Shane Botwin is back, but Andy is better than ever!

So last night I finally got around to watching True Blood. I found a website that has the first two episodes posted so I spent two glorious hours catching up with the supernatural in Bon Temps. I really really hate when television uses time jumps to keep a series going, but in this case I found it particularly interesting because Sookie wasn't experiencing the time jump at all because of being in an alternate universe for only a few minutes. The show also didn't waste time in trying to have her catch up on all of her lost year. Everything was conveniently explained and then the show moved on. There are a couple of new characters this season to fill the voids of the few that were killed off last season. My new favorite is Janine Gavankar. Gavankar was previously on The Gates last summer and played Shivakamini on The League. In both shows she was excellent and so far her performance in True Blood hasn't disappointed as a shape shifter and love interest for Sam.

While I was online last night I also saw ads for the new season of Weeds. Monday night was the season premier and I can definitely say that it is much different than the sunny Southern California season one where we were first introduced to Nancy. While I don't want to ruin what happened for one of my readers. I will say that Shane has grown into a very interesting character, Nancy is still the same lovable, but sometimes crass and always in trouble, Jennifer Jason Leigh's character is a super huge bitch, and Doug will also be Doug. I think the most touching moment of the episode came from Kevin Nealon's character Doug when he said, "You aren't leaving me behind?" Season 7 of Weeds is shaping up to be excellent.

You know you wish she was your mother too.

In the meantime I have finally started cleaning my apartment. After about three weeks of no clean clothes and tripping over my hockey equipment every time I walk into my apartment I broke down and spent about $50 in cleaning supplies from Target at 10pm. I finally own a good mop and have clean clothing again. I sorted out my utility and linen closets and my bathroom has been sanitized, every last inch. The only thing left is to tackle my kitchen and living room and run a load of towels. I'll finish that tonight after I get home from the bar. Marg has finally come back to me so we're going out to celebrate and play quizzo and eat delicious bar foods. I'm hoping Neil will come too. Tomorrow's Wednesday which means a shore day and I have to give Ryan a call so he knows I'll be around to do something if he's free. Either way I'll be back to this sometime Thursday or Friday and then it will be back to the shore Sunday and Monday. I love holiday weekends!

An Alexander kind of day.

Yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And I do mean a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. It's such a shame too because up until Saturday my weekend was going so well. It started off on the wrong foot when I decided to sleep off a hangover and not get up until 2pm. I have absolutely no nutritious food in my apartment because I haven't given myself enough time to go to the store. I had intended to get up and go and clean out my apartment and do all of my laundry, but because I slept in I didn't have enough time to do all of what I wanted to do and I didn't even bother to put a dent in my list. Then I went to work. Work was work, but worse. For the first half of my shift I was only given old people with coupons and old people with coupons do not leave good tips. Then I found out that I had to close even though I had closed the night before. I was fine with that. It had been a relatively slow day and I figured that it would be a slow night like it had been on Friday, but I still made sure to post the side work anyways. Then 9pm hit. People came through the door out of nowhere and that was when the staff decided that even though they weren't cut could pass off tables to the closers and that side work was suddenly optional. Ant, the other closer, and I were slammed with everyone else's tables and the other servers kept yammering for me to check their tables and clear them for cash out even though I was in a jungle of weeds way over my head. I don't know what triggered it but out of nowhere I started crying and my manager had to yell at everyone to let me alone and give me a minute to take care of my own tables before I could get to them. I was so embarrassed to be crying at the terminal, punching in orders, but for a minute I really needed Lance or on of Yonni's pep talks to keep myself from walking out the door or punch my coworkers in the face. NOT a good night. And then to top it all off I didn't get home until 1am because people decided that they couldn't wait for me to check their tables so they just left without doing their side work AND one of my tables walked out with their book after they paid so I never had a hard copy of the transaction and I didn't get a tip on their $98 check. I can finally understand why Lance does some of the things that he does and I am not too far behind.

