Maple Cheesecake and Moonrise Kingdom

It's been a rough week for me with everything going on at work and with myself at home which is why I've been absent from my keyboard for so long. Between overtime, bad weather, and community tragedy all I've wanted is to crawl out of bed, go to work, and come home and crawl back in again until the sun comes up the following day. I will write more about those things as the work week coming up unfolds, but all last week I've had to push myself a little extra to keep plugging along and as the week progressed little pockets of brightness popped up until the I finally got two days to myself to reset and recharge for a full weekend of work.

Being back under my parent's roof is not as bad as I would have believed it to be four years ago. In high school I was kept under a tight, watchful eye that lurked in the shadows of my father's office, but now I come and go as I please (mostly to work and to Burlington for errands). I still inform one of my parents where I go as a courtesy so that they know whether to expect me later or not, but there is no more forced family fun and my free time is now my own to do with as I please.

Having two days off in a work week is a rare treat for me that by the second day I hardly knew what to do with myself and had to be creative with the day so that I wasn't sitting around doing nothing for most of it. I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in until 9am and then got up feeling like half my day had already been wasted. Since Lance had finally finished the flourless chocolate cake I baked him for Father's Day I decided it was time for something new. I settled on a maple cheesecake recipe that I found on the internet and spent the afternoon mixing ingredients for my first cheesecake.

Usually I am very successful on my first attempts at new recipes, but this one was a disaster. The crust and cake batter all looked and tasted fine until it actually time to bake in the oven. As the dessert cooked it browned unevenly and wouldn't set properly. Lance came in at the very end with a suggestion about cover the springform pan with a sheet tray while in the oven and another baker friend, Sam recommended a water bath for next time. After abut 35 minutes I pulled the cake out and placed it in the fridge to chill and set up while I went to see Moonrise Kingdom.

By the time I returned home and broke through a window to get inside my house the cake a set up to about the proper consistency so I decorated the top with fresh berries to hide the surface cracks from where it had risen and fallen back in place and glazed the berries in a healthy maple reduction for extra sweetness and flavor.

It surprising turned out okay. 

While the cake was setting up in the refrigerator I set out of see Moonrise Kingdom at the Bijou in Morrisville. I've been waiting a month for the film to finally reach Vermont and now that the day had come I took off for the first showing I could get to. There was about ten others in the small theatre, about ten more people than I would have expected for a Wes Anderson film in Morrisville, VT, but it was nice to have an intimate audience in the dark, intimate theatre where I could binge on restricted food items in privacy while Edward Norton and Bruce Willis searched for wayward children all across an island off the coast of northern New England. I won't say too much about the film because I'm still waiting for my friend in Philadelphia to go see it, but I will mention that while the cinematography is quintessential Anderson, the plot is a more juvenile than his past films, but still has the core values and integrity of all of his film.

No, what kind of bird are you?

Sidney Versus

I'm a little embarrassed and slightly ashamed to admit this, but when my Hebrew friend showed me this trailer for Lola Versus and said that the lead girl reminded him of me I grudgingly had to agree. I don't follow horoscopes, I don't match myself up with anyone of the women in Sex and the City the way my friends do, and I don't have a celebrity doppelganger. I honestly don't see the point of relating myself to fiction like that because isn't like their at all...but then I saw the trailer. It was like someone had taken snapshot of my future and make a full length feature out of it.

So maybe the movie is not a close accurate depiction, but there are some strong resemblances between Greta Gerwig's character and my own life. For instance like Lola I tend to get easily stressed and "power eat" in a desperate attempt to feel better only to feel eve worse afterwards, I've been brutally dumped by guys who decide to they weren't looking for relationships after all only to be in committed ones a week later which in turn leads to a bout of pseudo promiscuity, I trip over my feet easily despite years of dance and skating, I have a good friend who could easily stand in for Hamish Linklater, and don't get me started on Cinderella. It's definitely not an accurate representation of me, but it comes close which I'm really starting to hate because if that's how people see me then I really suck. Or maybe that's just the Bella Syndrome talking.

I want to hear more about Hebrew friend's thoughts because like me he doesn't think that anyone can ever really see themselves in movies because it's not real life, so for him to say something like that is interesting? It's also the Jewish Seder meal tonight so I'm hoping to score some yummy post-Passover food after work too. I have a freakish love of matzoh bread wafers and bitter herbs. Catholic fail. 

They want to get my gold on the ceiling.

So I've decided that my New Year's resolution is going to be to have a lot of biblical relations while listening to The Black Keys after going for runs. Athletic and musical: some of my favorite things. In the meantime while I wait for that to happen I've been going to movies or sitting around watching movies that I have already seen, but still love.

