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). 

Food monster, not a food baby.

Ugh I at Taco Bell earlier and now I feel like an elephant stepped on me and left me in a ditch. I should have just let Lauren skype me into the meeting. I haven't been feeling so hot, I had the sniffles earlier. Maybe from eating ice cream outside to day or the act that it was just cold and damp all day. Anyways I came home this afternoon and took a great nap and almost decided to not to get up later for a meeting. I texted Lauren to bring her computer and that I would just skype in so that I wouldn't have to leave my bed. Excellent idea in conception, now I just need to test it out. And I was all set to do that but then I got a deep hankering for Taco Bell and wouldn't you know it, Taco Bell is Lauren's favorite fast food. So I drove all the way down to 63rd to pick Lauren up and all of the way back to Taco Bell and then all of the way back to school for the hockey meeting where I ingested fifteen minutes of Tex-Mex bliss before passing out in a food coma, rendering me glassy eyed and completely useless and unaware of anything Brian said all night. Oh Brian! I have a crush on another one of my coaches and unlike The Silver Fox, he's actually a possibility. The girls all think he' kind of funny because he never smiles and is really serious about the sport. I have been lucky enough to see him smile and see him in his glasses and now know that he too prefers Chipotle burritos over the cheesy mess that Qdoba serves up. And he has the build that I usually prefer: kind of toned, but not beefy at all. He's not as tall as other guys, but he's taller than me. Though most guys usually are.

Anyways because of the stupid sniffles earlier and the food monster living in my belly, I've been drinking a lot of tea. It's just so warming and comfy and the herbal sampler that I can buy at the grocery store is AWESOME. I usually get the Celestial Seasonings because they make an excellent orange tea, but Genuardis was out of it so I got the Bigelow pack and it's just okay. Bigelow does make a nice mint tea that I'm drinking now. I told My Hebrew Friend he should come over for a man-friendly tea party since he likes tea too. I think that means using the cow mugs and watching Hank. I should make him wear all his sweatshirts so that he can be a space heater when the apartment gets cold. Last night it was so hot even with the window open, but then this afternoon it was FREEZING! Grr stupid weather just get warm already.

12 days until the beach. Samantha ordered me some things so now I have make sure I pack enough Jergens tanning lotion for her. 

Dreamless in Philadelphia.

My dreams are driving me insane, I need to stop dreaming. Lately I've been dreaming about mundane things that have little peculiarities about them and they are always about people I know. I've been having recurring dreams about work. Nothing exciting happens, we just serve coffee and everyone I usually work with is there: The Ballerina, Willa Cather, Betty Page, and My Hebrew Friend. I told The Ballerina about my work dreams and she thinks I'm insane for dreaming about a place we hate and the fact that all we do in my dreams is just serve coffee. How mundane. The other recurring and boring dream that I've been having is about hockey. It's just reenactments of practices but there's usually something a little out of place. One there were four goals being used and another time there were player from my high school team mixed in with my current team. All very strange, all very boring, and all recurring.

Last night I had my strangest dream in a while. Usually I can't remember when I've had those dreams, I just wake up with that feeling of deep distress and I know that something happened. Last night right before I was awake I felt like this dream I needed to remember so when I finally did wake up I had to struggle to remember everything. The dream was about a friend of mine and my sister and a friend of a friend. It seemed to have begun after I fell asleep because I remember being called out of my sleep to have to go find my friend. I ended up in a house where my sister was the roommate of my friend's friend. Very strange because my sister is in CT and six years younger than her dream roommate. My sister does not play well with people who are too much older than her. The details about what happened next are a little fuzzy and very embarrassing for me, but I ended up having a fight with my friend and spent a large portion of the dream being mad and doing my laundry in the strange house. Even the boring and mundane seems to be creeping into my exciting dreams. Though this dream wasn't so much exciting as it was upsetting and terrible, it just didn't have hockey or coffee in it. It wasn't exciting it was just new. After hours of laundry I sort of made up with my friend, stopped doing laundry, and then everything faded to black.

I woke up this morning, had a bunch of unopened texts, convinced myself I've started doing things in my sleep again, wrote about my dreams, and now I have to get ready for work.

Oh Mondays!

Once again it's almost 7 pm and I  am falling asleep. I've just eaten a balanced dinner and had a glass of wine and now I'm sitting on the couch writing to stay awake. If any of my mother's friends could see me they would say that I am turning into her. My mother would say I haven't eaten a proper meal, my father would tell me that sleep is good, but I think it's really the three glasses of Crane Lake merlot that I've indulged in. Red wine does that to me; I can be going strong on Tanqueray for hours, but get a glass of red in me and I'm down for the count. While some would say that my lushiness is the result of some dangerous genes floating around inside of me, I prefer to think that it is just the 21 year-old in me bursting to get out. Now if I'm still going this strong in five or six years then we can chat.