On the bright side today I didn't have to open or close and I made $250 off of one party. So even though it was a long day I have a lot to show for it. I also don't mind the work when I am taking off next Sunday and Monday and will be on the beach for two days in Jersey.


Something from Iron Man 2:

1: "We need you."
2: "More than you know."
1: "Not that much."

Really looking forward to seeing Captain America, Harry Potter, and Transformers 3. I love movies a little too much sometimes. 

It seems like all Jersey people do is hump and punch each other.

So I know last post that I would have this great story about me and Cynthia! driving to Newark to pick up our Hebrew Friend from the airport, alas!, this did not happen. Hebrew Friend has decided to stay in Israel another week and spend more time with his family. Funny, because he wasn't all too excited to go in the first place, but once he got there he's been very happy. Just goes to show what getting out of the city does for you. Anyways now I'm going to pick him up next weekend and Cynthia! will be at the beach so I'm traveling alone through the dark and dangerous streets of Newark until I pick up the Hebrew Hammer. I took the day off from work so I should just capture him and bring him down to Cynthia! or drop him at the Philadelphia exit and head to the beach myself. Just kidding Yon I'll take you home, but I really may just go to the beach afterwards. And to risk sounding too much like a teenage girl, Yonni I miss you and I'm excited to see you whenever you decide to come back from the Holy Land. Marg I miss you too. Your tiny apartment and I miss you in the city. Please come back from Maryland soon!

In this heat infested city I have come to the conclusion that I am more suited for a life at the beach. I'm just not sure when or where yet. With less than a year left here I have begun to face the grim reality of having to pack up everything in my apartment and move somewhere. I'm just struggling with the "where" bit. Right now my sister has a sweet gig at a beach resort in Florida and as I am no stranger to the service industry I am seriously beginning to consider something like that for a season or two.  

Thursday was my last class! The exam was annoying and long, but now it's over and as long as I passed the course I really don't care anymore. The school is getting rid of the course in the spring and it's just a requirement for graduation that I won't need for anything else in life. Seriously it really is one of those classes that no one needs unless you're a history major. But hey! It's over and done with and I can focus on my nonfiction class and my world lit class that starts next week. Very excited for these two classes.

I am having the best weekend ever so far. I was supposed to go to Manayunk for a friend's birthday, but I ended up having to close at work and by the time I got out of there and would have gone home to shower and change everyone would have been much more drunk that they already were and I didn't want to have to spend the next two hours playing catch up. Instead I went out with some of my friends from work. We went to this play that has a late night happy hour and the best curly fries ever. We all got properly soused and then spent the last hour or two sobering up and eating curly fries and chatting. I smoked a cigarette and fully remembered why I stopped smoking. Worst tasting mouth ever. I also did tequila shots with Lauren and one of Neil's friends. I haven't had tequila since the worst Tequila Sunrise ever incident that involved a clothing free bartender and orange juice. It's now why I don't drink orange juice with alcohol. Anyways...Neil's friend was very nice and extremely cute so now I need to meet up with him again. Poor Neil, I'm systematically going through his friends this summer. But he's good with it so so am I.

I'm ending this with the video "Hello" by Martin Solveig. I love the video because it reminds me of Luke Wilson's character, Richie, from The Royal Tenenbaums. Richie is the epitome of the late '70s tennis player who has a John McEnroe-esque meltdown and leaves professional tennis to move back home. It is an excellent Wes Anderson film.

Well if you're uncomfortable you should take off your pants.

Last night while I was driving home I came across a deer standing in the middle of the road. I've seen a lot of deer in the park an they are a more than common occurrence  in Vermont, but this one was standing in the middle of the road in the commercial park across from where my apartment. I saw it in time to stop and it stood still looking at me for a minute and then became confused, circled about and ran off across a parking lot. Luckily for the deer another car wasn't coming along because the deer easily could have slammed into another car while it turned about getting oriented. A few minutes earlier a fox ran past my car while I was sitting at a red light. It was a total zoo on the streets of Philadelphia last night.

