This Is Beyond Camp College Signs

Alright. I'm going on very little sleep. But this had to be shared.

I have always told stories about campers and customers at the various jobs I have held throughout the years, and no one ever believes me. Therefore, hence, etcetera, I've decided to start writing them down.

Tonight, for example, one of my all time favorite customers was in the store. This woman (let's call her Anne, since I don't know her actual name) comes in at say, 1, maybe 2 in the afternoon, and doesn't leave until closing. Anne pulls about 70 different books from the business section, stacks them all up at a table, reads through some of them taking notes, and then when we close, she gets up and leaves, leaving all the books behind for us to shelve. It should also be noted that she wears a GIANT white sun hat at all times, and sometimes wears sunglasses in the store. Apparently she was asked not to come back to the store a few years ago, but has suddenly begun making appearances again.

There is also the man who comes into the children's section sometimes, walks to the little stage we have, faces the wall, and begins to pray to Allah. I guess the wall is East?

Let's not forget my favorite - we'll call him John (again, I try not to familiarize myself with these people because they freak me out). John comes in to the cafe about once a month. He purchases exactly 4 cupcakes, and 2 sugar cookies. He then sits down with his desserts, and begins to take off all the icing from the 4 cupcakes, and place them on the 2 sugar cookies. He then eats the two cookies, and throws away all 4 cupcakes, sans icing. It's a whole process, really.

Honestly. I could write a book. Camper adventures are soon to come! For example, remind me to tell you about how, today, I spent 15 minutes looking for a campers' wallet she supposedly left at lunch, only for her to say "Oh, I think I left it in my lunch box, I didn't check there" after we walked all over campus. Oy.

ASSASINS - KELSEY THEATRE - FRIDAY JULY 24th - SUNDAY AUGUST 2nd

Seriously. It's awesome, and I use a gun.

The Fourth

You know when you read the first sentence of a book, you know immediately you're going to love each and every word you absorb? I picked up "Post Grad" by Emily Cassel a few days ago at work, and immediately fell in love. To be perfectly honest, the book first drew my attention based on it's cover (I know, tisk tisk Hilary!), which includes a picture of Alexis Bledel from the soon-to-be-made-into-a-movie-ness (also including Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett, holy cow!) but as soon as I opened the cover and read the first sentence, I was hooked.

The book is about a young girl who is just about to graduate college with her B.A. in English, and wants to work for a publishing house, reading and editing books, and hopes to discover the next big novelist (um, hello). Unfortunately, even though she has excelled through high school and college with high marks and scholarships, she is just not able to grab that perfect job, and is forced to move back home and live with her crazy family, all the while being rejected from all jobs she applies for, and feels like her life is headed straight for nowhere-land-ville.

It's as if they studied my life for a year, and then wrote everything down, and are now making some serious profits off of me.

Hi. They even stole my shoes.

In other, less promotional news, the Fourth of July - a day which normally means squat to me - was really tough to get through. I worked pretty much all day, but had very few customers and very little to do, which led to large bubbles of time in which I was able to stand around and think about the past 5 Fourth of July's, all of which included Travis. I don't think I ever did anything on the Fourth until I met him, but once I did, we spent it together. We both always had that day off, him with the bank, me with camp, and I would always drive up North, and we would go to one of his friends' houses for a BBQ, or drive into Brooklyn and climb up a scary window-ladder and eat burgers up on the roof of his brothers' apartment building, or spend an hour driving around Hoboken finding the fireworks park with a bunch of his guy friends (including a stop at a shut down police station to ask for directions), sitting out watching four fireworks shows over the river, and taking 4 hours to get out of the insane parking lot afterwards. Instead, I spent this year being yelled at by rude customers, followed by sitting at home alone and watching old Gilmore Girls episodes - normally an activity I would kill to have time for doing.

I think what's happening is this: the idea that I am not getting over this break up as quickly as I thought I was - or as quickly as I thought I would be able to. I'm not bouncing back, and I'm not happy about it. I think I always assumed, foolish as it may be, that he and I would end up together - probably because these are things we sometimes talked about. And perhaps it's ridiculous to think that your first love will be your only love, but I thought I was one of the lucky few who fall in love only once. To have something so solid in your life become something nonexistent overnight is earth shattering - especially when I'm a person who needs to feel as though I have some control over the things happening in my life (I mean come on - I had dreams for weeks about all my teeth spontaneously falling out of my gums, one by one, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out).

I suppose I thought I was stronger - or lead myself to believe I was tougher than I'm turning out to be. And I guess that's okay - but it certainly doesn't make it any easier. Why is it that the person who cheated and lied is the one who gets to move on so fast, and get to sleep at night - when the person whose heart was broken is stuck sitting up nights, still hurting 5 months later, and wondering what's ahead?

I know it takes time. Everyone told me it takes time. July 13Th will be 6 months, and it's certainly easier - but it's not where I want to be. I still miss. I don't know if I still love him or not - I've never gone through a serious breakup before. I certainly feel as though I won't meet anyone, or that I'll never heal thoroughly enough to move past this. I just never saw myself here, in this place, still hurting and still thinking, and part of me still hoping he hurts too. I'm really looking forward to that day when I can stop caring, at least a little bit.

I usually love fireworks. I couldn't bring myself to go this year - but they're shooting them off down the street, and it's all I can hear.

The Freeman and Wells 42nd Family Reunion

With the exception of my car, this amazing new Macbook Pro is possibly the greatest and most fantastic investment I have ever made. That, and it falls under the category titled, "So expensive I probably will be broke forever but it's totally worth it". Worth every penny.

