The sun is bright!

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

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

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...

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?

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!

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.

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

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

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.