your invisible pixie

I don't know what this is

2011-12-11T22:53:00.001-08:00

Marriage should be a conversation that never ends.

I'm on a plane. Metaphorically speaking. I'm in the air, and I know I'm going somewhere, but I can't feel it. I can't feel the progress or the changes, I just know they're happening. I wonder if that's better or worse than being able to feel it. Would it cause more anxiety? More calm?

I keep alternating between being ok with my life and being unhappy with it. Well, maybe not unhappy, exactly, just...less satisfied than I'd like to be, maybe. It usually stems from a conversation with a friend about where their life is headed, and I just realize that mine is so completely different. And that's not really a bad thing, it's just a thing that makes me examine my life. But what's that saying? An unexamined life isn't worth living? I guess that's true. But I don't like this huge weight that sits on my chest while I'm examining it, so if someone would like to take care of that for me, that'd be great.

Sent from my iPhone

Banana Bread Baking!

2011-06-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

So after seeing Super 8 with my friend Jason (great movie, btw) I was in the mood for some good home cookin'. Because in the (whatever decade Super 8 takes place in), they had home cookin'. Of course. SO! I made a plan to bring something in for my coworkers. (I'm such a nice person. HA!) When I got home I noticed I had some bananas that were ripe for some baking! Well, over-ripe. Almost brown. So...perfect! I got my ingredients together, put my pjs on, turned on some tunes, and got to baking. And dancing, of course. Essential for baking.

In the middle of mixing everything up, I got a phone call from my boss. CLOSING THE OFFICE TOMORROW! YAY NO WORK! Great way of starting this holiday weekend, considering my plans for tonight and tomorrow kind of got a little messed up due to lack of traffic and employment opportunities. Damn those good things!

This banana bread is perfect for making you feel comfortable. (Also, being in your pajamas while making it helps.) I've been having some problems lately - work being stressful, boys being dumb, and on top of all that, my phone was acting up! So I decided that this was the perfect thing to make my night better (besides eating ice cream and going to a movie.)

I got the recipe from my friend Ross awhile ago. He had made it and brought it to an improv rehearsal that I so often frequented back in the day, and once I tasted it I knew I needed the recipe. This delicious treat reminds me of Chico friends and good times, which is always something good to remember.

And now, I'm off to watch Mr. And Mrs. Smith and enjoy my delicious peanut butter chocolate chip banana bread! On top of that, I don't even have to share! I guess maybe I shouldn't have passed first grade...

Love is in the Air: The Meaning of Baking a Valentine's Day Cake to Share with the World

2011-02-14T23:41:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Let's bake a cake....wait, scratch that. Let's bake some cookies! Oreo cheesecake cookies.

I had decided to bake some cookies last night, I just needed to pick up a few ingredients on my way home. Butter and chocolate chips. Kind of a big deal. SO! I stopped at Target on my way home from work, tried on some clothes (slight detour...whatever!) then made my way over to the grocery section. TARGET IS A GROCERY STORE NOW! WHOA. Found what I was looking for, then headed home.

No one was home, so I blasted the pop music and got down to booty shakin. And choppin up some oreos. Stuck them in my super awesome stand mixer (thanks grandparents!) and waited for them to be all crumb-y. Didn't take long.

Mixed up the cream cheese and butter and sugar and everything else delicious, then got to shaping the cookies. Dipped them in the crumb-like oreos, then put them on the pan! Since I had no helpers, I got to eat the rest of the batter by myself. Not that there was much left, but what was left was quite delicious. It's a good thing I stuck those babies in the oven before I started on the leftovers, otherwise there would quite possibly be none left...

The light was out in my oven, so I couldn't keep watch on them...I accidentally hit it with a baking pan last time I was baking something. WHOOPS! But it was ok, the oven still worked. After I stuck them in the oven I realized I had forgotten to put the red food coloring in! But then I realized I didn't have red food coloring, so these cookies would just have to remain black and white. Peace and love, yo.

Took the cookies out of the oven, but they weren't done! So back in they went for a few minutes. And then...VOILA! They were done. I'll be bringing them somewhere tomorrow, so people will get to eat them then. And they will be delicious. I may or may not have already had one just to make sure they weren't poisoned. I want to eat them all. ALL OF THEM.

Put them on a plate with purple flowers (because that's how I roll) and they're good to go!

Happy Valentine's Day from the porn capital of the world! No diseases this VDay, guys!

xoxo

Half as happy...

2010-06-27T04:04:00.000-07:00

What has changed since the 1940's to now that makes divorce rates so high? My grandparents have been married since 1947 and are still just as in love today as they were when they got married. When I think of marriage among the older generation, all I can picture is happy married life. Almost every older couple I know is still married, or unfortunately widowed. When I look at my parent's generation, however, that is not the case.

I was always one of the luckier ones, with my parents still being married, but more than half of my friends when I was growing up came from divorced families. I never really speculated on why that was - why should I? My family was happy, so I didn't feel the need to. But now I've kind of begun to think about it.

What happened to love that made it so easy for couples to separate or even get divorced? Did the rise of technology instigate the fall of marriage? Technology was supposed to help communication, but it seems like it ruined it in some cases - especially when it comes to television. Families spend so much time in front of a TV set, so it seems like no one feels the need to talk anymore. Instead of just having it on as background noise, it's front and center and what everyone pays attention to. Family dinners where conversations used to take place about one's day have turned into watching something just because it's on at the same time. I'm not innocent in this either, I watch way too much TV than is probably healthy. But I still make sure that I'm communicating and not just solely focused on watching television.

I wonder if I asked my grandparents how they've stayed happy all these years they'd know the answer. And I'm not naive, I know there have also been dark times, but these are greatly outweighed by the good. I hope when I'm their age, I'll look back and know I was at least half as happy as they were.

"Write drunk, edit sober." - Ernest Hemingway

2010-06-10T01:07:00.001-07:00

I was never really into writing when I was younger. Sure, I wrote the occasional story or script down, but I never thought anything of it. When I was 11 or 12, I used to have conversations with friends in the car and write down all the topics we had covered. But I never really thought about writing that much.

I remember one instance, when I was in 9th grade, were we were talking about Dante's Inferno. We were given the assignment of writing a story about hell of some sort. I remember slaving over that story for the entire class period, and when the bell rang, I wasn't even halfway through. My main character hadn't even made it all the way down, but I had to end it because I had run out of time. After that, I tried not to use as much detail in the stories I wrote, because I was always afraid I would run out of time. Actually, if we're being realistic, I didn't write much after that. I didn't think what I was writing was interesting enough.

I always had a journal or a diary, but I never put much information in it because I was always afraid someone would be reading it. Which, inevitably happened on multiple occasions - both my mom and my younger brother went through my room and read it during different stages in my life. I was, of course, always on livejournal. Always aware of my ever changing privacy, I had 5 (maybe 6?) different journals, each one more private than the next.

But writing never really came that easy to me. I would write if I was bored, or if I was exceptionally upset (which happened ridiculously often during high school). I would write if I had something to say but had no one to tell it to. I didn't really write if I was happy. I felt like livejournal wasn't a place that you could really be happy, which was weird. And whenever I go back to the journals that I wrote or read during high school, I would always have the high school feeling wash over me and I would end up feeling more upset than when I started, even if I was just trying to reminisce.

Writing still isn't one of my easiest skills, but I try to do it more. I'm always worried I'll end up offending someone, even though I'm allowed to have my own thoughts. Maybe I should take Ernest Hemingway's advice and drink when I think I want to write.

Love Letters

2010-05-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

I have never had a love letter written to me. I don't blame that on anyone that I've dated, though. The fact is, most of the guys I've dated haven't exactly been writer-ly inclined. (Yeah, I know that's not a word. Oh well.)

I think the closest I ever came was a note from a guy named Dustin who I had met through MySpace. We were sitting at a park on the playground right after we met when he tore a piece of paper out of my journal and wrote something along the lines of "girl, why you so fly?" Really classy, right? I definitely swooned. Ah, the days of high school and MySpace love. And safety.

None of my boyfriends in high school really wrote much, and none of my boyfriends in college really did/do either. Which is fine, they were all into other things...music, acting, directing, science, being suicidal...Yeah, good times.

Anyway, the reason I was thinking about this was because I watched Sex and the City with Luke tonight. I haven't really seen much of the series (save for my summer in New York when I would stay up late watching episodes online because I had little else to do), but I enjoyed the movie. In it, Carrie is reading a book of love letters to do research for her newest book, and she asks her boyfriend if he has ever written her a love letter. He says no, because they've always been together, and people who write love letters were separated by wars or hundreds of miles.

I just found it interesting to think about. How many people actually get love letters these days?

Here We Go...

2010-05-14T11:15:00.001-07:00

So! I've picked a place. I'm moving to Los Angeles.

It'll be a nice change. I'm moving down there at the end of the month. For the first few months I'll be staying with my parents, and then in September I'll be getting a place with my boyfriend. He'll be meeting me down there in July.

It'll be nice to be home again with my family. My mom and I really started bonding over thanksgiving when we made dinner together, so I'm hoping we'll get more cooking time in. Especially since I've really been starting to cook more. And it'll be nice to have an oven that actually cooks at the right temperature! I've found all these recipes that I really want to try out but because my oven sucks I haven't even bothered attempting it! So now I'll get to try them out. Although if I had tried them out here and they sucked I could just blame it on the oven....Hmmm....

And my grandparents live down there now, so I'll get to spend some time with them as an adult, rather than as a child who just says "buy this for me!" multiple times. Of course, there are perks to being down there with them...But I'll really be able to get to know them as people, rather than just as grandparents. I keep trying to convince my grandpa to write a book about his life experiences, but he seems to have trouble with it (the tape recorder doesn't record, he can't type fast enough, he can't hear what he said on the tape recorder, etc...). So maybe I can help him out with that.

It's been really nice living in Chico for the last 5 years, but I think it's time to go. I need more things to do than just sitting at home and watching tv or reading. There are so many places to go down there. And it'll be a nice change of pace. I've also heard that LA is extremely live-able, money-wise. Cheaper than San Francisco, and slightly cheaper than New York. So at least I'll get to have some money getting saved. Hopefully.

My roommates are moving over to Chicago, which is so exciting for them. I'm so proud of them for going after what they want. They'll be great, no doubt about it. I'm guessing they'll be on a show like SNL or something that fits them in no time at all because of how great they are.

I guess that's about it for now. I'm going to go watch some tv.

GLEE!

2010-04-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have a little bit of a shameless plug. As you might have read in previous posts, I am a musical theatre person. I graduated with a BA in Musical Theatre. I was hoping that my loyal fans (all two of you) would vote for me to be a new character on the tv series GLEE, a show about a high school glee club.

Here's HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go To http://www.myspace.com/gleeauditions?link=219140532

2. SCROLL DOWN the page till you see the "GLEEKS" WINDOW and my videos.

3. CLICK the FACEBOOK ICON or MYSPACE ICON in the upper right-hand corner of the "Gleeks" window. This should log you into Facebook or Myspace.

4. CLICK "GIVE A GOLD STAR" (multiple times, VOTING is UNLIMITED)

Also, feel free to spread this around to people!

Even if you don't like the show, or have never seen it...please vote! I know I'm super awkward, but I think that adds to the fun.

Thanks for all your help! I really appreciate it!!

If you don't get it, it's ok. Neither do I.

2010-03-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

I feel like life is just a game of chance. Rolling the dice. If I get an even number, I'll move to New York. If I get an odd number, I'll move to San Diego. If it's doubles I'll move to Chicago. Snake eyes and I'll kill myself.

And you never know if you make the right decision, which is what kills me! You can think about something over and over and over and then you finally make the decision to do it, and after it's done, you start thinking of all the things you hadn't thought about before you made the decision. So your decision wasn't really justified because you hadn't thought of ALL the options. And then, once you think you've thought of all the options, you start questioning if you've really thought of all the options because you hadn't thought about all of them before...and the cycle goes on and on.

It's like that alternate universe theory. Like in Sliding Doors, the movie with Gwenyth Paltrow. Her whole life changes just because she did or did not get on the subway at the right time. What happens if you change the decision you think you've made because of other things you've thought of?

I wish I could say that I was on some sort of mind-altering substance to make this post make more sense in the nonsensical way.

In other news, I want to see Alice and Wonderland this weekend.

Reset Button

2010-01-24T01:52:00.001-08:00

I need a reset button.

I need a reset button for those nights when I get inexplicably angry at the clock for ticking too loud, or the time for passing too slow or too fast, or at my boyfriend for sitting too close to me when he has every right to do so.

I need a reset button for those times when I feel so wound up from comments that people have made that I want to punch something really hard.

I need a reset button for those times when I feel like listening to any sad, slow love song can turn me into a weeping baby as soon as it comes on.

I need a reset button for the times that I get so tired that all I want to do is sleep, but can't because that's too exhausting.

I need a reset button for the times that I drink too much because of something that happened earlier that day or because of my lack of control.

I need a reset button on the friendships that I've lost, papers that I've misplaced, feelings that I've hidden away.

I need a reset button on my sleeping schedule.

I need a reset button for those times when I became so blindingly mad at my parents or my brothers just for saying something that I didn't quite agree with, or not picking up on what I meant quickly enough.

I need a reset button for my emotions.

Wouldn't life be easier if you had a reset button?

In the spirit of the holidays...

2009-12-28T15:26:00.000-08:00

So many people are in need of some extra love this holiday season. I have a few friends who have had some problems with family medical problems and self medical problems...I'm not one to pray, but I am definitely keeping all these people in my thoughts and wishing them well. I hope you'll do the same.

____________________________________________

My name is brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

The holidays have hit us hard. He’s recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He’s the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I’m overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.

As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren’t sure what’s happening. He’ll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what’s going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as ‘brandy’s hot awesome dude’). If you don’t pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.

I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven’t seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven’t already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.

Family time...

2009-11-25T01:35:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling a lot better about stuff recently. I think the trip to Reno really helped (did I mention I went on a spur of the moment trip to Reno a few weekends ago? No? Oh. Well, I did. It was awesome), even though right when I got back it didn't feel like it. Even though I lost a bunch of money, I still had an amazing time.

And I've been cooking! Well, baking. And cooking. Kind of. I learned how to make ravioli from a bag (purchased at costco, good for many meals!), as well as pumpkin spice white chocolate chip cookies. And tonight, I helped my mom make cranberry sauce. That was exciting.

It's my mom's first time making Thanksgiving dinner, so I offered to help...not just because she will need help (which I'm not sure if she actually will or not, but whatever) but because I'll get to learn how to make a bunch of stuff that I've never made before. Even though I'm making mashed potatoes and pumpkin spice white chocolate chip cookies. Which I've made. Anyway. Plus, it'll be bonding time. And my mom and I haven't really had cooking time together before.

Also, I made it to 23! My birthday was on Saturday, and that was fun. I went out to dinner with a couple friends, then went out to the bars. I didn't get too crazy (I only had 2 drinks the whole night!) but it was an enjoyable evening. And the people who were there all meshed well, which was nice. You always have to worry about that sort of thing when planning a gathering, I suppose. So I'm glad that the people who showed up were all meshable. (I don't care that meshable isn't a word. I'm using it.)

I'm excited for Thanksgiving though. I've gotta say, I never thought I'd be super excited about coming home, but this time I really was. I guess because I haven't really spent time with my sort of whole family since August when I had my surgery (is that right? August? Saw Mom in Vegas at the beginning of October, saw Daniel in New York in the middle of October...yep, August it was) so this will be nice.

Plus, I've already gotten two new pairs of jeans, so that's always something to look forward to!