Not being connected to the human race via the inter-web did open my eye to some scary realities...

1. We are far too reliant on technology. I didn't have consistent email communication for about a month, and I felt as though I were in withdrawal from heroine. Not only that, but the lack of YouTube bruised my soul a little... especially when I would hang out with friends, and everyo

ne would be quoting the latest YouTube sensation, and I had to pull a Joe

y and just nod and laugh along, even though I had no idea what was going on. That's right. Play your tiny violin for me.

2. Facebook is both a blessing, and possibly a malediction. True story: I literally missed outings and events with friends because I was not able to check the events calender on my Facebook account. I have actually lost touch with people because, for a month or t

wo, I was unable to stay current on Facebook. People don't CALL people anymore! Unless it's a last minute get-together, everything is done through the events page. Granted, I am just as guilty - it's great being able to reach a whole group of people and

friends and get an idea or message across within minutes. But come on. A friend of mine got annoyed with me when I didn't respond to her event in a timely fashion; I missed notifications

about multiple outings with people from some shows I've done recently; I almost missed a friends birthday celebration because I couldn't get on the site. While I understand and appreciate the invention of such a glorious networking tool, it's frustrating to actually miss parts of life because my nerd-machine crashed.

3. I got more sleep without having a computer in my room - and got more reading done to! All during college, I would throw a DVD into my laptop right before I got into bed, and would fall asleep with a movie or television show playing - I never realized how much time I spent actually paying attention to what I was watching instead of sleeping. It's a little pathetic, I know, but I actually noticed myself waking up more rested, and realized that it was because I was falling asleep sooner. I'm also convinced it has something to do with not having noise going in the background, even though I'm asleep and can't hear it. In addition, in the month I had no computer, I finis

hed reading 4 books - and I'm a very slow reader.

When it comes down to it? I'll take the computer, thanks. Especially when it's all silver and pretty, and the little apple on the outside lights up while the computer is in use. What can I say? I guess I'm a shallow inter-web addicted insomniac. But I'm alright with that.

For those interested, meet my new baby:

Yes. I'm obsessed.

Apologies for the lack of updates - my computer crashed. Again. Super cool, right? But fret not, loyal followers (all...8 of you?), for I have made a life altering decision that will forever change me. Ready?

I'm buying a Mac. If I could make the words glow and sparkle and sing with fanfare, they would.

Hip Hop Hooray, Gurl. See you soon!

Sham Ow

I have to much to share, and so many stories to tell - but this, currently, takes the cake.

I'm not-so-secretly in love with horrible infomercials - everyone who knows me knows this. However, currently, I have two absolute favorites - The Snuggie ( I mean, hello. It's a blanket you wear and can do all your daily activities in, without having to worry about those troublesome blankets!), and the Sham Wow. You can, therefore, imagine my distress when I learned the following news: Sham Wow man was arrested for punshing a prostitute in the face! I laughed. I cried. I found this fantastic footage online:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmK8PH4KhM4v=JmK8PH4KhM4

I know this is relatively old news, but I've been busy. Plus, while my cast and I were at Uno's last night, the story came on tv. And I peed my pants a little.

Let It Be

I'm beginning to realize that there are some things in life you can never have resolution to. This is ridiculously hard for me, as I am a big supporter of whole conflict resolution movement. I've always taken situations into my own hands, and handled them in the best possible way I could think of - including going to those I see as being trustworthy and strong for advice. And it's because of this, that I constantly see my biggest flaw exploited, repeatedly, and without my even being aware of it until after the fact: I'm simply too trusting, too quickly. I also don't listen to myself enough, or go with my initial gut feeling. Goal for self - stick with intuition.

I guess I just feel as though I can never find a steady balance - between trusting too much, and trusting too little. A person can't go around spilling their secrets to everyone they meet, because people are blabber mouths and gossip queens, and need to keep themselves occupied with others' lives. I believe they call this "High School". But I could be wrong. On the other hand, if you never open up, you can never let anyone in, and never let anyone get close to you, and therefore never be close to anyone yourself. So how do you know? How do you sift through the muck to get to the good stuff, the high-end quality furniture you should surround yourself with?

Perhaps this is just something you struggle with when you've felt or been betrayed by someone you feel closest to, and this is the final aftermath - the last pieces of the puzzle you're left with to sort through. Except this puzzle is 5,000 pieces, and it's just the different blues of the ocean.

On a more uplifting note, Godspell has been a fantastic experience, and as cheesy and lame as it may sound, I feel like I've come out a slightly different, and slightly better person in the end. Everyone told me that doing this show is less of an experience, and more of a journey - and up until a week or so ago, it really didn't click with me. This show, and this cast, helped me through one of the harder things I've had to deal with in my life, and I don't know if I would have been able to turn it into a positive, had I not been surrounded with the people I have spent the past few weeks with. I know I've changed, and I know for the better. I've rediscovered some of who I may have lost over the past few years, and I feel like I'm starting to come into my own, as an adult. The past two and a half months have truly been a life changing experience in a thousand and one ways, and I don't know any other way to describe it or explain it. I look back at myself just a year ago, and realize how much of myself I was holding back. How much I watched my step, and my tongue, and hid some of the quirky. I am allowed to be myself. I can be myself, and I can be happy and okay with that. Bonding with this cast has been the perfect example - I was completely myself and honest with them, and they embraced me as such, no questions asked. That is how it should be. And for the first time in months? I'm no longer questioning that. Or myself.


And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light, that shines on me,
Shine until tomorrow,
Let it be.