Last week I went see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I went into it with an open mind after hearing so many good reviews because I didn't want to get too influenced and have a predetermined opinion of the movie before seeing it. I will say this: it was an excellent cinematic experience if you don't have very much background about the story. If you've read the book then you will be disappointed. The film stays true to the larger points essential to the plot however, it is wanting in too many areas. Besides completely redesigning the ending of the story it missed several not so small details making me feel like I had missed large chunks of the movie even though my eyes never left the screen. Not impressed with this one, but I'll probably see the others if they ever get made.

Last night I went to see Mission: Impossible 4. I went after class and after eating a full meal and I intended to fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the movie. I never closed my eyes once. Despite Tom Cruise this movie delivers. It was the perfect mix of action and Russian accents and there wasn't the forced romance between lead characters that is now too common in action films. It also had Simon Pegg in a more substantial role than the last MI film which made up for the fact that I had to sit through two hours of Tom Cruise. Paula Patton was also pretty badass as well.

Another movie that I saw recently was The Art of Getting By starring Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore. It was a coming of age film done from the perspective of a New York teenage boy navigating a rocky home situation, a budding romance with the attractive and wild Emma Roberts, and coasting through school to the point where he is faced with possible expulsion. This movie was filmed in the indie aspect that I am fond of and the supporting characters played by Alicia Silverstone and Blair Underwood made the movie worth watching. If only I didn't hate girls like Miss Roberts' character I would have loved it that little bit more.

Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

It's that special time of the month again. That magical week that is only seen in December and then again in early May, finals week. I've spent the past month finishing papers and completing final projects and I am wiped. I mean completely spent and I still have three more finals, a portfolio, and a case of beer to get through. I keep telling myself all I have to do is get through all of Thursday and then I can "do stuff", rest up on Friday, and then be fully prepared for the Holy War on Saturday.

Today started off with a bang! A 9am literary background exam in which I had to write three essays by hand in those wonderful blue booklets. I had two hours to complete my final and I spent the first twenty minutes of it picking at my split ends and wondering if I would actually sleep in my own bed tonight (I am because Ritzy wore me out). Once I got my brain in order I worked past the hand cramps and knocked out three more than decent essays and still had fifteen minutes left to spare. Everyone told Patti to have a nice break, but all I got out of him was a "See you on Thursday." Having the same teacher for multiple classes can have it's drawbacks. After leaving my final I went over to my office job and stuffed envelopes for a few hours so that my bosses would remember that I still worked for them.

Even after envelope stuffing I was still home before 1pm and so I decided to take a nap. I put on Airplane! and tried to close my eyes in between scenes. Nap time was only a mild success so I decided to clean my apartment (something I've desperately needed to do for a while). I cleaned the shit out of half of my living space. And I mean cleaned. I mopped and you really have to get in a vacuum and dust stuff before you run a mop over cheap hardwood floors. I have one more room to clean before I allow anyone to come through the door, but I have most of tomorrow to do it before I go into my Shakespeare final. 

Does your mother always cut your meat for you?

Rawr! Today I am a tired dinosaur. Actually this morning I was a tired dinosaur and stayed in bed until 9:30am and still got to school in time to buy a HUGE cup of coffee and a protein bar before Patti's 10am class. We had a quiz that I was completely unprepared for, but actually may done well on. Thank God we talk about the course material in class most of the time. There was only one question that I struggled with: what was the original meaning of 'romance'? I answered 'something Middle Englishy'. What I really should have said was 'something Middle Frenchy'. Oh well, live and learn. Oh hey look at that, I finally used a Mary Ann Purnellism (usually they only come from Lance).

After talking my way through a made up answer, I had my second and last class of the day. My second and last class of the day is also with Patti in the room next door to my first class (I realize that I have have such a strenuous Friday). Half the class was absent and so we took our time getting started. One of my classmates is reading James Joyce's Ulysses. Apparently in the book Joyce discusses 'tightened scotums' gross indeedy and dear sweet Father F. decided to talk about that phrase is his class. My classmate had no idea what he was talking about so he decided to bring it up in Patti's class. Let's just say Patti was not going there with a ten foot pole. Instead we discussed Community and the awesome paintball episodes. He was going to talk about last night's episode, but I shut that down real quick since I hadn't seen it yet (I watched it as soon as I got home). We spent the first twenty minutes talking about non-class related things and we still got out early. I love Friday's with Patti. Amy you missed an awesome class, Randy found out he could go to grad school for free in the midwest.

This is what we discussed in Middle English today. Not quite Marie de France, but still pretty awesome.

Everyone loves movies.