I don't know where the effing pieces go...

2009-11-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I feel like for the last couple of weeks (or months? maybe?) I've been in a funk 97% percent of the time. And the other 3% I'm sleeping. Maybe that's the problem? I'm only sleeping during three percent of my life. That can't be healthy.

I don't know why I'm feeling like this. It's not like my life is awful or anything. Sure, I have the occasional car or phone problem, and I'm not particularly exhilarated about my job, but at least I have a job. And in this economy, that's something. I know plenty of people who have been looking for jobs for months and still have yet to find one.

Maybe I'm just expecting too much of my life. But again, it's not bad. I have a roof over my head, I'm able to eat, I have a family that loves me, I have a boyfriend and friends who care about me, I have a job, I have clothes to keep me warm, I'm ALIVE...

Then what am I missing? Why do I feel like crying all the time?

The one where I try to learn how to cook...almost.

2009-09-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

"Tomorrow is the day I learn how to cook."

These were the words I spoke to my roommate last night as I watched him make pasta and vegetables on the stove. It didn't look too hard - all he did was put some beef in a pan that turned brown all on it's own. Boiled some water and put the pasta in. Warmed up the pre-made sauce. Put some oil in the pan before he put the vegetables in, then pushed them around a little bit. I can do that!

I have a tendency to waste my food. I'll buy tons of microwave dinners, then decide I don't want to make them because I want to try something original. I've talked to friends, asking for easy recipes, which they all willingly give. I'll buy the supplies to make some sort of easy dish, but by the time I get around to cooking whatever it is, I've lost all motivation to actually make something from pseudo-scratch.

It isn't that I can't cook anything, because I've made food before. I make great mashed potatoes and chicken parmesan. I've even attempted eggplant parmesan, which I was told was good. (By my boyfriend, but that counts too, right? Plus, he's still alive and that was months ago, so it totally counts.)

I don't really know what it is about cooking that scares me so much. Maybe it's that I think I won't be able to cut things right? Or that the oven will burn me. The oven thing is a big one - I used to have to have my roommates take brownies out after I made them because of how scared I was of it. I think I've gotten a bit better about the oven thing though, but I'm not entirely certain, since...well, it's been awhile.

Anyway. I fully intended to start cooking stuff tonight. I was going to make something easy even - ravioli from costco that all you needed to do was boil some water, pour in some oil, and stir a little bit. But, that didn't happen. I had a meeting at 5 where they offered free food. Tomorrow night I'm going to a show, and I don't want to attempt to make food before that just in case something goes horribly wrong and I set my apartment on fire. (Which reminds me - I should probably get my roommate to plug the smoke detector back in...) Friday night I have an event, so I guess the next possible time for me to cook dinner would be Saturday. So, Saturday it is. I'll make the ravioli that I was planning to make tonight, and hope it turns out ok. And if you don't hear from me in awhile because I've burned down my apartment...it was nice knowing you.

What's the worst that could happen?

2009-09-13T01:12:00.000-07:00

Today was Pat's memorial service. It was really nice to hear about his life, his philosophies, his ideas, etc. Mike seems to be handling everything pretty well. He is under the impression that Pat passed to bring everyone together, which is really sweet. For example, Mike had Kelsey introduce me to this guy named Adam who lives in New York because he's Jewish. Mike is hilarious in that way.

In Kelsey's eulogy (is it still a eulogy if it isn't at a funeral?) she talked about how she ended up moving to Chico. Well, Mike talked about it first, but it was more about how he and Pat moved here. Mike had the interview at the school, got the job, and Pat just said "let's go." Even though he had never seen Chico. Then Mike and Pat would call Kelsey and tell her how beautiful Chico was and how vegan friendly and whatnot. Finally, during one of her conversations with Pat, he said something along the lines of "what's the worst that can happen? You fail and you end up moving home. It's not the end of the world."

Recently, Kelsey and I had a conversation that went similarly about me moving to New York. As much as I love living here, I think I'm ready to get out. The only thing that has really been holding me back is money and fear. But like Pat says, what's the worst that can happen? I run out of money and end up moving back to California and in with my parents. But even that isn't the end of the world (regardless of how much I hate the valley). I don't know, living there the summer of 2008 just wasn't enough for me. I was there for three months, and I didn't even get close to seeing or doing everything. I didn't even make a dent!

So that's it. It's decided. I'm moving back to New York. And if I fail, it'll be ok. At least I'll have tried. And it's the right decision for now.

cupcakes

2009-02-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is, but the past couple of weeks I have really been craving cupcakes. Maybe its the fact that Jenn has been talking about how she keeps making them, but I've really wanted some.

I attempted to make a batch of cupcakes last month as dessert for dinner for Lee and me (I had made dinner and decided dessert should be thrown in there too - why not? Dessert = awesome.), but they came out not so great. I mean, they tasted fine, but they kind of looked like...mini volcanoes. Not entirely sure how that happened. It might have had something to do with the fact that I didn't have one of those mixer things that you're supposed to have when you make cake or cupcakes. (Seriously, clumps of butter on the whisk I attempted to use instead. Definitely not something I would recommend.)

I made cookies the other night, which were good, but didn't quite hit the spot. Now I'm definitely in the mood for cupcakes. Even though I'm not even close to being the tiniest bit hungry...

25....

2009-02-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

I know I already did the list of 25 things a couple months ago (it was more than 25 and less numbered), but I am feeling a bit narcissistic and a little less creative. So here are 25 more things about me that I have yet to tell you.

1. Salty things make me sneeze. So does the sun.

2. If I am sent an email or tagged in a note on facebook, I look at the list of people that you contact and see where I fall in the list. On facebook its a little more random because its generated how you think of people, but I notice who you thought of before me and who you thought of after me.

3. I would love to take a long walk in the rain if I had no possessions on me. Even if its cold.

4. I love wearing dresses, but don't own any that I feel comfortable wearing to school. I also really like getting dressed up. I don't, however, like wearing heels, even though they make me closer to normal height.

5. I don't remember ever really being bothered by the fact that I am short.

6. I censor myself a lot. I don't like to speak up in class because I feel like everyone will think what I say is stupid or wrong, even if I know I have the right answer. I've lost a lot of participation points because of this.

7. I have never bonded with anyone as quickly as I bonded with Rachel while I was in New York. I miss her a lot.

8. If I get yelled at or snapped at by someone, I tend to sulk for awhile. Especially if it comes out of nowhere. When I was about 12 and at summer camp, I was looking through a song book for the words that the songleader was singing, and he stopped and took my music book away. I almost started crying. After he finished the song he gave me the book back. I also kind of put up a wall towards the person for a few days, and I don't know how to break it down.

9. I have always loved broccoli and mushrooms.

10. I have a horrible memory for things that actually matter (like school or things from my childhood), but I can remember where a book is on my bookshelf or what color the handles on the cabinets are in a house that I haven't seen in years.

11. I compulsively buy books even if I have ten that I haven't read yet. And I normally have about that many.

12. I don't feel like I open up to that many people, so when I get stressed out I tend to keep it to myself. Or if I do tell someone, I don't tell them everything, which just kind of makes it worse.

13. I have been thinking about moving to Chicago after I graduate, but I don't know when, since I want to travel first. I also might go teach English in Israel for a year, but that thought completely scares me.

14. I get jealous of people who are close with their extended families, because I don't feel like I am.

15. Talking on the phone makes me nervous, but I've been trying to get better. It's difficult though, because not many people like talking on the phone these days. We all mostly text message or email.

16. Sometimes I write things that I don't mean to be funny, but when someone else reads it they'll tell me its hilarious. And then I see that it is. Sometimes.

17. I watch way too many tv shows, but I don't think I can stop. I am too emotionally involved with a lot of them. Also, I sometimes cry while watching certain shows.

18. I used to be obsessed with glitter. I wore it on my eyes, in my hair, on my cheeks, everywhere. For my friend's birthday I wanted to get her a thing of glitter because I liked it so much, but my mom told me that she didn't think it was a good idea. After that I wore a lot less of it, but I still love it.

19. The only concerts I've been to are N*SYNC, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Soul2Soul (all three nights it was in LA), Taylor Swift/LeeAnn Rimes, Panic! at the Disco/Fall Out Boy, and Jack's Mannequin.

20. I slept with a nightlight and my door open until I left for college. Now when I go home, my room has to be completely dark and my doors (room and closet) have to be closed or I can't fall asleep. I also keep my room pretty dark when I'm at school, except for when I'm so tired that I fall asleep with my light on.

21. I like to try and make people feel better, even if I am not feeling that great myself. I also have a hard time not helping people when they ask, unless I absolutely can't. I also tend to buy things for people, even when I don't really have the money to. When I was in high school my mom thought I was trying to buy my friends. I guess I kind of was.

22. I don't typically like nuts, but I love eating honey roasted peanuts and peanut m&ms.

23. Seeing me hyper and seeing me drunk are usually the same experience, minus the alcohol, but I don't think I get hyper that often anymore.

24. I really like surprises, but I always find out about them beforehand. Much less surprise-like if you know about it. My fourth grade birthday party was a surprise, ruined by my best friend, and my 19th birthday party was a surprise, ruined by a text message.

25. For my 21st birthday, my brother gave me a "make your own umbrella kit" box with a Polyphonic Spree cd inside. I thought the make your own umbrella kit was the present, and I was actually really excited. My brother told me normal people don't get excited over stuff like that. I'm not normal. That's also exciting.

Music is what feelings sound like. - Author Unknown

2009-01-14T00:50:00.000-08:00

"I had to let you go. I had to say goodbye. No more excuses. No more tears to cry."

"I won't write you a love song 'cause you asked for it. 'Cause you need one. You see?"

"Sing us a song, you're the piano man."

"Maybe it's intuition but some things you just don't question. Like in your eyes I see my future in an instant, and there it goes. I think I've found my best friend."

"And I wonder if I could fall into the sky do you think time would pass me by? 'Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you tonight."

Music is so personal. You can search through millions of songs and hear exactly what you're going through, or something extremely close that hits home. Or you don't even have to find lyrics that match what you're thinking, but you can hear a melody that strikes a chord in your brain.

But music can also change the mood that you're in. People listen to music when they're trying to get pumped up for an evening out on the town, or when they're going to the gym to get motivated, or to get over a breakup. All the different songs can alter how you're feeling and change what the night will look like. Listening to a few depressing songs before you go out with friends could make the going out part seem less enticing and getting into pj's and eating ice cream a much more appealing option.

I've been sitting in my bed for a few hours now listening to whatever Pandora is sending my way all on the suggestion of the song "Hollywood's Not America" by Ferras. It's been playing Billy Joel, Ben Folds, Death Cab for Cutie, Sara Bareilles...all people that have upbeat songs. And yet, the songs that have been playing have kind of made me feel the need to get into my pajamas and never get out of them. Luckily, I have no real reason to be depressed at the moment, so I'm not actually planning on doing that, but its interesting to see how much a song can influence your brain. Or my brain, anyway.

I really like that though. I like that I can change my mood just by changing my playlist. All I have to do is listen to "Out Tonight" from Rent or "I Will Survive" or "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and I feel ready for a night out. I just need to turn up the sound of a few upbeat tunes, and I'm ready to go. At the same time, if I'm looking for a mellow night, I just need to listen to "Begin" by Ben Lee, or some Savage Garden (because...PLEASE, most of their songs are mellow/sad) and I'm content. If I'm sad I can just put on some "What Hurts the Most" by Rascall Flats or "White Horse" by Taylor Swift, or "Leave The Pieces" by the Wreckers (or any country song!) and I can dwell in my sadness for as long as I need to.

Music is so mind stimulating. So...thanks songwriters. Keep it up.

Only one day at time...if only...

2009-01-06T22:46:00.001-08:00

So, its the new year. We've been in 2009 for six whole days, but I can already feel things changing. The new year always brings new hopes, dreams, desires, fantasies...and fears. When it comes to me, its mostly fears.

I'm always so afraid to look too far in the future, but end up doing it anyway. I try to make plans three months in advance, or even a year in advance, but somehow things always end up changing and I get upset. I'm most terrified of looking too far into this semester, because I'm worried something will end up happening and my life will turn sour.

Things are so good for me right now: I have some really great friends, a boyfriend who loves me, a new semester of fresh classes, and a whole bunch of opportunities that have just opened up to me. But I have this nagging feelings that something awful is just around the corner.

I have reasons for this. Things always change just when I start getting comfortable.

But this year I'm extra nervous for an entirely different reason. I'm graduating. I'm going to be going out into the real world, with real people, and (maybe) getting a job. I'm jumping out of this safety net of college, where meeting people is (supposedly) easy, and you can hardly keep track of the number of parties you go to, and things are readily available to you. Once you're out, who knows if you have the same kind of luxuries?

I went home for Hannukah and New Years, and that was hard. Not only did I realize that I really don't want to move back there, but I had to constantly think about what was coming up next for me. People kept asking what I'm going to do once I get out. "What can you do with a musical theatre degree? Be a waitress?" Or they'd ask what the boyfriend and I are going to do. And I honestly have no idea. Who knows if its even going to last that long?

Ugh, see what I mean? I'm so...pessimistic about the future. I wish I knew how to take life one day at a time. Because there are so many good things too. I still have a good 3 and a half months before I graduate. I still have time to hang out with all the people I've made friends with these past four years (and especially these last few semesters). I still have time to learn so many things. I still have time to find out more about myself while in college. I still have time to pull all nighters for fun.

I still have time to do so much, and yet...the fear still lingers.

Hello, Lacuna?

2008-12-02T01:56:00.000-08:00

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is probably one of my favorite movies.

Keeping that in mind, what would you do if you found out you could erase someone? Would you do it? Is there someone who you would just completely erase from your memory forever?

I've thought about this before. In high school, there were a few people who really affected my life and changed the way I thought about a lot of things.

For starters, there was Shaun. Shaun and I met freshman year, in a math class. He was sitting next to a guy named Robby, who my friend liked. I also kind of liked Robby, but decided to let my friend go for him instead, and set my sights on Shaun, even though I had absolutely no interest in him. About two weeks into class, I wrote him a note that said "Hey, I'm going to pretend to like you. Sorry for everything that is about to happen." He responded with a long response of "uh, ok." We also had drama together. The first day of class we had to tell a few things about ourselves, so he started talking about how he liked water. Our teacher asked what kind of water, so he started naming off all sorts of things like rivers, lakes, ponds, etc. The bell was going to ring about a minute into what he was talking about, so I said "just keep rambling, the bell is going to ring soon." So he did, and then he thanked me after class. A few weeks after that, we had become friends. We had a lot of classes together, so we ended up spending most of our time in each other's company. Through spending time with him, I got to know him and other things about him...like the fact that he had a girlfriend. As is often the case, because we had been spending so much time together I actually had started to like him in the "more than friends" kind of way. We spent a lot of time together talking, and during class we'd write notes back and forth (all of which I believe I still have in my closet at my parents house...). We had this great friendship going, but it wasn't going anywhere. We started having a secret code in our notes and making mixed cds for each other, and having really late night conversations on the phone. Eventually he started talking about breaking up with his girlfriend to go out with me. I was excited at this prospect, because I really liked him, but as it turned out...he wasn't going to break up with her. (So the story usually goes.) After I found out that he wasn't serious, we started drifting apart. He started hanging out with other people, and I hung out in the drama room with people that I had made friends with. Halfway through sophomore year he transferred schools to be with his girlfriend. I only saw him once after that, when he came back a year and a half later to pick up his new girlfriend. A junior girl in my drama class. It was weird seeing him after all that time.

