I was putzing around the web (instead of studying) and now I have two comments to make.

First off, I was reading laughing at (I'm sorry, I was!) this one girl's angsty journal (I know, who am I to talk, but she's so damn amusing) and at one point in it, she says "It was really funny because they were all laughing." No, this isn't saying that a bunch of people laughing was funny, it's just terrible grammar. Perhaps "It was funny, so they were all laughing" would work. Honestly. She's saying this as though a bunch of people laughing at an event makes it funny. "Oh, look, she washed the dishes! HAHAHAHAHAHA! And presto! This is funny!" Ay, dios mio.

(Yes, I know it's a little thing. But I'm easily aggravated today. I have to learn Physics and Euro tonight. Oh, and if anyone wants to give me a backrub, I would love it. My muscles are all tensed up from hunching over desks for days.)

Two. This one is more of a this-is-my-fault-and-rereading-it-months-later-makes-it-sound-ridiculous thing. I was rereading some old emails and I came across one from Allen. Remember him? The one I stopped talking to because I was extremely pissed that he was in love with me and wouldn't cut it out? Yeah, well...I sort of started talking to him again. (Hey, Allen, if you read this, stopping now is probably a good idea.) That probably wasn't the smartest of ideas for my sanity that I've ever had, but it's there nonetheless. And it's not like I can take it back now. But the point is, I was reading an email he sent me back when I IMed him with a "Hi.....I'm sorry?" It's one of those fun "I was a fool, I pushed you too much, I'll back off, blah blah blah" emails. There's one line that stuck out when I read it again, though. It's something to the effect of "I allowed my actions to be dictated by my emotions, an inexcuseable crime." The first time through I thought, "Well, duh!" But this time, it just seemed like the most ridiculous statement I've ever read. If you're not acting according to what you feel, then what the hell is the point? I mean, I don't want endless professions of love, but that's such a terrible thing for anyone to say.

Oh well. Time to go learn Physics! Peace, y'all!

If I owe you an email, I am sorry beyond belief. My computer at home has incredible PMS and refuses to let me email in any way shape or form(and shuts out of IE when I try to), so it's not entirely my fault. I'll write one soon, likely today. I love the library computers, even if AIM express sucks.

There's not a lot going on. I'm going to LCLC this weekend for a staff reunion, studying my butt off next weekend, hitting Geneseo at the end of January to visit the ineffable EMILY, and then back to LCLC for a retreat with church. And then it's Valentine's Day. Not that there's any reason to get excited, but I'm just saying. Actually, there are more reasons to panic than be excited, but I can deal with that. I think I'll just avert my eyes and pretend I don't see it on the calendar.

I'm going to get back to that email though, as I can update from home still. (Whiny computer. You deserve a kick.) Cheers, and have a lovely weekend!

MEG.

Get your passport. We're going to Australia.

Today.

Hurry up!!!!

Oh, and if anyone lives in Australia and wants to somehow procure a bootleg copy of this movie, I will do almost anything for you as long as it's not murder and is within reason(no life-long pledges of servitude or similar). Ooo! Methinks it's time to send a pleading email to Daniel to find me a copy of the movie, or at least see it himself and tell me how gorgeous it is.

Going home from a trip is rarely ever fun. The best part about it is the minute before you arrive, when things could still be drastically different before you open the door and walk in, for better or worse.

Then you show up and nothing's changed. It's only been another day at home, after all, even though for you it's been a long adventure.

If I'm acting a bit disoriented, it's because I am. I've slept in three different places the last three consecutive nights, none of them in the same state or province, and all at least 200 miles away from each other. This isn't complaining though, it's the exact opposite. It's been a damn good couple of days, better than hoped in most cases.