Last semester I used to watch movie trailers on Hulu when I ran out of television shows, movies and was avoiding doing class work. I like going through the lists of recently added trailers and just watching anything and everything. Hulu posts movie trailers from all kinds of genres and countries, but mostly American and French. I loved spending hours watching clips and previews of movies that I never would have seen or heard about. It also amped me up for all of the awesome movies I saw this summer with my friends. Now that school has started and I am working, most of my time is occupied, but there are still a couple of movies out there that I am excited to see and plan on making time to go see them with some friends.

Tanner Hall

Tanner Hall is a film about girls in a New England boarding school and their struggles with growing up  in an isolated environment. It stars Rooney Mara and Brie Larson, who are excellent actresses in the last few movies I saw them in. Probably something I will see with Marg.

The Debt

This film looks awesome! It's all about a group of Mossad agents who were on a secret mission in 1965 to track down Nazis and how what happened in the past is impacting them now. I'm a huge fan of Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastin, so watching them kick ass as Mossad agents will be awesome. Definitely a guy friend movie thingy. 

The Rum Diary

   

If you're familiar with Hunter S. Thompson and you haven't read The Rum Diaries, then you must. This film stars Johnny Depp and appears to follow to the books closely. I am excited to see how far off course it is and whether or not the trailer was the only part that was true to the book. Either way Johnny Depp looks like he delivers in what looks to be a wild and wonderful movie. 

Like Crazy

I haven't seen Anton Yelchin on screen in awhile and I'm pretty I've never seen him in a romantic film. This one I might wait until it is on Netflix or dvd, but I'm intersted in the story of an American and a foreigner and how immigration laws can come between two people. 

Cracked

This movie is already out on dvd, but I only just saw the trailer. Cracked stars Eva Green in an English boarding school during the 30s. It looks like an interesting thriller set among teenage girls and their beautiful teacher. As soon as I can I want to watch this film. 

Columbiana

This looks like the mother of all ass kicking girl movies. Zoe Saladana stars as a woman out for revenge after seeing her parents murdered at a young age. Zoe is so fierce and amazing looking that I am pretty sure I will be dragging everyone and anyone to see this movie and if no one will come, I am going to see the movie anyways. God I wish I was as cool as Zoe. 

C6STBJ5K67WS

Yanti Parazi

It's not true, but maybe if you say it real fast it might be. This weekend is the weekend of all weekends: the last weekend of summer and Irene. It's true, summer is over and I am sad to see it go. I have spent many a lovely day on the beach or with friends and many a night out drinking at the bars. Lucky for be I jumped back on the exercise train early enough that I have not only avoided a beer gut (gross),  but I have also lost some weight (go me!) I am looking forward to fall though. I recently received an email from school notifying me that I have somehow achieved enough credits to have senior status and that I must remember to fill out my intent to graduate form as soon as possible. Let's be real though, I WILL forget.This weekend is also the weekend that hurricane Irene is supposed to ravage the east coast. My mother has already contacted me about leaving Philadelphia and I have already politely declined invitations from relatives to journey further into the state to get away from the storm. If I didn't have to work and the fact that there is an entire state in front of mine to protect me from the watery typhoon I would have gladly accepted. I like LC every now and again. Lucky for me Mary Ann and Lance will be visiting in a few weeks and we can hang out in the LCs then.

I really find it funny that the National Weather Service named a hurricane Irene in the first place. Irene is Greek for peace. I know this because Ms. Knapp's middle name was Irene and during "Ms. Knapp tells a fact" time she told us about how she used to hate her middle name until she learned that it was Greek and meant peace. Kind of like how I used to hate my middle name. I'm not a cookie people! Anyways I'm not worried about weather, because after all it's just weather. It comes and it goes and if there's any damage left in it's wake you clean it up and move on. I'm just worried about parking my car too close to a tree or the power going out for too long and spoiling all of the food that I don't have in in my fridge. If I'm lucky work will be closed and school will be canceled on Monday. I can only wish.

Looks ειρηνικό from space, right?

I had an excellent girls night last night. I went over to a friend's house with Marg and we had dinner and watched a movie and just got caught up on our lives since we had last seen each other. All three of us have been friends since freshman year when we lived in the hotel together and even though there have been times when we have been less close or completely separated by distance, we still try to carve out some time to spend together and be a part of each other's lives.

We watched Something Borrowed last night. It was cute movie about going for it and not letting people get in the way of doing what is right and what you want. It also about making up for missed opportunities. The best part was John Krasinski though. Everyone else love Colin Egglesfield and he Tommy Hilfiger looks and Connecticut waspy-ness, but since I've always been partial to Jim I had to side with John. Overall I liked the movie (I'm a sucker for romantic crap like that), but I am on the fence about reading the book, hopefully it was better than the movie.