This morning I had my first Wimba meeting for my nonfiction class. I can finally say that I have complete empathy for the graduate students that bitch about it in the office. Wimba is a pain and everything we did easily could have been accomplished over Skype or a conference call. It was kind of fun getting up at 6:30am and having a workshop about a concise literary essay that I had recently written. I have to rework parts of it and then let my writing partner look it over and work on it with me. My professor was very encouraging about having a writing partner since I can't get into see her because of summer hours. Good thing Yonni knows what he's doing. The piece is for my final portfolio, but it's something that I want to polish and consider submitting to a literary magazine such as Brevity once it's finished. I also have to send a copy to my dad since it's about him. I just need Thursday to be over so I can finally commit myself to my writing. I've also opened up my log book again. I had a four year plan to fill it up and I probably would have finished it last year if I had actually written in it on a regular basis. The book was a graduation gift from a close friend and the format is designed after the log books that Ms. Knapp has us keep while in Greece. If she hadn't passed away I think I would have sent it to her after it was filled.

I also found out this morning that Samantha experienced death up close recently. She and I are no stranger to death, she especially during her middle years of high school, but nothing quite like this. I would have thought that of the two of us to see it happen, she would not have been the first. I still have a wholesome milk and cookies Amish attitude of my  sister because of the more sheltered life she led and her extremely boring life choices that she's made up until these past few months. It's funny the places that life takes you and it's curious that only a few days ago I wrote about death and drowning in my journal for class after reading CLE in Brevity.

I'm going to Jersey tomorrow, weather be damned. I also have my history final Thursday night so this may very well be the last post before my Hebrew Friend returns from the Holy Land (unless something super exciting comes up). 

You always come to the turtle slide when you're upset.

So right now I have two friends traveling around Israel.One old and one new. I told one of them to keep an eye out for the other even though they have never met and one of them blends in very nicely with the locals. My friends definitely think I'm an idiot, but if there is one person who is good at randomly finding people it's Taylor. I'm good at sniffing out Taylor's food and she's good at finding my ex-boyfriends (think football game). Anyways one of my friends has been posting photos about their trip to Israel and every single one of them looks amazing and bright and sunny. I'm incredibly jealous because I would die to go traveling with her. Any place we ever traveled to in high school was the most ridiculous experience ever (think NYC and Maine). She's such a goofy yet incredibly smart person  so it's fun to be around her, especially when I lead us into something not so brilliant (again think NYC).

I've been trapped inside all weekend and it's starting to wear on me. My sleep schedule is all messed up lately and I need to start taking something to straighten it out again. One of my coworkers mentioned something that he has access to, but I'm not looking for something quite so extreme. I prefer to suck down a bottle of codeine and end up upside down on the floor instead of some peaceful pharmaceutical induced sleep. Being in and around service industry people for most of my life has put me in front of a lot of bad habits and for the most part I have resisted, but honestly now I'm a little tempted to try something. I will say that I am financially strapped for cash most of the time and that's what is really preventing me from being a bad kid. It's not cheap to be cool. Even cigarettes cost a fifth of a tank of gas and I can barely afford to do that sometimes. I make money I really do, I just happen to have a couple of more pressing expenses at the moment.

I have one last week of class. Thursday is my final so I will be spending all of Wednesday on the beach spending and making note cards. Thursday night I intend to go out with my bestie Neil and then shower, change, pick up Cynthia! and head up to Newark. Which reminds me I need to print out directions, I don't feel like getting lost in Greater Philadelphia at 4am.

So one of my friends who is over in the Holy Land finally got an opportunity to get online and write something. I'm not sure if he's been reading this while he's away, but Israel has been the second most "viewing of my blog" country this past week so chances are he was one of them. If so I want an Israeli breakfast like you've been writing about when you come back. I also want some Greek marmalade, but I can take care of that myself. Anyways he makes Israeli food sound yummy and after being around half-assed Italian food all weekend I want something yummy.

It's a crime! No it's the crime of the century!

