Simple Simple Minds

I know it's 4 days past it's importance, but seeing as how it's still relevant, I thought I would share:

Lynette Fromme Released After 34 Years

Who thinks this is an awesome idea?

Moving on. Tonight at work, I was, yet again, amazed at the level of stupidity people can achieve. One of my coworkers asked me what my ethnicity was - and then proceeded to answer the question by saying "Jewish, right?". I think I would be more shocked if this were the first time someone had asked me this question. For sheer entertainment purposes, I will now divulge the conversation that occurred (completely out of the blue, mind you):

Anonymous Coworker: Hey, so like, what ethnicity are you? Like, Jewish?

Me: Um. What?

Anonymous Coworker: You're like, Jewish, right?

Me: "Jewish" is a religion. Like, Christianity, or Catholicism. It's not an ethnicity.

Anonymous Coworker: Oh, okay. So you're from like, where then, Israel, right? 'Cause it's not like, Hebrew.

Me: ...No.

Anonymous Coworker: Oh, okay. So like. You're not Jewish?

Me: No, I am Jewish, but that's my religion. Actually, Israel - which is a country - has a lot of different religions. People from Israel are called "Israeli".

Anonymous Coworker: Oh, okay. So like. Don't all the Jewish people come from there?

Me: ...No.

Anonymous Coworker: So you're not Hebrew?

Me: That's a language.

Anonymous Coworker: Oh okay, cool. So what's your ethnicity?

Me: I'm a mix of a bunch of things.

Anonymous Coworker: So you're not from Israel?

Me: ...Sure.

Amazing.

Always One Foot On The Ground

I added these little fishies at the top of my page over there. If you click on the box somewhere, you can feed them and make them all crazy-like.

The past few days have been really weird - for example:

• Early today when I checked my email, it was all in Hebrew. Really?
• I had an insane dream two nights ago - I was present for a terrorist attack in which all the people affected had to go through this massive anti-radiation machine (I blame the fact that I was watching The Ten right before I went to bed, and saw the vignette with the cat-scan machines), and the side effect was that it turned you purple. Everyone got out okay.
• I have misspelled my name 4 times in the past 3 days.
• My computer moo-ed when I turned it on. Like a cow. Moo.
• I watched Coraline three times. That's not so much weird, as slightly pathetic.

There were other things, but it's almost 2 am and I can't remember them. I should really start writing more things down.

My birthday is in a little more than a month, and I've decided that 24 is going to be a great, great year - and fingers crossed that I'm not jinxing it by mentioning it. 23 kind of sucked, and I think I'm ready to move on. I know changing a number doesn't necessarily mean anything, but I think it will be a really important milestone for me, and I want to make it positive. I need it to be positive. I'm really ready to grow up. I just wish I weren't so darn impatient with myself.

Also, Mia turned 4! Picture sampler...

Mia and her girlfriends

Awesome Whole Foods cake!

Partying is a very serious business

Honestly. Could she be cuter?

She got fishies for her birthday!

Abandoned Beach

If she wants to rock, she rocks, and if she wants to roll, she rolls...

Holy roller coaster of a summer-thus-far, Batman. I don't even really know where to begin or finish or pick up or leave off. In a nut shell? Camp was awesome, as always, the bookstore was frustrating, and Assassins was one of the best shows I've done in a long time.

And at the end of it all? I feel more trapped then before. I'm in a never ending loop. I want to move out of my house, so I work. I try and make and save money, which is why I am living at home (and also because I don't have enough money to quite make it on my own yet). However, my mother insists I pitch in, money wise, because she doesn't make, well, any money at all. So I'm stuck - I work and live at home so I can save, but I can't save because I have to pay for everything (minus rent- although rent may even be cheaper). Not to mention I practically make peanuts at Barnes and Noble. It's a joke. It's insanely frustrating.

I've even started feeling sorry for myself lately, which is so unlike me. It seems as though everyone around me is figuring out their lives, settling down, starting anew, whatever - except for me. I'm not looking for a pity party, I'm not trying to write about how sad I am, or how lonely I feel - I just thought I would be somewhere by now. I thought I would know what I wanted to do, or have found a direction to lead in to, or something. I feel like I'm just floating in nothing. I'm not satisfied with anything, I'm not even content. I'm restless and frustrated all the time, and it's a terrible mix of anxiety and desperation and uneasiness, and it's constant.

I feel like (cue cheesy musical theatre reference) that stupid puppet from Avenue Q, desperately seeking a purpose, specifically my purpose, in whatever it is I'm supposed to do. Maybe I just need to know or hear that this is normal. That it's okay to be almost 24 and unsure of everything. To be still living at home with a desperate want and need for an adult life, a job, and the prospect of a future - and I feel as though I have none of that. I just thought I'd be on my way by now.

I suppose I'm overwhelmed and I don't know quite where to go from here. If everyone else can do it, can everyone else please show me?

I'm reduced to making mac and cheese and curling up on my couch and watching John and Kate Plus Eight. It's a (Daria reference drumroll) sick sad world I'm stuck in.

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.