I wonder if I would get the guts to be able to erase him from my memory. He was a big part of my life for awhile, and he got me into some great music. It was hard not talking to him though. We were best friends for awhile, and he helped get me through some tough things. We even performed a scene together at a DTASC festival. Sometimes it's nice to have those memories.

Someone that I really wouldn't mind erasing from my mind is the professor. I keep thinking that he's a good guy, that I really like being friends with him, but then I see his ulterior motives and I can't help but wonder what made me attracted to that. Granted, he's Jewish and he's smart, but still. He's an elitist jerk who hates musicals. He came to see Bernarda Alba because I asked him to, but he made me buy the tickets and walk them over to his office instead of buying them himself. He plays piano, but he barely plays requests. He tries to seem nice, but instead ends up sounding sleazy. He IS sleazy. He has been trying for a few years now to get into my pants. When I told him that I had a boyfriend, he said "oh, so I guess that means no chance of that dinner, huh?" Seriously. And because of the cycle that I keep going through (talking to him, not talking to him, talking to him, not talking to him), my brain keeps going on a cycle (stupid, smart, stupid, smart) which really takes a toll on my thoughts. I think that erasing him from my memory would be a smart move. Or if I had never met him...my life probably would have been much easier.

Too bad Lacuna, Inc. doesn't really exist...

awesomeness coming up next...

2008-11-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

A lot of exciting things are coming up pretty soon. First off, we have Bernarda Alba, which opens on Wednesday. It seems to be coming together really well, which is awesome. We finally got our costumes today, which look really cool under all the lights and everything. The whole show seems like it's going to be really great. It'll be interesting to hear what people think about the show after they see it.

Coming up after that is my birthday! My birthday party is also going to be really fun, I hope. I themed it "childhood". I hope that it ends up being fun, and not crazy/ridiculous. There have only been a few birthdays that I've really enjoyed. I hope this year ends up being one of those.

After my birthday is thanksgiving, which will be pretty sweet. My family is having a pseudo reunion in Oakland. Well, my mom's side of the family is having one. I'm excited because there are going to be a lot of family members there that I haven't seen in awhile. It'll be super fun. And Joel (my favorite boy cousin) told me that he's going to take me out to celebrate my birthday, which will be really fun. He's a bartender, so he'll be able to pick some really tasty drinks for me.

In other news, things with the boyfriend are going well. It'll be two months on Friday. Exciting, yes? Yes. He's going to be meeting my family this weekend when they come up for the show. It's cute, he's really nervous about meeting them. I think he'll be fine though, my family isn't that scary. Sometimes they're mean (to me), but other than that, he'll be ok. I think a few of my other friends will be coming to brunch with my family too, so hopefully he'll be less nervous.

Ok...I think that's about it right now.

Foreshadowing for next post: what would you do if you could erase someone from your memory/life?

Peter Panism

2008-10-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I took a Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion class at school. The class was pretty interesting for the most part, and we had an awesome teacher. For our final, she assigned a paper in which we had to create our own religion. I asked if we could write in narrative form, and she said yes.

Tonight, I was looking through my e-mail account, and I found this paper. I hadn't updated in awhile, so I thought I'd share this now. The writing isn't the best, but I still find the concept of it interesting. Enjoy!
-------------

On a Sunday morning at the Giving Tree of Lost Boys, a small group of children gather. Their teacher, Miss Bellevue, brought them to order with a slight tap of her wand on the side of the Giving Tree. All the little children came to attention and sat patiently, waiting for her to speak.

"Class, today we're going to learn about where we came from, and why things are the way they are," said Miss Bellevue. "I'm going to tell you about Peter Pan and the story of how he created Panism, our most beloved religion. Panism is a polytheistic religion, children. Does anyone know what that means?” The children all gave her blank stares. “Well,” she went on to explain, “What that means is that we have more than one god in which we celebrate. We actually have two. The first is Peter Pan, the creator of Panism. The second is Tinkerbell, our Goddess of creation. She created all that you see and many things that you don't. But she couldn't do it all herself, so she enlisted the help of Peter who organized simple rules to which to live by."

Miss Bellevue went on to explain the details of Panism. "The rules that we live by are simple:

Be happy at all times…

Never grow up…

Always help others smaller than yourself…

Raise yourself up to a higher position… that which can only be done once you've completed the other steps and you finally believe in yourself and true happiness. Then and only then will you be able to fly to Neverland. There is a legend about all of this, told by Peter himself many moons ago. When Tinkerbell first started the long task of creating Neverland she made it the most beautiful place ever, full of vibrant colors. She wanted clear skies, blue oceans and the greenest grasses. She, in essence, was making our heaven. When someone passes away who has been following Panism to the best of their ability and has been living a “good” life on Earth, they come here, to Neverland. It doesn’t matter what race or gender they are: if they believe in the laws of Panism, they are more than welcome. Once they arrive here, they turn back into their former childhood age in which they were the happiest. As you can tell, I was happiest at the age of 14. When you are reincarnated into your younger self, you are given an age in the range of 3 to 15. No older, no younger, so we can keep with the theme of childhood. As many of you may recall, you play with toys when you are younger. When you come to Neverland, you get to bring your favorite toy with you to remember that you are a child and to always have fun. This makes sure that you have something to play with at all times, and you will always be happy."

Billy, a small 7-year-old boy raised his hand from the front of the group. "Miss Bellevue… If all the good people come to Neverland, what happens to all the bad people who didn't believe that die? Do they come to Neverland too?"

"That's a very good question Billy," She answered, "When a person dies on Earth, if they have been good and have reached all the goals set by Peter himself, they come to Neverland. If you don't do all these things, and you've been a bad person, you're sent to Pirate Island where Captain Hook is the master. You see, when Tinkerbell created all of this good, a bit of evil was created. Since there must be a balance, good will always have evil in the shadows. That is why there is Pirate Island, to keep the evil people away from the good.”

“How do people get into Neverland?” asked Jamie. “Is there something that they have to do to show that they truly believe in Panism before they can get in?”

“Good question, Jamie!” said Miss Bellevue. “There is something called a Rite of Passage that people need to do before they can enter into Neverland. It is a very hard thing to do, but it is actually quite possible. When the time comes to show that you are finally ready to prove your full belief and devotion to Panism and that you are truly happy, you begin to fly for the first time. Once you have learned to fly, you're on your way to Neverland! With all of your goals complete, you will be guaranteed entrance to Neverland. For those who lived bad lives, or those who aren't happy, and who don't believe in the rules of Panism, they are incapable of flight and are taken to Pirate Island and left to fend for themselves on Captain Hooks pirate ship.”

"Now children, as you know I am your teacher. All of the teachers are hand-picked by Peter Pan himself to be his religious specialists. We are in charge of helping to keep the wisdom of Panism alive and strong in the world today, and to, of course, answer and aid any of you with your questions. The other religious specialists that help heal you are the Indians. Tiger Lily and her father are the head religious specialists over here on Neverland. They make sure that the children are always healthy, and if any issues arise, they help settle them by using their special drugs and potions. They also help to make sure that as followers of Panism, we help one another whenever possible. We live in a very basic society, mainly based on a tribal belief system. Can anyone tell me what that means?” Again, she was met with blank stares. “A tribal belief system means that we are just a singular family style group. We all co-exist and strive to be united with other bands of families throughout Neverland. Each region of Neverland has it's own family and each family is part of an even larger family with strong communal and social bonds."

"Miss Bellevue, are there any celebrations or holidays? Like Christmas? Does Santa come here? Does Santa go to Pirate Island ?" Jill asked from the middle of the group, her blue eyes shining with anticipation.

"Why, yes, Jill, there are holidays. Each year we have an annual holiday celebration called a Harvest. During this time all the tribes of Neverland and even Pirate Island come together at Peter Pan’s court and celebrate the creation of Neverland. Because this is such a big holiday, everyone on Neverland and Pirate Island put aside their differences and get together to celebrate. This is the point in time when our imaginations are put to the test. You, as a participant, have to come up with the food that we are eating. We eat all the best foods imaginable, and even foods that aren't imaginable! We dance the best dances to the very best music ever created. We play the very best games ever to come to fruition."

"What kind of games?" asked Jake, a curious ten year old. "Are there competitions too?"

"Oh, yes, of course all the best players from each region compete in the biggest game we have. It's called Extreme Coaster!" All the children smiled at the sound of such a game. "In Extreme Coaster, the competitors each have to race through a giant obstacle course that goes throughout the entire island. Can you imagine that? First, you skate around half of the island on a skateboard or a scooter, depending on your vehicle of choice. Once you get to the Indian campgrounds, you have to do a short dance that they will teach you. After you finish that, you come back to the amphitheatre, where you have to fly to the highest tree in Neverland and back. And as if this was not hard enough? If you finish first of everyone, you have to solve a very hard riddle! If you win, you get to be Peter’s helpers for a day, which is one of the highest honors possible."

The children looked amazed. A big celebration with skateboarding, dancing, and flying? How could you ask for anything more? This great Harvest was the single best thing they'd ever heard of and couldn't dream of what it would be like to celebrate it with all their fellow lost boys.

"That sounds like incredible fun Miss Bellevue. But, when we're not at the Harvest do we worship Peter together like we are now?" asked a curious young boy.

"All Peter asks is that you keep living a good life and abide by the simple rules he's set. If you feel that you must give thanks to him you can do it individually by playing with your toy, or you can get together in a group of children and play together as we are now. Another way is if you help someone smaller than you do something that they need help with. He does not ask for your thanks or prayers. Your acts of kindness to each other are enough for him." She replied. "Ok, kids. Time for cookies!"

As the class ran to get the cookies, Miss Bellevue smile to herself. "Not bad for my first time teaching!" She thought.

"Miss Bellevue?" A little girl was tugging on Miss Bellevue skirt.

"Yes, Marissa?" said Miss Bellevue.

"I can't wait to get to Neverland."

Technology makes me giddy.

2008-09-29T01:47:00.001-07:00

I feel like a giddy school girl right now, but my boyfriend just updated his facebook status. It says: "Lee is going to be tired in the morning..... but, it was worth it."

He had just driven me home right before he updated it. Ha. Sweet.

I feel much better about the whole relationship thing. I mean, I still have no idea what I'm doing or whatever, but I feel a bit more comfortable with it. I like that we're still in the really new stage, where we've only been together a little more than two weeks so things are still new and exciting.

It is, however, taking a toll on my sleeping habits. I keep staying at his place until 12:30 or 1am every night just hanging out or watching tv or whatever, and then I come home and don't fall asleep right away. Like now, it's 1:50 and I'm still not asleep. (I really should go to sleep). But I'm happy with how things are going. For now at least. Ha, always expecting the worst. Oh well. A friend of his from home is coming up this weekend. I hope she likes me. And also that even if she doesn't Lee doesn't just change his mind about me because of her opinion. Ha.

Rehearsals for Bernarda Alba are going well. We've learned all the music, and are now working on blocking and choreography and the like. I'm really enjoying it, and I think the show will come together fabulously. I'm excited to see the finished product, even though we still have over a month.

Ok. I'm off to bed. Thanks for reading.

I'm a girlfriend?

2008-09-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

I had definitely planned on writing another post last weekend, but somehow I didn't get around to it.

So. I had a date. And now I have a boyfriend.

It's interesting though, I definitely didn't see this happening this quickly. Also, everyone is telling him not to fuck it up, but what about me? I am perfectly capable of fucking things up just as much as he is, but no one is warning me about it. And I'm probably more likely of messing things up too. I mean, come on, look at my relationship history! I've been the dumpee. Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

Matt (spring semester of freshman year to nov 5 of sophomore year) - broke up with me for weed. Slash I was getting attention starved. If he had hung out with me more I would have been less attention starved. Eh, bad ending all around.

Albert (two weeks fall semester of freshman year) - he was depressed and didn't want help, so he dumped me. Eh. Not my fault either.

Doron (August 22, 2004-January 14, 2005) - broke up with because I was too depressed. I loved him. God. Ugh. That was an awful breakup. I still can't listen to Les Miserables without thinking of him.

Evan - broke up with me because I didn't like to be touched. Still don't. Oh well.

I haven't had a boyfriend since Matt, and I don't know how to act anymore. I don't know how to be around someone who wants to be around me all the time. He pays for me. He treats me well. He likes talking to me, and hanging out with me, and going out with me...

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm too out of practice. I don't know how to be a girlfriend.

Shit.

I'll tell you more while still pushing you away

2008-09-13T03:22:00.000-07:00

So, remember how I told you that I'm really bad at keeping my own secrets? It's true. But now that people who know me in real life know about my blog, I feel like there are some things I can't write about. For instance, I have a date tomorrow night. Which I'm excited about. Or the fact that James and I are becoming close again. Which is awesome. Actually, I can write about James and I becoming close again, but there isn't much to it. M's birthday helped us talk, even though I was ridiculously drunk. Apparently he was as well, but we talked again when we were a tad less drunk, and the same held true. It was nice.

Anyway, since I don't want to talk about my date tomorrow and that's pretty much all that's occupying my mind right now...I'm going to tell you some random facts about me. Yeah.

Some of these could be things I already mentioned, some may be things that I'll expand upon later. Feel free to ask me questions on things you need expansion on. Or other things you want to know. If you care, ha.

I'm a musical theatre major, graduating this year.
I'm 21.
I'm pretty much completely addicted to the internet (yahoomail, facebook, myspace, gmail, twitter, and googlereader are always open in one firefox window, and a tv show hosting site is open in another).
My life is sufficiently awkward, but I tend to make it more awkward by saying something is awkward even when it's not.
I have a lot of favorite movies.
I love to get dressed up.
I like to make collages of pictures and magazine clippings.
I'm pretty shy until you get to know me, and then I'm pretty crazy.
I have a totally random sense of humor.
I love to sing. (Musical theatre? yeah....)
I like to cuddle.
I like lists but half the time I don't finish them because I get distracted by shiny objects.
I love stuffed animals. (I sleep with a stuffed pink pig named Pigglywinks. Pretty awesome.)
I like reading quotes.
I love being part of inside jokes.
I don't particularly care about fashion.
When I was younger, I really liked science.
I love the high school musical movies, even though I know they are ridiculously awful.
When it comes to music, I'll listen to one CD for a really long time, then get sick of it and not listen to it for awhile.
I like spending time with my friends, but being by myself also works for me. Sometimes.
I love to laugh.
I love walking in the rain, especially if I get completely soaked.
I get nervous easily.
I love to read.
I like sugar.
Anyone who can make me smile or laugh is pretty much my hero.
I hate feelings left out.
I want to move back to New York.
My favorite color is purple.
I love being Jewish.
I hate feelings stupid.
I get hurt easily but try not to show it.
I LOVE Disney movies.
Chuck E Cheese is one of my favorite places. My 18th birthday was my best birthday, and I spent it at Chuck E Cheese.
I love mint n chip and chocolate malted crunch ice cream.
I like to ice skate.
If I could live in a bookstore I would totally do it.
I really like Israeli dancing, but it's been awhile since I have been able to.
I would rather go book shopping than clothes shopping.
I'm NEVER sarcastic. Ever.
I used to be in a band with two other redheads called "Twisted Faces".
I'm addicted to text messaging.
I recently found this quote that I feel describes me well: "I'm the type of girl who will burst out laughing in dead silence because of something that happened yesterday."
I love midnight shopping trips.
I like meeting new people even though it freaks me out.
I usually have way too many pillows on my bed.
I ages I act range from 5 to 12 to 16 to 21.
I keep the interesting fortunes from fortune cookies up on my wall. (My favorite: An empty bag does not stand upright.)
I'm a huge fan of pienapple.
I like pretending I'm good at painting.
I learned how to do a cartwheel two summers ago.
I like glitter.
I don't know how I feel about change.
I really like dry yellow cake mix or brownie mix.
I talk in letter form sometimes. (Dear ipod, stop hating me. love, me.)
I use abbreviations sometimes. (Probs, totes, maybs)

That was long. (that's what she said.)

