Fun Fact #40: Running and smoking do NOT go hand-in-hand

So, today is my last day at work and I leave Pittsburgh permanently early Tuesday morning. I'm excited to get back to California and have no qualms about leaving Pittsburgh early. I have absolutely nothing to do at work and today has perhaps been the most unproductive day of my life. There's a bike/running path that goes by the office windows and I've watching people using it for the past hour or so.

Anyways, my favorite person I saw on the trail during today's people watching session had to be this older man, probably about fifty or so. He was dressed head-to-toe in Nike running gear and seemed to be ready for a pretty intense workout, but one accessory of his was totally out of place.

He was carrying a lit pipe during his whole run. There was a trail of smoke following him and every minute or so he would would lift it up and take a puff or two. It was pretty surreal. I'm assuming that it was filled with tobacco since Pittsburgh has pretty strict weed laws.

It made me think of CKC and her dreadful smoking habits. Let's hope CKC quits before she needs a cigarette to sustain her during a run. Maybe she needs another beautiful cigarette shaped birthday cake to remind her of the horrors of smoking...

Fun Fact #31: I can be weirdly sentimental about friendship....

So I spent this most of the past week in Oregon and had an amazing time. Going back to visit Eugene allowed me to reflect on my time in college and I realized how lucky I was to have had such a great college experience.

When I left Oregon for Pittsburgh I was pretty negative about all things Eugene, but now I've come to appreciate Eugene for what it is. It's a little hippie college town and it's probably never going to change. I still never want to live there again, but I did feel a certain sense of nostalgia driving down from Portland when I smelled Springfield's always unique odor (trout?) and saw all the hippies wandering campus the next day.

The best part of my trip to Oregon was seeing all my friends. I felt as though I had never left with most of them. I can readily admit that I was extremely judgmental of a certain organization that I was involved throughout all of last year. But for all the drama that organization has caused, it has also given me some of my closest friendships. And I will be forever grateful for that.

My time in Oregon also allowed for me to realize that there are some friendships aren't worth maintaining. They may have been great friends in the past, but the past is the past. I want my future to go a certain way and there are some people who will never fit into that life. It doesn't mean they're necessarily "bad" people, it just means we have nothing in common anymore. And when that realization is made the only thing really left to do with those "friendships" is be grateful for the memories and move on. It'd be waste of time to try and do anything else.

But on the flip side, there are plenty of other friendships that are worth maintaining. Living across the country from most of my family and friends has taught me that effort is needed to keep one's relationships strong, and I'm willing to put that effort in for those friendships that I consider to be worth that effort.

Thanks to all of those friends whom have stuck with me through my bitchiest and whiniest moments, I'm sure you all know who you are. I hope my friendship is one of those that will continue to be worth the effort as we all continue to grow and change.

Fun Fact #2: I'm great with nicknames

I've decided to record my reasoning for all the random nicknames that I came up, and people used, throughout college for posterity's sake. I figure it'll be useful to have someplace to look back on and be like, "Oh, so that's why I call her Ronnie". So here's the list of the nicknames that I think are worthy of being recorded.

Ronnie: As we all know "Ronnie" is a name fitting only for a pedophile (this has since been confirmed in the movie "Little Children"), so how did poor Erin end up with such a winning nickname? Basically I was bored, and probably drunk, and decided Erin rhymed with Aron and Ronnie just developed from that point on. Ronnels is another winning play on Ronnie that was sometimes used.

Ray-Ray: This one seems pretty obvious, Rachel leads Ray which turns in Ray-Ray. But even such a simple nickname has so many special memories attached to it. Such as when it became "VP Ray-Ray, the Betrayer" due to her refusal to have a sick friend over. Or my personal favorite, when it became "Wei-Wei" for a short while due to the vast similarities between Ray and "Wei-Wei", a character in "Stick It", which is an amazingly weird film. In hindsight, I think I was the only one who really thought that nickname was funny...

Hannah, Blonde and Stupid: Though Hannah now goes by Nanners, her original nickname of "Hannah, Blonde and Stupid", HBS for short, (an obvious ode to "Sarah, Plain and Tall") was far better and I'm sad that it didn't stick. I truly don't remember how Hannah earned such an amazing nickname, but it must've been something exceptionally stupid or because I was just kind of being a bitch. This nickname may seem really mean, but it was always said with affection.

Cum Dumpster: Sadly, no one really uses this name for Rose anymore, with the loan exception of HBS (I'm totally bringing that nickname back). This nickname stemmed from a dull night involving Rose and I looking up sexual slurs on wikipedia. "Cum Dumpster" was obviously the catchiest sexual slur on there and it stuck after becoming her nickname during a game of beer pong. It was affectionately shortened to Cummy and was even used to the general public. Certain people, especially HBS, would occasionally shout it in front for young children.

CKC: This stands for "Cancer Kelly C." and was created solely as an attempt to stop CKC from slowly killing herself through smoking. Though the nickname has stuck, CKC still smokes which shows that the creation of the nickname was in vain. But future lung cancer and CKC did become closely associated, to the point that she received a homemade cake in the image of a cigarette (though some people couldn't tell what it was). If CKC continues to smoke, I plan to instruct her children to refer to her as "Mom CKC".

Downy: I saved this one for last because I refuse to go into the details of the creation of this nickname solely because it makes me sound like a horrible individual. Let's just say that the night involved heaving drinking of Manischewitz and conversations about major life choices that are not generally compatible with alcohol. That night actually ended with a game of "catch the keys", a supposed sobriety test, in which I chucked the keys at Ray-Ray's face and she collapsed onto the lawn making people think I had actually injured her (which was totally not the case). But the name Downy has stuck, much to Laurel's chagrin, and many people think that it actually refers to the way she used to act when she got drunk. But let me go on record and say that's totally not what it refers to.

So those are the memorable nicknames I remember people using in college. Luckily I never received one because I basically refused to answer to them and would get sulky if certain stupid ones were used (such as Stubby).