Thursday night my mom tells me that I'm going to Canada in the morning with her, my sister, and my brother. This was a bit of a suprise, but not entirely a bad thing. I hadn't seen my cousin Pat in over a year, so it was actually a very nice suprise. (He has a mohawk. And was wearing all black. Quite different from before, but not bad. It suits him. He's still the same Pat.) Hysterical story, dead ahead: As it's Christmas, my mom had everything for her brother and such wrapped in tissue paper and ready to go in a bag down in the kitchen the night before. Come Friday, she searches the house and can't find it anywhere, finally telling me to call my dad at work and ask. To quote my dad, "You'd better put your mom on the phone." Apparently the bag of gifts was directly beside a bag of trash, and he threw both of them away. Friday being garbage day, someone had come through and picked through our trash, meaning we had plenty of trash still in the can, but no presents. I found this insanely funny. My mom, not so much to an infinite degree. Let's put it this way: I'm always happy to go to work, but never so much as when we came back Saturday.

Saturday was boring and uneventful, except that apparently Josh and Chunk drove up. Remember them? The guys who stood me up at the beginning of November and kicked off my month of misery? Yeah. Those guys. Calling Catherine to tell her they were coming, showing up at her house at around 10:30 after saying they'd get there at 9, the time being too late for me to see them(I suppose it's not too late, but I needed to get up bright and early the next day to head out to NY, and I wasn't going to take away from that at all), and I didn't really want to see them anyhow. Wait, scratch that. I'd kill to see Josh(or any far-away SIT 2002 I never see, for that matter), but I'd also kill not to see Chunk. That's a bit harsh, but generally true. In either case, I didn't see them, and I need stories from Catherine, which I will get later.

Fast forward. There's undoubtably a couple stories I've missed somewhere along the way, but that's because I'm getting to the good stuff. Oh God. New York.

I don't know how Meg did it. I never, ever, ever, EVER, would have been able to convince my parents to drive me and even one friend, let alone two, to New York City, 7 hours away, to see a movie. Granted, it's The Hours, and we've been counting the days since we discovered it was going to be a movie, but still, why would anyone drive us when it's opening in our city in a not too distant time? I don't know. This is a miracle. Someone hurry up and let the pope know.

Seven hours in a car. Several wrong turns. Exactly one item on the Arby's menu without meat. Somehow, we got there in one piece, with about ten minutes to spare when we got to the theater. The line for tickets was short, and we had ordered ours on Fandango anyhow. No problem. The line to enter the theater, however, stretched around the block. "Goddamnit," you say, sympathizing with our heroines.

But wait! Hope remains!

We ended up asking the lovely ticket-taker if we could go in and use the restroom. (Soda on car trips=bad idea.) He was a bit against the idea at first("The theater opens in 5 minutes!" "We'll leave our tickets with you, and come get them! We're not going to disappear!"), but relented("Oh, fine, here." [sound of ripping ticket]).

Score.

Left balcony seats, front row, center aisle. It was a rickety little theater(I felt like my chair was going to fall apart every time I leaned back), but who cares? It's THE HOURS. Not only is it an amazing book, it's a movie, and WE ARE IN NEW YORK TO SEE IT. I can deal with possible floor seating.

Anyhow. The lights dim. The previews play. And, oh dear LORD, WHO KNEW ABOUT THIS AND FORGOT TO TELL ME? A preview for Til Human Voices Wake Us began playing. A preview for a move that not only quotes "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in it's title, but begins to recite the poem in the preview. This movie really exists. They showed this preview to Liz and Meg, who were already on a literary-movie high with the movie they were going to see based on an absolutely amazing book in an absolutely amazing far away city. Liz and Meg, who have 90-some odd lines of the poem memorized. Liz and Meg, who are obsessed with the poem beyond belief. It was all I could do to keep from screaming in the theater out of sheer delight, and I know Meg felt exactly the same way. We ended up hitting each other repeatedly instead, not in a cruel way, but in an OH-MY-GOD-I-CAN'T-REACT-PROPERLY-THIS-IS-SO-DAMN-AMAZING way. I am almost more excited for this movie than I was for The Hours, and that's saying a lot. I'm trying not to scream as I type.