I should probs go to bed now. It's almost 4.
I'll try to put up a real post later. Sorry for the fluff.

party time

2008-09-07T13:53:00.000-07:00

I really wish I was still into partying as much as I used to be. Ever since I got back to school, the only thing that there really has been to do is to get drunk or go to a party. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan of drinking occasionally, but I don't want to get ridiculously drunk every time I have some alcohol.

Back in freshman year, we used to have theatre parties at my friend Sean's house all the time. Literally, every Thursday and Friday and Saturday, we would be over there, drinking and hanging out, or drinking to a Disney movie, or drinking and listening to music. I think most of the time that I spent over there I was drunk.

Best drinking game night ever was when we played a drinking game to Hercules. Girls drank every time they said Hades, guys drank every time they said Zeus, everyone drank every time they said "Hercules" or a song started. Talk about getting sloshed quickly! That was fun. I think we tried to watch other movies after that, but everyone was pretty drunk.

This weekend there was a lingerie party at the Normal St House (a house where a group of theatre students live). At first I thought it was going to be really fun because sophomore year it was awesome, everyone was dressed up and we all knew eachother (and also I was 11 Kamikazee shots deep). This year most of the people were dressed up (Mindee and I went shopping at Frederick's on Wednesday to get our outfits - these ones, if you're interested) but there were a TON of people there. Apparently, one of the freshman took it upon herself to invite everyone she's met since she's been here, which was AWESOME. And by awesome I mean the worst thing ever. There was no air in the house, so if you went in there you couldn't breathe. If you were outside, you got eaten by bugs. If you went in the basement you were humped senseless by the hoards of drunk freshman. (Major orgy.) The party was just ridiculous.

I think a lot of the people had fun, but I was ready to leave about five minutes after I got there. There were too many people there that I didn't know for the amount of naked I was. But I stuck it out, hung out with a bunch of people outside (and now have about 8 bug bites to show for it) and tried to be a good sport. I had even taken 3 shots before I left to get in the mood for the party! It just didn't work. Bad news.

Oh well. Maybe I should just figure out how to be a drunkie again. Eh.

Make believe...

2008-09-02T23:55:00.001-07:00

Tonight ended up not being so bad after all.

I accidentally left my phone at home, so when he called me I wasn't around to answer it. I got home around 5:30, saw that he had called, and called him back. He didn't pick up the first time, so I waited about ten minutes, then called again.

"Hello?"
"Hey, how are you?"
"I'm ok, starved. Are you hungry?"
"I could definitely eat."
"Ok, where shoud we meet?"
"You were supposed to pick an Italian restaurant..."
"Oh, that's right I was. Well, how about we go to Franky's? That's Italian."
"Sure, I've never been there."
"Ok, how about I'll meet you there at 6 and then drive you home?"
"Sure." (I don't think he knows I have a car.)

I walked to the restaurant, and ended up getting there five minutes early. Asked for a table for two, then sat down. Ten minutes later, he showed up.

"Sorry I was five minutes late."
"It's ok."
"Give me a hug."
(I did)

The conversation started out kind of halted, talking about politics (why does he always bring up politics right away? I wish I cared more. I know, I'm a bad American. Boo freaking hoo.), then slowly moving on to other things. He talked about his trip to Los Angeles last spring and how much he hated living there. How he dated a woman who made him feel insignificant and money conscious, and bored. He said that she said that he was the least affectionate person she knew, and he told me that wasn't true, that he's actually a very affectionate person. He continued to talk about her for a good 10 minutes, telling me all the awful things she did and how she kept bringing him to museums. He said he hates museums. (If you'll recall, I do as well.) He said he likes art that moves, like theatre or music. (I was going to question him on this point, because as far as I know the only theatre he likes is Les Miz and West Side Story, but I decided not to.) I told him about my summer in New York, and how many shows I saw. I tried to name them all, but he makes me nervous and I couldn't remember. He told me that he saw August: Osage County, and we talked about that for a little while. He asked if I was single, I told him I was, but not by choice. He asked if I wanted a relationship. I said I would, but it seems kind of pointless since I'm leaving. He asked "wouldn't this be the time to take time for you?" I asked him if he was single. He said "mostly." He said he doesn't have a girlfriend.

He asked me if I was happy.

I tried to explain to him what I felt, but I couldn't find the words to do it. I told him I was "happyish. Maybe." He asked me what that meant. It took me awhile, but I figured out how to word it so that I was ok with it.

"The summer in New York was so good for me..."
"So you were really in your element there."
"...but it stressed me out a lot too."
"Why?"
"It made me realize that this is my last year of college, and I still need so much training to even be close to the same level as all of those amazing people that are out there right now."

Then he told me that I needed to be involved with theatre somehow for the rest of my life. That he could see what passion it ignited in me, and how happy I seemed when I was talking about it. He said that it didn't matter what capacity it was in - "it could be marketing, or box office" - but I needed it in my life in some way, and he could tell what an important part it is of who I am. I agreed with him. Then he told me that I have secret talents. (News to me.) He said sometimes we never turn out to do the things we think we're going to. He never expected to be a teacher. I asked what he thought he was going to be. He said "a trial lawyer." When I asked him why the change, he said "I couldn't get past the fact that I wouldn't be helping many people."

A little while later he told me I looked sad. I made the excuse that it was my face (because most of the time it is!).
"It's not your face, your natural expression is very lovely."
"Uh, ok."
He looked for our server, then said the next part very quickly: "You look hot, are you sure you don't want dessert?" I laughed, and declined.

He got up to pay for our meal, then came back and sat down.
"I take it back, you don't look sad. You look relaxed and debonair."
"I'll take that over sad!"

And then he asked me what I was thinking.
"You know that's one of the hardest questions to answer?"
"I can think of much harder questions. You know, you can always ask me what I'm thinking? You know I'll tell you anything?"
I felt the awkwardness sliding back in, so I asked for his drink of choice.
"I tell you to ask me anything, and that's what you want to know?"
"Yes."

A few minutes later he asked if we could go hang out at my place. I said sure. We came to my apartment, and he wandered around a little bit. He looked at my room (which was only semi-clean) and my pictures, then told me I hadn't sent him any videos in awhile. I must have looked confused, because he said "of you doing stuff...you know...singing?" That calmed me down a bit (a little more than a year ago I sent him a video of me giving my freshman roommate a lapdance...), then told him I would send him some soon.

Then he told me that next time we should start later, and go out to dinner.
I walked him to the door, he hugged me and said goodbye.

Whisper her name...

2008-09-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

Talk about an eventful night.

Last night, I had a birthday party for a friend of mine. It was a special birthday party though, definitely not the typical kind. First of all, she doesn't live in northern California. She's in Santa Barbara. Well, really, she's buried there.

My first real week in New York, my friend killed herself.

I remember getting the call. My mom called me at 10am on that Friday morning. I was upset that she had called that early because it was my only day to sleep in, and I wanted to sleep til noon. I didn't pick up, but she didn't leave a message. I called her back right away, asking if it was important. She said it was, but if I was still sleeping I could call her back later. That caught my attention. She was calling to tell me that on Wednesday, M had taken her life.

I hadn't talked to M in a few months, so I didn't really know what was going on in her life, but she had emailed me around Thanksgiving to wish me a happy birthday and to comment on the fact that I was thinking about becoming a Jewish educator. She thought it was so cool that I might be a rabbi or a cantor or a teacher of Judaism. She told me that she was bragging to her boyfriend about it and everything.

God, I miss her.

We were never that close or anything, but our families were in the same group at the temple. Our Havurah (basically a group of families that make up another family) always had events planned, so we hung out a lot. When I was younger, I actually thought she didn't like me. Of course, that's how I feel about a lot of people, but for her it was worse because she was in my Havurah. Anyway, eventually we became a little closer, hanging out when our moms would get together. She was such a tomboy, and I was a girly girl, so our personalities clashed, but one day when it was raining we put bathing suits on (I put the top of mine on backwards) and did a rain dance. There are pictures.

Anyway, last night I had a birthday party for her, and I guess things just hit me harder than I was expecting them to. It also didn't help that I drank a lot. (For those of you who want to know how much I had - an entire bottle of white wine, a triple sec and pomegranate juice, two and a half pina coladas...that's all I can remember. It's possible I had other drinks.) There was a lot of crying, and a lot of text messaging, and a lot of conversations that should have been had while sober. I think the thing that keeps getting me through this is that at least she's not hurting anymore. Silver lining.

Happy birthday, M. I hope you're doing better, wherever you are.

Round and round we go...

2008-08-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

So, cast lists went up. I was cast as "Servant" in Bernarda Alba. She gets to sing and she also has lines, and if they do the same character breakdowns as in the script, I get to also play a fiance who sings by themself. So. Sorry about being so emo.

In other news, I accidentally-on-purpose ran into the Professor tonight. I had been hanging out at Stina's eating dinner and watching Hercules with Cindy, Lauren, and Stina. We were eating and drinking and having a good time, and I was kind of tipsy because I hadn't eaten much today, and I sent him a text message. It wasn't anything bad, all it said was "What are you up to on this kind of hot saturday night?" And he sent me one back that just said the name of a bar. Fast forward to a few hours later, Casey (my roommate) and I were going out to the bars to meet up for our friend's 21st birthday, and she said that they were going to this one bar. We walked over there, and the line was huge, so we went to this other bar (neither of which were the one that the Professor said he was at.). We walked in, ordered some drinks, sat down, and there was the Professor, drinking with his other professor friends. One of which is actually my professor this year. Anyway, he hugged me, and we chatted for a little bit. We're having dinner on Tuesday. That sort of came about when I sent out a mass text message talking about how I had gotten cast in the show. He said "congratulations! We should get together sometime soon." And then somehow it came around to us deciding to go out to dinner on Tuesday.

Just to go back a little bit, he was supposed to take me out for my 20th birthday where a lot of things were supposed to happen (which will be two years ago in November), before I left for London for the spring semester, but I ended up not going to London so he ended up not taking me out. Then for my 21st birthday he was going to take me out to get drinks, but that ended up not happening. He spent last spring in LA while he was on Sabbatical, so that kind of kept us apart.

While I was in New York, I sent him a text message (while I was completely sober) asking if we were ever going to have "our night". The night we were supposed to have way back in the day. He answered me asking if I was drunk, and then said yes. So. Maybe this semester it'll happen. Who knows.

Anyway, Tuesday we're having dinner. I'll let you know how that goes.

What am I doing?

die, vampire, die part 2

2008-08-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

I feel all sorts of uncomfortable about this second callback that I had. I know, I know, "die, vampire, die" but...I don't know. It's just gnawing at me. I messed up the dancing, I sort of messed up the harmonies...I don't even know if my acting was what he wanted. I was the only person he directed, but I don't know if that was because I was the first one back in the room or because he really wanted me to get it.

He came up to me today and said "You need to leave yourself at home tonight, and bring in some crazy person. I really want to be as fair as possible, but there are other people who are talented. So if you want to get a good part, you need to bring it." I mean, at least he gave me a heads up, but...I don't know.

I feel like this is one of my last chances at school to be a semi-decent part in a musical. Next semester they're doing Crazy For You and I don't think the director for that likes me. Or he doesn't think I can handle it. Or something.

Or maybe I'm just not good enough. I guess the proof is in the pudding. Cast list goes up tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Stupid vampire.

Saturday night in the city...

2008-08-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I went out with Christina and Vianey and a bunch of other people for Vianey's birthday. It was really fun hanging out with all of them again. I definitely think that this semester is different in terms of how I feel about myself and how other people might perceive me.

One thing that was definitely different was that I went up and talked to someone completely random. He had walked by when I was talking to Christina and I had accidentally hit him in the crotch with my purse (wrong place, wrong time? right place, wrong time? who knows...). I apologized when he turned around, he said he was fine. (I didn't hit him THAT hard.) About an hour later, my group was getting ready to head out and I saw him sitting at a table. I told Vianey that I thought he was cute, and then she tried to get Matt D involved to get me to go talk to him. They were all trying to give me suggestions for things I should say to him, but none of them actually got through a suggestion, I just walked away from them and walked up to him and had this conversation (keep in mind that I was sober, and this was at a bar):

me: Excuse me, are you the one that I hit earlier?
him: yes, that was me.
me: i'm so sorry about that. anyway, my friends and I have a bet going. How old are you?
him: How old do you think I am?
me: No, that kind of defeats the point. Just tell me so I can find out who won.
him: I'm 23. How old are you?
me: I'm 21.
him: that's not bad.
me: (silent, but weird look on my face)
him: i'm sorry , that was a terrible response.
me: yeah, now I feel less bad about hitting you!
him: (he laughed)

Then he proceeded to ask me what we were doing for the rest of the night, but I was going home since I had auditions the next day. He asked for my number, then told me he's new in town, so I told him to call me if he wanted a tour guide. I doubt he'll call, but at least I got up to go talk to him.

Vianey and Matt told me they were proud of me when I came back. Woo.

After auditions, Stina told me that I looked great, all thin and stuff, which I thought was funny because I haven't really lost weight since the last time I saw her. But then I figured out what was different. I'm much more mellow this semester. And I have more confidence.
And that's awesome.

Make it through...

2008-08-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

Auditions were last night. I think they went ok. I can never really gage that kind of thing though, because I've thought auditions have gone well in the past and all I've gotten back is a "thanks for playing, but no." So I guess we'll see. Callback list goes up tomorrow. (Just for the record, the shows that we're doing this semester are Bernarda Alba, Sly Fox, and Ubu Roi....pretty obscure, but we'll see what happens.) Sue (the director of Sly Fox and also a professor) saw me walking today and said "good job last night". I didn't ask her what she thought of my auditon, she just came out and said that. I don't know if she was just being nice, or what, but she didn't say anything to the other girls I was with who also auditioned last night. I can never tell with things like that. I overanalyze a lot. Eh.

First day of classes went well. I really think that these two acting classes are going to kick my ass. At least, I hope they are. Being in New York made me see how much help I needed if I even wanted a chance to make it to the big time. And even then there's no guarantee. But I think they'll be good. It'll be really interesting to see the difference between Joel and Bill's style of teaching, and what I come away with this semester.

After Bill's class I was hanging out in the green room, and Joel came over and sat next to me. He was talking across the table to another girl, telling her that her schedule was going to make it difficult for her to get a callback, and then he turned to me and started talking to me about my hair. He asked if I had cut it and given myself bangs, and then we had this debate about what it had looked like last semester and when I had first come into the school as a freshman. And then he said "oh yeah, your hair was short...and bouncy." and I said "How very appropriate for my personality!" (being sarcastic), and he said "Yeah, it definitely didn't match up." And then we proceeded to talk about how my face makes it seem like I am a very angry person, which is not really how my personality is. He said that the costumer for the show I was in freshman year came to Joel and said something along the lines of "she doesn't seem very happy...she actually seems mad at everyone!" But he knew that's not how I really am.

I really like Joel. He's basically known my personality from the start, and I think that's why we get along so well. He's really sassy and sarcastic, and that's kind of how I am too. He's much older though, so he's better at it than me. I think I'm ok with that.