Tonight I cooked all things Mediterranean making a lemon and garlic vinaigrette salad and a frutti di mare pasta dish. I was partially inspired by my  Hebrew Friend's latest post about eating in and the fact that if I don't start eating my Dad has threatened to come down and stay with me for a while. Apparently the fifteen pounds of Taco Bell that I've gained this semester from stress eating doesn't qualify as food for he and my mother.  My sister's freshman fifteen weight gain on the other hand is not a problem for them. But anyways, to get them off my back I have been cooking anything and everything and then letting my dad know. It's kind of hard in my teeny tiny kitchen, I need more counter space and bigger sink, but I make it work. My parents kitchen is fantastic, whenever I visit I usually bake a few things because of their superior ovens and kitchen appliances. If definitely sometimes pays to have a parent of cooks professionally. The only time it really doesn't is when he's too tired to cook and you end up growing up living off of spaghetti or grilled cheese and tomato soup. My mother was no help on the cooking front. Being a "career lady" she does not fair to well with the domestic arts. Only recently has she been able to build up her cooking repertoire to a tomato based southwestern soup, apple sauce, and carrot and flaxseed muffins. The muffins are particularly popular with her nordic and hiking friends. For Christmas she received a slow cooker recipe book which in turn led to an actual slow cooker so now she safely experiment with food without overcooking it too badly or burning the house down. Go Mom!

Tomorrow I am getting my hair cut for the first time in a year by my uncle over at Seasonal Designs in Plymouth Meeting. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm thinking about bangs but I'm not sure what style. It's between A.J. Cook bangs or Camilla Belle fringe. Oh the decisions!

Older women and Wii.

So I recently introduced my mother to the Wii dance games. A big mistake on my part for two reasons, first I no longer get to take the Wii back to my apartment because my mother now is re-interested in it and secondly, she now likes to invite her middle-aged friends over to dance around to disco music in the family living room. Now I do believe that if someone is going to shell out the money for a gaming system then they should use it as much as they can, but my parents do not  use gaming systems and my sister no longer lives with them so it is only fair that it be passed on to a more loving home. Because I am a selfish person I feel that I should become the Wii's new owner. Since I have such flawing character traits it makes sense that I would be the one introducing new addicting games to my mother. What irony. My Hebrew Friend is right, I need to be a nicer person. So now I have to wait three or four months for the excitement to wear down before I can claim the Wii for myself.

In the meantime I've moved on from Futurama to Criminal Minds. There's not much to do here now that it looks like it's April so I just watch television shows en masse to avoid packing up the rest of my childhood possessions. There's really no point since I'll most likely be back here in two years looking for handouts because I can no longer support myself and have lost all direction in life after school. If I finish school. There's been some close calls, but in sixteen months I should be finished and for someone who doesn't really care about it anymore, I feel remarkably calm about it. It feels nice and I recommend it.

Fracking bananas.

Oif! Its 1am on Sunday and I have to be at work in nine hours to serve coffee to Main Liners. Yum :( I kept a fairly normal sleep schedule throughout finals week, but now for some reason my body refuses to stay on track. Instead I am wide awake in the middle of the night writing. It’s kind of sucky, but maybe it’s a good thing since I am driving eight hours to Vermont after work on Monday night.

Gahh I just wish I could fall asleep! I’ve tried reading, knitting, watching movies, and now writing. I read a few of my favorite blogs. My Hebrew Friend wrote a rather insightful post after a night of drinking and dancing, the post didn’t really have much to do with either activity. It was good, surprisingly thoughtful, all I really have to say to him is: DO NOT publish a newsletter! My Everyday Discoveries

Now I’ve settled with watching The Facts of Life, a kitschy show about an all girls boarding school from the 1980s. There is a lot of Farrah Fawcett blow-outs and Bronx accents, but once you get past all of the “very special” episodes, it’s kind of a funny show. 

Me and the little ball of laugh.

My Hebrew Friend has a blog!

I'm not going to lie, this is the second time I've written this. I already did a post on climbing trees. (a little shameless self-promotion) and now I'm doing one here. The blog is about cool things that interest him and is a way to hone  his super sweet writings before he decides to be formally published. He's like a next gen. Hank Moody, but in Philadelphia and not New York or Los Angeles or Evan Handler. The writing is very good, better than I thought (he said he was good, but I'm a soulless critic), so take a look for yourself!

You can read his work here: My Everyday Discoveries