But, sorry to sidetrack so, back to the reason we went to New York. The Hours was great. (If you intend to see the movie, DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH. If you don't want to see the movie or have seen it, read on. Highlight, I'm blacking it in for safety.) I love how well they brought out the connections between characters of different time periods. I love how they brought out the significance of the kiss between women. I love Meryl Streep as Clarissa(and I love the irony of the movie star sighting Clarissa makes in the book). I was shocked by Nicole Kidman's appearance. (Julianne Moore looks more like Nicole than Nicole does!) I love Claire Danes as Julia, and I want to be her when I grow up. I don't like how they changed Louis's breakdown to Clarissa breaking down. Yes, it makes more sense, but by changing that you change the entire characterization of Louis! You can't do that! He's a hyper-emotional, sensitive man who isn't willing to admit that he's an adult! Stop that right there! I was also a bit pissed off about Richard's appearance. For one thing, I expected his apartment to be a lot darker. I could easily adjust to that, but I was still thrown by his lack of dignity and nobility. He's a better character in the novel than in the movie. He's portrayed as a sick, rather obnoxious man as compared to the book's almost mystical poet that you can all but forget is dying of AIDS. I can't accurately describe Richard as he is in the novel, except to say that you truly want to meet him and hear what he has to say about you. The movie refuses to let you forget his illness and impending death. His suicide in the book is a gripping shock. In the movie, you almost plan on it happening after you first encounter him. However, this is generally forgiveable. Morbid as it sounds, his death was done better than I imagined. The written in lines also fit perfectly into the script, and even the cut characters and added scenes fit beautifully. I just wish that the forbidden aspect of homosexuality in the time of Virginia and Laura hadn't been exploited as greatly as it was. It was uncalled for, and unnecessary. Although it wasn't directly that, even though the kissing between women could be interpreted that way. It also could be incest in the one case...but I'm sure I've discussed more about the movie and book than you ever wanted to hear. Sorry about that.

So. After that, pizza, a bit of wandering through the city, and then off to a Day's Inn in New Jersey for the night. The next day, wake up, get ready, check out, eat breakfast in the hotel cafe where the waiter has a HEAVY New York accent, and back to Manhattan. If you thought our socks were rocked on Sunday, just wait. New York was made for us, and we never realized it before.

I could outline the rest of the day, but I don’t think you’d understand it nearly as well as we did. It’s one of those days that’s full of allusions and inside jokes that you just wouldn’t get unless you were us, and you were there, and you’d lived our lives. Some things you’d understand, especially if you read the livejounal. Like me wearing my supercute blue cap, and then discovering that H&M sells a nearly identical hat. (I’m stylin and didn’t even notice.) You’d also at least have an inkling of an idea about why I dragged everyone into the Gap just because they were playing “New Frontier” by Counting Crows, which has become my new favorite song. (When people haven’t heard some of your favorite music and you forgot your CDs, you do drastic things, believe me.)

You’d definitely understand little things like why it’s hysterical to hear a businessman insist in the gruffest voice you’d ever heard “I’m a fucking nice guy,” or a woman say “My grandfather had a geisha once.” You’d laugh at the fact that there is a Starbucks on every block in Manhattan, and a Gap on every other block. You’d laugh at the school bus full of old Amish men with long beards dressed in black that stopped in front of the Starbucks we happened to be sitting in at the time. (Come on. Laugh. School bus full of old Amish men. It’s funny.) You’d understand the humor of the exchange “Which way does that street go?” “Well, it either goes this way or that way.”

I could tell you about riding a carriage through Central Park, or about the Goth bulldog, or about “Zerox”, or about the doors at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, or about getting a bag from Saks 5th Avenue. I don’t think they’re as funny if you weren’t there, but I could at least tell you the stories.

Still, I can’t explain everything. “Ciao, bella” would go straight over your heads, as would the Greek people in the theater, as would the old woman in the theater. Telling you about the ad where a woman kissed the watch a man’s hand and how I said “There are better parts of a man to kiss” doesn’t come off nearly as witty in text as it was at the time. You would understand the humor, but not how it made us feel. We’re seventeen. We’re young. We might not have been noticed by a single person save the woman who asked us if we needed directions, but as far as we were concerned, we ruled the city today. I can tell you our stories, but I can’t make you feel exactly what it was like to be free of everything, afraid of nothing, and in the center of the world itself, even if just for a day.

Maybe it’s better that way.

Three college guys are walking you thru a shopping mall smoking cigars. We...(oops) THEY stopped at a HUGE knife display in the center aisle. We're talking HUNDREDS of big knives, machetes, swords, jack knives, etc....