But at least I get to joke around with him. I think a lot of people are scared to talk to him because he's the chair of the department or something. I don't know, I've never been particularly scared of him. Meh, we all have our vampires.

I think I'm going to audition for the dance shows this semester. I'm not a strong dancer, but I think that last semester I definitely stepped it up a little bit in how quickly I can pick up steps. I took a musical theatre dance survey class where she would teach a dance one day, we'd clean it the next day, and then get tested on it on the third day. It was a pretty intense class, but I loved it. And it wasn't necessarily easy. So I might as well give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen? They'll say no. And then I'll go on with my life and try again next semester. It never hurts to try though.

Ok, I guess I should figure out what my schedule is for tomorrow...I don't know where my classes are...

Here we go again...

2008-08-23T01:11:00.000-07:00

So, I leave for school in the morning. My second home. Or temporary home?

Last semester, it felt less like a home, and more like a place where I was just passing time. People I thought were my friends phased me out of their lives, and the people I became friends with to make up for it aren't going to be there this semester.

Things are going to be different this year, and I have to admit that I'm worried about it. I'm scared that my senior year is going to suck, which would give me some sort of character development, but at the same time I'd really like it to not suck. I'd like to go through this year actually enjoying my classes, and having friends that I can hang out with all the time. I'd like to not spend all my time at home watching tv via the internet or reading.

I'd like to spend time at the park nearby painting. I'd like to take a lot of pictures, but live IN the moment too. I'd like to actually remember nights with friends, and develop new inside jokes that every time I think about them I'll smile. I'd like to spend time drinking chai tea and having conversations that make me feel less like I'm in a lecture, and more like I'm learning something. I'd like to expand my mind.

It's my last year in college. I've had a semi-memorable first three years, how about finishing my college career off like that?

I have a bone to pick...with myself...

2008-08-21T01:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's because I'm a scorpio, or because I'm a redhead, or because I'm a middlechild, but I am hot-tempered. I'm not kidding, I get angry SO quickly.

Here are some things that happened tonight that made me turn into bitch-mode:

Backstory: My mom and I were going to watch Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on DVD. How can you get mad at anything when it comes to that?

Exhibit A: My mom put the DVD in, then went into the kitchen to get something to eat. The menu started playing. The DVD menu for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants basically gives the entire movie away. That was stupid. (I've seen it already AND read the book, so it didn't much matter to me that that was happening, but it seemed pointless.) Also, the menu preview thing just plays over and over and over again. So I watched it three times while waiting for my mom to get back from getting food from the kitchen.

Exhibit B: Our DVD player isn't calibrated correctly, so no matter what the DVD is, the default language is French. The movie started playing, in French, and I basically said very meanly to my mom (who didn't even have the remote, my brother did) "OUR DVD PLAYER ISN'T CALIBRATED RIGHT, YOU NEED TO CHANGE THE LANGUAGE!" and then I noticed that my brother had the remote and said "Sorry, I thought you had the remote." And she said "and you needed to say that meanly because...why?" No response from me.

Exhibit C: My mom stretched out on the couch and put her feet on me. I hate feet. I think she knows that. I just sighed loudly a lot and kind of squirmed. Eventually she moved them.

Exhibit D: There's a part in the movie where Carmen's dad's fiance comes in and says that Maria is there to do do the sheets, and Carmen should get up, and Carmen protests and says that she can do the sheets herself. Carmen says "it's fine, people wash their own sheets all the time." And my brother said "really?" but he didn't sound like he was kidding, he sounded like he was serious (because we have a maid who comes once a week and washes our sheets). And then I looked at him incredulously and said "You're not going to have a maid in college, good luck with life." And my mom was like "why are you being so mean?"

Exhibit E: My mom started falling asleep so I felt like turning off the movie and just going to bed. She was missing all the important parts of the movie! And it frustrated me.

Who gets that upset while watching a MOVIE? Seriously.

Find my way back to then

2008-08-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, so now that I've had a day back in California and have had time to decompress a little bit (I guess), I want to post about my sort-of-not-really-hellish day of goodbyes and flights gone wrong.

First of all, the goodbyes that I had planned didn't turn out anything close to what I was hoping for.

The original plan: 1 - go see [title of show], 2 - head to Serendipity to get massive ice cream sundaes with Rachel, Emma, and Laura, 3 - get my suitcase from my brother's apartment (where I had stashed it because Rachel's room was more of a closet) and take it back to Rachel's, and 4 - hang out at Rachel's until it was time for me to go to the airport.

What actually happened: 1- saw [title of show] with Rachel. It was amazing (just like it was the first time I saw it.) Rachel and I went to the stage door and got to meet the cast (and writers) of the show, which was really cool. They were so nice, talking to everyone and signing autographs and taking pictures...absolutely fantastic. 2 - After the show, Rachel and I went to get my suitcase from my brother's apartment. He had to go to bed early because he was starting a new job, so I had to go out of order for this. Daniel sent me a text asking where I was, then sent me another text saying something along the lines of "hurry up, I wanted to go to bed before this" which kind of made me want to...well...hurry up. Emma and Laura also kept calling to find out where we were because they got out of their show before we did. This brought on a bit of a headache. Carrying my huge ass suitcase down the stairs at his apartment made me headache get a little bigger. 3 - As we were about to get a cab, Emma called saying that they were going to seat us in about ten minutes, so we went to Serendipity. So now I have my suitcase in tow, and a huge headache. We met Laura and Emma, where I was totally stressed because I still had my suitcase and didn't have time to bring it back to Rachel's before they seated us. I was worried they weren't going to let us in with my huge ass suitcase. (Seriously, I could fit in that suitcase. I could probably fit all four of us in my huge ass suitcase. Ok, maybe just two of us.) Emma and Laura both said that they probably wouldn't let us in with my suitcase, so then I became a bit of a baby and started crying. (The headache and the thought that I had to leave soon plus the fact that I wasn't in a good mood didn't exactly help me not feel like crying. Ugh.) They ended up being really accommodating and put my suitcase in a back room that they locked so that I wouldn't have to worry about it. But alas, Serendipity was not to be...Emma and Laura didn't realize that there was no 12:45 bus back to New Jersey and had to catch the 11:45. We were seated at Serendipity at 10:30. Serendipity is at E. 60th and 3rd Ave, Port Authority is W. 42nd and Broadwayish. So it takes a little while to get there, even if you take a cab (which is expensive). So about ten minutes after we were seated, Emma and Laura had to leave to catch the bus. That sucked because it was a quick hug goodbye, and that was it. I was in a pretty bad mood as it was, having not gotten much sleep the night before, so I was a little more stressed. Now, not only did I have the suitcase issue and a headache, I didn't get to say a proper goodbye to two of the people I had gotten really close to. Not cool. 4 - Rachel and I left Serendipity about five minutes after Laura and Emma did because we had already been there on Tuesday and figured there was no point in staying since we had wanted to share it with Laura and Emma. So, we caught a cab heading up to Rachel's place to drop off my suitcase, then went to get food at somewhere much cheaper. We ended up eating at Tom's Restaurant, the outside of which is a model for the diner in Seinfeld. Food was cheap, which was good. Then we went back to Rachel's and watched TV until I had to leave for the airport. I took a nap. Woo. Car came at 2:30 to pick me up. Rachel and I had a long hug goodbye, and that was it. I was off.

I got to the airport around 3am. I thought it would have taken longer to get to the airport, but it didn't. So I was there ridiculously early. Then, nobody showed up at the ticket counter until 4:45. My flight wasn't until 6:30am. I sat on my suitcase and tried to read for a bit, but kept falling asleep. Sleeping while sitting up on a suitcase is not comfortable, lemme tell ya. The only good thing about getting there so early was that I could weigh my suitcases on the scale and make sure they weren't too ridiculously heavy. Eventually I checked my bags, went through security, and got on the plane. Once on the plane, however, I found out I was in the emergency exit row. Kind of freaked me out. I'm nowhere near strong enought to be able to help anyone out of a plane, but I consoled myself in thinking that if the plane went down there was little chance of survival which meant less of a chance of me helping someone out of the plane. That's not morbid at all, right? I also froze during the entirety of the flight. Blankets cost money now, so I tried to deal with it...but freezing and sleeping do not go hand in hand. Made for a very uncomfortable three hour flight. Then I had a 3 hour layover in Kansas City International. Nothing was open, so I basically sat in the terminal hungry, cold, and tired. Awesome. The second flight was a little better, but I think the guy sitting next to me was sick. So maybe I have that to look forward to? Towards the end of the flight they passed out AMAZING cookies, so that was mildly redeeming. (Seriously. I almost stole the cookies from the guy who was sitting next to me because he was asleep. He wouldn't have known...) Thanks for the cookies, Midwest.

Now I'm home, meeting Lacey in Santa Monica tomorrow and hopefully finding a dress to wear for auditions on Sunday. I guess I should memorize my monologue...

P.S. I really want to learn "Find My Way Back to Then" from [title of show]. Or any of the girl songs from that show. So...my birthday is in November, feel free to order me some sheet music...

I like lists

2008-08-20T01:01:00.000-07:00

Shows I saw while in New York:

Altar Boyz - 6/20/08
A Chorus Line - 6/27/08
Passing Strange - 7/9/08
Mary Poppins - 7/9/08
Passing Strange - 7/19/08
[title of show] - 7/21/08
August: Osage County - 7/23/08
Boeing Boeing - 7/25/08
Legally Blonde - 7/26/08
In The Heights - 8/7/08
The First Breeze of Summer - 8/10/08
Gypsy - 8/13/08
Hairspray - 8/15/08
Spamalot -8/16/08
Thurgood - 8/16/08
Jersey Boys - 8/17/08
[title of show] - 8/17/08

Sweet. Jealous?

Places I stayed while in New York:
76th and Park (Upper East Side)
59th and 2nd (Midtown East/Upper East Side)
86th and Amsterdam (Upper West Side)
10th and Ave A (East Village)
115th and Broadway (Upper West Side)

sleepy sleepy sleep jet lag planes goodnight

2008-08-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

Made it back to California safe and sound. Can't believe how exhausted I am. And how bad timing was the theme of the day.

Update to come later, just wanted to let y'all know I'm home ok. In case you were worried.

And now I'm off to bed because I can't keep my eyes open. Aaaaaaah jet lag.

PS Hey SO@24, want to hang out while I'm in LA? Ha.

Leaving on a jet plane...

2008-08-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

So, Monday morning at 6:30am I leave the big city of New York and fly back home to Los Angeles. I'm excited to go home, but I'm really sad, too.

I'm excited because I miss sleeping in my own bed with my own things surrounding me. I have tons of pictures of family and friends up on my walls, books on my bookshelves...And my bed is supercomfortable! (Especially in comparison to the chair I've been sleeping in since the 13th...not that I'm complaining...thanks Rachel!) Plus it'll be great to spend a little time with my family for a few days before heading back up to school on the 22nd.

And I'm actually excited about going back to school, too! I feel like this semester is really going to be good for me. I'm planning on working hard, and being prepared for all of my classes...of course, I say this before every semester starts and the usual pattern occurs: I'm really enthusiastic for the first two weeks, and then I put the homework off a night thinking "it's ok, I still have tomorrow to do it," which then turns into me making a list halfway through the semester of all the reading I still need to do. (Last semester I had over 200 pages for 2 classes that I never ended up reading. Did decently well in the classes though, so that's good-ish.) But this time I'm planning on doing it right, staying enthusiastic the whole time. I got to choose what classes I wanted to take this semester, they just mostly had to be upperdivision. (Nevermind that two of the classes I REALLY wanted to take were cancelled after I had enrolled in them...stupid budget cuts.)

Not only that, but I miss my friends. I feel like I always make some good friends towards the end of the spring semester, right before summer break, soI have people to go back and talk to. Plus, I have a new roommate, so it'll be interesting getting to know her. My other roommate is still there too, and he's newly 21, so it'll be fun going to bars with him and the rest of whatever crew we manage to scrape together.

On the flip side, I really am going to miss New York. Taking subways to get wherever you need to go, being able to go to a different show every night, seeing all the strange people...it's SO different from what I'm used to.

And I'm really going to miss the friends that I've made here. Because it was such a short time, a few of us got really close really fast, making things so much more enjoyable. I'm really going to miss Laura's brilliant comebacks ("It's people like you......who make the world............stupid."), and Emma's twinlike Baby Spice looks, and Rachel's....well, everything. I can't even pinpoint one thing. It's just going to be so different going back to school and not having the three of them (or even just one of them) with me all the time. They are the ones I spent the most time with while I was here. What's going to happen when we are all separated?

I wish I was better at keeping in touch with people, because then I would be less worried about the state of our friendship once we all go to our respective places of residence.

But for now, I still have the weekend, and I plan to enjoy it while it lasts.

Thanks New York. I owe ya one.

Secrets....for everyone?

2008-08-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

Last week flew by so quickly! To be honest, I don't really remember much of what I did except for working at the theatre, hanging out with Rachel (different Rachel from before, this one is from one of my internships...we're also in a facebook relationship), Emma, and Laura, and watching a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Oh, and moving into Rachel's dorm because my brother came back and sort of left me with no place to sleep.

I've been spending most of my recent weeks with Rachel, Emma, and Laura. Emma and Laura are two girls from England who are interning at the same theatre as Rachel and I are. Rachel and I became friends last month after I had an adventure that involved alcohol, suspenders, and Williamsburg. All three of them are really awesome. (Hi girls!)

I think I'm going to change directions of this post though.

I had decided when I first started writing in this blog that I wasn't going to give out the address, that it was going to be a blog for me and if people happened to find it then so be it. Then I decided that I should give it to one person who knew me in real life so that I would feel like someone knew about it and then it wasn't really a secret. So I told a friend from school, and my cousin, two people in completely separate parts of my life. Then, I told Rachel about it (I think I was drunk, I'm not quite sure though). Then I asked permission to use people's names in it. Then I mentioned that I had a blog to other people, but didn't give them the link. And I have come to this conclusion:

I suck at keeping (most of) my own secrets.

I'm really good at keeping other people's secrets, but when it comes to my own...the cat is ALWAYS out of the bag. I have a crush on someone? Everyone knows. I'm not doing well in a class? Even information that shouldn't really be shared with people is common knowledge! It's frustrating because I plan on keeping things to myself, but somehow they end up shared.

The example I can think of most (besides the blog thing) is my cruisefling. (Ha, more sharing. Oh well.) I went on a cruise back in December to celebrate my grandparents 60th anniversary (seriously amazing) and my Grandmother's 80th birthday. I love the piano and anyone who can play it. (I've mentioned this.) I went to the piano bar on the first night of the cruise, and the piano player and I hit it off, one thing led to another and voila! A cruisefling was born. When I got back from the trip I decided that I wanted to keep it to myself, not tell anyone. It was my business, why should I share it? That didn't last for long. I think two days after I had gotten back more than half of my friends knew. And when I share a "secret," I kind of become obsessive about it. So I was talking about it a lot. Again, I think I've shared this.

Anyway, I suck at keeping my own secrets.

Here's something that shouldn't be kept a secret though: a blog about the new subway scrabble contest. Check it. Seriously.

I could go for a McFlurry right about now...

2008-08-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of Grey's Anatomy lately. And when I say a lot, I mean I started the first season last Wednesday at work, and am now almost done with the second season. Kind of ridiculous.

