detox

It’s been really helpful for me to have a detox routine every night, whether it’s been a great day or a rough one. It goes like this: come back to the dorm, lose the heels, and change back into jeans and a hoodie, stat. Eat a piece of candy or an apple or some other treat I’ve squirreled away, to wipe from my mind the memory of the dining hall. Brush my teeth to prevent repetition of this step and depletion of treat stock. Sit back, power up the lappy, and dump into a Word document everything that’s been accumulating throughout the day, no matter how little or much time it takes. I need to feel completely self-contained and isolated during this process, so I put on my headphones (the absolute best call I made while packing) and play some great music, just loud enough to stop my suitemates’ voices from entering and my mind from wandering. I have been abusing the self-titled Headphones and Sleater-Kinney’s excellent The Woods to the extent that I fear they will become tied to this time and place, and every time I hear the opening static and distortion, I will come back to this dorm room – that my eyes will adjust for its harsh yellow light and my nose will fill with its smells, in the same way that Sublime is inextricably linked to driving around in my high school boyfriend’s Bronco and The Postal Service means sitting on my futon in the barracks, furiously mistranslating Latin poetry. I’ve started creating a special “detox playlist” that I may burn to a CD or two, so that I can always have it with me.