Now since it is the weekend and I never get around to blogging after a night of work and drinking, I will leave you with this little gem:

Awesome, I know. Until Monday my fellow school chums. 

Still awake. Now what?

Rant of the day: Air conditioning makes my nose stuffy and then I have to breathe through my mouth when I go to sleep. I hate air conditioning. As someone who already sleeps with her mouth open it would be nice for me to be able to breathe in through my nostrils so that I'm not choking on the drool that is making my way out of my mouth. Okay rant over.

Classy Sidney.

It's 3am right now and I can't sleep. When I came back from Vermont last month I was falling asleep early and waking up early. Slowly I started going to bed later and later and sleeping in more and more. Funnily one of my friends was staying up late and now he's going to bed much earlier than me and getting good sleep. Some thing's not right here. I decided to use my awake time to watch The Social Network. I will say that it was a good movie, but I'm partial to just about anything Aaron Sorkin. The format was not the way I expected and the clips from the trailers I had seen completely misled me about the characters. I enjoyed the way the movie used the depositions to tell the story of the origin of facebook and the people involved in its creation. The actors also did an exceptional job as well. I was particularly pleased by Andrew Garfield. His character had a sad story line and Garfield did an excellent job as the wounded friend. Now in the real world I love Jesse Eienberg. He and Christopher Mintz-Plasse are my new Michael Cera. They have aged nicely into awkward, but still cool personalities while Cera has become more and more whiny. In this movie though, Eisenberg was on my most hated list. I hate to think how accurate this movie was about Mark Zuckerberg because he was portrayed as a complete asshole. I really enjoyed the end of the movie with Eisenberg's character refreshing a Rooney Mara's character's facebook page in the hopes that she would accept his friend request. 

"You're not an asshole Mark, but you're trying so hard to be."

Since I still can't sleep I decided to clean out some boxes of junk and put my book shelves in order. I have two full bookshelves, a shelf on my wall, and a night stand full of books and I have more stacked on the floor. I honestly don't know what to do with them all. I hesitate to buy another bookshelf mostly because I don't know where I would put it. Instead I'm keeping the stacks by the lawn chair in the living room. It looks sort of "white trash chic." I have most definitely created a very nice collection of books for myself this summer and one day when I have a house with built in bookcases I will have a space for all of them. Until then I'm making do with laminet shelving and milk crates. 

Hey that last guy was at least a six.

I haven't written in a few days because A: I'm on vacation, B: I didn't want to and C: I'm on vacation. The problem with not writing though is that I have all of these awesome things happening to/around me that I end up having too much to say and so my posts become super long (and a little boring) and I forget half the stuff that I wanted to write about in the first place. So I've decided to write now instead of waiting until I get home tomorrow night. I'm in Vermont right now for those of you aren't Cynthia! or Yon or missed the fact that I typed vacation twice in a sentence (see above). I have so much energy from all of the thoughts zooming through my head right now I keep getting distracted by the episodes of M*A*S*H that I'm watching right now and all of the cool stuff that I keep finding on the internet (because there is so much cool stuff out there besides the porn), it's hard to focus and put this all down.

Alright I'll just start. Today I bought more books. I had the car in Burlington while my mom was at an appointment and since it was raining I did the obvious thing, go to Barnes and Noble. I have purchased so many books this summer I could open up my own bookstore, hey there is a space available in Wynnewood so you never know. Actually I do know, I don't like to share my books with most people, a trait I've inherited from Lance. So I went in and it seriously is the book Mecca of Vermont. There has never been a better Barnes and Noble than the one in South Burlington. It is the best corporate bookstore around. Two stories of book bliss. While I was there I purchased the second Flappers book, I have an unabashed addiction to YA literature, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, my Hebrew Friend has been telling everyone to read this book and since Lance doesn't lend his books to anyone I had to buy my own, and a copy of One Day. I've been seeing this book everywhere and when I went to see The Help with my mom the trailer for One Day played and the movie looks amazing so I'm hoping that the book is as well.

I also went to the Good Will today too. I've become obsessed with finding thrifty things to decorate my apartment with. I started at the car show flea market this weekend looking for empty frames to paint and hang on my wall. I saw the idea of hanging empty frames at art pieces in an article on Hello Giggles and now I have to do it to my own walls. I painted three that I found at the car show white and then I found three more at the Good Will for .99 cents each. I was excited and I think I'm going to paint these one a couple of different colors and hang them on the purple wall in my living room. I'm only in the apartment for nine more months but I think that's still plenty of time to make the apartment cool and pretty. I've also become obsessed with spray painting things. I have a couple of lamps that need to be painted when I get back to the city and them I'm going over to IKEA to get cheap lampshades and a small area rug if I can find one.