Second semester of freshman year there was a whole group of us that watched Grey's in my room. The group consisted of Matt F (my then boyfriend), Matt D (Matt F's roommate), Vianey (my then roommate), and Christina (a girl from down the hall who Vianey had made friends with and in turn I made friends with). We used to crowd around the tiny tv set that Vianey had brought with her to watch the season 1 DVDs and the second half of season 2. Those were good times. We used to watch episodes, then talk about how we would all be friends for a really long time. When all of us were sitting together in that room, you could feel the bond that we shared. I think that people who walked in could even feel it. They just knew. But times change, people change, I talked about this already. Eh. Moving on.

Thinking about those times makes me really miss the closeness of good friends though. And having someone to like/love. I mean, in the more recent days of my New York life, I've made some really great friends. But it's been a long time since I've had a boyfriend. Or a crush on a real person. (Not that the guys I've had crushes on recently aren't "real people," it was just never realistic to like them. Religious differences and all that jazz.)

What I really miss is liking someone. Or having someone like me. Someone that I can really talk to, really be myself. Someone who will understand that I like to dance to the Spice Girls, or watch High School Musical, or that I get distracted by glitter. And who won't just say "aw, you're so cute," or just laugh at me when I'm being self-conscious. Someone who won't judge me for staying up until 4 in the morning because I was reading and couldn't put a book down, but will be able to say "yeah, I've done that. I love when that happens." Someone that will be my best friend, but also my teddy bear. When Beth and Erik were here, I felt like I was able to be myself. Yeah, I even spun around the subway pole at 3am and they supported me, they didn't care that I was acting like an idiot. When I used to go to camp with Rachel and Sunny, I'd get superhyper, and they loved every minute of it. They got hyper with me. I need more people like that in my life, not people who will put me down because of what I like or what I think.

I guess I keep coming back to needing more supportive friends. I think it's more than that though. I'm lonely. I'm tired of not scrolling through my contacts list on my phone and not having anyone to call to tell about something stupid that I saw while walking down the street. I'm tired of spending nights by myself. I'm tired of not hugging people. I'm tired of being alone.

I know that you aren't supposed to look for love, or it'll come when you least expect it, or whatever, but...it's difficult! Ha, like I have to tell more than half the world. We all know it.

Well, I guess it's back to more Grey's Anatomy. I wish I had a McFlurry to eat while watching McDreamy and McSteamy...

Freak out.

2008-08-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

I've been very busy lately. Erik and Beth left on Thursday. I've been hanging out with people from my theatre internship the other nights. It's just been a very full week. So. I haven't posted.

I feel bad when I don't post, because at first I was very enthusiastic, and now I'm not so much. I mean, I still want to get my thoughts out there, but at the same time...I feel like people don't care that much about what I have to say.

Tonight I kind of freaked out, because I couldn't get in to my apartment. This has happened before, but tonight I was a little more scared because my phone was very close to dying. I called my parents after I tried for five minutes to get in to no avail. They kept giving me suggestions, but finally I just started buzzing people hoping SOMEONE would be awake and would buzz me in. Luckily, after buzzing four people someone let me in. They buzzed it for just long enough to let me through the front door. My key doesn't work in the front door for some reason, but it works in the second. Thank goodness it does, otherwise I would still be outside!

In other news, I have a thing for piano players. The professor plays piano. For some reason, I kind of think it doesn't matter what age or sexual orientation you are if you play piano. You could be 32 and gay, and I would still totally have a crush on you if you play piano. But at the same time you could be 40 and straight, and I would have a crush on you too if you had those magic fingers.

I'm not really sure why I like piano so much. I guess it's just soothing or something. It calms me down.

I'm drunk. I don't make sense.

In MORE other news, I just found out that a guy that I kind of thought was cute last Monday is straight, and not gay like most of the interns thought. He told me tonight that I "clean up nice". Sweet. He's cute. Too bad I'm leaving NY two weeks from Monday. Oh well.

This post is stupid. Whatever. I'm going to the beach with my cousin in the morning. Awesome. Goodnight.

So tired.

2008-07-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

I am so so so tired. Last night I went to bed at 1:30, but woke up around 2:30 with an awful stomachache. Awful. And I couldn't take a tylenol pm by that point because last time I did that at 2:30 I slept til noon, even though I had to work. So I was forced to suffer through it. I couldn't fall back asleep at all. It was ridiculous. I kind of felt like opening my brother's window and tossing myself into the park. Less pain.

Anyway, Beth and Erik are staying with me now until they leave tomorrow. I think the plan tonight is to go to the Wonderful World of Disney, then to Spotlight and get completely trashed and sing like we're amazing. Which we are! Musical theatre people can sing, so...there's that. I'm not conceited, I swear. No really. Erik is a little, but we love him anyway.

I can't believe this is my last week at one of my two internships. That means that I'm not here for very much longer. I leave on the 18th, and it's the 30th now. Wow. That's so soon! I can't believe how fast the time flew while I was here.

I feel like I've gotten a lot of what I wanted to done since I've been here, so that's good. I wish I wasn't as apathetic towards museums and stuff though, because if people ask me if I went there, I have to say no. And then they give me this look like "you are so uncultured. What a loser!" and there's nothing I can do about it. But I'm not uncultured, I just don't really care for museums. I like hands on whatnot. So like...the California Science Center is cool. (I went to prom there my junior year with my friend Chris, and it was AWESOME.) But I'd rather be actually doing something than trying to figure out what some artist's brush strokes were trying to convey. I like pictures. Yeah. But anyway, I've seen a bunch of shows, which I've wanted to see. I've stayed up til 6am with friends, and gone to a few parties, gone to the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty, hung out at a few bars, met a lot of people...done a lot of stuff.

I feel like this trip has given me a lot of insight into myself too, but I'll save that for later, after I actually leave NY. Then I can truly reflect.

I wrote some more lyrics two nights ago. I don't know if I've mentioned that I write songs. I've written two songs so far. Woo. I want to learn how to play guitar. That'd be cool. Or piano. Then I could accompany myself! But I don't know how to play either. Sad day.

Ok, this post is stupid enough, so I'm going to get back to work. Slash looking at other people's blogs.

But before I go....any suggestions for things I should in my last two weeks in New York???

Stay

2008-07-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

So the song Stay by Sugarland was first on my playlist this morning on Pandora.

This song is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but...
it's about the other woman's point of view.

Screw the guy for cheating in the first place, right? Or something.

Here's the video. What do you think?

Fortune cookies tell awesome fortunes

2008-07-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Last night, Beth and I were having a girls night (leaving Erik to his own devices) and decided to order Chinese food. As we were watching High School Musical: Get in the Picture, our food arrived, which we dug in to quite quickly. After we were done eating, we opened our fortunes. I don't remember what hers said (last night was a long time ago, give me a break!), but mine was quite profound. Mine said:

"You don't have to change friends if you understand that friends change."

Wow, right?

It definitely makes me reflect on stuff that has happened in the past few years with people who I was/am friends with.

My 20th and 21st birthday years have both been so different. As I've said before, a few weeks before I turned 20 I stopped drinking, then when I turned 21, I started again. A lot of things happened right after I turned 21. At my birthday party, (which I had planned for myself because I wanted to celebrate with my friends, but ended up being sick with a cold during after I got back from my vegas birthday trip...more on that later) I was forced to drink by my friends, EVEN THOUGH I was not feeling well. Ok, maybe not forced, but I felt like if I was having this party so that people could drink with me to celebrate my "return to the drinking world," I should be drinking. So I did, and that was fun, and my friends were fans of the fact that I could drink again (as one of my rudest friends said when I had stopped: "I liked it better when you were drinking").

But things weren't all fine and dandy for long.

Things that led to the demise of my friendships with people I thought were my friends:
-I went on a cruise in December with my family, where I had a cruisefling with the pianist on the ship. My friends didn't like that I talked a lot about it when I came back.

-I started going out to the bars, mainly with Michelle, who was 24. My friends didn't like that I was hanging out with other people or that I was "drinking all the time to get drunk".

-I text message a lot. Most of the time when we were hanging out it was late at night, and that was the only time my cousin could text me. So, I ended up texting him a lot while my friends and I were hanging out. Not such a good idea.

-My face's natural expression is not happy. So a lot of the time I don't look like I'm having a good time. It's annoying, but I'm not going to smile 24/7 just to make YOU happy. I'll smile if I want to.

-My ability to pick the WRONG people to like.

Over winter break, my friends and I grew apart due to all these things above, not to mention that I was co-stage managing a show at a community theater that had rehearsal pretty much every night.

When spring semester started, I thought we would be going back to normal patterns of hanging out, but it didn't happen. A party that was supposed to be at my place was moved to a neighbor's place - no one told me about the change until most people had gone home. I heard about movie events, parties, game nights after the fact. I couldn't believe it: I was being phased out. I went to one of my friends of the group that I had helped bring together to find out what was happening, and she told me all of those things above had contributed, plus a few others.

Another girl from the group asked me if I still wanted to be friends with them. I couldn't believe she had asked me that. Of course I wanted to be friends with them. I didn't have many other people to hang out with since I had been hanging out with them almost EVERY NIGHT for a year and a half. Just because I was going out to the bars with people who were of age (which most of them were not) did NOT mean I didn't want to hang out with them!

But I had changed. They had changed their views. They didn't like that I was drinking all the time (which, for the record, I wasn't.). Wait, what? Yeah. Now that I was drinking again, they didn't like it. How does that make sense? Oh, right. It doesn't.

Basically, I can't go into this anymore. It's a sucky feeling. But essentially, the fortune is true.

To quote Rockapella: People change. Everyday.
(I thought there were more words to that song that fit this situation, but I guess not. Oh well!)
People change, and when they don't change together it makes it difficult. So how to fix that?

Anyway, I guess the point of this is that the fortune cookie fortune was something good to remember. You don't have to change friends if you understand that friends change.

It happens.

Oh my god, oh my god you guys

2008-07-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

This week has been a week full of shows, which I have to say is pretty awesome.
Monday was [title of show]. Wednesday was August: Osage County. And tonight was Boeing, Boeing (which was awesome. I got to meet Christine Baranski and Bradley Whitford and the rest of the cast. And the show was hilarious. Physical comedy at it's finest! More on the shows later though).

Later today (Saturday) I'll be seeing Legally Blonde the musical. With Bailey Hanks. Woo, how exciting.

This week has taken a lot out of me though. I keep going to bed really late (like tonight) and then my sleep schedule gets all screwy.

But I finally got my laundry taken in today! So that was a big girl move.

I'm not a fan of talking on the phone (even to people I LIKE talking to), so this was a big deal. I called the laundry people, then told them my information, and they came to pick up my laundry! And then I realized that they only had my clothes and my card number and my address, yet no phone number or name. They could have stolen my clothes! I mean, I guess not really. But whatever. Anyway, they picked up my clothes and now they have all my information, and I'm going to have them deliver it tomorrow. Since I was out getting tickets for Boeing, Boeing when they told me it was finally done tonight.

I'm sorry these posts have gotten a tad mundane. I'll be more interesting soon, I promise...

It's been really cool having Erik here after all. He brought his friend Beth with him who is really really nice. She actually knows a lot of the same people that I know, which is cool. It means we get to talk about people. Plus, we get along really well so we've been ragging on Erik the whole time. It's really fun. And he just takes the abuse! We keep telling him to fight back because then it would be witty banter, but he just refuses. It's fun. But more on the two of them later. I have to go to bed so I can be up early to get my laundry back and go see Legally Blonde!

Goodnight!

Too many thoughts are running through this head of mine

2008-07-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

I've started and deleted four entries in the past 20 minutes. None of them seemed interesting enough, so I'll just summarize them all here:

1. Last night I was terrified that someone broke into my brother's apartment somehow because I heard a loud bang in the living room. However, when I went to check (which I HAD to because my cousin made me) nothing was out of place...fricken weird.

2. My friend Erik (from the same theatre group as The Director) is in town and we're going to see August: Osage County tonight! I'm excited. I hope he doesn't get all flirty and weird like he normally does. But, since that's how he normally acts...He probably will. I'm excited to see him though, it's been a long time.

3. In Jane Green's novel, Swapping Lives, married men and women seem to not have opposite sex relationships with non-married men and women. I'm not married, so I don't know.
But it kind of seems true. I don't think either of my parents have relationships with non-married couples, nor would they go to lunch with one of their friend's opposite counterparts. I'm not quite sure though. Hmmmmmmm. Questions, questions.

4. I've recently discovered Pandora.com and I LOVE it. I typed in Ferras and now I get to listen to all sorts of awesome people like Ingrid Michaelson, Sara Bareilles, Ben Folds, The Afters, The Weepies, etc etc etc. AWESOME!

and now I'm off to see August: Osage County!

Die, Vampires, Die!

2008-07-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

I saw [title of show] tonight. Since I didn't have work at the theatre that I normally have work at on Monday nights, I went by myself to get tickets. When I went in, the guy selling tickets told me about the lottery that they have, which had tickets that were the same price as back row in the balcony, but the seats are in the front row. The only catch was that the lottery wasn't for another hour.

When the time finally came to get in line for the lottery, I noticed a girl who had been sitting by herself in Starbucks (which is where I had gone to pass the time). I went up to her and asked if she was seeing the show by herself, and she said yes, so to increase our chances of getting tickets I asked if she would put down two and I could put down two, and she agreed that it was a good idea. Since we still had half an hour to wait for the names to be pulled, we started talking, and it turns out that she had the same major as me, just at a different school. She was in NY for the summer (like me), but taking a 6 week acting class.

Normally I feel like I have a handle on my insecurities, but tonight I feel like I really failed at keeping them in check. I mean, it's probably because most of the time I just try not to think about the fact that there are millions of girls who look like me but are thinner, who sing like me but better or with more control, who act like me but better...who are a better version of me. But when I was there, talking to this girl who was a musical theatre major who still had two years left who was taking acting classes in New York, who had been to 12 or 13 shows and was able to critique them, who already knew that she wanted to go to London next summer to study at the Royal Academy, who had more knowledge than me...I started doubting myself more and more. There is so much I don't know, so much I'm scared of, so many things that I think I'm not good at...Things that I need to improve on or I'll never make it anywhere. As it is there are only a few people who actually make it on Broadway or that are well known - who's to say I'm even going to come CLOSE to that?

When I see shows that have characters that question themselves and eachother, like [title of show] did, it brings up questions in me.

At school, you get out of it what you put in, but if you don't know how to put more in, how can you get everything you need out of it? I'm the kind of person that needs my ass to be kicked so I can learn what I need to know, but I'm scared. I'm scared of so many things...but I don't know how to get over it.

What if I'm never ready to perform on Broadway? What if I'm never good enough? What if...ugh. Damn those stupid "what if" questions.

In [tos] they have a song called "Die, Vampires, Die" which is all about killing off the insecurities and self-doubt. So I'm going to try to do that, but....ugh. It's hard, ya know?

Right When it was Starting to Feel Real...

2008-07-20T22:12:00.000-07:00

I keep wanting to post something of substance, but Passing Strange is clouding my mind. How ridiculous is that?

When I came to NY before I went to Israel over spring break, Daniel (my older brother) had to go to work. I was staying with him for the three days before I left on my trip, so while he was at work, I wandered around the city a bit. He was living on the Upper West Side, so I just wandered straight down to Times Square and looked around there a bit. Because I didn't really have any particular place in mind, I just sort of walked around in circles looking for something that might be fun to do. Somehow, I kept walking on 44th between Broadway and 8th Ave, and I saw the sign for Passing Strange. I had no idea what that show was, so I kept walking, not even stopping to glance at the poster or signs that were around it. Around 5, Daniel called me and we went to TKTS to see if we could get tickets for anything that night. He told me to choose two shows, just in case one was sold out. My first choice was Spring Awakening, and then I picked one at random, and it was Passing Strange. Spring Awakening was sold out, so we got tickets for Passing Strange.

