I'm gonna roll with the punches 'til it gets old.

Every time I wear my red plaid shirt people call me a free spirit. Every time I hear that I laugh out loud, A LOT. It's not that I don't mind being called that, it's just that never in a million years did I ever think that that term could ever be applied to me. Back in high school I used to be such a tight-ass (insert one of Warren's inappropriate sexual jokes). I seriously used to be such an elitist and judgmental BITCH that it's amazing that I had any friends at all. Of course I did come from a small, elitist New England town where many of the townspeople had sticks so far up their behinds it's amazing they were able to move at all without toppling over.

Growing up my house was not at all elitist or uptight. Maybe a little judgmental from all the Catholic guilt my mother carried around and forced upon us whenever she had the chance. And to be fair I think she was pressured into some of it by her church friends. It was like a competition between them, who can be more holy and to prove what good church goers they were they used to compete at getting to church the earliest and how many church related activities they could force their children in. My mother got sucked into it all and forgot her beach bum/ski bum roots in an effort to roll with the holy crowd. Now that I'm older, most of the overbearing church ladies have moved away and my mother is left with the genuine ones who aren't so preoccupied with being crazy and more with being good and kind people.

Lance was always chill though, a little crazy once I hit sixteen, but always chill and honest about life. He had no pretensions about anything or anyone. Of course it's his upbringing and he's disdain for totally stupid people that's made him the way he is, but he never let the crazy parts of Stowe get to him and turn him into the ugliness that a lot of his 1980s fellow ski bums have become. He's even done his best to reign in my mother's crazy bits and keep the household relatively sane. It hasn't been the easiest time for him with all the estrogen floating in the air. There's really only so much you can do with a religious zealot, a moody uptight teenager, and a naive sheep. He did his best though and eventually it's started to rub off.

I tell people that I'm going through my "Lance phase" in life right now. I've given up caring about the nit picky stuff, I do what I want without hurting too many people, I try not to be a burden on society, I only hang out in quiet/dive bars, I drink gin like it's my job, and I indulge in the greener things in life every now and again (not as much as the family men, but I'm catching up at my own pace). I was essentially raised by my dad so it's fair to say that at some point I would just want to pick everything up and Chris McCandless it across the country or jump off a cliff without a parachute. Of course I don't think I want to marry before I'm thirty or drive a van with shag carpeting.

I'm not sure when the move from "uptight" to "free spirit" happened or why I'm always wearing the same shirt when it happens, but it's been going on for a couple of years now and I'm starting to grow into it and like it more and more. I've become more spontaneous, dropping things to drive to ocean, take of into the night with friends, play baseball in the early morning hours on a basketball court, or hop museum fences. I used to think that I would have cookie cutter life, living on the East coast with a middle class cookie cutter husband with our two kids and dog (not cats). We would be clean, religious, and sterile. Now the thought of that makes me want to vomit. I'm ready to pack as much as I can into the Subaru and drive as far away from those ideas as I can get. I want to take off and live on a whim like Lance or even my mom (it's easy to forget that she was once cool too). I want to have Merrie tow me on a skate board down City Ave as fast I can go, skinned knees and broken arms be damned.

I also want to release these squirrels too. 

Next time you're in Upper Darby you better let me know. I'm about to get laid off and I live with my mom.

The heartland of Uzbekistan is the Fergana Valley. Located across most of the country, this valley is extremely fertile and protected by mountains at the north and at the south. Two rivers run through the valley supplying life to area. Once part of the Northern Silk Road, it sustains the country's silk industry. It is a beautiful part of a often overlooked country in western Asia. I want to go to Uzbekistan and see the Fergana Valley. I want to stay in a yurt and hike through the mountains and travel along the rivers.