I'm also taking home the extra power drill in the garage. I have to hang up the frames and and some shelves to hold up all of the new books that I've bought recently. I picked up a few Faulkner's at the library book sale this weekend for the price of: on the house (that was for you Kyle). Since my book shelves are completely filled I have to put them somewhere else. I love old books so the ones that don't fit in the cases and shelves I am going to use as part of the decor I have going on: mumbly jumbly.

The best thing about this weekend was the visit to the Matterhorn. The greatest little ski bar at the base of Mountain Mansfield. It was first opened by my Latin teacher Ms. Knapp back in the 80s and has since changed hands many times, but it is now a super cool bar where you can get the greatest sushi. I always get the soft shell crab roll, it has the legs and claws sticking out of the ends of the roll. I also went with the spicy tuna martini this time too. It's segments of raw tuna and seaweed tossed in a spicy Thai sauce, topped with caviar and served in a martini glass. So yummy! And of course to accompany this I also had one of Jesse mai tais. 

A delicious drink that smells like coconut rum. 

My sushi. There is next to no real lighting and my phone doesn't have a flash :(

Check back tomorrow. I'll be in transit but there will be a post sometime tomorrow afternoon. 

All dads like what their sons get them.

Last night I had dinner out with a friend and I can't believe how much I've missed just having a nice dinner with good company. Too often I'm just at the bar with friends and it's too loud to actually spend any quality time, and someone always leaves too early, and of course someone always drinks too much. It just gets old too after a while and it becomes more like people drinking in the same place than friends spending any real time together. Having dinner with my friend tonight was nice. We went out which I haven't done in a while and got to catch up and be together. I prefer doing dinner at home because I like to be in charge of the food I'm eating and I like cooking with other people and it's infinitely cheaper to cook at home for me. But the point of all this is that I need spend less time at the bars and more time in with friends.

 "All this over a book? I have cousins who shot each other, and they got over it."

I watched Peep World when I got home form dinner. It was an interesting and funny movie about a son who wrote a thinly veiled tell-all about his family and has gone off to make a ton of money and a movie about his family's dirty secrets. The movie takes place the day of his father's 70th birthday and how the family reacts about coming together for the first time since the publication of the book, Peep World. It's fantastic and completely true for everyone, we all have dysfunctional families, some more than others. The casting was prefect for this movie too. It starred Ben Schwartz as the youngest brother who wrote the book depicting his siblings, played by Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman, and Rainn Wilson, in bad lights. The acting by these people was phenomenal and very different from the roles that you usually see them in. The supporting cast of Judy Greer, Kate Mara, and Taraji P. Henson was also outstanding. And nothing is better than Lewis Black as the narrator. 

You want me to be excited Ryan? Buy me a new bong.

If you haven't seen the US version of Wilfred, watch it immediately. It's based off of an Australian television show and the guy that plays Wilfred is the same from the original so there a nice authenticity to the show. Wilfred stars Elijah Wood how plays a sort of uptight neurotic guy who has lost direction in his life. his new next door neighbor has a mischievous dog named Wilfred that Elijah Wood's character sees as a crass and sarcastic man dressed in a dog suit with a black painted nose. Wilfred acts as the bad conscience of Ryan and encourages him to do the things he really wants while playing pranks on him at the same time. Very often you see Wilfred and Ryan taking bong hits and discussing the lameness of Ryan's life and then Wilfred comes up with an outrageous plan to make Ryan more exciting. Each episode is named after an emotion that is also the theme of the episode. It is possibly my new favorite series to come from FX after Always Sunny and Archer of course. No one can best Jessica Walters.

I heard the song If I Die Young twice this morning and it's starting to get annoying to me. However the song reminds me of Anne of Green Gables when she tries to reenact the Lady of Shallot which is my favorite because Gilbert comes to her rescue after her boat sinks and she gets so mad at him for doing it. That always makes me happy because I love Gilbert and think that he and Anne are one of the best true love stories ever written. One of my friends told me that despite my romantic disdain that I really just want to be loved and it's true I really do. Deep down I am a ridiculous romantic, but I want someone who is on equal terms with me and will stand up to me when I try to be all bossy. But anyways back to the annoying song. I'm going to be honest, it's a miracle that I haven't been killed yet or seriously injured. I've worked hard suppress the recklessness in me but every now and then it gets out, so there is a strong possibility that I may die young. If that is the case do not bury me in satin, lay me down in a bed of roses, or sink me in the river at dawn. Do not have a funeral. Cremate me, climb a mountain and scatter me into the wind. Just be sure not to throw me against the wind and get coated in my ashes.