!שלום to my friend in Israel (I'm not sure if that's correct, I got it from Google translator). I'm just getting home from the bar and he's probably just waking up somewhere in the desert. I went out tonight with some friends from work and my friend Cynthia! cam with me. We played quizzo for almost two hours  before I had to call it quits because I have to get up early to open tomorrow morning.A good time was had by all and I got the chance to meet some new people and catch up with some that I hadn't seen in awhile. Work has been particularly crazy lately so I've been really excited to go out and just put everything out of my mind for a few hours. I have two more days of it and then I have my last week of Western Civ I. I will be so terribly excited when this class is over. It's just been such a drag and once it's finished I'll able to solely focus on my writing classes and enjoy my summer. 


Below is the police blotter from my hometown newspaper. I suggest that you read it because there are two or three exceptional incidents that I think everyone will enjoy. It will also give you a good understanding of crime in a small town and why people in the country don't have to worry about what lurks in the night. Clearly they have other things to worry about. 

Click on this!: http://www.stowetoday.com/stowe_reporter/news/police_blotter/article_4e85c03c-980f-11e0-bd74-001cc4c03286.html

Is it really because I let you call me Barry?

Today is Friday which means that I have double work. Yesterday I did double work but in opposite order and then went to class and now I feel completely dead on the inside. Of course it didn't help that there was a giant lightning/thunder storm that started just as I was about to fall asleep, but right now I could really use a nap. I also think I strained my wrist at work this week, because right now it feels really sore anytime I bend it in any direction. I'm hoping it's just overused and not seriously damaged. I want to get out of tray service for the night, but I don't want to have to miss a whole bunch of work. I am also not going out tonight. I am putting my foot down right now and saying no. I have too much homework to catch up on and I am so tired that I just want to sleep.

So I finally caught up with my friend Karrie. She goes home every summer and so I don't see her very much. We try to call each other when we can, but for the last couple of weeks we were playing a very bad game of phone tag. It was literally to the point where I had to start passing messages to her through our friend Merrie just so I could maintain some sort of communication. Of Merrie, who was supposed to stay in the city for the summer, is now back in Baltimore and there is a good chance that Karrie will be back before Merrie is. My Hebrew Friend is currently in the Holy Land right now and hopefully taking the nice candid shots of Israel that I wanted him to take for me. He asked if I wanted something from Israel, but I just want to see what the desert country is really like. Almost all of my knowledge about Israel is ancient and comes from the religion classes that I take at school. My Hebrew Friend is straight up Israeli so he knows what it's really like and when he comes back I'm going to make him go through all of the pictures and explain everything to me. I had him go over currency and Hebrew before he left and now we're going to have more once I get those pictures. I'm hoping that Liz Bloch-Smith does another course to the Holy Lands next year so I can actually set foot in Israel and get a step closer to completing my minor. Next Thursday night/Friday morning Cynthia! and I are going to trek out to Newark to pick up our Hebrew Friend from the airport. I love random rambles through New Jersey. I used to do them all the time with friends at weird hours of the night.

Last night I watched Never Let Me Go with Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, and Carrey Mulligan. It's about a dystopian society in England where clones are grown and raised as organ donors for their Originals. The clones are raised in schools all over the countryside and not told about what they are until they are much older. They are also kept away from society and people have certain prejudices about whether or not the clones are real humans and have souls. The movie focuses on a group of friends: Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, beginning as young children and following them until they begin their donations and eventual completion (death). The film is about young love and the pure human emotions or joy, love, and jealousy that every young person goes through. Even though I was familiar with the plot I couldn't help but cry throughout most of the movie because it was just too sad to know that those poor children would never have a full life, condemned to die as their organs are slowly harvested from them. Of course the crying could have also been from the PMS I'm currently raging against.

I don't skinny dip...I chunk dunk.