We went to dinner at this place called Mars 2112 (a weird alien restaurant across the street from Mamma Mia), which was interesting. During dinner, Daniel and I talked about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life regarding theatre or a cruise line or whatever I thought I wanted to do, so I kind of had that in the forefront of my mind when we went into the show. We ate dinner quickly, then headed over to the theatre.

When we first got into the theatre I didn't really know what to expect (since I hadn't heard of the show), and they were playing this really weird music that sounded like it was badly recorded. It wasn't music that I recognized, but it seemed kind of "olde tyme" or however you spell that. The show started off with Stew (the narrator) starting the story with the rock and roll kind of vibe, and it was very cool. The show continued, chronicling Stew's life through other actors. The whole story just really got to me, and made me think. It was about Stew's life and his attempt to write songs and music and whatnot.

I think one of the things that got to me the most was towards the end. Stew was talking about how after one of the free previews, his friend (who has a pretzel stand down in the East Village) told him that the thing that the Youth was looking for in the play, the "Real" only exists in art. And that really got to me. Of course he lightens the moment immediately with a "damn pretzel man. You're [deep]*" but it was enough to set me off crying immediately. It was just so...sad? Profound. I don't even know. The whole show just made me think about everything. I don't even know how to explain it really.

Anyway, while I've been back in NY, I've seen the show twice. (Unfortunately it closed today, otherwise there's a good possiblity I would have seen it at least once before I leave next month.) The second time I saw it, I was with Rachel and Daniel, which I've already briefly talked about.

The last time I saw it was Saturday at 2pm. Spike Lee filmed it. I think I cried through the entire thing. It just really made me...feel. Wow, I sound so lame, but it's really true. It made me think about my life, and how I'm always searching for something to make me understand more about my life, but it's just out of reach. I don't know if I'm even making sense.

I'm really glad that I was able to see this show as many times as I did, even if it doesn't make sense to you. The show is just so poetic and fun and amazing and...yeah. I hope when it comes out on DVD or on TV or whatever form Spike Lee decides to release it in that you watch it. At least listen to the music.

Some of my favorite quotes:
"Everything's alright"
"Only love is real"
"Love is more than real"
"Right when it was starting to feel real"
"Is it alright?"
"If I was any more real, I'd be fiction!"
"Don't be sad about your chosen path/and where it's taken you thus far./'Cause that is what you did, and this is who you are. And it's alright."
"Come down now/remove your mask see/all you've got to do is ask me/I'll give you all the love life allows."
"My love is more real than all your dreams."
"I've been thinking about leaving my fingerprints on your being."
"Life is a movie too/starring you/you're whole family's the cast and crew./that's a little secret between god and you."

It makes more sense if you're listening to it. I urge you to buy the soundtrack because it has the liner notes and all the lyrics and helps you understand who's singing so you can follow the story a bit better. I love everything between Youth and Desi. And everything with the mother. Really, everything is good. If you go to the website you can listen to a few of the songs. Check it out. Seriously.

And now I'm off to bed with the soundtrack playing in the background.

*I can't remember the right words right now, but that's the general gist.

What's inside is just a lie...

2008-07-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

I bought the Passing Strange soundtrack yesterday. That show is amazing, it's really too bad that it's closing on Sunday. I would willingly see it at least once a week for the rest of my life if I could. Well, maybe not that much, but it's amazing. I highly recommend you check it out.

I love the nights when I stay out until 5 or 6am. The world is so...quiet then. Or something. I don't know.

Last night I saw Dark Knight, and I thought it was fantastic. I don't remember much of the first one, but last night...the movie was really great. Heath Ledger was fantastic. I stopped paying attention to the fact that he was Heath Ledger and just thought of him as the joker, which was really creepy. The whole thing was...just...yeah.

Daniel (my older brother) is leaving for Israel on Sunday. I hope he has a great time. I went to Israel my freshman year of college and then again over winter break. Both experiences were really different, but they were both fantastic trips.

My mind is sort of all over the place right now, so I think I'm just going to keep listening to my Passing Strange soundtrack.

"Only love is real." - Passing Strange

"Red!... Purple!...Grey! Marco?...Guys?"

2008-07-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

I was running an errand to Staples today when I passed a store selling rafts for the pool. And it brought me back...

Remember the days when you would be in the pool for hours with friends, playing "colors" or "Marco Polo" or "mermaid" or whatever? It's been such a long time since I've gone swimming in a pool just for fun, or with friends. Or been in a pool in general. I used to go swimming all the time in elementary school and middle school during the summer because I would be at camp, where the main activity was being in the pool.

I always loved swimming. The whole idea of it was so fun. I used to play "colors" with my friend Aly all the time. She was a girl that I had known since we were about 3, when her family moved in around the corner. Her brother, who is the same age as my older brother, used to ride around the block on his bike and saw my family, and so Adam (her brother) became friends with Daniel (my brother) and then so I wouldn't bother them while they'd play, he brought Aly over. (Lewis kind of got screwed out of that deal since Aly and Adam were part of a two-child family.) Aly and I would play all sorts of games, and make up all sorts of stories, and our families got very close...

As we got older we were allowed to go swimming in the pool for longer periods of time, and we would play "Colors". And we always cheated at it. The person on the diving board would name off colors, and we would always make sure to wait as long as we possibly could to get to our color. My colors, which I would always pick at the very beginning to be pink and purple, would somehow change to silver or turquoise or orange or whatever color she hadn't called. Our colors would always change so that the person who was calling the colors would have to stay out of the pool. Eventually the caller would just jump in and tag someone else anyway, and the game would continue.

But that game was so fun! I wish I could play "Colors" again. I have no pool right now though. I should find one. Because that'd be awesome.

I just don't know.

2008-07-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

I feel like some days I'm a better friend than others.

About a month ago, something tragic happened within my non-blood related family. Because of it, I started talking to a girl that I hadn't willingly talked to in about 4 years. Our families are still close, but the two of us had drifted apart because of some unfortunate incidents back in high school.

The tragedy last month was not the only thing that had happened that was bad between the time our friendship disintegrated and now. My mom had told me stories about what was going on in her life, and most of it were things that you would not want to hear. To me, it didn't matter. She was someone distant, someone that I didn't particularly care about anymore. I stayed silent. I never called her, or talked to her, or felt it necessary to reconnect. She had hurt me, I had (maybe) hurt her, I didn't want her back in my life.

But when this happened last month, I felt that I had to do something. I was going to call her, but I couldn't dial the phone. I didn't know how to approach her. A few days passed, and I still hadn't called her or sent her an e-mail, not even a text. I kept meaning to, but I put it off and didn't know how to go about doing it the right way.

The next weekend, I went out to a bar with a friend and got drunk. At 4am, I got a text message from the girl that I kept meaning to talk to. All it said was "Hi." And that's all it took. The next day, I saw her online on facebook, and talked to her for a little bit. I didn't know how to help her, so I asked, and she told me that talking to her was good enough. She just needed someone to talk to. We talked for a little bit that night, sharing stories and memories, just for a little while. I was glad that I was able to help her.

A few nights ago, I saw her online again, and sent her an IM, checking to make sure she was ok. She said that really meant a lot to her.

I don't know what to make of this whole situation. I'm still not sure if I want to have her as someone who is a staple in my life because of our history, but at the same time...we have such a history...

I just don't know.

High School Musical 3

2008-07-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, I just saw this preview and I am SO EXCITED. I'm also an eight year old. Whatever. I'm totally going to the midnight showing.

I know it's awful, but I just love it so much. I can't help it. I watched the second one when it premiered on tv with a bunch of my friends and it was awesome. Eek! I'm so excited.

That's all I have to say for right now. Not enough words in my vocabulary to express my excitement, so I'll go away for now.

We are family...

2008-07-13T13:53:00.001-07:00

I had brunch with my cousin (David) and my brother (Daniel) today. It was really interesting. I'm not a big talker, but I feel like I contributed to the conversation a bit.

The last time I hung out with my cousin was probably in December, when my family and my dad's brother's family and my grandparents on my dad's side all went on a cruise together to celebrate my grandparent's 60th anniversary and my grandma's 80th birthday. My grandparents are the cutest people ever, by the way. They'll have been married 61 years next month, and they still act like two teenagers. They are SO cute. It's ridiculous. If I end up half as happy as them I'll consider myself very lucky. (Yes, I might have stolen a quote from Friends for that, but whatever. It's totally true.)

Anyway, the cruise was the first time the whole group of us had been together as a unit for a really long time since probably my younger brother's bar mitzvah. So it was really nice for us to all connect again, this time with us all being a bit older (David turned 30 this year, Rebecca [David's sister] is 27, Daniel is 24, I'm 21, and my younger brother Lewis is 18). It made it so we could have seemingly adult conversations. It was a very different experience, having all of us sit at a "kids table" together, being the ages we are now, versus us 10 years ago, where none of us were really at the age where we all wanted to talk to eachother. Now we've kind of formulated who we are, and what our opinions on certain subjects are, and figured out how to talk to people.

Anyway, it was really nice being able to see David and Daniel and have a real conversation with them about things that we're all interested in now and feel included, instead of having all the subjects just go right over my head. I can actually contribute. And that's a pretty cool feeling.

The sun is bright!

2008-07-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

Whoo boy am I sunburnt. Yesterday, Rachel and I went to the Statue of Liberty, and while waiting in line for the ferry for almost 2 hours I got really sunburnt. You can see the outline of my necklace and of my shirt. It's pretty ridiculous. Not so much painful yet, but I can tell it will be tomorrow. For some reason, my sunburns always seem to get the most painful and itchy three days after the initial burn. Ever noticed that?

Over spring break, I went to Israel on a community service trip through JNF (Jewish National Fund's Alternative Spring Break). All I had to do was raise $1050 and it was totally free (not including whatever airfare I had to pay for, but everything else was included.) So I raised the money, and got to go. Woo! Every day we did some community service, ranging from clearing out a park to painting a community. The third day that we were there, we went to a Vineyard to help clear out all the sticks and stuff to make sure that the vines had room to spread (or something, I'm not sure how it really worked). We got out there at 10am. I had put sunblock on before leaving the dorms that we were living in, but because we were in the desert sun, which is RIDICULOUS, I was sunburnt by the time we stopped for lunch at 1pm. My shirt didn't cover my whole back, so my neck and a half moon shape on my shirt was about the same color as a lobster. Or a tomato. Or whatever else is bright red. I put more sunblock on after lunch, but it didn't really matter. My shirt, which was a three quarter length sleeve shirt, had given me sunburn gloves (on both my hands and my arms) in addition to the ouch that was my back. Painful. My back still is two different colors from that sunburn. Awesome.

When I was 12, my summer camp took us to the beach every monday. One monday they sent the stupid counselor with us who forgot to remind us all to put sunscreen on. Granted, we should know to put sunblock on ourselves, but we're 12! You can't really expect US to remember that! I came home that day having a bikini sunburn all the way down my back and my legs. My parents were FURIOUS that they hadn't put sunblock on us, and my mom said that if I ever came home from the beach again looking like that I wasn't going to be allowed to go back. I thought that the sunburn itself was punishment enough, but I don't think I ever let myself get that bad again. Now I just limit it to my back and my arms. Ouch.

Wear sunscreen, kids. Sunburns hurt.

Dance Dance

2008-07-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

My best friend Rachel was in NYC visiting her cousin the past couple of days, so yesterday she made time for us to hang out. We went gallivanting around the city hanging out and making jokes and just having a really great time. It was really awesome hanging out with her. We always have such a fun time together, laughing and making jokes and just being so natural with eachother...it's just great.

It was also great that I got to ditch out on work just to spend time with her, because I haven't seen her since probably January when I was home for winter break.

Two winter breaks ago, there was a rumor going around that there was snow falling somewhere in the vicinity of where we lived. That was just amazing to us, because snow NEVER falls near where we live. Ever. So, we got on our hats and gloves and sweatshirts and went driving around, trying to find the snow. We drove north, then east, then south, then west...but no snow was found. We drove around for probably about two hours, looking for snow, but never found it. So I called my mom, and she reported to me that the snow that was falling was about an hour away from where we were. Sad news for us. So, we drove back to Rachel's dorm and hung out there instead, where she put new music on my iPod that she thought I would like but didn't have because my computer doesn't hold much music on it.

Then, we broke out my camera.

We took a few pictures, then put a song on that our friend Jeremy wrote, and made a music video. Not a good music video, not even close to a decent music video, but a music video that has her staring at her computer the whole time except random times during lyrics that she points to me and kind of dances a little bit, while I'm singing all the words making funny faces at the camera. We're both randomly laughing and holding out notes too long or saying the wrong words and it's just hilarious.

I found that video before I left for NY and laughed at the ridiculousness of it, as well as another video that's just of me dancing over by the tv for a few seconds to another song that the same guy wrote.

A staple of Rachel's and mine when we hang out is dancing in a parking lot. The parking lot changes from time to time (usually it's the abandoned parking lot next to the college, or the parking structure near the college), but we always make sure that we dance. We put on old songs from our childhood, like Spice Girls or N*SYNC or BSB or whoever and we dance and sing at the top of our lungs with the car stereo blasting. Always a great time. We just let loose and dance. It's awesome.

If you haven't experienced dancing in a parking lot listening to old songs with a good friend or two, I suggest you try it ASAP. And then tell me about it.

Your Invisible Pixie

2008-07-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

Why "Your Invisible Pixie"?

My senior year in high school, I had a friend named Dru. She had friends from outside of school, a girl she used to dance with (Allie) and a guy who I'm not quite sure how she met (Eric). One night, the four of us went out to a local pizza place that had karaoke every friday night. Somehow we got on the topic of people looking like animals. (Personally, I think that everyone somehow looks like a cat and/or a mouse. I'm not sure how that works exactly, but...whatever.) Allie decided to give all of us animals that we resembled. I don't remember what she told Dru and Eric they looked like, but she told me I looked like a pixie. I don't think a pixie is an animal, per se, but I took it because it was cute. I've remembered it for awhile.

I also think that I have a tendency to be invisible - I don't contribute to conversations very often in fear of sounding stupid. I also don't like to repeat something someone else says. When I'm in classes, I don't raise my hand unless I am absolutely 99.9% sure that I'm able to explain anything I say, or that it is something that hasn't been said that class yet. Even when I'm with friends, if they're all laughing and telling stories I tend to sit quietly and listen to what they say. If I'm one on one with someone I can have an actual conversation, but in large groups I get nervous and don't say much. So that's invisible.

And I could be yours. You never know. Eh.

Sort of a crap post for now, but my brain hurts. Too many hershey's kisses, not enough real food.

Finding love in all the wrong places...

2008-07-07T10:14:00.001-07:00

I always have a crush on the wrong guy. The rabbi's son who was dating my then best friend. The camp counselor when I was a camper. My sixth grade science teacher. The advisor of my youth group. The director of my theatre group. A professor. A director of development at my internship.

And I make it worse for myself by becoming semi-blatantly obvious about. Can you be semi-blatantly obvious about something? I'm not sure. But I was. I'll go to the more recent ones since those might be a tad more interesting. (Plus I can remember more about them).

