen City, where I learned the meaning of "belligerent drunk."

Lately I've been filled with nostalgia for my drunken youth, smiling blankly on the subway as I recall being pushed down the street in a stolen grocery cart at 2am, or a cafeteria filled with hungover zombies on Saturday mornings, shuffling through the omelet line trying to ease their nausea with hash browns. Staying up late on weeknights to hang out in the honors dorm with the guys, who kept my sarcasm sharp and made sure I was occasionally invited on their adventures to Steak N Shake. Watching Josh pound a Crave Case from White Castle, followed by Poison Control telling me that 30 White Castle burgers constituted a trip to the hospital when I called to ask about giving him ipecac. Working at the Phonathon, pretending to call Alumni for donations but really just laughing hysterically at Bobby Nachos and starting my BFF-ship with Gilmore.

How much I loved our weekends, each indistinguishable from the next in photos except for our rotating low-cut tops and my changing hair color. How good it felt to pretend to be grown-up, living in a frat house filled with girls as inappropriate and filthy as I am, beer cans on the lawn and a bucket of cigarette butts on our porch. An anonymous friend clogging our dorm toilet with a case of explosive diarrhea and vomit. How I pushed myself back into writing, laying in bed on the third floor writing self-indulgent essays while Dailer blared Kelly Clarkson or Ashlee Simpson and I memorized the words. Laying in that same bed at the beginning of May 2005, watching Dailer pack her bags and listening to Maroon 5.

I'm going back to say good-bye to an old friend and usher out the end of an era. It's time to say good-bye to a simpler time, a time when $10 in your pocket was more than enough to buy a pitcher of beer and a list of songs from the jukebox. A time when rich white college kids and locals could sit side by side enjoying pitchers of Ice House, when people could smoke in bars and Camel reps came to pass out free packs and make sure the lowly masses stayed lit up regularly. A time when a girl learned to rely on the Defensive Stance, lest she actually touch the toilet seat and contract Hepatitis.

My memories, my friends, my 4 years of college, they've been on my mind lately.

Plus, I've been missing the men of Norwood. Duh.