Jim (one of us and still smoking his cigar...) "Why on earth would somebody need a knife that big unless they planned to kill somebody?!?"

"The knife guy" - "Why on earth would anybody smoke one of those things? THAT will kill you faster than this knife will!!"

Jim - "WHAT??!? Oh okay, I'll stand here smoking this cigar and you start stabbing yourself in the chest with that knife...we'll see who lives longer. Go on! Go ahead..!"

This is why Quotes-R-Us remains one of my favorite websites ever.

I just discovered that my entire family could be a brilliant case study of passive-aggressive behavior. That's where I get it from. Damn.

Breaking the cycle, right now. Enough of this.

Ah, it is good to be back, reason being because I can post little notes like this. I just have a little request, for both people who know me and people who don't. Either way, it's nothing, and it shouldn't be too difficult: Don't take any shit from me, ever. And when I'm being a moody bitch, call me on it. I've done too much of this lately, and I'm the only one who should be pulling myself out of this ditch I've unwittingly thrown myself into.

I've been letting this website stagnate lately, but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been major upheaval in my life. If you read the livejournal, you probably have an idea of at least a part of what's been going down in the last month and a half.

To start with, I didn't have a good day for the entire month of November. I had a couple mediocre days, but in general, things were hell. As a result, I did some stupid shit that I'd rather not confess to here. Don't take it personally. I'm just not comfortable telling people yet. Even saying I did something is more than I've done, so consider that right there a major step. Oh, and don't worry - I stopped.

Why the lack of good days? Well, to begin with, there were the good ol' college applications combined with an overdose of parental pressure. As people keep telling me, I am overstressed. I ended up applying to SUNY Geneseo, Oberlin, Bucknell, and Cornell, if you care, and I am so sick of the college issue, you wouldn't even believe it. You mention something that might be interpreted as relating to upper education and I spaz. Good times, let me tell you.

The other major element that's been having an impact has been something I haven't been able to openly mention until Sunday, when everything exploded. For at least a couple months now, I've known that I lost my best friend. I'd sit be her and talk, but it was like talking to a complete stranger. As I found out Sunday, feelings on her end were reciprocated. The only remotely good thing is that it's no longer tearing me apart that I can't tell her. The reason I didn't is because she likes the person she's become. How do you tell someone that they're completely different and you don't know them when they like the completely different bit? I was actually going to bring it up after church Sunday, but she beat me to it and we created a nice little scene. That ending, or whatever it is, is one of the reasons I can start this site up again. I can address the issue essentially head-on without needing to twist my words like I've been doing.

The other reason is that I may have figured out where I stand on whether or not I'm going home back to camp this summer. A few people know that I've been leaning heavily towards not going. My friends are here, I have a job here, why should I live on Lake Chautauqua giving all my time to kids I barely know? This place I called home took the person I was closest to away from me. There's nothing left for me there. I shouldn't go.

(This gets a little bit odd starting right here. Skeptics would be advised to stop reading. Either way, please don't make fun of me.)

I had a dream last night. It took place at camp, one of those dreams where the scenery is different but you know where you are. There wasn't much plot - a bunch of us took a boat ride on a big ship and then we made a person out of sand. There's never been a big ship or sand at camp, but that's not the point. I was working with people at my home and I was happy. I don't want to get all hokey and say I was called home by the dream, but what else can I say? In any case, I was reminded of how important it is for me to be there.

Marianne sent me the most gorgeous picture of the SITs a week or two ago. I almost cried when I saw us. I hadn't realized how much I missed them.

When I was guarding on Sunday, Ryan asked me when I was truly happy. The first thing I could think of was swimming in the lake at the crack of dawn, when everything was just so right and I had been and was going to be spending my days doing what I needed to be doing. I can't quite explain it. I know I phrased it wrong when I replied, but it still is true. I think I need to go back.

Anyhow, now that I have some of the big things out of the way, or at least getting there, I can get back to this site. I like the comments aspect of livejournal though, so look there as well for posts.

I'd say it feels good to be back, but I can't really say that I feel like I've been gone. It feels good to have all that out of the way. Now, if I can get through my family issues, everything will be lovely.