It is said that only boring people are bored. Well I don't care I'm bored. All of my friends are either at home with their parents, sick with mono, or too cranky right now and I'm at home eating red grapes and writing on my blog. It's hard being bored, I'm not very good at it. I am good at sleeping in and being a sloth, but that's not being bored that's accomplishing being a sloth. Right now though, I have too much energy to sit around but I have nothing to channel that energy into. It's hard especially since I'm usually compared to a seven year old boy. Ask Marg, but it's true, she usually has to pull me out of trees or keep me from climbing over fences. I need to take a shower, but then I might do for a drive. I need to get out of the apartment and do something, however I have no real destination to drive to and I don't really want to just go out for a half hour and then return home. I just really want to go get lost for a while. I used to do that back in Vermont, go driving and get lost on the back roads. Not as fun here because of the six million more people on the road but still effective. I'm going to have to ponder this idea while I take a shower. 

My friend Christ recently just started a blog, Porch Beers. It's about his life as a recent college grad living back home in South Philly. I met Chris in one of my summer classes last summer and since then I've only seen him a handful of times on campus, but we've been following each other's lives almost religiously on the various social networks that we are apart of. His first post was a mini tribute to me! So exciting to have someone notice my little impact on the blogosphere and then report on it. I really love the style and layout of Porch Beers. It's got a poor man's men's club vibe going on with the black and white cigar and martini on top of a PBR themed background. I love PBR, it's the only part of the Vermont hipster/redneck that I allow out of me (except for oversized flannel shirts, but those are for the winter and days when I don't wear a bra). Anyways check out Porch Beers and follow Chris on his blog and his twitter and while you're at it follow this blog and check out my twitter: @smpurnell

I think I'm trying to overcompensate for missing two weeks of blogging!

I've got the animal kingdom Axis of Evil down there.

I left the bar an hour ago with the intention of going home and going straight to bed. I was just going to leave a message on a friend's phone to let him know that he could call me tomorrow, but he ended up answering and we had a nice long cat about the stuff going on in his life. Now back not to recently when I easily got bored on the phone and checked out I would have been fine listening to him talk for an hour, but now that we've pushed through all of our crap I want a chance to talk to sometimes. I seriously hope his future wife has big ears because sometimes he won't shut up. Now I love you, and you know that I love you (everyone who reads this knows I love you) but I can't pay attention to you at 2am when I'm already in bed and the thing holding the phone to my ear is my pillow. I'm not sixteen anymore and you're not my boyfriend, so I no longer have the phone conversation listening stamina that I once had. Not his fault though, I'm the one that called first. I do appreciate that he is willing to talk to me and I really do like listening to him. He shares a lot of stuff with me and it's made me much more comfortable and willing to open up and share things with him. Sometimes I feel like he and I are the only two people who know anything about each other (with certain things).

One another note, I need to stop drinking beer. I went out with some friends from work and after one beer I felt like I had eaten a loaf of bread. It was gross. I'm thinking of switching up to pinot grigio. I know it's a chick wine and one that Lance scoffs at, but I need to try something new. I can't keep feeling full and dead from a pint of beer every time I go out. I also need to start going out with people because everyone at work thinks that there's something going on between me and my new bestie and they couldn't be more far from the truth for so many reasons. Next weekend I will commence with the pinot grigio and let you all know how it goes.

So I finally watcher the fist 7th Harry Potter movie. Liked it, not loved it. There were too many important details that I felt were left out. Totally bummed me out, but I felt where they cut the movie was a really good place. It's far along in the book where they did it, but the last portion of the book was densely packed with action and details that having a second part will give the movie room to breathe. I was really disturbed by the Hermione torture scene at the end of the movie. In the book I imagined it to not be so up close a personal between Hermione and Bellatrix and more magic based. In the movie Bellatrix was on top of Hermione driving a piece of wood into her hand herself. Not cool. My favorite scene was the one where Harry and Hermione dance in the tent. It was just really touching to see the two characters be able to hold onto a piece of their childhood innocence despite all of the stuff that was going on around them.

I was going to write tonight and then I wasn't because I was so tired, but then as soon as I hung up I was wide awake. I bet everyone else is asleep by now.

Shout out to Andi who has mono. Feel better! And to Cynthia! because it's her birthday. Happy Birthday!