Fergana Valley

I just got back recently from a trip to Ocean City, NJ with my Hebrew Friend to see some friends who are staying at the shore for the week. It was the perfect day for the shore. Completely flawless skies and just the right amount of waves to go swimming and body surfing. We left the city early and were able to have a full rich day in Jersey. The shore was not too crowded, kind of like going to the Park on a weekend when the state park is too full to get into. We were all able to swim (those of us that actually like water), read, rest, and play Frisbee. Hebrew Friend taught me to play football though I still need some help with my catching and aim. He and I are going to have to go throw a ball around when I get back from Vermont (I'm not terribly excited about driving home alone tomorrow evening). Mini golf and pizza concluded our day and I did get a chance to see Chem Anna in action at the coffee shop. On the way home I nearly fell asleep, but then had a extremely enlightening experience with a friend. 

Yes I was with this person and yes he wore socks and shoes on the beach.

This time last year Chem Anna began her senior freak out. She would unexpectedly cry and fret about the idea of leaving school and getting into grad school. She had a hard time letting go of her safety net and preparing for the scariness of the real world. I though she and my other senior friends were crazy for crying about leaving school. They were only nine months away from no more homework. I thought that they should be celebrating and not mourning. Now that it's my turn, I feel even less prepared and successful than Chem Anna and some of my other friends who recently graduated. I just cry and cry at unexpected moments about school and the paths I've taken and how my life is going to turn out at the end of the next nine months. I'm scared about graduating especially since I will only have been working at my chosen major for three semesters. I don't have enough material for a portfolio to send to graduate schools and I haven't started studying for the GREs. I'm also terrified about leaving because I don't know where I'm going and I know I can't go home. I also don't want to leave my best friend. For the first time I have someone that I am unconditionally close to and I'm not quite prepared to put any distance between us. When I was in Vermont last time Lance said some very sage words to me: "Most choices aren't wrong, they're just not right." The decisions that I've made may not have been the best or the wisest for me but they've led me to finding a passion or two and to Yonni and to new skills. I'm just waiting for when I can start making the right choices the first time around. 

Love, but not a love story.

"Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental ... Especially you, Jenny Beckman ... Bitch."


Thank you Jenny Beckman for being a bitch and inspiring (500) Days of Summer and the one movie that my romantic entanglements most closely resemble. WIthout you I never would have found a kindred spirit in Summer or started lusting over Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Instead I would probably still be insecure about my insecurities and would have had to wait to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Inception for him to become my favorite person ever. But really I think it's the clothing of the Tom character and the music that did it for me. Any guy who likes The Smiths and wears skinny ties under v-neck cardigans is cool with me. Unfortunately for some I do tend to take the Summer route in life because of my indecisiveness and my deep desire to live and breath everywhere and not in your parent's basement apartment while you work for your dad. I have no desire to settle tomorrow or in the next ten years, and so to the Tom's of the world: I am sorry I don't want to be in a relationship with you, don't ask me to try. But hey! We can be friends and see where it goes every once and a while. 


A long time ago (long compared to my short existence, short compared to TIME) I was with the Accountant who wanted to move back to Vermont as soon as he was done with school. He wanted to marry me and move in with his parents in the middle of nowhere. He wanted to marry me as soon as school was over and stay on his plot of land until the day he died. He did not want to go anywhere or see anything and he looked down on me for not being like him. The Accountant treated me like a child who misbehaves when I got excited about things he thought were silly. My mother loved him and I was comfortable because I thought that there was no one else. 


Then I grew a pair. Asshole when I say I don't want to date you, I mean it. Do not say it's because I want to enjoy my senior year of high school or that it is the distance. It's just you. You're creepy and mean and I want more from life than what you were willing to offer. Get over it already, stop texting me and fb stalking me. I'm not interested and I don't know why you still are. You made me quite and over-cautious around guys, just ask My Hebrew Friend who is desperately trying to get me to tell him perfectly normal things. Now I don't tell my mother about the boys I see and I don't let them meet my friends. I keep that part of my life holed up and to myself and completely separate from my everyday life. Thanks for Accountant. 


I used to be a Tom and now I'm a Summer. I have my whole life ahead of me to get married and have a child and in turn fuck that child's life up more than I've fucked up my own. And it's going to happen with someone who wants be on that ride. Until then I'm carefree as a birdie and intend on keeping it that way, or at least until I have someone who I am sure about the way Summer was.