The Director of my theatre group and I had gotten quite chummy towards the end of my high school career. I was no longer in the theatre group, but I missed him a whole lot. Whether it was the friendship aspect or more is one thing I'm not sure about. In January of my senior year, my boyfriend (and best friend) had broken up with me. I was heartbroken and bitter, so I decided that for my creative writing class final, I would write a play about it. When I finally finished the play in April I felt much better about everything that had happened, and decided that I wanted to share my work with someone. I sent it to the Director and asked what he thought. That sparked the beginning of our really close friendship, where we began to talk about everything and completely opened up to each other, which inevitably led to me having a crush on him and him kind of liking me back. (Take note - I was 18 and he was 34.) He made dinner for me one night at his apartment and after that I was completely hooked. I spent all my time checking my email (our relationship was mainly maintained through email and IMs since I was still in school and couldn't talk on the phone during classes) through my phone. Over the summer it escalated into spending more time together, but it never got more physical than hand holding. This is mainly because I was an "innocent child" that he didn't feel right corrupting, then sending off to college. After I left for college the whole thing kind of fizzled out into the occasional email or IM conversation, then he abandoned talking to me completely.

The Professor was....wow. An ongoing "thing" for a very long time. I had the Professor my freshman year. I was smitten after the very first class when everything he talked about got me excited about learning...and the fact that he had a great ass. He looked to be about 23, not the 36 that he actually was (at the time...now he's 38), so I was unaware of his age until a few months later. One day during class, a friend of mine and I had decided to take a count of how many times he turned around to show us his ass, and at the first tally we both went to put it down on the same piece of paper at the same time and both dissolved into giggles almost immediately. We caused quite a stir (even though class hadn't started yet), so he kind of scolded us and tried to get us to tell what we were giggling out. Neither of us would tell (because how embarrassing would THAT be?) so he dropped it. The next week I found a comic that I thought pertained to what we were talking about in class which was mildly amusing, so I emailed it to him. The Professor emailed me back with "that's funny, but I don't think it's what had you laughing in class last week..." to which I replied "No. To be honest, what were laughing about during class is how I have a huge crush on you and I think you have the greatest butt ever. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable...Just thought I should tell you the truth." That's not even the slightest bit awkward, right?? My roommate came back from the bathroom after I had sent that email to me curled in a ball on my bed kind of shaking. Ha. Anyway, after that we had a lot of awkward emails sent back and forth during that semester, then we stopped. Then over the summer I emailed him again while I was drunk (there I go again with the alcohol!) and that got us started talking again. Then we exchanged phone numbers, and he took me to lunch when he was visiting near where I lived. A lot of emails and text messages and phone calls later, we had become friends, and I was very comfortable with having a pseudo relationship with this ridiculously intelligent (although occasionally arrogant) professor. My friends, however, were less than thrilled that I was talking to him in more than a teacher/student context. So eventually we stopped talking for awhile, but a few months later we began again. Then stopped. Then started. Then stopped. And so they cycle continues. Right now we're on a hiatus. Still nothing physical.

Now I have a crush on the director of development at the internship that I'm working at. 32, kind of reminds me of Buzz Lightyear (which I told him when he took all the interns out to get drinks the second week I was here). Apparently, that night (which I don't remember much of...yay alcohol) we were flirting pretty hardcore and he was reciprocating... What am I getting myself into now? Probably nothing. I'm just overanalyzing. But he just came to my building (there are two buildings for this company) and my stomach jumped into my mouth. My face probably turned bright red too. Awesome.

We'll see if anything happens. Probably not, but you never know, right?

Who am I?

2008-07-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I used to climb on things a lot. Monkey bars, large speakers at bar/bat mitzvahs/weddings/big parties, stairs, roofs, etc. I'm guessing that's how my first nickname came to be. My dad thus named me "Monkey". I also had a white stuffed monkey that I carried around with me a lot. So I guess that could have been a contributing factor.

My older brother and I attended the same elementary school at the same time (which later switched, with my younger brother and I attending at the same time). My older brother had a teacher who had the same name as the principal, which confused people a lot. I used to go to his classroom during recess (our class and his class had different recess times since I was in first grade and he was in fifth) and interrupt his class and tell his teacher on things that he had done at home. I guess I was a real riot, because when I had the same teacher for fifth grade a few years later, she used to regale the class with tales of what I had said. "Mrs. B! Do you know what my brother did last night?!?" I'd apparently say, wagging my butt from side to side like most children do when they tease. "He got in sooo much trouble!" I'd make his class laugh with all the things he did, while his face would turn red. When she'd tell us the stories of what I used to do, it would make MY face turn red, so I guess I got what was coming to me. Sort of. Anyway, because I hadn't really changed much in size since first grade (I was quite the shorty), Mrs. B would call me "Squirt". Then one day she decided to change my nickname to "Midget" (which was not as traumatizing as some nicknames for other children). One day she got confused about which name was mine for that day, so when I was called early to go home, she said "Hey Squirt! No...Midget! No...Squidget!" and from that day on in fifth grade, Squidget stuck. All of my friends called me Squidget from then on... or rather, until about seventh grade.

In seventh grade, I changed from being a camper at my summer camp to being an L.I.T. or a "Leader in Training". This was one step down from Counselor in Training which was a step down from Counselor. Well, when I started, my group decided that we wanted to have Camp Names, just like the CITs and Counselors! Of course, this theory was kind of pointless since everyone knew our names anyway, but we stuck by the idea and picked camp names. Most people chose names like "Sunshine" or "Cupcake" or "Curly", but I went with "Piglet". Piglet was my favorite character from Winnie the Pooh (still is!), so I decided Piglet would be a good choice for me. He was short and cute and pink and I thought, "Perfect! I'm short and cute and I have red hair, so we're virtually the same!" Sweet. So my nickname from seventh grade until my sophomore year was Piglet. I kind of regretted picking that name later, since it sort of associated me with being fat (which I'm not, really), but I dealt with it by sticking by my decision that Piglet and I are similar...in that we're short and cute and shades of red.

My sophomore year in high school a lot of my friends began taking Spanish, and decided to nickname me "Estar, the spanish verb meaning to be", which was then shortened to "Estar" or just "to be". Not much of a story there. Go Spanish.

My freshman year in college, our RA Kristie decided to give all of the girls on my floor nicknames by using the first letter of the name and adding and "o" to it, then doubling it (for instance, Paula was "Popo", Rachel was "Roro", etc). However, my name starts with an E, which makes it kind of difficult for it to follow the same model. So she was going to use the second letter of my name, S, but there was a girl with an S name a few doors down. What a pickle. So she decided to use "ThoTho" as my name. Which sounded like anyone who tried to say my name had a lisp. That nickname stuck for about five minutes. Sweet.

My sophomore year I was in with a new group of friends, who nicknamed me "Sta". We had been watching The Office and decided to give each other nicknames, and since "Big Tuna" was taken, I got Sta. A few weeks later, that same group of friends changed my nickname to Oyster. They thought it was clever because I'm Jewish (so, "Oy") and the rest of my name... (hence the "ster"). And that's who I've been ever since.

So much for a stable identity, eh?

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

So, in honor of the fourth of July, independence day, blah blah blah whatever, I thought it would be a fun idea to tell you what I did.

I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I am currently in NYC. Spending my summer here, living the good life (aka couch-surfing and doing unpaid internships) doing almost anything I want to do. So. Today was a very fun-filled and exciting day for me.

Last night, I got my iPod back (finally! It had broken sometime last year and my dad finally sent it to be fixed and then sent it to my brother who gave it to me), so I spent all last night putting music on it for my adventure that I was planning today.

The plan: Hang out in central park. In one location. For a long time. Possibly people watching or writing or reading or something.

What actually happened: I left my (or the current host's) apartment around 4 pm. I had ended up staying awake until 6am putting music back on my ipod and reading SO@24's blog from the beginning (I like to know the entire story if I jump into a blog. Since he was the first person I friended on 20SB, I decided to read his entire blog first. Check him out. He's awesome at writing. And telling stories. However, this reading everything in entirety is a very long process. So...WHOA tangent.) so I didn't wake up until about 11, at which point I packed my stuff (new person's couch tomorrow!), showered, then decided I needed food so I headed out. Around 4pm. (I said that already.) I walked down the street, sporting my newly uploaded with music iPod and a blue shirt with my red hair and my white shoes. Yeah patriotism. Wandered into a Starbuck's, ordered my usual drink and a blueberry coffeecake, then sat down. According to the guy who made my drink, it was made "with love on this very lovely 4th of July, just for [me]." Awesome. Finished that up, then went to Central Park! The plan! Yes.

I ended up walking into Central Park at 4:30pm at 76th and Central Park West. Walked around for a bit until I found the reservoir, looked at it, wandered around a bit more, hung out by the tennis courts for about half an hour. By then I was getting hungry for actual food, so I decided that it was time to leave the park and go find something more nourishing than a chai tea latte and a blueberry coffeecake. Ha. That was about 5:15pm. I wandered around, looking for a way to get out, and eventually see a street. W. 100th St. and Central Park West. WHAT? I thought I had been walking SOUTH that whole time! Nope. I had been walking North. So I wandered around a bit more, hoping I was walking back the way I came, when I came to another street. Hurray, I can leave now! I check the sign. East 91st street. So now I've crossed over to the other side? Well shoot. I go back inside the park, decide to follow a path that looks like it goes west, then see another street. East 102nd St. So now I'm going North AND East, two directions I DON'T want to be going in. I go back inside the park, and see a map. Well, that's a map to the whole park, but there's no "YOU ARE HERE" to point out where I am! So I'm still just as lost. I eventually follow a path that leads me back over to the west side, when I just leave the park because I don't want to walk back to the east side again and follow the streets down. By the time I get out of the park, it's 7 o'clock.

I WAS LOST IN THE PARK FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS. Let me repeat that. TWO HOURS.

I went to Times Square to celebrate my liberation.
Bought a Magner's Irish Cider for myself. Mmm. Found out where some couple's hotel was for them (his phone died or something...I had google on my phone) and they bought me a drink. Bought another drink for myself. Closed my tab but didn't leave the bar yet because it was raining (and the fireworks were on TV! Duh.) Guy who was sitting next to me bought me a drink because I was sitting there drink-less.

Four drinks (and half a quesadilla? I think?) later, I am as happy as a clam. (Are clams happy? How does anyone know this? Are there studies? I want to see them.)

Also, some random guy on the subway asked me if he could teach me how to play tennis. Um. What?

Drink it up.

2008-07-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

I like to drink.

Yes, that may seem like an obvious statement coming out of a 21 year olds mouth - or fingers as the case may be - but it's true. I enjoy drinking. Regardless of if it's wine, or malibu and pineapple juice, or Magner's Irish Cider, or kamikazees, or beer...I like it. However, that has caused some problems for me.

Fifteen days before my 20th birthday, I decided to stop drinking until I turned 21. The night before I decided to do that had been an excessively bad night where I had gotten blacked out drunk, banged my head eight times against eight different surfaces, told my friends I wanted to kill myself because I was so unhappy with the situation with my boyfriend Matt and my old roommate, ran into the street (it was late at night so luckily there were no cars coming), threw up multiple times, and passed out. Not such a good night.

The next day, Matt and I broke up. I resolved right then and there that the only way to figure out how to get my life back in order and take back control of the things I thought I could control was to stop drinking. So I gave it up. When I told my friends this, they thought I was crazy. Me, the nonstop party girl who always outdrank even the most capable of holding their liquor? I'd never be able to do it for a year! (My friends always show the greatest of confidence in me, huh?) (One of these days I'll write about how they actually do show confidence in me...)

But I had resolved to do it for me, just to prove to MYSELF that I was capable of doing something and following through. One week later, when I still hadn't had a drop of alcohol, I rewarded myself with a pint of ice cream. One month, a dinner at Olive Garden. Two months, a trip to a casino. Three months a play. Six months a dinner with all of my friends. I eventually made it to a year, without having even a taste of alcohol. A year was 16 days before my 21st birthday. I didn't do anything for the year anniversary of my giving up alcohol. I didn't feel it was as big of a deal as I had once built it up to be. I celebrated my 21st birthday in style, going to Vegas, having a mere four drinks on my birthday and declaring myself done. The next night I had one drink and decided that I didn't need to drink anymore, I had had enough the night before.

Recently I have found myself back in the same patterns as before I stopped drinking. Not as extreme, thank goodness, but taking one too many shot, or not eating enough before I start so everything hits me TWICE as hard.

And now that I'm visiting somewhere that I'm not used to, I shouldn't be exhibiting this kind of behavior. It's not like my college town, where everything is (seemingly) safe, people here are CRAZY! So, I'm resolving to drink less. Not stop drinking altogether, because I don't think that's necessary (nor do I want to give it up, I still like drinking!), but less. But hopefully socialize just as much.

Even though stumbling around and hitting on random strangers is quite fun.

Graduation

2008-07-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

So I just got an email from my Bubby (that's "grandmother" in Yiddish) telling me that my brother's graduation was phenomenal. He went to a performing arts high school, so each of the different sections performed something (music school played music, dance school did a dance, visual arts showed some sort of...art, etc) (I'm also guessing that this is how it happened, since I wasn't there.) I was unable to attend said graduation, because I am in New York for the summer. Amazing opportunity, yet I was sad that I missed this big event in my brother's life.

My graduation was something that I couldn't wait to be done with. High school was definitely the worst time of my life so far, and I can say that with 97% certainty. (I don't remember a lot of my childhood...awful memory for some reason.) My high school years can be bundled up into a few words: no close friends, no encouragement, no interest. Graduation could not have come soon enough. Unfortunately, the last few days of school I became really good friends with a few people: Sam, Rebecca, Jose, and Jorge. We were all sitting near eachother in the graduation line because our last names were all close in lettering, so we had a chance to really bond during the 7 hour graduation rehearsal. It was during that time that I realized what I had been missing out on for so long. Easy friendship. Just by sitting together on those plastic white folding chairs that were ridiculously uncomfortable, we had things to talk about. We had conversations about our aspirations in life, who we wanted to be, where we were going to college...and what kind of senior prank we would have liked to have pulled (Our dumbass senior class decided that burning trashcans would be memorable. Losers.)

We all ended up going to grad nite together (I was the only one who had bought a ticket beforehand but once I told them I was going they decided to all go) and having an amazing time. We stayed up all night riding all the rides at Disneyland and going to the "clubs" and just laughing and having a great night. It was the perfect ending to my shitty four years of high school.

The group of us kept in touch for a little while, but eventually we split apart. Sam and Rebecca are dating (practically married! sort of), Jose is testing videogames for Disney and going to school to learn more about video programming, and Jorge...has a myspace, but I haven't talked to him in awhile. Thinking about them makes me want to send them a message and see how they all are. I just might do that.

It's crazy how you can find friends in the most random of places...a graduation lineup. Who'd have thought?

Congrats baby brother on your high school graduation...two weeks late.

Simplistic and Certain

2008-07-02T13:39:00.001-07:00

I've recently gotten into Sudoku. I know, I know, I'm a little behind the times, but that's how I am. Anyway, I really like it. It's so...certain. It's the kind of thing where you can't have two right answers, only one number fits. I used to do word puzzles that were kind of like sudoku, where they give you the number of letters and you have to fit each word in so that all the words make other words. It was like a crossword puzzle but without all the clues. Anyway, I used to really like those. I'd buy books of them and sit and do them during rehearsal instead of doing my homework, or I'd do them on car trips.

Anyway, since I have a lot of free time at work, I've been doing sudoku on the google homepage. Keeps me busy. Simplicity and certainty. I guess that's what I like.

That's not what my life is like at all. It turns itself into a complicated and tangled mess because I don't really know how to keep things straight. And nothing I ever do is certain. I'm scared of almost everything. Kind of like Monk, but less neurotic. And not as good at solving mysteries with a side of comedy. And no murdered wife.

Anyway, that's me. That's who I am.
And that's ok.