The Sedar's universal and you'll be playing the part of the evil Pharaoh.

So I've really started getting into  90s sitcoms and most recently it's been 3rd Rock from the Sun. I never got that joke for the longest time until I heard someone say it in a movie, which was also about aliens too (funny). I started watching 3rd Rock with the impression that it was going to just be something mindless and funny, but without any depth to the characters. I also started watching because I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt and I needed something to fill the void until Hesher becomes available to me. I must say I love this show. It is actual very well written (even if my writing sucks) and the plot lines are just silly enough to keep me entertain without getting bored. I was also pleasantly surprised with Kristen Johnson. I first saw her in Bride Wars and thought she was really funny and also kind of reminded me of a skinny Kirstie Alley. She really pulled the show together.

I'm looking for more 90s television shows to watch next so send me your suggestions.

Pros for tomorrow: Reading by the pool, possibly shopping at J. Crew, going for a run.

Cons for tomorrow: Not going to the beach, not making any money(?). 

I'm completely behind teen abstinence, but as a former teen it's not going to happen.

It's been almost two weeks since I last blogged. I've been a bad bad blogger and I have the angry reader tweets, comments, and phone calls to prove it. It's also been a week since Yonni's computer broke and I guess I figured that since he's not reading it and my mom could use a break from her scandalous daughter's not so scandalous life that no one else would care either. I was so wrong. So anyways I am back and I have a recap of the last two weeks to break down and share.

I guess the easiest place to start would be at Memorial Day Weekend because that's when you last heard from. I think the last post I mentioned said that I was going to Jersey to see my aunt and uncle and meet up with my parents. Which I did and it was nice. But prior to meeting up with my parents I got to spend some time with my cousin Ryan. Ryan is thirteen years older than me, the most guido looking person in the family with a Purnell surname, and possibly the only person who is more sarcastic and willing to take easy shots at their mother (Poor Aunt Pat). He is also the most easiest going and fun person after Lance. I've also looked up to Ryan as an older brother. Of all four of my older male cousins he is the only one I ever saw on a somewhat regular basis growing up. Unlike his brother and the other two that live in Florida, Ryan always took the time to stop by his parent's house and visit with us and talk to me. And since there's the same age gap between me and him as there is between he and Lance, Ryan likes to teach me the same bad shit Lance exposed to him. Though to be fair Ryan has distanced him beyond the shenanigans of Lance by miles and miles at this point. Anyways the night before my parents came Ryan took me out with some of his friends and finally let me join in on his "fun and games" and I had a really nice time. Like a good big brother Ryan also took care of me when I got too tired and made sure I was home in time to get some sleep before my parents showed up the next morning.

The next morning I hit the beach with my parents and it was actually a nice time. My mother kept her comments to herself and even took the time to notice by slightly improved physique (though I've fallen off the wagon these past few days). It also helped that Samantha wasn't there to be a pain in everyone's ass and act like a seven year old. There comes a point in everyone's life when they need to accept the fact that their childhood is over and that holding onto it is only stunting your personality and making you look like an idiot. Samantha has yet to realize any of this to the point where she will sometimes talk like a small child in a very whiny voice if she thinks it will help her get her way with things. It was a good time all around for everyone. I haven't seen my mother since I left Vermont in January and the last time my dad visited he spent more time with his friends in Hershey and his older sister than he did with me.


I got back early Monday night so I could go see a movie with my Hebrew Friend. We saw Fast Five, which was kind of funny because about an hour before I left Jersey we were all sitting on my Uncle's back porch discussing which was the best movie from the Fast and the Furious franchise. It was agreed that the first was the best, except for Lance who was the only who had seen Fast Five at the time, and that Tokyo Drift was the worst. After seeing Fast Five I agree with Lance. Even though the plot was a little borrowed from The Italian Job, the movie had the best lineup of characters and the best cars by far. Even without the amazing Michelle Rodriguez I was still happy and will definitely go see Vin Diesel and his Dungeons and Dragons loving self in the sixth movie.