After brunch this morning I went into the office for two hours. Nothing was happening so I was sent home and now I've watching my latest arrival from Netflix, The Darjeeling Limited. Sometimes I wish my life was like a Wes Anderson movie. You know all quirky and Bill Murrayish. I like this movie, it makes me wish I was on a train in India heading to see my nun mother in the foothills of the Himalayas.

"I love you too, but I'm going to mace you in the face!"

Did you come all the way down here just to play hide the salami?

For some reason right now my nose hurts. I'm not entirely sure why because it's not broken or dmanaged and from the outside it looks perfectly fine: small, alpine sloped, and a smattering of freckles along the bridge. For some reason though it just hurts. Maybe it's foretelling that something's about to happen like fisherman who get sore bones when it's about to storm. Hmmm, interesting superpower.

So I recently facebook stalked some people from high school to kill some time before class one night and lo and behold two girls from the same circle of friends are pregnant. Now I know that this is not some sort of pregnancy pact kind of thing but it was kind of ironic that they were two girls from a group that called themselves the Blonde Squad growing up. I'll leave you to ponder that for a second. Anyways one of them is in school to becoming a nurse and is almost complete. She was on her school's soccer team and works extra hard to make money for herself and now for the new little baby that is on the way. While we were never extremely close in school, we did work together in a lot of the same classes. I always respected this girl for pulling herself out of a tough life and not letting personal issues hold her back. While this unexpected pregancy could have derailed her completely, she has kept herself together and is using her unborn child to push herself to work harder than ever to accomplish her goals so that she can give her child the best in life that she can offer. The other girl from high school that is pregnant is an interesting personality. Brought up as a potential olympian in downhill skiing, she has always been a "free spirit" with an intense faith in God that sometimes rivals some of my mother's friends. The oldest of four children, she was actively involved in helping to raise her siblings before leaving for school and now that she is back she is still very family oriented. She writes a small blog dedicated to her pregnancy experiences and while some of the posts are flighty, there are a couple that are very endearing and honest about being a young, single mother in a town that often tries to push these situations under the rug. Now I have no intention of having a child before thirty and can not possibly comprehend my life right now with a child, especially when I can barely take care of myself sometimes, I do have to commend these girls especially the former for being so dedicated to their situations and and not letting their lives become completely derailed.

Off the pregnancy track, I am going to the beach for the day tomorrow which means a full night of homework for me. I'm going with my Hebrew Friend and maybe a couple of other people so it is guaranteed to be a good time, especially with this hot and lovely weather we are experiencing in the city right now. I also just got HappyThankYouMorePlease from Netflix so once I finish this and then my homework and remember to make the rice this time, I will watch it and let you all know how it goes. It's written by the guy from How I Met Your Mother and I think that he may have also directed it too. It looks like a cool indie flick about a writer and his friends, something I usually go for, but it was the line: "My great shame as a writer is that I’m just this suburban kid with good parents. Hardly Dickensian, you know what I’m saying?"

We haven't been dating long enough to have an anniversary.

It is 12:31am on a Wednesday and I feel incredibly beautiful right now. When I look in the mirror right now I see perfect freckles and blue eyes!

Okay on Wednesday I was on crack apparently. Really I had just gotten back from the bar in Narberth where I been out by myself stuffing my face and drinking Holy Moses White Ale. I spent more time eating than drinking, but still creepy old men wanted to talk to me and buy me beer. It was funny too because there were a couple of cougars in the place left over from quizzo night and they were going after him for cigarettes and trying to get him to go outside with them, but he stayed a stool to my right the entire time that I was there. It was kind of annoying at first, but then I just decided to become friendly with the bartender and spent the rest of the night chatting with him about bartending and the Jersey shore. It was also determined that I was responsible for emptying a bottle of bitters over the last couple of weeks. The bartender told me that I was the only one who ever orders it and I don't even drink it with alcohol. I do want to try an Old Fashioned sometime I just don't want to lay down the money if I can help it. That's why I love the Penn Valley so much because the bartender there will let me taste what he's making. Delicious and educational.