I think there was one morning/night where I spent a chunk of time with Yonni. We've started having semi regular brunches on Thursday mornings with our friend Cynthia and if Kyle can come then Kyle  will come and eat with us. Texas Toast Kyle. The last time we ate together Yonni made a lovely Israeli salad with is possibly one of my new favorite breakfast foods after Greek marmalade and Challah French toast. We need to do Challah toast sometime soon. Yonni likes to try new breakfast foods whenever we get together, it's just funny because it's all stuff I've been doing since birth. Anyways one Thursday we spent a chunk of time together first in the morning and then later after he got off work we smoked hookah on his back porch for a while and I discovered my love for dark Israeli coffee. I usually reserve coffee for Aunt Val's and Christmas where I drink six cups in a row while eating the hundreds of pizzelles Lance has conned me into making for him. But I was really surprised how much I took to the coffee, even the muddy grounds at the bottom of the cup were nice. I've been really surprised at how quickly and easily I have become so close to Yonni. Especially after what we put ourselves through, it's nice that we were able to take a step back and become even closer. It's almost shocking to me how much I love him as a friend because usually it takes people years for me to love them and right now it's only a special few that I would drop everything for (Marg you need to come back to the city I finally picked up my pool pass). But that's the kind of personality that Yonni has, someone how is easy to get along with and really genuine. I dropped him at the airport the other day and I jokingly said "I'll miss you" even though he's only gone for a few days, but now I kind of miss his down the road presence. I'm going to be such a mess when I leave after graduation.


I've been watching a lot of Aaron Sorkin television shows lately. The old ones that never really got past a season or two that are now on Netflix. First it was Sports Night with Felicity Huffman and Josh Charles. The show's premise was the inner workings of a sport's news show in New York City. The dialogue and plot lines were excellent, but with the impending success of The West Wing, Sorkin decided to abandon the show and eventually it was canceled. Too bad because it's really good. The other Sorkin show that I got into was Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The show was about the west coast version of SNL with guest stars from Sorkin's other series. The show only lasted one season, but it was easily Matthew Perry's best performance, even better than Friends. Perry played an addict writer who was getting a second chance as the show's execute producer after being ousted for writing politically sensitive sketches post-9/11. If you can get your hands on it, watch this show and then write NBC and tell them you want it back.

I started my second class this week. I'm two weeks away from finishing Western Civ I and I've already had to write an autobiographical haiku and do several readings and journal entries for my nonfiction shorts class. My autobiographical haiku is 100 words long and reads like a phone conversation to my dad. I've been really excited for this class, but the whole online aspect has me a little nervous because the school recently upgraded Black Board and it's now more confusing than ever and I've never taken an online class before and so I'm little confused about what we have to do anyways. The instructor is super nice and interesting and is definitely invested in helping us get through this course successfully. I've had teachers in the past who could care less about their students so having Dr. Spinner is really exciting and nice.

I took my Hebrew Friend to the beach with me on Wednesday. We went to the state park and I finally purchased my season pass. The guy at the gate thought that I was a total idiot because I kept asking about how to buy a pass, but the old lady who kept asking the poor girl about the shark was even worse and Yonni making fun of her made me feel better about being a total idiot. The water when we got there was amazing. I just wish it had been low tide when we went because the sandbar is much better when it's shallow. The water was frigid, but after playing frisbee in the sun for a while I warmed up and went in. I need to get a better bathing suit top because the one I have is not meant for any sort of physical activity. Thank God it was just Yonni, who doesn't care about my boobs and that we were almost the only ones on the beach. I almost went topless when I was lying in the sun, but I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. Later I took him over to the Sawmill for some pizza. He had never experienced their pizza, which is the size of three normal sized slices and then walked the boardwalk for a little bit. Lance and I thought that it was funny that he had never been to Seaside considering what a huge fan of The Jersey Shore that he is. I told him I'd take him back when they start shooting the next season later this summer. It was a good past two weeks.

Shout out to my best reader ever @Chris_akaTiny!