Wednesday morning I got up early and drove to the shore. It was a quick visit just a day in the sun and then home at night. I have to remember to pack some heavy duty bug spray when I go back this weekend because the horseflies were biting hard and by late afternoon it was either get in the water, get in the car, or be eaten alive. I did the water thing for a while. The ocean has warmed up considerably, however there had been a storm the night before so everything was still a little churned up and had a slightly fishy smell that got unpleasant after a while. The tide was extremely low all day, which I think was in part because of the storm. I had never seen the beach so flat even during regular low tides. It was nice to be able to walk out so far into the water and still have it be lower than my hip. Late afternoon though I had to get out of there and while I was packing up my car some guy approached me and started talking about the bay and how to get over there to take a picture of the foxes that live around there. I tried to politely shut him up and then I he asked me to go hiking with him, but I told I had other plans and was leaving. Twice this week I've been a magnate for totally creepy guys; I need to start keeping my pepper spray in my car from now on.

Last night I saw Transformers 3 with Neil. We went to the late show in Manayunk which was fun. It was a total date night for us. I wore lipstick and carried a big purse to sneak cheap food in and he bought my ticket. Now I thought that Transformers 2 was good, but OMG this one was amazing, and so funny too. Usually when movies are loaded with several high profile actors it's best not to expect much, but everyone was top notch. I kept whispering to Neil every time we were introduced to someone amazing. Seriously Frances McDormand as the head of NIA and John Malkovich as Sam's crazy boss was phenomenal. I was excited to hear Leonard Nimoy's voice as Sentinel, but it was Ken Jeong who stole the film with his part as a paranoid ex-NASA employee. I had a hard time buying Patrick Dempsey as an evil villain, but that's because I'm so used to him as the steamy Dr. McDreamy. The only one who wasn't outstanding was Rosie, but she's still new to acting. I will say that her hair was phenomenal in every shot, but as the movie progressed even Neil asked why she was still there. It was nice to see that Shia has evolved as an actor, but that he still hasn't lost the comedic from his Even Stevens days. I just wish we had seen more of the Whiwicky parents.

Wish I had a Camaro.

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. 

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.

If you can't handle Lewin, go to West Chester.

I was scrolling through ratemyprofessor.com earlier today to see what people had posted about the history teacher I start class with next week and the above little gem popped up. I very rarely take what people say on those message boards seriously because it's usually pissed off students venting about their final grades, but if there's a general trend in one direction or another I will pay attention to that. Now I really know nothing about West Chester's history and about 1/6th of my family has attended/is currently attending West Chester, but I still think it's funny when people think that Saint Joseph's University has some superior program over another institution and then have to brag about it in obscure places.

I got luck this week. Blogger has been down for the past couple of days and haven't wanted to write except once when I went to see Thor with My Hebrew Friend and then Marg finally acknowledged my love of super hero movies. She thinks its becoming a problem, the real problem is her need to pick up every stray cat off of the street and bring it home. Thor, by the way, was great. Everything I wanted from the a Marvel movie and the added bonus of Kat Dennings. She had a small part, but she really nailed it in her own Kat Denning's Comedic Style (see the episode of her in Sex and the City). Yonni's been quoting lines at every opportune moment that he can make, it's quite amusing. I was hoping for a cameo from Tony Stark at the end, but I was perfectly fine with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury: Avenger Spy. SLJ is so kick-ass anyways. Before the movie I was a preview for Captain America. Captain America is easily my favorite Avenger after Iron Man, but Chris Evans and his nice Avenger body blow Robert Downey Jr.'s out of the water. So tasty. There is a strong Hulk/Watchmen feel to what I've seen so far from it, so I'm hoping that it's a little bit different. I'm really excited for The Avengers that is coming out in May of next year. It has all of the awesome super heroes working for S.H.E.I.L.D. Jeremy Renner is also supposed to have a significant role as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, a superior marksmen. This makes total sense after seeing Thor. Jeremy Renner's character was tiny, but there were a lot of close ups and lingering shots so I could tell that there was something important about him other than the fact that he is Jeremy Renner.

Now you can write our story so much faster.

I think you're about to be asleep right now. You should be asleep right now because it's late and you've written that you intend to get up early tomorrow to stake out something you won't have to do for another three months. But I saw that california king beds were trending on twitter for some reason and it made me think of you and your problematic bed, which is really quite uncomfortable, and then I remembered that Sleepys is having a mattress sale and now that you are in a position to save a little (even if you don't think you really are, you are) and should buy a new mattress sooner than later. Before you know it you're going to be caught up in school and teaching and that will take a stressful toll on your body and you will regret not having a fine mattress to sleep on. So save up or tell your dad you need money for car repairs.

I watched The Garden of Eden tonight. It was really lovely. Mena Suvari did an excellent job portraying Catherine and her destructiveness. The devil. The Garden of Eden is one of those stories like (500) Days of Summer. It is a love story, but at the same time it really is. In this one you know right away that there isn't going to be a happy ending or a simple one. One of Catherine's first lines is her saying that she is a destructive person who is going to do something really terrible one of these days. There's also a subplot about a young David in Africa with his father during their hunt for an elephant. Young David leads the group on a hunt for elephant ivory, but then comes to regret his actions after he understands the poachers' intent. This ties in as a story that David writes during his honeymoon and the couple's interactions with Marita.

I went to Ikea today to get the part that I needed for my shelves. I can't go to stores like Ikea. There's too many well-priced things that I want to buy. I ended up walking out with not only my shelving part, but also new curtains for my bedroom and a new lampshade for the small lamp on my bureau. I want to go back and get more things that I really don't need for my apartment. I am thinking about getting an area rug for my living room so that might be something for me to think about for later on. I'm hoping I'll just move out of my apartment before it comes to that. 

Trying to find the in-betweens, fall back in love eventually.

I'm watching Paper Heart right now. It is a documentary style movie about Charlyne Yi trying to find out about love and whether or not it exists. It's move about love and not about Charlene trying to find love, that part just sort of happens on it's own. Thank you Michael Cera. But anyways, there's a really great interview that she does with an older divorced man about love and true love and finding your soul mate. It's a very  touching moment coming from someone who was left in a marriage and has decided not to get married again because he is afraid of hurt. Check it out, it's a nice movie for those of us that are slightly defective in the love department. Morning Glory arrives in the mail tomorrow. I'm a big Rachel McAdams fan so I'll let you know how it is.

I made turkey balls for dinner tonight. Sounds gross, but they're really just meat balls made from ground turkey. I wanted to go for a leaner meat and I've never had ground turkey before so I thought I would try something new. I really like the ground turkey alternative to red meat. When I was making the balls I kept expecting the raw beef smell, so while I was rolling the balls I thought there was something wrong with the meat. There wasn't and they turned out really good. I made them the way I normally make regular meat balls, I just didn't make them the Aunt Val way. I don't have the patience or resources to go through all of that. I would rather just visit her on meat ball night.

I thought I might do some work tonight, but since I'm not doing anything for the next two days I'm going to just get up early and power through as much as I can and then finish the rest up on Thursday afternoon. If I really can't get to sleep in a little while I'll start my portfolio for Seminar and now that I think about it I really want to write the first draft of the first part so I'll probably just do that later and sleep in tomorrow morning. Meh.

Okay people, by the way I am NOT a clepto. I just happen to collect books the way some people collect pennies. I've just got very refined collecting skills and maybe one day I will share my experiences with the Stowe Free Library. 

Mystery Team

"Theses are my sons, Benny and The Jets. I expected this from you Benny...but The Jets?!

Seriously you MUST WATCH this movie.

Fruit of the Awesome.

Oh my God Mom! You don't want to read this, it's about boy's underwear! Alright you can read it, but remember this me and not Samantha so make sure you call her and remember to have "the talk" with her. You know which one I mean, the one about not stealing boy's underwear because college boys do even less laundry than me if they can help it.

But yeah. I has to buy a bunch of white undershirts for and since no woman actually wears these past the age of eleven I had to rummage around the mens undergarments section at Target. SCORE FOR SIDNEY!! Ladies (and Jon) let me tell you something... these things are amazing and so comfortable. If I could have my way I would be living in these and nothing else. The only complaint I have is that the v-neck is cut very narrow, more like a slit than a V. Actually that's what I did yesterday after work. I paraded around the apartment in my white cotton shirt and the white hipsters that Victoria's Secret stopped making (sad) and nothing else. I ate some of the meatballs that I got from Aunt Val and watched the rest of The Dark Knight. And then I remembered that I had left my window in my bedroom ope so when I went to do my homework I had to bundle back up and just fell asleep. Oh so comfy. Anyways boys you're so lucky with your underwear. Even your boxer shorts are comfy comfy comfy. I used to buy boyfriends boxers that would mysteriously disappear from their dresser drawers. Not that I don't mind the pretty lacy articles that I keep for myself, it's just sometimes they can be uncomfortable and not so wonderful feeling like yours are. So thank you menswear.

I have to write a fiction piece for workshop on Friday. Pure fiction is not my forte when it comes to writing. When it came to flat out lying to my mother when I was eight, yes. Now, not so much. I have a few class segments that I can pull from, but actually getting a finished piece is going to take some work. I still have two days to come up with rough draft so we'll see where it ends up.

If I haven't told, I'm telling you now. Watch Mystery Team. Netflix has it for instant streaming and I can guarantee you won't be disappointed. It's a low budget comedy by a great up and coming young comedy troupe. Donald Glover from Community stars in it as a member of the children's crime solving Mystery Team that comes across a double homicide!